Ok, here's how it's going to be.
Every week I'm going to post a new battle scenario.
Then I'll give you all 3 days (if you're lucky) to try to persuade me to have your side of interest win the battle.
For example, let's start with:
Samurai vs Grenadier
The samurai and grenadier both face their enemies when they battle.
They are armored equally heavily.
The samurai uses fine japanese steel, the grenadier is armed with a knife and several heavy grenades.
The grenadier is 6ft tall, the samurai is just over 5ft tall.
The samurai lunges and the grenadier move back while starting the grenade.
The samurai makes a second lunge, the grenadier times the grenade and hurls it at the samurai's legs, samurai explodes. Grenadier wins.
ummm so is this scenario already over?
Unless you can convince me otherwise.
But since you can't....
Here's an other one:
Hippo vs Rhino
The hippo is known for the most powerful jaws on any land animal. Capable of biting an alligator in half in a single chomp. It can outrun the average man and is known for its quick irritability and ferocity.
The rhino is known for a single horn, poor eye sight, leathery skin and more muscle than two bulls.
The hippo would be merciless next to the rhino as an attempt to bite the rhino would result in loss of teeth or a horn in the pallet.
Yeah, I'm going to tend to agree with that. The rhino would kill it good.
It's hard to think up a good matchup.
What about a silverback gorilla vs a hippo.
If the gorilla gets bitten he's done, but if the gorilla gets a good few punches at the hippos face, he's done.
I don't know about the hippo versus rhino. Rhinos are practically blind, so a hippo could potentially ambush or evade a rhino to get to the water. Once in the water, hippo wins hands down.
I don't see a gorilla having a chance against a hippo either. I think a hippo could take a few punches, but the gorilla couldn't take being trampled or grabbed and drowned in the water.
While a rhino is practically blind, a hippo has no way of injuring a rhino. There's nothing at the hippos level to trample, and the rhino doesn't have anything small enough for the hippo to bite. The hippo would be able to ram into the rhino, that's all.
Even in the water the rhino wouldn't drown, but the hippo still has a very good chance of being impaled.
As for the gorilla. The hippo would win hands down. The strongest attack the gorilla perform is a ripping or pounding motion. A gorilla's forward punch would be pretty weak due to its muscle structure.
There isn't much the gorilla could rip off of the hippo, so the hippo doesn't really have a means by which it could be injured. Whereas the gorilla could be trampled, bitten, strangled, etc.
If we are talking about a grenadier from like Napoleon Era, I think a samurai could win. A samurai is in heavy armour yes, but they were also supposed to be able to move and be agile in it.
The grenadier would have grenades mostly filled with gunpowder, I doubt there would be much shrapnel. It would just produce an explosion, but the samurai has the flight time to get away from that explosion, probably moving closer to the grenadier giving him less chance to get it right on the second grenade.
The grenadier would not want to throw super close to himself, because he would want to live. Once the samurai is in close quarters, the grenadier is dead. Simple as that. A grenadier was not meant to be the main combatant, their role is more to support the other infantry and they probably wouldn't be that great all by them selves.
A samurai's Katana was tested by bow many slaves heads it could cut off in one swing, I think it needed at least 7 for a a true samurai, I doubt the samurai would have troubles cutting through the grenadier.
/battle
A Napoleon era grenade would be encased in cast iron. The shell from that would provide shrapnel enough to devastate a close range target. Even without shrapnel, the explosion would not be easily withstood at close proximity. One reason why it was so effective was because it would wreak more havoc on a target than a musket shot. A musket had enough spread to rip a leg off.
A samurai may have been fast, but probably couldn't run faster than 12mph. Assuming the grenadier could time a grenade properly (which a skilled grenadier could), he could get it to detonate just before hitting the ground. Having said that, if the fight started more than 5 meters apart, I doubt the samurai could close the distance decidedly enough to take out the grenadier immediately.
Plus, if the samurai moved in too close, the physical dominance of the grenadier would most likely result in strangulation.
Essentially, the samurai would need to be in a 1 to 2 meter range to have the advantage, so statistically the grenadier has him trumped.
You forget a samurai needs to have his heart and head 6 meters away from his body to stop functioning...he would take that shrapnel hit like it was nothing and decapitate the grenadier anyways