Samurai Armies 1550-1615

Description

In 1543 three Portuguese merchants entered a turbulent Japan, bringing with them the first firearms the Japanese had ever seen: simple matchlock muskets called arquebuses. They proved a decisive addition to the Japanese armoury, as for centuries the samurai had fought only with bow, sword and spear. In 1575, one of the greatest original thinkers in the history of samurai, Oda Nobunaga, arranged his arquebusiers in ranks three deep behind a palisade and proceeded, quite literally, to blow his opponent's cavalry to pieces, marking the beginning of a new era in Japanese military history.

Stephen Turnbull is the world's leading English language authority on medieval Japan and the samurai. He has travelled extensively in the far east, particularly in Japan and Korea and is the author of The Samurai - A Military History. Richard Hook is one of the world's greatest military illustrators and has contributed to more than 30 Osprey titles. He is also an authority on the native peoples of North America, a subject for which he has had a life-long passion.