Gunbai: Ancient Japanese Warfare

Mongol Invasion of Japan (元寇): Part 1 - Some quick myths about the invasion (WIP) A modern depiction of the Mongol invasion made by  Kawashima Jimbei II Edit: This is a work in progress, but I wanted to share some preview after having miss few months. Hope you will enjoy! Some forewords from the author of this blog Normally I don't make introduction about the blog itself in my articles, as I think about this project more like a timeless collection of articles dedicated to Japanese military history. However, this time I feel that it is needed, and instead of making a separate post, I'll like to write something here, before getting to the article. I think that for everyone, 2020 was a very rough year to get through for the global situation and the period of uncertainty we have ahead of us. As I'm writing this (July 2020), I didn't expect to find so much trouble in finding the time, the energy and the dedication to write something worth of the attention ...

Sengoku Period Warfare - Part 4: Battle tactics The death of Yamamoto Kansuke during the 4th battle of Kawanakajima, from  永禄四年九月四日川中島ノ合戦山本勘介入道討死ノ図 by Utagawa Kuniyoshi  After writing in my previous post how the several types of units worked inside the Japanese armies of the late 16th century, in this article I want to describe the main battle tactics used by the whole army, which means how the aforementioned units worked together to achieve victory or to avoid being severely defeated. I'm pretty sure that despite my efforts, I won't list all the various strategies available in that time period, mainly because the majority of them weren't actually codified or recorded, and some are hidden inside old war manuals; it's also worth writing that this tactics are only available on  field battles , and not sieges or naval warfare. Before reading through this post, I'll suggest you to have a look at my previous articles on the Sengoku period warfare: Sengoku Peri...

Sengoku Period Warfare - Part 3: Infantry tactics  The full Osaka campaign battle screen -  大坂夏の陣図屏風 This is a continuation of previous articles describing the warfare of the Sengoku period, if you are interested in Battle formations and Cavalry tactics , consider reading the previous parts! The Sengoku period was the age of infantry troops : as I have stressed in other articles, the backbone of any army were the Ashigaru ( 足軽 ) , when used both as pikemen and as arquebusiers, and this article would be largely dedicated to them, with few exceptions. In any case, before jumping into infantry tactics , it's important to define whom were these infantry troops first. As I have explained in my army composition article, the units that fought on foot were the ashigaru pikemen, the ashigaru bowmen, the ashigaru gunners and the samurai on foot , both used as ranged units as well as spearmen. For the sake of this article I will divide this troops in melee units and ran...