Is Armor REALLY Impervious to Sword Blows?
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- Опубликовано: 20 июл 2024
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When talking about historical arms and armor it's easy to fall for misconceptions or make over-statements in response to those misconceptions. Is a knight in a full suit of plate slow and clumsy or totally unencumbered? Can he tank and shrug off any strike with a sword or does a super sharp blade cut right through?
The truth of course lies somewhere in the middle, and there is plenty of nuance to consider. So let's talk about things like concussions and blunt hits with the spine of a single-edged sword or falchion.
The clip I showed as a cautionary example:
Painful axe hit ends knight fight
• Painful medieval armor...
** Previous videos on the topic **
The Biggest Misconception HEMA Critics Have?
• The Biggest Misconcept...
Why Armor Did Not Make Knights (Fully) Invulnerable...
• Why Armor Did Not Make...
Armor / Damage Types in RPGs Compared to Real Life
• Armor / Damage Types i...
Here is the other extreme, what happens when you make a piece of steel way thicker than they did in history:
• Forging and Testing a ...
** Music **
"Winds of Stories" by Horror Pen
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Outtakes:
"Little People At Work" by Horrorpen
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Outro:
"Highland Storm" by The Slanted Room Records
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** Time stamps **
00:00 - 00:30 Intro
00:30 - 01:31 Skillshare promo
01:32 - 03:30 Armor misconceptions / over-statements
03:31 - 07:08 How hard hits can hurt even with protection
07:08 - 08:29 Different sword types vs. armor
08:29 - 09:30 Medieval depictions of swords cleaving helmets
09:30 - 12:40 Blunt impact with the spine of single-edged swords
12:40 - 13:55 Closing thoughts
13:56 - 14:55 Outtakes / Outro
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#armor #swords #history 
Развлечения
One group: "Cutting wood with sword is abuse!"
Another group: "You are not hitting that plate armor hard enough!"
Combat with swords in a nutshell:
*bonk*
"Ah fuck! My head! At least is still attached to my neck, but FUCK!"
*Laughs menacingly in war mace*
Does that make a sledge hammer the equivalent for modern riot armor?
*Rire en Bec-De-Corbin* 🇫🇷
@@saikawanderer9166 that would be closer to a medieval maul, basically a giant wooden mallet IIRC. Might be better to just smack the riot shield they were holding repeatedly so they get arthritis and can't use a gun without it hurting them.
Yee
Short Answer: Yes
Long Answer: Yes, but the wearer of said armour is slightly less so.
And depending on weather the weapon you're getting hit with is a car or not.
Yes
Thank you shaggy
Bless you for saving me 14 minutes
Ok that's a good one
I like to explain it like this: Armor is damage mitigation, not prevention
@SharkTank basically armor will lessen the power of the blow
@SharkTank it will reduce the amount of damage inflicted on u by a weapon..👍
Ps and also reduce the hit points (HP) lose... lol😏
@@ndld4955 so video games are right
@@donniexiong6306 some would, others like Diablo 2 or Baldur's Gate would not.
@@donniexiong6306 ones with Damage Thresholds and Damage resistance are more accurate than others
People tend to forget that, armor or not, you’re getting hit by a hunk of metal designed to kill, armor helps you not die from hits but it doesn’t cover bruising or even bone breaking lol
"Designed to kill" huh? You think a rapier is made to thrust into flesh? Well I use it for sticking fruit and veggies on so I can roast them on a much longer spit. Now I got a weapon "Designed to deliver freshly roasted goodness" and it can also double up as an eye poker.
@@bayardkyyako7427 that's funny
I agree completely. Armor is essentially a shell to keep pointy sharp sticks out but doesn't work against metal balls on stick
@@drakoslayd But what if I shoot said pointy stick with a projectile launcher? Also what if the pointy stick was pointed at a 90 degree angle?
Yeah, try doing something to me when I was trained to not get damage and was trained to endure the encumbrance of a 50lbs Plate-armour suit. Like... You're as welcome to damaging my insides as much as you are overpowering a Gorilla or a Grizzly Bear.
What historians do with medieval murals is amazing, imagine having to decipher what life today is like, and pretty much your only reference is action movies.
They will ge so confused by our apperant ability to ignore the laws of physics.
Imagine that. "Historical" records of:
Rambo
T-800 Terminator
Neo
Spider Man
The TMNTs, maybe believed by historians to be some beneficent entities of superstition.
Homer J. Simpson
Harry Potter
That would be a sight.
And of course anime. That would require all the context available.
Some one needs to make this into a show
@@WhatIsThatThingDoing And imagine if the only surviving anime in the future are DBZ and JJBA.
@@WhatIsThatThingDoing TMNTs as beneficent spirits/gods/supernatural beings...
Blimey, that's a nice one! :)
I don’t think most swords can properly harm armor to the extent of full plate, but I’d expect a sword that could cut through something as well fortified as plate armor and chainmail would be too big to be called a sword anyway. It would be too unwieldy, too rough and far too large, would probably resemble a large hunk of iron
LOL and who could wield such a thing right?
@@caioporto9234 *[insert that character whose name I don't remember from Final Fantasy]*
one of the best ways I have ever seen of quoting berserk
@@caioporto9234 Certainly no one. It would certainly be too heavy for a mere man to wield it
@@AstorEzequiel I think the FF character's name was Barn or something simple like that.
"Armour is great but not perfect".
This.
This a thousand times over.
In the modern era, we are spoiled with the uniform quality of our steel.
Archaic armour, while obviously utile (otherwise the ever pragmatic militaries would have opted for the significantly more economical option of nudity), would have soft or brittle spots, especially in the earlier ferric plate variety, as even tempering was just not possible for the vast majority or armourers. The facilities necessary were not common and there were numerous reasons that certain areas became famous (later) for their high quality and specialized armours.
We also cannot overlook the economic factor. A full harness is not cheap. Sometimes one might have a set of armour that is a hand me down that had been repaired or reshaped, possibly losing temper in the process, or thinning as rust crept in and was polished off time and again.
Grandfather's heirloom may not be the best, but it's better than being unarmoured and saves face from showing up not with a harness or going into absurd debt. A vassal lord's first obligation to their liege is military. Bring obviously unequipped would be more than embarassing, it could be ruinous... So the choice between cheap but standard looking armour and showing up obviously destitute was fairly clear.
Armour that looks the part may fail in battle. A lack of one's obligated gear would lead to a loss of title and fiefdom. The same principle pass to one's retainers. If an impoverished lord is on the hook for providing a dozen mounted knights... Well, let's just say it is unlikely everyone is in top of the line kit.
Exactly. It’s quite plausible lower tier nobles with armor couldn’t afford top quality steel or workmanship be it materials or job cost.
So they were wearing a type of glass armor.
People also generell boughrbthier armozr them self. One mid want a light armour for compfort and Energie
Others mid want thicker ones. Brigandins where also used and favored even by the one without Money Problems
Some men even Equiped less armour than they should. Like no shoulder plates .
Some even left the under part of thier sallet out
Makes sense with the use of English longbow men being so effective
The same limitations effect swords. Even swords made from modern steel sometimes have weak spots and break on impact with their target. I imagine medieval swords hitting any sort of metal armor would do more damage to their own structural integrity than to the target. Because of the relative frailty of swords employing them as makeshift cudgels and war hammers is not only economically unsound but also simply daft as you'd be effective breaking your own weapon while attaining underwhelming results at best.
@@Kerendips no swords where at least 5he Good ones with spring steel. A good sword os also far cheaper than armour and you will carry your sword wirh yiu every day
6:00 Funny enough, I'm currently writing a fantasy novel where, in one fight, I have someone armed with a greatsword and fighting an opponent that's wearing full plate. When I asked my HEMA instructor for some advice on what to have the greatswordsman do, his answer was essentially, "have him hit the opponent in the head multiple times".
Especially half-swording. Blunt force trauma is more effective through a helm than most other forms of attack.
Bang onto the armour until it's too far out of shape for the opponent to breath.
A greatsword is kinda an anti-armour weapon anyway. They're huge levers and pretty heavy (for a sword, they're still less than 8lb) and you can generate a lot of force with them. A few good whacks on the helm with a greatsword and your armoured guy is going to be concussed and starting to get fuzzy on the whole up-down-left-right-forward-backward thing.
Concussions solve everything
@@dmgroberts5471Still, if the plate armored guy is armed with any weapon and gets the exact same hit on the unarmored guy then the fights over. Against a heavily armored opponent you need to get lucky and be far more skilled to be able to win against them.
There is a reason why even buhurt sports totally forbids stabbing motions/techniques, even with non sharp weapons usage.
Even in larp the thrusts are usually banned.
Same with the couple banned striking regions
@@dayel11 Of course, LARP guys don't need to wear facial protection. A foamblade-tip can totally damage your eyes.
@@seanduffy6231 in our group, it is forbidden to hit the head tho. It happens, but rather rarely that someone got hit, and in a few years of playing I remember only 1 time a dude got hit pretty bad in the eye, but he was kinda of an arsehole so i didn't mind too much lol .
@@dayel11 We are the very opposite! xD We hit with full force and stab each other in the face, but we wearing heavy face protection. Such a blow with a sword can make you feel dizzy and a stab with a spear in the face can knock you out even without visual damage.
The body must ultimately absorb the energy of every blow whether it penetrates the armor or not. Bring seriously wailed on by someone earnestly trying kill you is clearly fatiguing íf nothing else, and fatigue incapacitates.
I get the impression from contemporary sources that killing someone in armor was less about piercing the armor and more about fatiguing, stunning, or unbalancing them which allowed one to line up a piercing stab into a joint or other opening.
Having said that, it was usual for more than a few dozen heavily armed novels to die in large scale battles. Most were taken prisoner.
That all makes sense. With regards to killing nobles in battle, it often wasn't your intent to do so. If you're fighting a knight or landed aristocrat, all you'll get for killing him is a pat on the head from your own King. But if you capture him, then he has to ransom his freedom back from you, and that was hugely profitable. You would very rarely want to kill an enemy noble, if it was possible to capture him.
An untrained Hobo trying to fatigue a Knight who did a Physical and Technique training for their entire life isn't exactly the easiest thing.
@@danielantony1882 but twelve of them is a different story
@@Omniseed Swiss hobos were good at opening cans,proper tools like halberd,poleaxe etc plus tactics and discipline
It wasn't unusual at all for nobles to die in battle. Pretty much every large scale battle in the Middle Ages comes with a long list of noble casualties. Just look at how many kings were killed in battle vs how many were captured in battle and ransomed. While ransoms were not uncommon, you were still more likely to be killed in a battle than to be captured. And that also makes perfect sense given how it is much more difficult to capture and restrain someone actively trying to kill you in the midst of a chaotic battlefield than it is to kill them.
Generally, nobles were only taken prisoner after the end of the battle if they actively surrendered. During the battle itself the situation would often have been too dangerous and chaotic to allow for the taking of prisoners. So while you may prefer capturing an enemy noble rather than killing him, the reality of the battlefield often makes that impossible.
I could definitely imagine a high quality steel sword penetrating lower quality iron armor with a thrust, but I don’t think it would cut through the armor most likely just cave it in.
It might be able to crack through the plates, honestly. Especially if the iron was somewhat soft and brittle. Not really a cut, but still
Yes the softer iron would bend and warp but don't forget since blades fail from poor forging so could steel armor. I know that a good steel sword could split stainless steel plate but there are no tests done on other inferior steel grades. It would be interesting to see a test done on quality carbon steel blade vs shit quality steel armor.
Well, a caved-in helmet … !
To the aristocrat warrior that dent might be felt as an open cut when the blacksmith told him the cost of repairing it. Knights had money, but they were not as rich as their liege lord.
I believe that’s what happened with Bazuso’s armor in Berserk
Tissue bruising is the limit here, doesn't matter what you're wearing, even if the force is distributed well, multiple hits, evenly distributed over the body during the course of a battle is going to be a problem, and people who have been in arm-guard plating and have taken several blocks on it, will tell you this: If it starts to feel tight and warm, you remove the guard immediately. Tissue swelling and physical restrictions = you're going to have a bad time.
Same with bullets wounds, people look at the bloody hole and underestimate the hydrostatic shockwave.
Ned Kelly is a good example. It's often about minimising the injury taken in order to last out the conflict alive, at least.
Plus hits to the head. Which if you look at the manuscripts was a primary target. You hit them in the head and they will be staggering like a drunk. As hard as it is for people obsessed with the movie image of swords to accept, clubs work. Even against armor. Which is why maces warhammers and goedendag were a thing. They got the job done.
@@Wastelandman7000 One of the reasons i consider sticks more dangerous than normal sized knifes and kinda chuckle when people consider them dangerous weapons and not tools.
@@pouncepounce7417 a knife is more dangerous than a stick, no one walks around in armor so there is nothing to protect from cutting attacks
Never underestimate a blow to the head. Once saw one of my classmates get knocked out cold by a sheet of thick cardboard.
A well trained armor user simply makes fighting in armor look easy as one does when training extensively for years in the use of armor.
This. It's easy to think that just because it looks easy, it is easy. As with most things, practice takes time to completely set in. You can't just pick up armored combat with no prior experience and do well.
Theres always variables i feel what if somone threw mud in my helmet or a bee was in there
And watching sparring it can make you umable to move in ways you could without , gets hot and heavy so its a question of maneuverablity vs x
@@anthonydelonga7181 It's less valuable in a duel and invaluable in a meelee.
@@anthonydelonga7181 The answer is to loudly quote Nicholas Cage and run, using the distracting lines to stall pursuers.
This just makes me think that armor is still worn to stop fast and weak attacks that can be thrown around in the chaos of massed melee. While any armor user will take seriously a telegraphed power strike.
Your armor is not gonna save you from that zornhau, but the slicing and weakened dirty/elegant twists like abnemen, durchwelsen, etc. might just bounce of your plate.
Or in another analogy, you're a tank that need not worry about machineguns, but will take pause if there's another cannon around.
That's a good analogy. You wouldn't have to worry about the guy with a sword very much unless he really committed to something, but the guy with the polehammer is a much more prevalent threat as most of his attacks could _really_ hurt
Except your plate armor is absolutely going to save you from that zornhau. Suffering serious bruising, spraining or concussion through plate armor is the equivalent of a critical hit. It is DIFFICULT to do. Your chances or getting a point through a gap are similar to your chances of doing significant harm through bludgeoning.
Reliably threatening plate armor required polearms or a horse's momentum.
@@MinSredMash a point that didn’t come up in the video was that helmets were shaped specifically to deflect blows to the head. So only a perfect, square hit would be able to transfer most of the strikes energy.
@@Specter_1125 well, any helmet made after about 1100.
In the SCA, the flat-topped classic Templar helmet is called a Mace Magnet.
@@ScottKenny1978 the Norse (and later Norman) had rounded conical helmets though. One wonders how or why the flat top great helm came about.
The Falchion always struck me as what happens when a sword and an axe love each other very much.
Or the falcata
falchions usually werent actually much heavier than normal swords, but had much larger blade profiles when depicted, because the blade was very thin and long, to aid with cutting motions. this is also how axes made for combat were designed, so you are technically right. but a normal woodcutting axe is far, far to heavy to be used like a fighting axe.
skall also made a vid on this i believe
I would think the medieval pictures might come from a situation something like this:
1. A warrior strikes an opponent hard enough(and/or hits a weak point) to crack/cave in the the armor and put him out of commission.
2. This gets told as: "I cut him through his armor," since that's basically what happened.
3. This gets drawn like above, with whole plates splitting and gushes of blood, because it's clearer that way and looks more awesome.
exactly my friend
That is undoubtedly true, illuminators have rarely seen actual battles. Additionally people do not know how hard to evenly temper plates. I guess there was plenty structural weakness, especially with the average pieces.
As a general rule, maybe we could say that any sword (especially the big two-handed and/or top-heavy ones) can inflict blunt damage.
Blows to the helmet, the elbow or fingers can be incapacitating.
OOooooof. Imagine getting hit in the hand with a greatsword. That would hurt.
@@jooot_6850 I don't need to imagine. Even an arming sword hurts through the gauntlet. The polearms are even worse ^^
@@nicklab1927 Pole arms are the anti armor weapons, kinda crazy imagine someone get hit with something like a poleaxe and don't rethink their life choices
I'm not sure blows to the hands or elbow would be incapacitating unless the hand was completely mangled, I've seen plenty of people continue to fight/move with all sorts of broken bones because the adrenaline and survival instinct has kicked in. Sure, it's going to hurt like hell in a few hours but if someone is trying to kill you then you're not going to stop fighting back until you physically can't fight any more. If you get knocked senseless or out cold then that's obviously a different matter.
@@DjDolHaus86 I get the argument of adrenaline. I still assume that it would be difficult to continue the fight with a broken hand or battered elbow though. Also, this is typically the kind of injuries that I guess might make you loose your weapon, leaving you more vulnerable to the real incapacitating attack (head bashing or stabbing through a gap...), so the hand crushing would be 2nd-degree-incapacitating?
You seen this Skall?
"The two-handed sword is left out, as it seems a dangerous weapon, and few gauntlets would stand the heavy strokes to which they would be exposed. It is left, however, to the challengers' pleasure to choose the two-handed sword or the other."
'Henry VIII: May 1520, 2-15', Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII: 1519-1523, Volume 3 (1867), pp. 274-285.
Two handed swords were deemed dangerous for the field of cloth of Gold tournament due to their effectiveness against plate armor.
Nice excerpt thanks for sharing
The phrase "two-handed sword" was used differently back then. It's probable this text is referring to a Zweihänder rather then a longsword. Still it's not about piercing the armor, but crushing the gauntlet through impact force, which could occur when using a sword this size.
@@robinrehlinghaus1944 yes well zweihander just also means two handed sword in German. You can see the sword if you search Henry VIII foot combat armour. I think people focus on cutting far too much in being effective against armour. Axes are very effective against armour and people don't get hung up on whether it can cut through it or not.
@@meadse I know, I just meant it has bigger impact force than a longsword and would therefor he far more likely to be banned. But I think saying that two-handed swords were really that effective against armour is a rather bold statement - no offense though
@@robinrehlinghaus1944 none taken! Yes I know what you mean. I think a large longsword like some english Knights used could have killed men through striking armor and break bones etc but not the very tapered skinny ones but thats just conjecture although Henry VIII's two hander isnt exactly giant. Some hammer heads are tiny and light and obv did the job against armor. I think the defensive capabilities are vastly understated too as I think a sword is probably the best defensive weapon available.
Im glad that Skall is playing devils advocate a little, now. I'm an artisanal weaponsmith and have been branching into armorsmithing for years and it just kind of irks me when people who watch RUclips videos like this try to say beyond a shadow of a doubt that things are wrong or right. A big example I always had to get into with people was footmans flails. Being a Russian and a Cossack, I know for a fact that such designs have been tried before, but people always used to insist they were 100% fiction. I'm glad he's starting to set records straight with the toxicity of internet historians.
This debate always reminds me of my time in the army when one of our sergeants had the brilliant idea to drop kick his fellow sergeant in order to demonstrate how cool body armour is only for the other guy breaking two rips at the back, him breaking one on his side, sending both to the hospital and getting him thrown out immediately.
TLDR: The armour is sturdy, the squishy human inside it a lot less...
Reminds me of a guy who demonstrated that an anti tank mine won't blow up if you jump on it. He had a faulty mine and was very much dead.
at 3:31 For anyone wondering, that scene was actually a lesson from a veteran fighter teaching newer fighters about combat techniques. He was showing them how effective edge alignment can hit between the lames of a brig and bring an opponent down quickly. His name is Simon Rohrich and he's been fighting for like over 20 years.
That's a thing that always bugged me, even with Todd Cutler's tests on plate armour. They always use high quality, very well tempered armour for their testing. But I strongly suspect that not everyone on a medieval battlefield could afford well tempered armour, I even suspect that only few guys would run around in well tempered armour. Others would probably have had only low quality armour, so that a longbow arrow with a tempered tip could probably penetrate them easily.
I am reminded that a friend of mine took a full-force head hit from behind by a two-handed axe during a Battle of Nations tryout. Gave him a disabling concussion. Which, y'know, given that he got hit by a two-handed axe, is okay, even if it was, in modern parlance, a mission kill.
Also bear in mind that armour alters the modalities. An unarmoured person needs to avoid being hit entirely, or be injured, and can be attacked with the full array of techniques (tip & edge cut, thrust, slash/strike). Armour removes *some* of these techniques, e.g., mail rendering the wearer immune to cuts. It also allows the armoured fighter to accept a strike on an angled section of armour, e.g., redirecting a slash/strike with the forearm, or allowing it to glance off a pauldron, which may enable a counterattack the unarmoured fighter would not have.
Rigid armour also stabilises *parts* of the skeleton; it's much harder to break the knee or elbow of an opponent if they are wearing plate defences, something that's actually fairly easy to do to unarmoured people, leading, again, to a mission kill. Notably, Gothic plate features very narrow gauntlets, favouring stabilisation of the wrist over mobility, which is suggestive of people favouring mounted combat, featuring the fairly immense stresses of lance impacts. Equally notably, the frogmouth helm is specific to the joust, where the big worry was that a jouster might do a header off their horse.
That said . . . some historical plate defences are as thin as 0.5mm. Considering the dents rattan sticks can put into twice that, of better steel, I have no doubt that the right kind of sword, with the right kind of technique, can cleave into, if not *through* something that thin.
That knee part is interesting. A bit like mondern day joint stabilizers work.
@@HappyBeezerStudios Why are you wearing those plate greeves boots? Doctor's orders. I have to keep my joints stablized so they can heal.
Other silly questions: Are bullet resistant vests really bulletproof?
No, but wearing one is still a lot better than wearing nothing. That's basically how it always is with armor, you can't make it completely impervious but you can make it very good at keeping you in one piece.
The issue is an alteration of terms over the years. Bulletproof originally just meant tested against bullets, and the standard usually wasn't "will stop all bullets at all ranges" but more "meets X arbitrary criteria.
Injury is better than dying.
Bullet resistant vests turn a death into a survivable injury.
That doesn't mean you won't have a bad day though.
But then again, a bad day is still better than your last day.
I have seen an UHMWPE armor plate stop a .50bmg. but you're still taking 20,000joules to the chest. That's not survivable.
@@ScottKenny1978 You do realize that the momentum you take is same on both sides (and energy can be wasted in stuff that didn't really do any damage to you)?
@@petrkinkal1509 except that a .50bmg rifle has a muzzle brake to not hit you so hard. It uses some of the gasses to pull the gun forward.
20kjoules applied to a 20lb rifle, minus however much acceleration that brake applies, has a much different physical impact than 20kjoules in a 1.5oz projectile.
It sounds like you are saying that, for the most part, armor IS impervious for most sword blows...it's just the armor wearer who will receive damage XD
Which is true
I used to do full contact medieval reenactment. We hit each other pretty hard with blunt swords, which is probably like using the spine of a falchion... it definitely hurts. My thick, steel great helm has the creases to prove it. And as for giving 100% in fighting, you can sustain that for 4 or 5 minutes before exhausted or probably 2 minutes in hot weather.....
And what’s interesting is that historical battle can last days. I really wonder what’s that like
@@musthaf9 people taking turns and getting extra energy from fighting to the death I'd assume. I don't imagine it's full on battling 24 hours a day, instead it's on and off skirmishes and battles. Both sides need breaks after all.
This reminds me of a fatal injury caused by the older style motorcycle helmets, when sliding down the road the external studs for a visor would grip the road stop the head briefly and cause ‘brain spin’. The rider would look unharmed but be very dead. 🐸😎.
Idk .. 🤔 but i would think also if it gripes the road at an orqward angle then it could also cause neck injuries or broken neck ..
So also dead .. but i one peace 👍
@@ndld4955 Good point and it probably did, the sudden stop would also be a game changer. It’s a bit like ridding a punch that you see coming rather than a sucker punch that you don’t see. When you transfer force or energy it has to go somewhere. Toad 🐸😎.
@@Toadonthehill. yo mama is toad
Well, it's simple physics. With the amount of momentum you are moving at, getting stopped suddenly by your helmet is basically running head first into a brick wall.
The Harley manuscript has been interpreted to include strikes in armour to the elbows, neck, and gauntlets. Part of the text is dated to as early as the 1380s (while officially being dated c. 1450 for the final). The sword some people use for it is an Oakeshott Type XIII/XIIIa.
My cousin does reenactment. One time I asked him about his chainmail. I wanted to know how effective it was. So he helped me put it on, then banged on my chest with a kitchen knife. I was a kid at the time and he was just getting through college. "That still really hurt." "Yeah, but you didn't get cut up." I think that is pretty accurate for this point.
I know at some point it will be said “well, depends on the type of armor and the type of sword , for example, a [historical armor] would/n’t deflect the [historical sword]”
Love these videos
Melvin is the name of such a manboy. He has a deviated septum and can't differentiate P's and B's. "Uhmb technicbally Skall... X Y can Z."
@@anghellicamakes2792 sorry, I didn’t understand yout comment
I am poking fun at people who are overly technical and pedantic. "Melvins"
Hypothetically speaking, where would I go to see Japanese school girls swing swords the size of motorcycles?
Asking the real question here
@@jorgeporras9262 hanime was a nice touch
Played enough in my sca days to know this, if a 2 lb Rattan stick can hit hard enough to ring my bell with modern foam padding and a helmet thats slightly heavier than historical I have no doubt that a 3-pound longsword could generate a solid knockout blow.
It can Ko you but a sword cannot pierce plate armor unless it’s garbage plate armor.
@@strengthisabsolutestrength8215 once you're KOed, it's trivial to find a gap to a critical place, because the areas that are almost impossible to armor are also the areas with major blood vessels exposed. Armpits, groin, or a dagger through the eye slits.
@@strengthisabsolutestrength8215 idk, ive also managed to punch through a breast plate with a doublehanded full body mass thrust. And i suspect that the historical armour quality wasnt as good as the steel we use today..
too many hits to the head, or just distracted by "anime schoolgirls wearing short, tight skirts"? These are the questions we have to ask when the train of thought derails off a cliff...
The train of thought is directly related to the trolley problem.
@@darthplagueis13 with anime schoolgirls wearing short, tight skirts and fighting while you are trying to drive. Yes I can see that.. as a problem..
How would have Medieval battles turned out if they had anime schoolgirls wearing shorts and tight skirts?
@@jamessierpinski3617 It’d have turned to rape.
There’s a reason why men back then kept women away from war whenever they could.
@@jamessierpinski3617 I'm sure there's already an anime in development covering this very important topic!
Maybe this has been done, but wd it be a good idea to list all types of sword/weapon attacks effective against armour? Eg, crushing hits - good against fingers, skull. Mass/energy transfer hit - good against arms, skull, small bones such as collar bone. Penetrating hits: stabs against mail, gambeson, plate joints. Etc.
You pretty much did it. Maybe you could add penetration with excessive force (warhammer spike or lance), and also plate joints can be crushed, so they jam and maybe break bone underneath, but that probably takes more force than a sword can give, unless in mordhau grip.
I view it, possibly incorrectly, sort of like the safety features in a car(i.e. seatbelt, airbag, etc.). Yes they will keep you safe and mostly unharmed from crashes that would otherwise kill or maim you, but that doesn't mean that people drive around not trying to avoid collisions or just recklessly driving because they most likely won't die from it. It is more of a supplemental insurance to smart and cautious behavior for those events that can't be avoided.
Honestly, I wish that more of a material science study of medieval armor and weapons took place. Since being a huge fan of Todd's Workshop and watching his content, many of the tropes revolving armor and weapons seem to be due to a misunderstanding of two key engineering principles: Young's Modulus and Impact Energy.
Medieval weapons were highly limited in the mechanic delivery of their weapons. Which, in many cases, the toughness of metal armor was capable of being resilient against. It wasn't until the invention of chemically propelled ballistics (firearms) that the penetration power of said weaponry negated the overall effectiveness of worn metal armor.
Even with firearms it took a while to out pace armor
Yep, the weight required to protect the torso from gunfire and artillery became too inconvenient. Nowadays, though, it's rather interesting to see that the helmet, breast, and back plate are standard due to advances in material technology (as an interesting aside, .308 rifle platforms have been getting more attention recently as a way to combat now-ubiquitous rifle plates) Plus, with optional side, groin, and deltoid protection becoming common choices for infantrymen (I'm excluding all-inclusive EOD-type suits that are substantially more protective than normal ballistic armor), we may see the return of full harnesses for special use. There have already been a variety of highly breathable full-coverage ballistic helmets made resembling those used for motorcross made. I suspect that the concept is too expensive for general issue (and honestly wouldn't be too desirable or necessary for everyday use), but for special operations or specific units going into heavy combat, they might be used.
Additionally, if there were to be another major war, nuclear, chemical, or biological hazards might spur on the development of a full harness with the option of adding NBC protection. I could see someone pitching it as a two-for-one deal, leaping ahead of the competition by taking advantage of recent armor developments and providing a battle suit that addresses a pressing need for better protection from environmental hazards than legacy solutions (this way, the sweaty, fatiguing, bulky, hard to carry and put on NBC suits and gas masks can be done away with). Perhaps waaaay in the future, we may see mechanical enhancements like the exoskeletons currently being tested integrated into these full harnesses, bringing us one step closer to the space marines of fiction. For now, though, I suspect that we will definitely see more protective types of armor continue to develop separately from exoskeleton-enhanced infantry. In the usual contemporary breast/back and helmet setup, a soldier with exoskeleton leg enhancements (already being tested by the US military) can carry more or the same weight on his body farther, faster, longer, etc. and have a huge edge over less sophisticated infantrymen, especially in rough terrain or over long distances. Perhaps for specific missions, they might choose to try more encompassing harnesses or cobble together their own, stimulating development...fascinating.
Hopefully someone finds this Lindybeige-esque digression interesting, I'd love to hear your thoughts!
The "problem" with Todd's Workshop is that his builds are too good.
Do you think the average quality of the goods back then matched Todd's quality?
That's like 1000 years from now someone finds out a working Gameboy and assume Nintendo quality is the standard quality of our days.
And both you and me know the standard quality is chinese quality.
If something lasts a long time chances are it was good enough to last all this time.
Crappy material isn't made to last.
The problem is that in order to have an actually valid assessment, you need a)actual historical material and b)statistics. It's not enough to run a single test. You need to run lots and lots of them to be sure it's not a fluke. So you'd need a ton of reasonably similar historical originals. And then you have the problem that people will rather look askance at you doing destructive testing on actual historical items. But even just probing the material, taking samples etc. will at least cause some degree of damage. And again, sampling only in one spot is not enough - the material may have different characteristics e.g. at the center of a cuirass vs. at the rim. So in order to have a truly valid understanding of historical armor, you'd basically have to make a mess of the bulk of what's left of it.
Working with reproductions is certainly helpful, but won't tell you anything about the variability of historical output, and as such will only give you a scenario as to what could have happened if the parameters had been identical.
I stopped doing reenactment partly because the last of a long history of hits in battle, a hard polearm hit to the helm broke four teeth, gave me a scar on my forehead and neck and upper back problems forever after.
Who the hell even swings that hard? And I must say your helmet was probably not good enough. You need like 14 gauge (2mm) steel 10 pounds (5kg) helmet :-P
@@InqWiper It wasn't my helmet in that case, but one of a friend of mine that I was thinking of buying, because mine was too heavy. With mine the blow wouldn't have deformed the steel far enough to smash against my head, but anyway most of the damage was done because my head was slammed down and I impacted with my chin against the breastplate, against which almost no medieval helmet would protect (at least not my Klappvisor Bascinet, maybe one with a plate gorget fixed to the helmet). As to whom, we don't know for sure, it was a night battle, and everything was frantic, which was part of the reason i didn't see the blow coming and took me completely unaware and unprepared.
@@GiovanniGelio
Sounds like a really dangerous situation. Go with a heavy helmet if you risk heavy hits :)
plate armor isn't cumbersome... in combat, in other situation(making fire, carrying supply, scratching yourself,...) they're. they also really hot after a while(fighting in the desert must have been a great way to lose weight). That's why no lords or knights wear them indoors despite the added protection against assassination
what do you mean you dont wear full plate in bed? havent you heard that you need to use protection?
@@SpikedKirby and a raincoat to block the gaps
And they don't just get hot, they get really cold as well. Wearing plate armor in sub-zero temperatures is super uncomfortable. It just sucks the warmth right out of you (and don't even think about touching it with your bare skin). Even worse when you get sweaty and the sweat starts to freeze inside of your armor...
And even in temperate weather conditions plate armor is annoying to wear in the rain, because the water will seep through all of the gaps and make everything soggy. And when you start to exert yourself the sweat and water can't easily escape from your armor making things rather steamy inside.
Basically, plate armor is uncomfortable in many weather circumstances. So yeah, people only wore it when expecting combat, not for fun.
@@SpikedKirby I've heard full plate is quiet useful against AIDS (Arrow Impaling Dude Syndrom).
@@Kremit_the_Forg nah I heard Dave got killed with a single arrow in full plate. Granted the arrow was shoved into his face via his visor but
From what I've seen when it comes to topics such as this, it can all be summarised as: "these are the rules that govern how things work, unless they don't".
I remember being at a joust and the lance defected off an oponents shield and hit the opponent full in the face and knocked him out. lucky he was strapped into the Saddle so did not fall off the horse and was ok after a checkup and stuff at the hospital. Even with the best armour money can buy blunt force is no joke
Tournament armor had a lot of extra security added to help protect against exactly that including those stiff helmets that rest on the shoulder. Since tournaments are sport events rather then actual battle they use equipment designed to be used exactly for that. A tournament armor would probably be an liability in a real battle.
This was a great video! I've been watching this channel for I think 5 or 6 years now and you've really gotten better at pacing it and keeping the viewer engaged! Excellent job!
Easy way I explain people the misconceptions about plate armor:
I make the analogy with a motorcycle helmet, It doesnt make your head indestructible, but will save it from veeeeery severe impacts. When you put it on it doesnt instantly make you into a cumbersome, clunky thing; it simply limits your movement/vision/hearing to some degree as well as becoming a bit of a nuissance after a few hours of wearing it non-stop. Great vid Skall, keep sword/armour nerding, we love it!
The kinetic energy has to go somewhere, which is what you're saying about how the blade cannot cause you a fracture because the armour protects you, but the force/energy behind the swing doesn't magically disappear. Just like modern armour for firearms in some regard
Something particularly insidious about brain injury is that most of the time you can't even tell when you have it
If start talking like Yoda you do, a sign it might be...
I love this channel. Been subbed for... What, 5 years? I think? It's great. I love learning new stuff, AND it's great to be able to somewhat keep up with my military-strategy-enthusiastic buddies.
Thanks Skallagrim. I appreciate your content.
Dude I’ve been watching your channel for years now and I gotta say you have had great stuff the entire time, love watching, it’s exciting and I always learn stuff
Plot armor > Plate armor
You need to set up your power hits. That's what jabs, feints, and footwork / angles are for.
skall, you are such a unique flavor. I don't stop by often, but when I need it, your always here. never change XD
Hahaha I’m so here for the bloopers, very happy you added that. Great video!
Just my thoughts about the Historical art pieces. I am just a fan of this, I'm not a physicist or historian. Do I think that it is exaggerated? Yes. But I also believe that just because something is exaggerated it doesn't mean that it is incorrect.
The force of the swing is still concentrated on the edge of the blade where it contacts the armour which brings with a lot of force. Knocking someone unconscious with the swing or even piercing through if impacted on thinner non angled or curved armour from horseback seems possible.
Also quick thing about horseback that people forget it's the force of the riding horse, full swing or couched lance is not the only thing to take into consideration. If the target is riding on another horse towards you then the force of the thrust or swing is amplified by the rider changing into your weapon.
Think about it like a bag of chips, it's much easier to open it when pulling in two different directions at once, as well as the thinner the bag the less force it takes to open.
Well shit I literally came here between watching anime waifus swing big swords for a break and you come for me in the first 30 seconds of the video
Universe is sending you a memo. Skallagrim is just a messenger ;)
Then counterattack, mate. Find him an anime full of Viking waifus.
I was really caught off guard by that. I mean there are assholes who mythologize history on all sides. And sure weebs have a higher proportion of them. But not everyone who watches anime is a weeb. Hell, i just the real world context of this stuff facinating amd my favorite show is kill la kill. (it is a really deep and meaningful story about sexuality and growing up as a young woman. I will die on this hill.)
...well? Are you gonna share what it was?
@@user-dp7xd5lq8l Vinland Saga can get him covered, minus the waifu part.
Great closing bloopers!
New to your channel and I just want to say that I love your content and I hope you keep it up man big fan
The real adversary to plate armor was the weather. When I was a wee lad, I loved knights. I remember my grandma buying me a book about them and it was theorized that 40% of plate-armored knights died due to heat-stroke or hypothermia.
I imagine heat stroke would be the more common by far summer would already be hot and a suit of armor trapping the heat wouldn't help. But in winter I'd imagine the knight would already be wearing insulated clothing toss that in with heat trapping armor and I can see it killing someone.
And thats not even mentioning the crusades
40% seem way to many but heat cause fatigue and a fatigued warrior are easier to defeat so maybe they included that in the statistics?
Ya I'm guessing that's a really high estimate. If half the mafuckers that wore it died just walking around nobody would use it
You dont see a whole lot of plate armor in warm weather areas even though they knew about it.
Re: using the back as a blunt instrument?
From my use of machetes, this is absolutely something I do if I don't want to cut the thing but simply bash it to bits. Snapping a tree branch that's too thick to chop or something is much easier with the blunt side.
Awesome video, had a lot of fun watching, thanks !
I always love your outtakes, as they remind me I'm not the only person who forgets what they're saying while saying it.
I prefer 21 year old Japanese college school girls swinging katanas thank you.
Bold of you to assume that they are of-age...
@@jooot_6850 anime girls age are almost always ambiguous
@@dedf15 They are of-age until stated otherwise. Mostly, maybe.
@@arya31ful that's ur defence eh?
Totally, just ignore the parts where they’re almost all stated to be high-school students.
Man, I can't get behind doing a murder stroke without protection.
The hand shock would cut your hands up!
didnt skallagrim already prove that this wouldnt happen?
I always enjoy the content sir.
The rattling of the to-be-tested sword makes me nervous.
Legitimately thought you said "Skill share is an online Nerding Community"
Only comment I would add is that the "power of pain" still shouldn't be discounted, yes people hopped up on adrenaline might not feel certain blows but unexpectedly being hit really hard no matter how mad or excited you are can disorient you enough to make a mistake or just give up, there doesn't have to be any visible damage to the armor and nothing more than a bruise to the person underneath for it to be a painful and effective strike.
At first I thought those bits on the spine of your falchion were weird but I've never thought of them potentially be blunt instruments. Now I love them
Some people take it even further than swords and seem to think you have to shoot a hussar point blank, as in muzzle all but pressed against their armor, with a 50+ cal musket to penetrate. There is a manual that suggested that to arquebusers but I think their reason was less "It is the only way to get through!" and more it was "It is the only way to ENSURE it gets through"
00:14 actually, I like a certain guy swinging a big large hunk of iron.
A liver shot is a great equalizer. The liver shot with an ax is fantastic! Taking a hit to the liver usually drops you-Google Micky Ward liver shots.
Love the editing on this one. Keep it up Skal 0:)
Loved the bonus bloopers! :D
I want to bring the "other guy's sword" idea to the table.
Take your sword that you paid an obscene amount for, with its razor sharp edge and it's gold leaf inlay and see how much damage you can do to an anvil...
You're not even going to try, you know that swords are not made to chop anvils in half, it doesn't happen in the real world, right?
now
take the other guy's sword and see how badly you can deface the anvil while fucking up his sword in an application it was clearly never designed for...
There were specific medieval weapons made for the purpose of fighting armored opponents, there were specific techniques used for fighting armored opponents, these would not exist if just chopping through armour by hitting harder was a feasible proposition; having said that, a lot of swords, if abused hard enough, can give you a not bery nice experience in even really well made plate armor. In real life you don't get a god-mode. Armor and shields are a gamble - you're betting that they make you so much harder to kill that you get to kill the other guy first. There is no armor which can protect you 100% from all cutting attacks, just like there is no sword which can cut through all armour. You change tactics and try something different because it's like trying to kill a polar bear with a swiss army knife. It's posdible, but you wouldn't want to be that poor bastard who has to do it.
I'd imagine any blow with a hard object, would be enough to at least cause concern to an armoured foe..
Still tho, bring a mace 😅👍
Or a hammer
Great video, as always.
Whenever I wonder about something, skallagrim uploads a video about it and explains it to me in detail. ❤️
One of these days, Skall's going to be saying "fuck me" in the bloopers and suddenly we'll hear Cara in the background chiming in with a snarky remark. 😆
"you cannot damage armor with the spine of a sword"
Go watch any extended Buhurt HMB fighting. ALL they use are BLUNT weapons - i.e. equivalent to the spine of a sword. Armor gets broken all the time. People get knocked out often enough for it to be a concern. All with blunt weapons
Chances are the armor is cheap which is why it keeps breaking. Good quality armor is a lot more expensive than a good quality sword.
Thank you for this video
I do believe this is the best RUclips video intro I have ever see.
A sword heavy enough could act like a blunt weapon dealing blunt impact damage instead of cutting damage (and we know blunt blunt impact damage can damage armor and hurt the wearer even if the armor isn't completely punctured or destroyed), basically the weight of the heavy sword and the force of the swing turn it into a poor man's metal club.
Armour can entirely defeat any attempt to cut into the body, but was typically thinner on the arms. Swords could certainly be used to batter an opponent, as when armour prevented cutting they were essentially long bars of iron.
That's the thing. Swords are very versatile weapons. They can cut, thrust and bludgeon someone. People think of them as merely cutting weapons.
Really glad you made this video! I'm still in the process of doing so, but, I'm going to be posting a video in the future about something similar but with Japanese blades.
Just noticed the section headings - really helpful !!!!!!!!!! Yay!
I have played dwarf fortress. Even the heavily armored creature can die to puny sword.
Really easily if anything...
Surely there were cases where armour thickness was not the "optimal" maybe too thick or maybe too thin, good quality or poor quality, etc so surely some Knights or soldiers may fought with a thin bad quality amor because debts, mismanagement or poverty, so they where not able to afford a good quality product, in those instances it can be possible that a sword can actually pierce or cutt through the armor, and i think that was not so uncommon. Is time to testing to see what happens.
Also maybe if it is already damaged
I doubt a sword could cut metal armour, even if it is low quality. Piercing it with a thrust or badly deforming with a strike on the other hand, likely.
@@CyberVonCyberus maybe because even a thin plate deforms
@@KarlKeesel Well it would to be a tiny metal sheet (about no more than 2mm thick) for a sword to actually cut metal, most sword tests/competitions I've seen where someone cut through metal always used a really thin sheet of metal as target.
Years ago, I was told a story of an industrial steelsmith. How he put in 3 Decades of hard work and a good reputation. One day he was asked how strong he was at a card game. One of the ladies asked for a demonstration. He said he can he can lift her up in the chair that she was sitting in with one arm and the bets were on. After all was tallied, he reached over and lifted the woman in her chair, by the chair's leg, and moved his wrist, jostling her about, to demonstrate he had complete control, without dumping her from the chair.
So it's not hard to imagine a well-seasoned man-at-arms, with good arms, cleaving another warrior in twain. A good deal of these experienced warriors were built like football/rugby players and were probably in better shape.
There was a test where someone managed to cut through a samurai helmet with a katana, a while back. Supposedly, the helmet splitting cut comes from an age when some helmets were that low a quality, likely amongst the Ashigaru.
I like historical accurate armor but I'm also a degenerate weeb...
Did someone say murder stroke?
This channel intro has to be the most badass thing I have ever seen
Interesting take, and I do think nuance is important. Also, them bloopers. :D
swords make arguments easy
they do have a point.
i let myself out.
Hey shout out to the Colorado Avalanche knight! Hahaha I wouldn’t want to mess with a hockey player who fights in his spare time.
Thanks for the video
@8:11 ahhh the Falchion from Matt and Ilya...such a beautiful sword!!
Is it just me who takes channels with sponsers from SkillShare, CuriosityStream, and Brilliant as channels who have been verified as an educational and ones that are quite accurate?
the usage of a mouth piece, is very important to prevent brain damage. just because you are not getting hit in your chin, does not mean that your jaw are not colliding against the rest of your skull. btw that's the main reason why we boxers use it
I love your falchion! I think you mentioned in a previous video where you acquired it.
we love ya brother keep up the good work, Don't mean to laugh but them outtakes is funny.
Thanks. You *are* supposed to laugh at the outtakes. :)