>>17896046So did the Japanese, although I take your point that westerners had better guns, but much of combat once boarding occurs turns to melee combat and the westerners were probably around 5'6" 140lbs on average, not big by today's standards but effectively a race of giants compared to the Japanese samurai + the westerners actually had armor that was made of metal compared to the bamboo/cloth Japanese samurai armor, the Japanese katana was almost useless against a Portuguese sailor wearing real armor
Also, Iberian steel was significantly stronger than anything found in Japan, so a western sword, especially a Spanish/Portuguese sword, could snap a Japanese katana
