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Old 07-14-2016, 04:24 AM   #50
Tomsdad
 
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Brighton
Default Re: Swords and plate

Quote:
Originally Posted by safisher View Post
So it's still evidence you need? (Since I was on my phone, I didn't feel the need to drill down the to the html level.) Very well.

I would suggest you review the fighting books of Camillo Agrippa, Di Grassi, Talhoffer. Most of these manuals will include pole weapon fighting, and many of them will include illustrations of men in armor fighting with these weapons. You tend to see something like this:
http://selohaar.org/VeritasSwordplayAcademy/index.htm

....
Again that is a picture of two men in plate fighting with duelling halberds, but such a thing is not in question.

It is not however a picture of a halberd cutting though either one's plate. Do you have a picture of that (in an actual fighting manual)?

Quote:
Originally Posted by safisher View Post
...

Isn't it weird that even a blunt weapon is being swung against armor to which it is impenetrable?...

No because blunt impact was more effective at transmitting damage through armour than cutting blades, but it's relative.

But the basic point is if you're facing someone in such armour you don't just give up and surrender, you rely on what tactics you have even if they're only reduce the disadvantage.




Quote:
Originally Posted by safisher View Post
But the quote certainly makes clear they used the swing cut. You can't seriously be claiming the halberdiers didn't use the edge, can you? I whole unit of guys with massive two-handed axes, and no one strikes with them?
No because the Swiss did occasionally fight people who were not completely encased head to toe in full plate (this was actually the majority of people on battlefields).

So quite likely faced situations where their cutting blades were very useful. That's one of the main features of such weapons, their versatility.

So yes they had great big axe blades, but they also had spikes, and hooks / hammer heads as well.



Quote:
Originally Posted by safisher View Post
...

And just the next paragraph, it says:

"So, the iron halberd was the first versatile pole-weapon that put the foot soldier at a distinct advantage over the knight: it could crack through armor...."
Which is a bit weird because the writer also rightly points out in the page before that the halberd was in no way invented by the Swiss, but had existed for a long time. Which means it had coexisted along side armoured warriors let alone knights for a considerable period of time in which the implications of that assertion does not seem to have followed through into reality?

Last edited by Tomsdad; 07-14-2016 at 06:05 AM.
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