Alamo Samurai

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I remember reading this TL almost 3 years ago. I got through the post about him dispatching 150 soldiers than I hit the back button. Please 150 soldiers with a gun? These are just samurai we are talking about, they are not uber good fighters here.
 
I agree that is a silly part and is an overinflated number by at least a 100 but remember that it's night old fashioned musket's and early rifles he's a highly skilled and unique combatant the troops probably weren't very well trained with proper bayonet use in close quarters combat and they probably got all confused and panicked because of a sudden attack like that:D
 
And considering that Japan had closed itself from the West until the 1860's and this timeline somehow has 600 immigrants from Japan in the 1830's:D
 

Hendryk

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First things first: how did a Japanese aristocrat end up in Texas at a time when the Tokugawa kept the country closed to the outside world? And how did his extended family manage to join him there?

Really, if there is no plausible answer to that question, then the lack of realism of all that follows is a moot point.
 
I agree that is a silly part and is an overinflated number by at least a 100 but remember that it's night old fashioned musket's and early rifles he's a highly skilled and unique combatant the troops probably weren't very well trained with proper bayonet use in close quarters combat and they probably got all confused and panicked because of a sudden attack like that:D

Except most of the Mexicans were veterans, and using the final attack as evidence they were very skilled at fighting with bayonets.
 
There are many and various good reasons why San Francisco eclipsed Monterey as the center of Alta California del Norte. The primary reason is San Francisco Bay is a better hrbor than Monterey. A secondary one is the interior can be reached via riverine traffic (ferries and other watercraft). Monterey is strictly "landlocked".
 
This timeline is typical of the ones that were found on OTL.com. The vast majority of them, if posted here, would have been posted on the ASB subforum, and even there they would have been picked apart. Several timelines, in fact, often had the Rapture or a nuclear war occur in 1997, regardless of whether it had any relevance to the timeline in question.
I remember one timeline had Lee capture Washington by leaving a decoy force at Gettysburg. If that was implausible enough, this action convinced the Border States to secede - and form their own country! The United Confederation of Kentucky (when an English speaking country chooses a name that can be acronymed as "Uck" you know the timeline has left all bounds of reality) then proceded to conquer the US.
That said, I have seen one excellent timeline from that site (though not on that site). This is "By a Fluke of the Gods:Cox defeats Harding" and can currently be found on the forum on Dave Leip's site.
 
Understand the conditions of Mexican infantry...

...unarmored, in tight formation, and they are using single-shot rifles. If he can get past the first volley or is merely grazed he can get in close with a samurai sword and kill *a lot* of people. Also, the mythos of Texas and the "cowboy code" has a few things in common with parts of Bushido. By 1836 there are elements of Japanese society looking to "Dutch Learning" and they were aware of Mexico and its environs from trade voyages like that of the Date Maru centuries before. And yes some of the timeline listed is wild, but not all of it is so far fetched. Screw-based ships were on the water during the American Civil War and were developed in the 1830s. Rockets were used during the Napoleonic Wars ("And the Rocket's Red Glare...") while submarines were well on their way. the UK was a traditional rival of France and had several ties to Germany at that point, they had historical claims to Calais and Normandy why not reassert them and take out a rival at the same time? Difference engines and analytical engines ("computers" in this scenario) were also possibly feasible, though a stretch for a country like Japan even with earlier modernization.
 
I don't normally approve of thread necromancy... but when I do, it's because this is one of my favorite TLs on Othertimelines.com, horridly ASB as it is :D

I like nostalgia, sue me :p
 
Hard to believe it was over a decade ago when I wrote that TL. It was meant to be over-the-top at the end, but initially more of a comic 'what if' if the butterflies all kept flying out in unexpected directions.
 
Hard to believe it was over a decade ago when I wrote that TL. It was meant to be over-the-top at the end, but initially more of a comic 'what if' if the butterflies all kept flying out in unexpected directions.
the very premise is eye-catching.
Good work!
 
Understand the conditions of Mexican infantry...

...unarmored, in tight formation, and they are using single-shot rifles. If he can get past the first volley or is merely grazed he can get in close with a samurai sword and kill *a lot* of people. Also, the mythos of Texas and the "cowboy code" has a few things in common with parts of Bushido. By 1836 there are elements of Japanese society looking to "Dutch Learning" and they were aware of Mexico and its environs from trade voyages like that of the Date Maru centuries before. And yes some of the timeline listed is wild, but not all of it is so far fetched. Screw-based ships were on the water during the American Civil War and were developed in the 1830s. Rockets were used during the Napoleonic Wars ("And the Rocket's Red Glare...") while submarines were well on their way. the UK was a traditional rival of France and had several ties to Germany at that point, they had historical claims to Calais and Normandy why not reassert them and take out a rival at the same time? Difference engines and analytical engines ("computers" in this scenario) were also possibly feasible, though a stretch for a country like Japan even with earlier modernization.

This is not a pike-and-shot pikeline. Napoleonic infantry (on which the Mexican army was modelled) stood with about 80cm for each man and three ranks deep. This charging samurai would face about 15 men that can reach him with their bayonets at any given time, and they all have longer reach than him. Even if he somehow swats bayonets and muskets away, he's not going to kill more than a few men before being bayonetes and killed.

Also remember that at this time under the Edo/Tokugawa shogunate, samurai are clerks, governors, officials and administrators, not warriors. Japan has not been at war for more than 220 years, and even before that, the Samurai were officers using polearms leading Ashigaru pike-and-shot formations, not swordsmen. Like in Europe, the sword has become a side arm not the main armament.

Also, Samurai armour was usually leather and laquered wood, not steel due to a lack of iron in Japan. It protected decently well against cuts from light swords, but not from pikes (or bayonets).

There is no Germany at this time - Britain had ties to Hannover due to being in a personal union (which was dissolved when Victoria ascended the throne). Beyond having occasionally been allies (against the French, mind you) Prussia and Britain's interests did not intersect at all.
 
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