Roman vs Japanese Army

Inspired by the Roman vs Medievil army thread, let us ask this question, who would win? The Romans or the Japanese?

The Japanese have expert Assasins, and an tradition for their Samurai akin to the Viking Beserkers. The Japanese are known to have fielded large well organized armies and even well equipped armies during war time and are capable of enginious feats of bravery and brilliance. Finally, they have Sun Tzu, while he was a Chinese strategist the Japanese have long since taken his writtings to heart and apply them to everyday feudal life for the running of their Clans.

Finally, the Roman Army in its height was about 500,000, the Japanese by 1600 were known to have had 1,000,000 Samurai living in Japan and had a population of some 30,000,000 souls.

As discussion i think of a Medieval army vs a Japanese Army could also in theory go here.

If you eliminate numbers and look strictly on technology, skills, and tactics.

The Japanese would dominate the Roman forces and the medieval forces in any terrain and scenario aside from siege.

Technologically the Japanese have always had superior weapon forming techniques allowing for an incredibly hard sharp edge while still remaining flexible enough to not break. Their Armour is a combination of layered cloths, chain and lamellar plats which are excellent against piercing as well as slicing and bludgeoning weapons while still allowing for incredible maneuverability. Their bows were capable of firing an arrow through shields, leg Armour, the leg, back the other side of the Armour and into a horse. Their archers devoted themselves to the study of Kudo (sp?) the way of the bow making archery into a state of Zen. Their hand to hand techniques, knowledge of human anatomy, and discipline were also superior.

Roman armies had better siege equipment and the timber for military engineering. But the typical Armour (lornica Segmentia) was limited in it's cover and maneuverability relying too much on the shield wall.

just my 2 coppers

Samurai archers would have given the Japanese the edge. Their horse mounted archers would have been a force that the Romans probably would not be able to counter.

I disagree in saying that the japanese would win in a battle all else being equal. If you are looking at very early roman armies this might be true. But remember the roman empire was around for over 1000 years.
The romans were very adaptable and they did have great calvary as well. Extremely well trained horse archers from eastern roman provinces and very very good infantry. The romans were experts in fighting as a team rather than practicing their swordsmanship as a japanese samurai might have they spent much time practiced movements and drills as a team. They practiced methods of falling back through reserve lines when the front line was tired to allow the reserves fight and so on. They trained to interlock their shields to create a wall to keep arrows from hitting them. The reserve lines behind the front line threw spears into the enemy line as the battle raged. Unlike popular movies battles lasted for hours sometimes from daylight to dark. The romans had spectacular medical hospitals for their day. A man in the roman army had a longer life expectancy than a common peasant for this very reason. All these things developed the roman army into a amazing machine. I do not think that the single combat style of the japanese would hold up against the legions technique of team fighting. That being said I do think a single samurai could defeat a single roman infantryman with all else being equal because of his training practices. I doubt the romans could have made a lasting incursion into samurai era japan and I seriously doubt that japan could have made a lasting incursion into italy.

[edit on 20-12-2005 by Heckman]

You forget though that the Japanese had also been fighting for a thousand years as well, they had also trained to move and act as a single cohesive unit esp for the peasant formations. However I will grant that sometimes Samurai formations (its very rare) will break formation and charge the enemy though I think its partly myth.