Samurai vs. Landsknechts

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3 lbs? 6lbs? Had they come up with Grape yet, or was is still just solid shot, or were they still using rocks?

Solid shot, most of it stone though some cast iron. Bronze guns. Limbers and such already exist, European artillery is pretty maneuvrable, though he range of sizes and calibres and lengths is very impressive and standartisation hasn't really set in yet.

By 1600 there's definitely grapeshot in wide use, as well as mortars.

Landsknechts were formidable fighters, but they were not terribly good soldiers. Their armies were famous for poor organisation, logistical problems, and rampant indiscipline. All accounts I have read of sixteenth-century Japanese armies indicate that discipline, logistics, and politics were highly developed and valued. That alone may allow a Japanese army to outclass a landsknecht one.

Depends. They actually had contracts and handbooks and charters and conduits that they signed, and in better bands the life was very regimented. Then again, there's plenty of examples where they just turned into marauding vagabonds-at-arms.

Not that Sengoku Japan was really all that much better than the Italian wars if you look at it closely enough. That's why I said that which particular Landsknecht band meets which specific Japanese army would matter a lot.

Going back to the pike block, the sword is precisely the weapon that should be used to counter the formation. In fact it was the sword-wielding line of Spanish Tercios that were used to dispatch the Swiss pike formations, and the role of the Landsknecht Zweihander-armed Doppelsoldner himself - to "beat away" the enemy pikes, leaving them vulnerable to attack.

Two-handed swords were often the weapons of the officers' bodyguard. A "doppelsoldner" is literally a man getting twice the pay, usually ensured by veteran status and more complete armour. They fought right along the front rank(s), and often also with the pikes the rest of the company used.

The disruption efforts were carried out by the Forlorn Hope, who were volunteers and very well paid due to casualties they could sustain. They were armed to skirmish at fairly close ranges with whatever weapon they favoured, firearms or halberds or longswords or shield/side-swords/pistols, and their task was sometimes to disrupt the opposing pike block's front ranks so that their own pikemen would win the first push when the two met, but frequently also to just screen movement of allies, or threaten the other side's "horns" - basically troops armed with ranged weapons who would deploy on the vulnerable corners of the moving or stationary square and defend it against attacks. If you could prevent those from deploying properly, your light infantry or allied cavalry would have a much easier time of it.

In short, the tactics changed as the situation demanded. People came up with lots of interesting solutions to battlefield challenges.

 

[Delvestius]

Two-handed swords were often the weapons of the officers' bodyguard. A "doppelsoldner" is literally a man getting twice the pay, usually ensured by veteran status and more complete armour. They fought right along the front rank(s), and often also with the pikes the rest of the company used.

Would it be incorrect to say that bodyguards were doppelsoldners as well? I would not be surprised if they were paid even more.


I imagine that the tactics and equipment of unit types varied slightly from company to company and somewhat significantly from period to period.

 

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Would it be incorrect to say that bodyguards were doppelsoldners as well? I would not be surprised if they were paid even more.

That wouldn't be incorrect - musicians, marksmen, bodyguards and indeed doppelsoldner were all around the same paygrade, only sergeants (feldwebel), cavalrymen and officers in the company receiving more (officers vastly more depending on rank), and bodyguards were generally drawn from the experienced fighting men.

The Swiss and Spanish had similar organisations and pay gradations.

There was a core of experienced sergeants and captains who served throughout Europe and since they turned raw men into soldiers relatively quickly, and soldiers from disbanded companies often joined new ones, so I'd be hesitant to think their knowledge and training methods were very specialized. Landsknechts were originally raised with the aim to be a homogenous milita style for the German Länder, and took up mercenary work later to offset the costs of maintaining them, so some standardisation of tactics and training was at least projected if not necessarily achieved.