User blog:Kazanshin/All bend to the Law: Shinsengumi vs Texas Rangers

Since it seems like I'm gonna be taking forever to finish writing Aterui vs Fritigern, might as well get this battle on.

"At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst." - Aristotle

Men only sleep at night because others are awake to look after their vulnerable necks. Only thanks to those who seek out the evildoers and make the law be heard do we rise above the beasts that surround us. Without the law, without the lawbringers, we would surely descend into barbarism, anarchy, chaos. The law is made so it is respected and followed, those who go against it must pay with their blood, whether they want it or not. Today, we take the East and the West's most reknowned collectors of blood into the ring and decide which law is the most powerful.

The Texas Rangers, Wild West policemen who terrorized outlaws and hostile Native Americans, engraving themselves deep into the pride and spirit of the United States!

The Shinsengumi, the Tokugawa Shogunate's special police force who hunted down all who opposed the Shogun, becoming known as paragons of Japanese Bushido!

' WHO. IS. DEADLIEST!? '

Texas Rangers
Texas rangers=In the wake of Texas' independence from Mexico, there was no military presence to keep ordinary citizens safe from bandits and other criminals. Stephen F. Austin formed the Texas Rangers in 1823 to keep the peace throughout the countryside. In 1835, they were officially recognised as a police force. The Texas Rangers grew to be Texas' front line of defence against bandits, gunslingers, and hostile Native Americans during the time of the Old West. They also fought in several wars, such as the Mexican Revolution. The Texas Rangers are still active today, with a statute making sure that they are safe from being disbanded. - .45 Colt
 * -|Bowie knife=Cowboy_bowie_knife.jpeg Bowie knife is a pattern of fixed-blade fighting knife created by James Black in the early 19th century for Jim Bowie, who had become famous for his use of a large knife at a duel known as the Sandbar Fight. Since the first incarnation, the Bowie knife has come to incorporate several recognizable and characteristic design features, although in common usage the term refers to any large sheath knife with a crossguard and a clip point. The knife pattern is still popular with collectors; in addition to various knife manufacturing companies there are hundreds of custom knife makers producing Bowies and variations. The historical Bowie knife was not a single design, but was a series of knives improved several times by Jim Bowie over the years. The earliest such knife, made by Jesse Clift at Bowie's brother Rezin's request resembled Spanish hunting knives of the day, and differed little from a common butcher knife. The blade, as later described by Rezin Bowie, was 9.5 in (24 cm) long, 0.25 in (0.64 cm) thick and 1.5 in (3.8 cm) wide.
 * -|Colt Single Action Army=Colt_Single_action.jpg Colt Single Action Army revolver (also known as the Peacemaker) is a single-action revolver developed in the 1870's for U.S. military use. It saw extensive use in combat in the Plains Indians Wars (finding its way into the hands of the Native Americans themselves) and in the wars with Mexico. It was also used extensively by Cowboys. It was designed for the U.S. government service revolver trials of 1872 by Colt's Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company — today's Colt's Manufacturing Company — and was adopted as the standard military service revolver until 1892.

-Single action 6-round cylinder

-230m/s MV - .45-70 government
 * -|Sharps rifle=Sharps_carbine_1867.jpgs rifles are a series of large-bore single-shot rifles, beginning with a design by Christian Sharps in 1848, and ceasing production in 1881. They were renowned for long-range accuracy. By 1874 the rifle was available in a variety of calibers, and had been adopted by the armies of a number of nations. It was one of the few designs to successfully transition to metallic cartridge use. The Sharps rifles became icons of the American Old West due to their appearances in many Western-genre movies and books. Perhaps as a result, a number of different rifle companies currently offer reproductions of the Sharps rifle.

-370m/s MV

-Falling block action single shot - .44-40 Winchester
 * -|Winchester model 1873=Winchester_1886.jpg Model 1873 was one of the most successful Winchester rifles of its day, with Winchester marketing it as "The Gun that Won the West". Still an icon in the modern day, it was manufactured between 1873 and 1923. It was originally chambered for the .44-40 cartridge, which was the first centrefire cartridge and which became immensely popular. The 1873 was later produced in .38-40 and .32-20, all of which later became popular handgun cartridges of the day, allowing users to carry just one type of ammunition. The Model 1873 was produced in three variations: a 24-inch barrel rifle, a 20-inch barrel carbine, and a "musket"—which was aimed at military contracts and only made up less than 5% of production. (Musket was a term that, at the time, denoted a full-length military-style stock, not to be confused with a true smoothbore musket). The standard rifle-length version was most popular in the 19th century, although Winchester would make rifles to order in any configuration the customer wished, including longer barrels or baby carbines with barrels as short as 12 inches, octagonal-shaped barrels, colour case hardened receivers and fancy engraving.

-335 m/s MV

-10 round lever action + manually loaded tubular speedloader
 * -|Tactics: Suppression firepower=The Texas Rangers' most common tactic was their use of superior firepower and marksmanship to outshoot their opponents. This was especially made evident in the Gunfight of Palo Alto, where the Rangers defeated an ambushing force of 16 Mexican cattle rustlers while only suffering a single casualty on their side. This common and simple cowboy tactic was employed to deadly effects by the Rangers during their battles in the American-Mexican war and against local outlaws and Native American raiders.

Shinsengumi
Shinsengumi=The Shinsengumi (新選組, "New Selected Group") was a special police force organized by the Bakufu (military government) during Japan's Bakumatsu period (late Tokugawa shogunate) in 1863. It was active until 1869. It was founded to protect the shogunate representatives in Kyoto at a time when a controversial imperial edict to exclude foreign trade from Japan had been made and the Chōshū clan had been forced from the imperial court. The men were drawn from the sword schools of Edo, famous samurai and even ronins famed for their sword skills. Founded by the wealthy Aizu clan, these policemen were initially trained in traditional Japanese samurai tactics and swordfighting. However, as battle tactics evolved and swords became obsolete, the Shinsengumi were equipped and drilled in European fashion by foreign instructors, mainly French. During the course of the Boshin war, the Shinsengumi went from a mainly repressing force to a full-fledged combat unit that fought the Imperial forces of Emperor Meiji in multiple engagement, even using artillery in some occasions. - .450 Adams
 * -|Uchigatana=Japanese-swords-samurai-swords-musashi-maou-kaze-katana.jpg uchigatana is the blade that is most commonly referred to as the "katana" (a term that usually encompasses all single-bladed swords in Japanese). The blade is carried by all feudal Japanese soldiers, but usually not wielded as a primary weapon. Instead, the soldiers would draw it once the opponent came too close to effectively fight with the yari. The length of the blade is often somewhere between 60 to 73 centimeters in length, an the full length of the sword is usually around 90 cm. The metal of the blade is created from tamahagane, a hard, high carbon steel for the cutting edge and sides, and the tough, low carbon steel for the core and back, giving the blade a hard edge, while allowing it to absorb blows without shattering. The gentle curvature of the blade adds to the weapons cutting power by focusing the force of the blow on a smaller area.
 * -|Beaumont-Adams revolver=BeaumontAdams.JPG Beaumont–Adams revolver is a muzzle-loading, double-action, percussion revolver. Originally adopted by the British Army in .442 calibre (54-bore, 11.2mm) in 1856, many were later converted to use centrefire cartridges. At that time there was intense competition between Adams and Colt, which was rapidly expanding its sales and had opened a London factory competing with the British firearms trade, manufacturing firearms with interchangeable parts. The older 1851 and 1854 Adams revolvers were self-cocking, also known as double-action. In 1868, Beaumont-Adams revolvers made their way into the hands of shogunate officers, bearing the name of the アダムズ・リボルバー (Adams Revolver). The revolver was praised because of its double-action compared to the contemporary single-action revolvers and good stopping power.

-210m/s MV

-Double action 5-round cylinder - .577 Snider
 * -|Snider-enfield=Nepalese_Snider.jpg British .577 Snider–Enfield was a breech-loading rifle. The American Jacob Snider invented the firearm action, and the Snider–Enfield was one of the most widely used of the Snider varieties. The British Army adopted it in 1866 as a conversion system for its ubiquitous Pattern 1853 Enfield muzzle-loading rifles and used it until 1874 when the Martini-Henry rifle began to supersede it. The British Indian Army used the Snider–Enfield until the end of the nineteenth century. The Snider-Enfields quickly became popular in the Japanese Boshin war because of its useful and rapid breech-loading system and was purchased by Shogunate and Imperial forces alike.

-381m/s MV

-Falling block single action
 * -|Spencer repeating rifle=Spencer_and_box.jpg Spencer Repeating Rifles and Carbines were early American lever action firearms invented by Christopher Spencer. The Spencer was the world's first military metallic cartridge repeating rifle, and over 200,000 examples were manufactured in the United States by the Spencer Repeating Rifle Co. and Burnside Rifle Co. between 1860 and 1869. The Spencer repeating rifle was adopted by the Union Army, especially by the cavalry, during the American Civil War but did not replace the standard issue muzzle-loading rifled muskets in use at the time. The Spencer rifle was often used alongside the "Blakeslee" cartridge box, a box containing multiple pre-loaded tubular quick-loaders. This allowed the riflemen to fire their 7 rounds then quickly reload without the long process of putting the bullets one after the other in the gun.

- .56-56 Spencer

-315m/s MV

-7 round lever action w/manually cocked hammer + pre-loaded Blakeslee speedloader box
 * -|Tactics: Indoors close-quarters=While the Shinsengumi were trained and drilled in European fashion, they still were samurai at heart and were most efficient in hand-to-hand combat. However, they knew charging straight into enemy fire was suicidal, which is why they would hide inside buildings and force their enemies to move in into close-quarters combat. This tactic was used in the Ikedaya incident when the Shinsengumi used their sword skills to cut down Imperial samurai who intended to set fire to Kyoto. 40 Shinsengumi agents killed and apprehended a total of 54 suspects without suffering a single casualty.

X-Factors
Training

The Shinsengumi were recruited from the samurai class and were thus well trained in martial arts and swordfighting even before entering the organization. After the Shinsengumi was established, members trained in traditional samurai fighting styles and very soon in the use of firearms, both small arms and artillery. They were drilled by French advisors under the employment of the Shogunate.

The Texas Rangers were recruited from among the people living in the "Wild West", who were experienced at the use of firearms in their daily life. In the early days of their formation, however, the Rangers were relatively poorly funded and had little that could be called training. In 1857, John Salmon Ford was allocated funds to better organize the Rangers, which improved the quality of the men. While plans to even better organize the Rangers were proposed in the 1860s, they never came into place until after the Civil War, after they were completely disbanded once.

Logistics

The Shinsengumi were funded by the Shogunate, the weakening but still leading power of Japan, and the Aizu-Matsudaira clan, a powerful and wealthy samurai clan. This gave them access to weapons from all around Europe and made them one of the best funded armed forces in Japan at the time. However, because of unequal treaties imposed to Japan, quality weapons were quite expensive to obtain, which was why the less wealthy clans of the Shogunate were forced to fight with antiquated matchlocks and flintlocks.

As mentionned before, the Texas Rangers were relatively poorly funded in their humble begginings. In 1857, however, governor Hardin Richard Runnels allocated them 70 000$, allowing them to become more established and organized. Still, the Rangers were disbanded twice in the 19th century and it wasn't until the mid 20th century that they became a well funded and permanent police force.

Experience

The Shinsengumi were originally a completely law enforcement group that only focused on repressing pro-imperial dissidents in Kyoto. However, when the Boshin War broke out, the Shinsengumi became a military organization that fought multiple times against the forces of Emperor Meiji. They were active for a total of 7 years, most of which were during times of conflict with Meiji.

The Rangers' main experience comes from their battles against the Native American Comanches and their allied tribes like the Kiowa and the Apache. Many also fought for the Confederates during the Civil War, the Texas Revolution and/or were veterans of the Mexican War. They were formed in 1823 and, while they were disbanded a total of three times, are still active and present today.

Note

 * The battle takes place in an "Old West" town and is between five Shinsengumi policemen and 5 Texas Rangers.
 * As always, votes must be in the form of edges or paragraphs or will not count. I, at all times, posses the almighty to power to say "Nope" and erdicate the worth of your vote into nothingness.
 * Voting ends on the 23rd of August unless I say otherwise.