Renaissance · East Asia · War

1575

Nobunaga Crushes Takeda at Nagashino

June 28, 1575

At Nagashino in Mikawa province, Oda Nobunaga positioned three thousand arquebusiers behind wooden palisades and scythed down the famous cavalry of the Takeda clan. The battle demonstrated the lethal effectiveness of disciplined gunfire and marked the decline of mounted samurai warfare. Japan's feudal war was industrializing. Rotating volleys behind wooden palisades anticipated the disciplined firearms tactics dominating European warfare for the next three centuries.