Yes thats what i was looking at but plate armour in Europe was pretty much exclusively used by those of noble birth or those rich enough (or with a rich enough patron to buy it for them)... So much the same no? I was always comparing the 'best' Samurai to the 'best' Knight in this scenario which is why that wood comment jumped out at me. Your average foot soldier or man at arms in Europe was in much cheaper (and less protective) armour much the same as their lower class Samurai counterparts were. The lord or his son is always going to be better protected than your average joe. I stand corrected on the weight, quite surprising really.
While I know for many of you this is no contest, here in Europe nerd fights regularly erupt about what's the tougher/more physical/ more awesome sport: Rugby (union) or American Football. Now, I side squarely with rugby, but this probably has A LOT to do with my ignorance of american football. To me, football seems to have a more chess-like quality to it. Because I don't understand the individual plays, all I see is terrifically little flow and I subsequently get very little satisfaction from watching it. While a lot of stuff goes in football that doesn't fly in rugby, I still think rugby is far more physical than football (taken as an average over a whole team) and thus overall the more awesome sport. Also:
Yeah. They're called "knights". They get steel armor, they kill folks their patron doesn't like. Best-to-best comparison is stupid, it removes any differences in averages and so doesn't give you an accurate idea of the group as a whole. Is a Delta operator a good representation of the average quality of an American soldier? Is a Rolls-Royce indicative of the average quality and price of a car? The lord or his son is going to be protected by having the knights around him well-protected and equipped. Battles aren't usually 1-on-1. Wood isn't good at being armor, and overlapping material requires more material (and thus greater weight). Sorta like how welding kicked so much ass for ship construction compared to bolts. You get to place the pieces next to each other and not have to provide for overlap.
Isn't the Terran marine just Joe Schmoe in an armored suit? A 40K Space Marine isn't so much born as grown in a vat. Is over 6'5" tall on average. Has redundant cardiovascular systems and can survive in the vacuum of space unprotected for over 10 minutes. That is BEFORE we put the far superior armor and weapon systems on them. We really going there?
Just trying to get the conversation back on to something nerdy. IIRC the space marines also live to be several hundred years old.
Whats the biggest animal you could take down unarmed and how would you do it? That seemingly simple question has provoked arguments lasting the better part of this year as one of my friends vehemently believes he could take down most mammals regardless of size using the same technique. Fisting. He believes he could kill, or at least incapacitate anything from a squirrel to a bear simply by inserting his fist / forearm into the mammal, grabbing hold of whatever he can (that isn't excrement) and pulling it out, in theory ripping the animal inside out. For a moment when he first described this I started to believe that his theory was possible, then I realised I was stoned and logic quickly took over again.
As much as I respect the rugby player I would have to think the American football players would dominate the sport. The rugby players are big and strong but do not have the speed of the football players. There is a reason they have to wear the pads nobody would walk off the field if they didn't.
I'm pretty sure that itself wouldn't work out too well, organs can be slippery. Can you wear a glove for better grip, or maybe jam a finger through an intestinal wall(could be too stretchy)? That should allow for greater fisting lethality.
For sanitary reasons I suppose a glove would be allowed, as long as it wasn't a gauntlet or something similar. I think what the creator of this technique thought would happen upon fisting a bear, would be that the bear would be unable to reach the fist-er, therefore giving him ample time to grab / rip the lower intestine / bowel and start pulling in the hope that eventually he would be able to sever vital arteries. Needless to say I am a little dubious of the chance of this technique working in anyway whatsoever comparing fisting a bear to picking your nose in terms of lethality. My friend is still adamant that it is possible and I fear he will go to extreme lengths to prove this. So if you ever hear of a guy being found dead elbow deep up a bears arse, at least you'll have a good idea what lead up to his death.
Sorry, but you're just wrong. Those footballers would be seriously hurt on the rugby pitch - the rugby players have learned for years how to take a tackle and where to hit. The footballers have not been subjected to the same training (i.e. no pads contact). They'd get badly fucked up. Also, every member of a rugby team is required to make tackles - can't say the same for a football team, can you? How often does a QB make a tackle? Exactly. As far as speed goes, have you seen Bryan Habana, or either of the Gears? Or Van Der Heever? Or the Sharks' Mvovo? Or Joe Rokocoko? Yeah, thought not. In fact, wouldn't a player wearing LESS padding be faster than one wearing more padding...?
Most of the great athletes in America wind up football players. It wouldn't be that hard for them to just juke most hits. Plus the pads don't really help all that much since the other guy is using them as a battering ram.
Except that you need 10x more talent to be an elite hockey player than an elite football player. Balance on skates - check : no equivalent for football. Learn to hit and take hits - check : same as in football, depending on role. Constant dynamic play - check : football has set plays that end in mere seconds, there is certainly a dynamic element but much less so than freeflowing hockey. Stick handling, stick checking and shooting - check : no equivalent in football. Hockey requires more skill both overall and at the elite level, in fact in the very elite level (Football: J. Rice, W. Payton, W. Moon, Hockey: Modano, Hull, Roenick) I'd say the American hockey players were 10x more talented. Don't take it that I hate football, I played football the most growing up and I'm a huge fan. I think the beauty of football is in the strategy and the micro-strategies involved, it's much less an athlete sport than soccer or hockey. edit: And forget about sheer athleticsm. In terms of max output, I'd rate RBs, TEs, and most defensive players as the most athletic but they're only on for half the game, and only performing for seconds at a time. Hockey, Rugby, Soccer and even Basketball are much more endurable and at the end of the day Hockey and Rugby players give and take hits too.
See but that is where you are wrong you can probably juke one hit, but as all football players do you'd lose the ball very fast by looking down/back/praising god in the sky. The fundamental thing about rugby is possession. You don't need to try and gain an extra yard in rugby to get drilled in a hit. It's about rational choices to go down, how you go down, and where your support is, and seeing if you can maul your position a bit before you go down/ help arrives There is so much thought that can go into well organized rugby that you need to think about as you are running down the field. Football is stop/start and you even have a coach yelling plays at you. This is the reason why there is more exertion (mental and physical in rugby) you need to think on the fly. set plays as a ball is coming at you out of the scrum/ruck and be able to leave that play with posession edit: also each players can easily switch positions in the middle of the game depending on how certain teams split their fields. If a centre is at the bottom of a ruck, you might see a forward out with the backs. its not that uncommon but you'd never see a lineman know anything else then stop the other guy infront of you
Absolutely, NFL is more about anaerobic exercise while Rugby is more about aerobic exercise. Id give NFL players the edge over rugby players in Size, Strength and Speed (over short distances) but they would not be able to match a Rugby player in terms of Endurance. I think largely Rugby requires better hand eye coordination and ball handling skills as well, obviously some exceptions to this, but overall every player in a rugby squad is expected to be able to handle the ball effectively while many NFL players never touch the ball on a regular basis and thus dont develop these skills. In short if you put an NFL player on a rugby pitch and expect him to play the full 80 mins he will be fucked (and probably seriously hurt) and the same goes for putting a Rugby player onto an NFL field.
Not quite true. Official fiction has them as being selected at a certain age from the most promising candidates from traditional homeworlds through various means dependent on each chapter's criteria. They're then surgically augmented with vat grown tissue and organs, mind wiped and then mentally conditioned. Without their armour they're still superhuman. I don't know much about SC marines, but I'd say the only way they were comparable is if there's a Korean in the suit. Archer's on the money. Too completely different games. In addition to the above: NFL is start/stop, while rugby (either code) is more free flowing. NFL is also more specialist in its positions, while rugby is more utility. You're almost comparing a marathon runner to a sprinter. Both running, but very different disciplines. The original question is too open ended. Tougher: Overall, rugby. More physical: Overall, rugby. More 'awesome': NFL. It's just more explosive and has more athleticism in short bursts.
Hahahaha. Holy shit you're hilarious dude. I played american football my whole life growing up and recieved offers to play DIII football in college. I passed due to better academic and portfolio offers from the school I'm at now and picked up rugby. I've played rugby for 3 years and done so for Savannah, the Georgia U23 All Star Selects and the Gypsies Men's Selects. There is literally no comparison between the athleticism needed to play football and rugby. First, you aren't going to "juke stick" like you would in football. You catch the pass and either get rid of it quickly or take a hit. Trying fancy sidesteps and jukes is a recipe for your kidneys to merge with your spinal cord garnished with a glaze of rib fragment. Tackling in rugby is much more refined to accomodate for more space between defenders- most defenders would be chomping at the bit for a back to try to spin or slow his momentum for a fancy step. There are no shoulder hits- everything is a wrap and the agility of a good back row player or inside back player is just as good- if not better than an NFL linebacker's. An NFL fullback would be exhausted by the middle of the first half by trying to drive through the defense. An experienced rugby player doesn't deliver a bone shattering hit to an inside center or flanker smashing through the gap; he takes his legs out and carries his momentum over the top. Coupled with the lack of breaks in action, constant movement, the constant grind over the course of 80 minutes and the need to play both offense and defense would break most football players at a high level of rugby. I was in for a huge eye opener when I joined, that's for sure. Outside of the tight five (the biggest guys on the field), there is no need for a 5'10 240 lb running back that can't run for 80 minutes. He can probably run a 4.4 40 but if he can't run for 40 minutes, he's useless by halftime. I love football and I love rugby, but the physical requirements for an average rugby player are much greater than they are for a similar football player. Take for example Life University- one of the premier rugby teams in the US. Their big boys are expected to run 10 miles in 80 mins. An 8 minute/mile pace- for 80 minutes. Go out and try to do two miles at that pace. That's not even European club standard. They expect 7m/mile for guys that weight 250-260 lbs. I doubt Albert Haynesworth is doing that. Edit: This isn't to detract from football. As I said, I love football but you can't compare apples and oranges. Rugby players would have a tough time in pads- no doubt, and the specializations required for football anymore have even further separated the sports but in terms of overall physicality, mental toughness, and athletic ability (read: not pure speed. Not pure strength. Not pure endurance. All three.), rugby takes it, hands down.
SPESS MEHRIN easy. This isn't even a contest. Ninja beats Pirate, full kit Knight beats full kit Samurai on a featureless plain. If the samurai gets a tetsubo or a longbow and some range it gets a little better for him though. Rugby player beats Football player in a fistfight, they can play Rope-a-Dope and are used to unprotected hits. I've got a classic East vs. West nerdoff for you: Superman vs. Goku.