"Organizing and basing samurai armies" Topic

Were samurai armies organized into spear, sword, bow, matchlock, etc. Or were they combined regiments with different weapons?

There are people much more knowledgeable than I butt from what I recall matchlock and now were typically mixed into units together. The bows could provide continuous fire while the matchlocks reloaded. I also believe that cavalry also had infantry interspersed but I'm not sure if this is universal. I believe the typical unit was smaller, however the various units apparently operated together. So you may have small companies of men with Yari working in conjunction with small units of bow and shot armed ashigaru. Some of the books by Stephen Turnbull address the composition of units. Sorry I couldn't be much help.

It's hard to say exactly. There were, as far as I can tell, no sword units. In the Sengoku era Ashigaru foot soldiers were organised into spear (really pike) and separate musket units. Bowmen operated as sharpshooters and skirmishers. Sometimes pike units could be supported by shot troops. Mounted Samurai had foot soldier "runners" to support them. I'm not sure by this time foot Samurai formed their own spear armed units or were mixed in with or leading the Ashigaru. The impression I have that the most important organisation structure was the clan. I'm eager to hear other opinions. For simplicity's sake i organise my units into pike, spear (Samuria foot), mounted Samuria, bow foot skirmishers and musket.

You can do a view on my webpage here: link

it is in german and english. There is a button to switch between the languages.

It is an adoption of the old Volley&Bayonet rules for Samurai armies 1550 to 1650. You cán find some general informations about compositions of Samurai armies too.

Please regard that the military knowledge in Japan changed too. A Samurai army of the 12th century would have a very different composition.

There was a brief discussion on the samurai archives forum here:
forums.samurai-archives.com/topic/7997887/1

And also some thoughts here: tenkafubu608971038.wordpress.com/2018/01/07/modelling-sengoku-jidai-warfare-on-the-tabletop

The yari (spear/pike) troops were usually mono-type, though they'd often have a sword if they could find one to grab.

Samurai would have all the weapons, usually carried by attendants on foot while the Samurai rode.

Then you get into a mix of bows and teppo (matchlocks), usually about 3:2. There may be pure bow units, too, depending on how many teppo a clan has. It didn't take Japan very long to realize that the more teppo they had, the better. I mean, from 1540 to 1580, the number of teppo went from zero to about 65% of the wealthier clans military!

This thread: TMP link is probably one of the better explanations.