07-15-2016, 01:57 PM | #101 | ||||
Join Date: Dec 2012
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Re: Swords and plate
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Also, remember, a dueling halberd was not usually a battlefield weapon, a full halberd in GURPS does sw+5 damage, which means the average damage from a ST12 soldier is 10.5 damage and caps at 13 (or 9.5 damage if converting adds to dice and then it caps at 17 damage). This means that it only needs to do a little over average damage to cut through heavy mail or Gothic limb plate. Hardly an ineffective weapon against armor. Also, with average damage it is still doing 4.5-5.5 crushing, crippling to a joint (so a major wound) even without slicing through the armor. And this all discounts the fact that a halberd had a pick on the other end, something that you seem to ignore in most of your responses. This would have made it far more effective against armor. Quote:
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The current problem with GURPS is that an average attack from a dueling halberd will do 4.5 cutting damage, so over 6 wounding through armor that was considered sufficiently strong to forego the use of a shield. Should an average attack be virtually crippling? Compare this to the hammer portion of a pollaxe which does sw+4 cr, averaging the same 9.5 dmg, but crushing, so it is only doing 4.5 wounding. From a game logic perspective, why have the armor defeating hammer head if it does less damage through armor? Likewise, even a longsword from a similarly strong person (ST12) average cutting damage against the same armor (1.5 cut) when, for all the manual evidence, that was considered very unlikely. Last edited by phayman53; 07-15-2016 at 02:15 PM. |
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07-15-2016, 02:21 PM | #102 | ||||||
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Swords and plate
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I'm also curious as to which battles you refer to. Let's consider Morgarten, for example. We've got a bunch of Austrian knights probably mostly wearing DR 5 (Heavy Segmented Plate) armor. The Swiss are wielding at least dueling halberds, so they likely have ST 12, but let's say they instead have ST 11 and the Huge Weapons (ST) Perk. That's a base of 2d+1 cutting damage. On a normal attack, they have a 1-in-6 chance of outright penetrating the armor, cutting through it. If they opt to All Out Attack (which is probably rather common in large melees), damage jumps to 3d cut, which has a 50% chance of doing this. Now, if the knights have loadouts similar to French chevaliers of the same era, they'll also be wearing a DR 3* mail haubergon beneath their coat of plates. If we add these DR's together, it does indeed become outright impossible (outside of critical hits) to cut through the knights' torso armor, but personally I think it makes more sense to assess each layer on its own - a backing of mail shouldn't make a coat of plates any harder to cut through, so as long as damage exceeds twice the higher DR, treating it all as cutting seems appropriate. It frequently reduces injury by 33%, not 50%. Even if you lack the ability to ever get through torso DR, you'll still often want to use cutting weapons for when targeting less-armored foes and locations. This doesn't make much difference when fighting the chevalier (as the 7+ damage you need to start cutting against the arms or legs would most likely cripple them without the cutting modifier), but might against lesser foes (in the case of Morgarten, all the foes who weren't heavily armored cavalry, as well as the horses themselves). |
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07-15-2016, 03:10 PM | #103 | ||||
Join Date: Dec 2012
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Re: Swords and plate
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My point was to show other ways of interpreting the evidence (in light of its problems or possible problems) to indicate that, in combat against a standing, defending opponent, it is not clear that the axe portion of a halberd was super effective at cutting all the way through armor and into the person. This is why it can be instructive to learn from modern tests (and some are far better than others), even though they are far from perfect. Usually, in fact, the tests are rigged in favor of the weapon, not the armor (with bow tests often being a major exception to this). They tend to uses a braced target with insufficient padding, improperly manufactured mail, and/or poor reproductions of plate armor. That said, in recent decades HEMA practitioners and reenactors who seek to be faithful to surviving equipment have come a long way in dispelling some of the myths that circulated even in high level scholarship (such as heavy, unwieldy swords, difficulty of movement in armor, etc.). Quote:
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Last edited by phayman53; 07-15-2016 at 03:25 PM. |
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07-15-2016, 04:59 PM | #104 |
Join Date: Oct 2004
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Re: Swords and plate
Looks like I had a hang fire on this post. See below.
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Buy my stuff on E23. My GURPS blog, Dark Journeys, is here. Fav Blogs: Doug Cole here , C.R. Rice's here, & Hans Christian Vortisch here. Last edited by safisher; 07-15-2016 at 05:26 PM. |
07-15-2016, 05:21 PM | #105 | ||
Join Date: Oct 2004
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Re: Swords and plate
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As to the rest, I appreciate the conversation. I hope I have presented enough here to at least somewhat defend my abhorrence of the EP rule. Good day. |
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07-15-2016, 05:23 PM | #106 | ||||||||||
Join Date: Oct 2004
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Re: Swords and plate
For anything short of these pole weapons, indeed it does.
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07-15-2016, 06:00 PM | #107 | |||||
Join Date: Dec 2012
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Re: Swords and plate
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And what evidence do you have of halberd blades cutting through 15th Century Gothic breastplates at all? Certainly they killed men in such armor, but how often was it by the axe blade through the breastplate? What chronicler talks about that? Quote:
Likewise, I have dismissed a narrow interpretation of the one contemporary chronicler you site (unless there is another you site that I have missed, it is a long thread) as problematic in assuming he is being precise in describing how the Swiss Halberds were used to kill so many knights (which side of the weapon was primarily used to penetrate armor, not that they were very effective in killing them, or even that they hacked to pieces downed knights). I have already explained why, and yes, I do rely some on modern tests and evidence like Wisby. We disagree, that is fine. ...and I do not dispute that halberds were used by peasants to kill armored knights. I am not even disputing that the axe blade could cut through the armor at times. I am disputing that this should happen on the majority of the blows. Quote:
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Wait, now I am confused--you seem to be saying that Dan's rules in LT do too much damage with this point. Or are you saying that blunt trauma should be very small until the cutting threshold is reached, but that the cutting threshold should be less than Dan's 2x DR? |
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07-15-2016, 06:11 PM | #108 |
Join Date: Dec 2012
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Re: Swords and plate
@safisher:
I just wanted to say that I think we probably are closer to agreeing than my posts have made it sound (I get a bit carried away in debates sometimes, especially over forums). I think that doubling DR, like Dan's patch rule in LT (that even he doesn't really like if I recall correctly) is probably too harsh for axes and halberds, etc. However, I still think the RAW effect of such weapons on DR is too generous. I would eye-ball it at about 1.5x DR (EDIT: maybe a little more), but fractions and rounding annoy me too much in a game like GURPS, I would prefer a smooth progression. I also would want the ability to do blunt trauma injury through the armor, like you suggest, before beating this threshold (and not cr damage). I just have not thought of a good way to do it without radically changing things. You seem to be happy to err on the side of GURPS basic RAW, and I would rather err on the side of the LT patch. Last edited by phayman53; 07-15-2016 at 06:27 PM. |
07-15-2016, 08:43 PM | #109 | |||
Join Date: Oct 2004
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Re: Swords and plate
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As the author says in one pollaxe manual: "And from there, following up one foot after the other, you can give him a jab with the said queue, running it through the left hand, at the face: either there or wherever seems good to you. Or swing at his head." "you can draw back your queue, hitting against the side of his with your mail, or stepping behind him and hitting at his head." "Whichever guard you are on, you can try to hit him on the head. Not so that, if you should miss, your axe passes beyond him: because that would be dangerous. And immediately this blow has been accomplished, you must make a feint of having another go at his head" And so on. Hmm. Well, we have this one, of Richard III: "More likely, death came from either the axe-blade of a staff weapon, such as a bill or halberd (then favored by English soldiers), which sliced through the base of his skull, creating a 6 × 5 cm wound; and/or a sword tip or the point of a staff weapon that penetrated 10 cms into the skull, also from the under-side. Interestingly, the large slicing wound fits with the one account that names the weapon used to kill Richard, a halberd. The massive trauma to Richard’s skull indicates that he was probably both helmetless and lying prone, face down. Sword blades appear to have caused the remaining four wounds to the skull and atlas vertebra." But that's not a wound through a helmet. Possibly. Ewart Oakeshott says: "In this battle Charles himself, fighting heroically to cover the retreat of his broken army, was cut down by a halberd, cleft through helmet and skull by a tremendous blow which split his head from temple to chin." He also says: "Duke Leopold and twenty-six of his noble companions were buried in the Abbey of Konigsfeld; in 1898 their tombs were opened and it was found that most of the skulls were dreadfully split by halberd-strokes." CW Oman says: "[halberd] the most ponderous... the most murderous of weapons. Swung by strong arms it could cleave helmets and plate-armour as no sword could do." Well, let's just examine what we know about medieval mass graves. Remember what I said about the archaelogy being not all the helpful. But anyway, let's see what we have: Here's the total for Towton (that's a late 15th century battle) "Many of the skeletons had perimortmen injuries, trauma that occurred around the time of death, and some had healed wounds from previous fights. Most of the trauma was to the skulls: 113 wounds on the 28 recovered skulls, and a total of 43 postcranial (the bones below the skull) injuries on all 38 bodies. An osteological exam of the skull wounds suggest that 73 were caused by sharp force trauma, 28 were produced by blunt force trauma, and 12 were the result of puncture wounds. Archaeologists believe that a weapon consistent with the pollaxe could have easily made these injuries." Further: "forty-three men killed at the battle fought outside what was then a village in 1461...Wounds could not be found on thirteen of the bodies, although this does not necessarily mean that these men did not suffer wounds, only that their wounds failed to impact the bones. Of the remaining thirty bodies, only three had single wounds (one sharp-force, one blunt-force, and one pen-etrative-force), while all others had multiple wounds. One man received eight sharp-force trauma; one man had nine sharp-force and two pene-trative-force wounds; and another suffered ten sharp-force and three blunt-force trauma. Twenty-seven out of twenty-eight crania found (two skeletons did not include crania, while another had a cranium too damaged for study) displayed wounds: Seventy-three were sharp-force (fifty-one of which penetrated the skull); twenty-eight were blunt-force (eighteen of which penetrated); and twelve were penetrative-force (all of which penetrated). Any of these had the potential to cause death. Ten bodies showed wounds to the neck, three to the shoulders, twelve to the arms, twenty to the hands and wrists, and seven to the legs and feet. Weapons potentially causing these wounds included swords, daggers, maces, war hammers, staff weapons, longbow arrows, and possibly cross-bow bolts. What is almost unique among excavated bodies exhibiting violent trauma is how many of these wounds were made to the rear and back of the skull by men wielding their weapons from above. Initially, this led to the conclusion that the men were prisoners who were executed while kneeling by standing soldiers; however, absent written evidence that this happened at Towton, it is more likely that they were Lancastrian soldiers fleeing on foot from the battlefield who were ridden down and killed by Yorkist horsemen. In 2005, four more bodies were excavated from beneath the dining room of Towton Hall, all exhibiting similar wounds to those studied previously, but a detailed report of these bodies has not yet been published." From Wisby (mid 14th century): "The largest number of wounds was from sharp-edged weapons (swords or axes), with 126 bodies suffering penetrations (from bolts or the points of staff weapons), and sixty with both sharp-force and penetrative trauma. Cranial wounds were frequent (most of which would have probably caused instant death) although the majority of wounds were to the arms and legs and would not have been immediately fatal. Those not slain instantly most likely died more slowly by exsanguination, for all those found in the grave-mounds at Solberga had died during the battle." From Aljubarrota in Portugal, August 1385 "Sharp-force trauma, the result of wounds made by swords and axes, was numerous, as was penetrative trauma; wounds made by lances and arrows. Several sharp-force cuts were to the head, some quite deep and likely fatal, and there were many arrow and bolt wounds to the frontal and parietal bones of the cranium, suggesting that bows and crossbows shot these projectiles from in front, with a relatively steep arc. Many wounds were also to the limbs, only three of which showed complete amputation, confirming that limb-loss during battle was comparatively rare and that, when it did happen, even such a significant trauma could perhaps be survived. One Aljubarrota soldier was fighting on the healed stump of a leg that, because of the roughness of the cut, was likely the result of an earlier battlefield wound. Several other bodies also showed previous wounds that had healed or begun to heal." What we have in these cases, for whatever reason, is a lot of sharp force trauma wounds. Were these wounds received through armor? We don't know. Possibly. Were they caused by axes and polearms? Probably some. Were they caused by cutting weapons? Yes, by definition. What we do know is that there were a lot of them. More than other wounds. The main thing to point out is that this was during periods of history in which most everyone was wearing some type of armor. I'll leave you to conclude what you will from that. Quote:
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Buy my stuff on E23. My GURPS blog, Dark Journeys, is here. Fav Blogs: Doug Cole here , C.R. Rice's here, & Hans Christian Vortisch here. Last edited by safisher; 07-15-2016 at 09:01 PM. |
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07-15-2016, 08:53 PM | #110 | |||||
Join Date: Oct 2004
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Re: Swords and plate
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