Swords and plate

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

http://www.allenantiques.com/Breastp...s%20Study.html

Armor measured here ranges from 28 mils (750 microns) - to 285 mils, or about 7,200 microns. So which "historical armor" are *you* talking about, since it varies by 10x in thickness for those seven breastplates measured, and can vary within the breastplate itself by by a factor of 2-4?

I'm talking about the vast majority of historical plate (that was thicker than 750 microns), an assumption that I think is borne out by your figures. And certainly by anything else I've seen. As you say 750 and less microns is rather rare.


Looking at your link the 28 mil figure seems to be limited to some bits of the side of the first item (it's not exactly clear where on the side the lower figure occurs), and gets pretty close to that at the edge of the arm hole on the fifth one. The first piece's thickness varies (as they all do) from 0.028 all the way up to 0.11 inch at it thickest areas, but yeah I agree that's not the thickest breastplate either overall or in detail.

I think that if we are going to have a reasonable discussion it is reasonable to make reasonable assumptions about each other's points so that we don't have to prefix every statement with every single possible qualification.

So yes when I talk about hand held weapons against historical armour I'm not talking about stuff that was that less than 1mm thickness all over (extremely rare and likely not intended for actual combat but more show or dress armour). But actually talking about stuff that it would be reasonable to expect to go up against.

Equally in the other direction I'm not couching this conversation in terms of the 8mm thick breastplates that were on the other extreme end of the scale that would be what DR26+. I don't do that because it it would be unreasonable in this discussion for me to keep saying "that wouldn't get past DR27" as a general comment about hand held weapons and plate armour interaction over a very long period of time.

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Can the axe cut through the (more or less) DR 2 thin bits? I bet it can. Can it cut through the 1/4" thick parts (probably DR 12-14+)? Well, no. Are all of these historical armors? Obviously. So when you say "can't cut through" which one of these are you talking about? Which PART of which one of these?

As above of course there is a range of thickness's found in historical armours, I've never argued otherwise. It is obvious that there is a range of performance to go with that. However the majority of the majority of them were thicker.
As to which part of the armour, yes there were thinner and thicker bits, this is already happily covered by the rules for halving DR in the armour chinks rules on pg400.

A rule that also seems to happily cover the issue mentioned later about how to account for the variable thickness in plate in a game system. It's also a rule I've mentioned in this thread before for how to defeat such armour with hand held weapons.

So yes I reckon an axe would get through DR2, and would be able to even with both of our tweaks. Perhaps more relevantly it would do so without negating anything I've been posting.

On the broader point about variation in thickness and construction within a single piece of armour. As you say that does complicates things, but such variation tended to be part of optimising such armour. Stuff like angled armour, oblique deflection and all the rest. Now as you say this stuff is fiddly to specifically pick out and account for in a game system (and I wouldn't necessarily suggesting doing so in anything other than the broadest terms).

But what it does mean is that actual protection against likely incoming attacks in a combat situation was better than just what abstract thickness of various parts suggest. Now I'm not saying that in order to add any abstract protection value to armour in general (or trying to suggest you are not fully aware of this).
But pointing out that in terms of combat effectiveness there's more to this than just taking a calliper and recording thicknesses, and that as a variable it will favour the armour and disfavour the attack in the context of this discussion.

Again I'm not trying to suggest you don't know about angular protection etc, I'm making a point that is relevant to the historical performance of armour vs. the attacks that was aimed at it in combat.

The chink rules would seem to cover some of this, as in being able to direct your attacks so as to that avoid that kind of things, but at the trade-off of needing increased accuracy, favourable conditions and/or suitable weapons to do so.

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

You have seemed to be arguing that the axe vs ANY plate is simply a waste of time, could never penetrate. If that's not your position, please feel free to clarify.

Please can you point to where I have made such a blanket statement*. More specifically where I've said of any thickness including extremely thin plate down to 350 microns which as per you cite isn't historically in evidence, or even 750 microns which was the thinnest historical armour you cited. Which I agree would be much less resistant to axe blades and anything else come to that.

Because I have in several posts pointed out the chinks rules which would cover those 750 micron areas you cited as a way that hand held weapons got past historical plate.


I wouldn't mind but I well remember several threads here where I was called out for pointing out exactly the same thing as you do now ;-) (not by you though).




*TBH I've gone back and checked my posts, in your last post you said I hadn't used such qualified terms like sub-optimal, but in post 25 I specifically used that term! Similarly in my post 51 I finish with: "an absolute position is rarely a correct one."



EDIT: one thing I should add is the chinks rules in pg 400 doesn't actually allow cutting attacks to target chinks, which is probably a bit of an unrealistically hard cut off distinction.
I'd probably allow it with a penalty with view to the actually wepoan in question (which would fit the progression of imp weapons that were specifically designed to do this that get a bonus). But that all said these weaker, thinner parts were pretty limited and designed to be hard to target in the general run of things.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Good gravy. I knew plate armor could be thin and function. But that starting thickness is literally thinner than paper. That also impresses upon me just how uniform steel had to be to avoid slight imperfections causing tearing when "smooshing" it that thin.

Thing is none of those breast plates were uniformly 0.028 inch thick (such a thing would I think have been mechanically extremely hard to produce at all at the time).

0.028 is the thinnest part of the whole thing, which has variation of thicknesses through out topping out at 0.11 inch or just under 3mm.

In terms of overall structural strength of the piece, those thinnest areas would be supported by the thicker areas.



OK time for a metaphor that I think is somewhat relevant to this discussion (sorry it's not aimed at you):


If you and I were having a discussion about the overall historical performance of 50mm anti tank guns in WW2, would we spend much time discussing the performance of 50mm guns against the turret top armour of the Chaffee M24 tank.
If I was to use the term "historical WW2 tank armour", would we be using the top turret armour of the M24 as a defining point, even though the M24 did operate in the same theatre as 50mm cannon. Even though I'm sure at some point in the war there was specific instances of a 50mm cannon firing at that tank, and even possibly at that specific sub location.
More importantly would we draw broad conclusions about the performance of the 50mm gun in WW2 against enemy tanks from its ability against the top turret armour of the M24.


(yes I realise no metaphor is going to be exact, and "50mm gun" is a more specific thing with more precisely measurable effects than the broader 'axe blades' or even 'cutting blades')

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by safisher

“Also the Swiss have in their hands death weapons, which have been called in popular speech ‘Helnbarten,’ and are very frightful. These slice like a razor and slash into pieces such strongly armed opponents.”

Razor, slash. Hmm.

I'm not entirely up on my 14th century nomenclature. Does "strongly armed" refer explicitly to "heavily armored," or is it more "well equipped?"

Originally Posted by safisher

"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. An expressly offensive weapon, its value, then, was that it significantly decreased the protective appeal of plate armor. While it also left the halberdier vulnerable—it had to be carried with both hands, so those who wielded it had to give up the shield—its effectiveness was apparently worth it, especially for footsoldiers like the Swiss, who were lightly armed anyway."

As Anthony notes, this doesn't indicate cutting through armor. In fact, "crack" strongly implies it's not cutting, but rather damaging the armor via blunt trauma. The author doesn't actually say one way or the other, unfortunately.

Originally Posted by safisher

John Clements, Medieval Swordsmanship:
"Quite common were heavy axes, halberds, and pole-axes with blade heads especially able to dent, gash, or pierce heavier armor."

Indeed, I don't think "gash" is going to be confused with anything else, so I'll certainly agree this quote is explicitly stating these weapons could cut through armor.

Originally Posted by safisher

James C. Bradford, International Encyclopedia of Military History
"Axes, flanged maces, and the pollaxe, (a combination of axe-head, hammer, and spike) was developed to attack and defeat armor by hacking and crushing it."

To me, this more implies blunt trauma - hacking is the action, crushing is the result. This may just be me reading my biases into the quote, however.

Originally Posted by safisher

Ewart Oakeshott, A Knight and His Armor
"In a battle at Courtrai in Flanders (1302), the halberd was wielded by burly Flemish townsmen who wiped out a large and splendidly equipped force of French knights."

Here, there's no indication that the halberd's axe head went through heavy armor. A halberd is equipped with other strikers more suited to piercing armor, after all, and even without penetrating the French armor the axe head could have proven useful (for downing horses, inflicting blunt trauma, etc).

Originally Posted by safisher

Emily Sebastian, Technology of the Medieval and Early Modern Worlds
"The halberd was a specialized weapon for fighting armored men-at-arms and penetrating knightly armor...the halberd could penetrate the best plate armor, allowing infantrymen to inflict heavy casualties on their mounted opponents"

The halberd's back spike is exceptional at penetrating armor. The quote gives no indication that it was the axe head that did this.

Originally Posted by safisher

Larry H. Addington, The Patterns of War Through the Eighteenth Century
"the axe-like halberd, which could cleave through armor and flesh alike"

Trevor Nevitt Dupuy, The Evolution of Weapons and Warfare
"the halberd ... It could cleave through helmet and armor, sever a sword blade, or fell a horse with a blow."

Charles Oman, A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages: 1278-1485 A.D
"The halberd...swung by strong arms it could cleave helmets and plate-armour as no sword could do."

Agreed, all three of these are clear endorsements of the axe head cutting through armor.

Originally Posted by safisher

We don't need physics, all we need is historical evidence. We have that. It's much more accurate than trying to rebuild the circumstances through theory alone.

We have anecdotes, and the opinions of certain scholars. Granted, these aren't things one should simply dismiss, but figuring out how physically difficult something is to do should prove useful... provided we do it right. I'm not certain I did do it right, however, so if anyone can shed some light on that*, I'd appreciate it. As it stands, my analysis indicates that if someone with ST 17 can cut and wound you through your armor when swinging a halberd's axe head, someone with only ST 10 could do so with a thrust.

*"You're wrong" isn't very useful; "You're wrong, and here are (some of) the faulty assumptions you made" is more so, and "You're wrong, and here's how you'd actually do it" would be phenomenally useful. Similarly, "You're right" isn't very useful, but "You're right, and here's why" would be.

Originally Posted by safisher

The sources clearly denotes cutting through plate with halberds.

Some of your new ones do, yes, and I thank you for that. Prior to that, while the dissertation certainly stated the halberd could get through plate, the only indication of it getting through armor with the axe head was from a battle in which full plate wasn't worn.

Originally Posted by safisher

Low-Tech make it functionally impossible. Which does not jive with historical sources.

ST 13, All Out (Strong) Attack with a halberd, does 4d-1 cut. An average hit will cut through DR 6, and you have a 1-in-6 chance of cutting through DR 8. ST 12, Normal Attack with a dueling halberd, does 2d+3 (or 3d-1) cut. Going a bit above average (41.7% or 37.5%) will cut through DR 5, and DR 6 is a possibility (around 1-in-6 either way). Difficult, but not impossible.

Originally Posted by safisher

Certainly the wording and rules in LT make that claim. I'm not the only one to think this.

We must be reading it differently, then. To me, the wording and rules indicate that, unless you outmatch the armor, a cutting weapon is often no better than a crushing one. That hardly makes cutting weapons useless.

Originally Posted by safisher

Jim Bradbury, The Medieval Siege
"Charles [the Bold] to battle at Nancy, where he was killed. His naked body was identified two days later in the frozen mud, half eaten by wolves, his helmet and head split by a Swiss halberd."

Michael Stephenson, The Last Full Measure: How Soldiers Die in Battle
"the Swiss infantry, “slashing and striking with their terrible halberds, shearing through helms,”

Count two more for cutting through armor, then. I think you've made a pretty solid case that there are plenty of scholars out there that disagree with the assertion that humans can't cut through plate.

Originally Posted by safisher

Nicely put. Agreed. Every effective blow against plate will have some chance of denting it, reducing it's DR. It might be semi-ablative in theory, but that seems overly harsh.

I'm hoping to have something like this when I complete my armor and injury Overhaul. There, I'm thinking that denting (or penetrating) armor will give the armor a targetable "wound," which can be targeted at a penalty or hit randomly. Doing so means you automatically hit at a good angle (the dent essentially guides your weapon to its center) and you are dealing with a reduced (or eliminated, if the armor was penetrated) DR.

Originally Posted by safisher

If I were to guess, I suspect that pollaxe and halberd were useful because they gave you the ability to pierce and bash away at the target, and that the heavy armor gave you such protection that it was small wounds, comparatively that did you in. I suspect, also that a full force, overhead smash would be a killing blow, but you couldn't always get that in until you had knocked the guy down. Thus, I think it would be hard to present these weapons as akin to modern fencing movements -- they were too slow and sluggish for that. You weren't dancing around tapping at each other's sword blades. You were bashing and flailing, probably poking a high percentage of the time, until your guy stumbled and was dazed, and then you delivered the kill shot. That's my guess, anyway, from reading some of the manuals.

That makes a good deal of sense, yeah.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

EDIT: one thing I should add is the chinks rules in pg 400 doesn't actually allow cutting attacks to target chinks, which is probably a bit of an unrealistically hard cut off point, I'd probably allow it with a penalty (which would fit the progression of imp weapons that were specifically designed to do this that get a bonus). But that all said these weaker, thinner parts were pretty limited and designed to be hard to target in the general run of things.

Chinks and Gaps are almost never wide enough for a cutting blade to actually hit them and only them. With the halberd I analysed upthread, you could in theory hit a Chink dead on, but the majority of the blade would be hitting the stronger plate surrounding that Chink; overall, the effect likely wouldn't be much (if at all) different from just striking a uniform chunk of that stronger plate.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

If I was to use the term "historical WW2 tank armour", would we be using the top turret armour of the M24 as a defining point, even though the M24 did operate in the same theatre as 50mm cannon.

I'm going to work under the assumption this is an apt metaphor, and the top turret armor of the M24 was unable to stop 50mm cannon, while the main armor of most WW2 tanks could.

Now, let's say someone made a blanket statement (or strongly implied, much as you did here) that the 50mm cannon was completely unable to penetrate WWII tank armor, only being able to cause damage via spalling. Would it not be appropriate to bring up the fact that 50mm cannon could (and perhaps did) penetrate the top armor of the M24 tank?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I'm going to work under the assumption this is an apt metaphor, and the top turret armor of the M24 was unable to stop 50mm cannon, while the main armor of most WW2 tanks could.

Now, let's say someone made a blanket statement (or strongly implied, much as you did here) that the 50mm cannon was completely unable to penetrate WWII tank armor, only being able to cause damage via spalling. Would it not be appropriate to bring up the fact that 50mm cannon could (and perhaps did) penetrate the top armor of the M24 tank?

Maybe, though it's more of a stretch because using a 50mm tank gun against the top armor of a tank requires extraordinary circumstances. It'd be almost like pointing out that (hypothetically) a sword could cut through the bottoms of plate-armor boots.

(Of course, the 50mm tank gun as seen on the Pz. III, while having difficulty with the front armor of better-protected tanks, could penetrate a variety of vulnerable points more accessible than the roof on many, and probably at least the front turret face of the M24 light tank...)

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Varyon

...



Chinks and Gaps are almost never wide enough for a cutting blade to actually hit them and only them. With the halberd I analysed upthread, you could in theory hit a Chink dead on, but the majority of the blade would be hitting the stronger plate surrounding that Chink; overall, the effect likely wouldn't be much (if at all) different from just striking a uniform chunk of that stronger plate.

I agree, I'd likely penalise a cutting attack that tried, and I'd probably take a view on the weapon in question (for instance a narrow axe head might have a better chance, than say a back curved sabre type blade etc). I'd also likely put something in like miss by one and you still hit but against the full DR.

Also as Douglas Cole pointed out certain cutting attacks will not impact with their entire blade at the same time and flat against what they strike. Angled strikes with blades can have just a portion of their edge hitting.
I have to admit that's what I thought had happened in that video! i.e I thought the axe head had penetrated the bonnet with the leading corner of the blade as it swung in at an angle.

Originally Posted by Varyon

I'm going to work under the assumption this is an apt metaphor, and the top turret armor of the M24 was unable to stop 50mm cannon, while the main armor of most WW2 tanks could.

It was more the first example of WW2 tank armour that was extremely thin and also in a hard to reach place for most anti tank guns to hit, that I could think of. So was roughly analogous to the section of that breastplate that was 0.028 inch thick. But your right it not the only example I could have used.

Originally Posted by Varyon

Now, let's say someone made a blanket statement (or strongly implied, much as you did here)

Where I said:

"I agree I think it was, but interesting that the chap with his recreation halberd while capable of piercing the car bonnet pretty well with a thrust was pretty bad as cutting through it with a swing. Demonstrating the basic premise that cutting through metal with a hand held swung weapon is pretty much a non starter, and certainly sub optimal compared to other attacks."

There's that word sub optimal again ;-)

But it was a moot point because a) it's a silly video and, b) he didn't use the cutting edge but instead the back spike.

Originally Posted by Varyon

that the 50mm cannon was completely unable to penetrate WWII tank armor, only being able to cause damage via spalling. Would it not be appropriate to bring up the fact that 50mm cannon could (and perhaps did) penetrate the top armor of the M24 tank?

It would but notice how the context of what WW2 tank armour it could reliably penetrate is very narrow, certainly in terms of the much wider general contest of WW2 tank armour overall. In the analogy WW2 tank armour in general = Historical plate in general.

Basically using extreme example to draw conclusions about a more general thing isn't great (however that's not what Douglas Cole was doing, he was only making the point that there was a range of thicknesses out there).

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Maybe, though it's more of a stretch because using a 50mm tank gun against the top armor of a tank requires extraordinary circumstances. It'd be almost like pointing out that (hypothetically) a sword could cut through the bottoms of plate-armor boots.

(Of course, the 50mm tank gun as seen on the Pz. III, while having difficulty with the front armor of better-protected tanks, could penetrate a variety of vulnerable points more accessible than the roof on many, and probably at least the front turret face of the M24 light tank...)

Yeah I was really just thinking in terms of a piece of WW2 tank armour that was really thin and hard to reach. I picked the 50mm because it was pretty much rendered ineffective against anything less than the least well armoured tanks, in all but the most favourable situations.

(I knew that if I'd picked an 88mm someone would say 'aha that used to punch through lots of tanks thickest armour, so therefore cutting blades cut through lot's of plate at their thickest point', and I didn't want to use something really light like an anti tank rifle for fear of accusations of unfairness).

But yep as I said 50mm to axe blade or cutting blade wasn't a great fit for several conceptual reasons

TBH I was more interested in trying to illustrate just how extreme on the scale of historical plate 0.028 mil plate is, both in terms of thickness and likelihood of being directly attacked by swung cutting attacks.

[phayman53]

Originally Posted by safisher

From the dissertation I cited earlier:

John of Winterthur described the appeal of the halberd when he explained what Duke Leopold was up against at Morgarten. He writes: “Also the Swiss have in their hands death weapons, which have been called in popular speech ‘Helnbarten,’ and are very frightful. These slice like a razor and slash into pieces such strongly armed opponents.”

Razor, slash. Hmm.

A few issues with this quote that make it problematic for claiming that the axe portion of a halberd could slice through armor: first, John of Winterthur was a later chronicler who was not a soldier (to my knowledge) and certainly not an eye-witness to the battle. As I understand it, he wrote his chronicle in 1340, 25 years after the battle of Morgarten. Because of this, it is hard to judge how accurate his statement that halberds sliced armor into pieces. No one is arguing that halberds were not effective against armor, but as others have pointed out, the issue is what part of the halberd and in what way they are effective and against what parts of armor?

Were they "slashed into pieces" when they were already downed and therefore the halberdiers could weaken the armor with repeated blows and leverage the ground to help break apart the armor? Were they hit in joints and other weak spots of the armor (remember, this battle was in 1315, rather early in the evolution of medieval plate armor)? Or did they simply cut through the armor and cleave flesh underneath with the blade? It is hard to say, especially given that Winterthur was himself Swiss and may have been engaging in the kinds of rhetorical embellishments that chroniclers are known for in order to give praise to his country's favored weapon.

Remember that halberds, in their usual form, have an axe blade, a spear point and a pick. The fact that they have a pick indicates that the designers and users of the halberd themselves did not consider the axe blade effective enough against armor to be used alone, so they added weight to the weapon (making it at least a little less easy to wield) in order to put a pick on the other side. Most (though not all) other medieval pole arms also feature a pick (sometimes integrated into the axe blade as a protruding spike). Why bother with a pick at all if the axe blade is such an effective weapon against armor? It makes the weapon cost more and, as I mentioned before, makes it at least a little harder to wield.

Please note that I am not saying that the axe portion of a halberd never cleaved through armor, and I do not think anyone has argued in this thread that a halberd blade should never do cutting damage through armor. Clearly there are times when it probably did--your reference to Charles the Bold seems to indicate that it was possible. But even this does not clearly show that it was the axe portion of the halberd that split open his head--one could accurately call a large puncture from a halberd pick a split helmet and head, though it is a somewhat looser use of language. Unfortunately, language, especially in historical sources, rarely uses technical precision.

That said, I believe that a strong blow from a halberd axe could, if it hits plate armor squarely in a thinner or otherwise weaker part (like a joint), split the armor and cut into the person underneath. However, I think it is far more likely that a blow from the axe portion of a halberd or other polearm would cause blunt trauma by denting the armor (or even cracking but not fully penetrating it), and this is precisely why the basic GURPS rules for how blades interact with DR are problematic: bladed weapons do no damage until they defeat the DR and then they immediately get the 1.5x cutting modifier. This makes them inherently superior to blunt weapons against armor except that blunt weapons of the same size often do a simple +1 damage. This does not seem to track with the historical development of anti-plate armor weapons in the Middle Ages--which tended to start including hammers (often designed with small spikes or split heads to help the head not glance) and picks in addition to or instead of axe blades.

Originally Posted by safisher

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. An expressly offensive weapon, its value, then, was that it significantly decreased the protective appeal of plate armor. While it also left the halberdier vulnerable—it had to be carried with both hands, so those who wielded it had to give up the shield—its effectiveness was apparently worth it, especially for footsoldiers like the Swiss, who were lightly armed anyway."

There is a big problem with the conclusion of this author in his dissertation: the battle that he uses to come to this conclusion was in 1315, as I say above, and others have said before, this was rather early in the development of plate armor in the middle ages. This was a period in time where plates (often not solid) began supplementing the protective value of mail, ostensibly because weapons like halberds where beginning to make mail less desirable as a stand-alone armor. The plate armor of this time was not as thick nor as completely covering as later plate armor. Therefore, rather than decreasing the protective appeal of plate armor as this dissertation claims, the halberd and other anti-armor weapons of the time seem to have increased the desire for better plate armor. Indeed, plate armor saw effective service and continued development for hundreds of more years and was always favored by those who could afford it. Likewise, there was never a move to return to using shields to supplement the defense afforded by plate armor, which one would expect if the defensive appeal of plate armor was truly lessened by pole weapons. Throughout these hundreds of years, plate armor saw service against halberds, pollaxes (which include a large hammer in addition to an axe blade--why would they do that if the axe blade was great against plate armor?), pikes, lance charges, 100+ pound war bows, crossbows, and early firearms. In all of this, the thing that finally lessened the defensive appeal of plate armor was when firearms evolved to such a degree that it became almost impossible to make firearm proof plate, finally rendering the financial cost and decreased mobility of plate armor a net liability.

The other problem with this quote for our purposes is that it does not clearly indicate which part of the halberd was so effective against the 1315 armor and in what way. I totally believe that the pick part and the spear heads on the halberds were able, some of the time at least, to completely puncture the plate armor and wound/kill the man-at-arms underneath. I also totally believe that strong blows from the axe portion could dent, even crack the armor, and deliver serious blunt trauma--even incapacitating or killing a man-at-arms. Likewise, I believe repeated blows against a downed and immobile opponent (or a lucky blow against a weakened/thinner/otherwise compromised plate against a standing one) could cut through the armor. To reiterate, then, the problem that we see with GURPS DR vs cut rules is not that cutting weapons can penetrate DR and cut the person underneath, it is that they do it so easily and will automatically get the cutting multiplier as soon as they beat DR.

Therefore, while I think Dan Howard may take his "blades almost never cut armor" arguments too far at times, I think GURPS basic rules on the interaction between cutting weapons and armor, even unbalanced ones like axes, are way to close to the movie depictions of armor as little more than costume against cutting weapons. The optional rule in LT that makes it so that cutting weapons first do cr damage until they truly overpower the armor seem to me to be far more realistic than giving cutting weapons a cutting multiplier as soon as they defeat DR. Granted, I do not think it is a perfect solution, and I think DR is still too weak against all forms of muscle powered weapon damage, but at least it tries to model cutting weapons hurting someone in DR before they actually are able to cut them.

[safisher]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I'm not entirely up on my 14th century nomenclature. Does "strongly armed" refer explicitly to "heavily armored," or is it more "well equipped?"

That's quite what they mean. These are peasants attacking and killing fully armored knights.

As Anthony notes, this doesn't indicate cutting through armor. In fact, "crack" strongly implies it's not cutting, but rather damaging the armor via blunt trauma. The author doesn't actually say one way or the other, unfortunately

.

I'm not sure how it can be made any clearer, but here's the actual context of the primary source and authors commentary. It's irrefutably what is being said.

"John of Winterthur described the appeal of the halberd when he explained what Duke Leopold was up against at Morgarten. He writes: “Also the Swiss have in their hands death weapons, which have been called in popular speech ‘Helnbarten,’ and are very frightful. These slice like a razor and slash into pieces such strongly armed opponents.'
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. An expressly offensive weapon, its value, then, was that it significantly decreased the protective appeal of plate armor. While it also left the halberdier vulnerable—it had to be carried with both hands, so those who wielded it had to give up the shield—its effectiveness was apparently worth it, especially for footsoldiers like the Swiss, who were lightly armed anyway."

ST 13, All Out (Strong) Attack with a halberd, does 4d-1 cut. An average hit will cut through DR 6, and you have a 1-in-6 chance of cutting through DR 8. ST 12, Normal Attack with a dueling halberd, does 2d+3 (or 3d-1) cut. Going a bit above average (41.7% or 37.5%) will cut through DR 5, and DR 6 is a possibility (around 1-in-6 either way). Difficult, but not impossible.

Low-Tech says "Realistically, it’s extremely difficult for a blade edge
to cut through any sort of armor." That's the contention to which I objected, based on the sources I had read. (The insistence that it's impossible to cut plate is a side issue.) But nevertheless, that's the assumption upon which that rule was written.

A ST 12 dueling halberd or pollaxe user, which is a quite strong person in the first place, facing DR5+ armor needs to roll 11+ damage to actually cut it using the edge protection rule. To actually get through you'll need to do All Out Attacks. The heavier armors listed in Low-Tech Loadouts are all well above the DR5 line, some at DR7 and above. Never mind if you add quality modifiers it.

Now, the problem here is not just that a known armor cutting weapon like the halberd can't cut armor, it's that any lesser weapon is also nerfed. If you use EP and the mods to increase armor DR as presented in LT, you have a very a-historical situation where actual battles simply could not have taken place. That's up the GM and his group to decide, but for me, EP is the wrong way to go about it.

We must be reading it differently, then. To me, the wording and rules indicate that, unless you outmatch the armor, a cutting weapon is often no better than a crushing one. That hardly makes cutting weapons useless.

It makes cutting weapons KNOWN to cut through armor quite frequently lose 50% of their damage or more. Fine, you might say, if I can't get cutting damage then I'll just use a cheaper non-cutting weapon. And that's not what happened historically.

Count two more for cutting through armor, then. I think you've made a pretty solid case that there are plenty of scholars out there that disagree with the assertion that humans can't cut through plate.

Many of the modern re-enactors and such will disagree. They conduct cutting tests to demonstrate how hard it was to defeat armor. These tests are not very useful for a number of reasons, and therefore we must look to historical use in addition to tests.

Doing so means you automatically hit at a good angle (the dent essentially guides your weapon to its center) and you are dealing with a reduced (or eliminated, if the armor was penetrated) DR.

Right. If I stab your breastplate in the center of your chest a time or two and make penetration its going to make future attacks easier, since they will not glance off as easily next time. Further, if those are swinging attacks on your shoulders, they could potentially just be channeled into the previous crevice. I'm not sure that's worth tracking, or if it's possible to do so, but it is one reason that these tests where they stab the breastplate and make a little hole and say "oh, see that's no big deal" are not very helpful. Armor was made for the battlefield and it's battlefield effects we need to better understand. One-off shot tests are not helpful. In other words, it makes a difference whether you are hit by 1 longbow arrow, or a dozen. And like I said up thread, the real missing link in this discussion is not just DR, it's injury from the hit you took, whether it punctures the DR or not. It's quite clear from some reports that a blow to the helm could kill you without even leaving a dent!

[safisher]

Originally Posted by phayman53

A few issues with this quote that make it problematic for claiming that the axe portion of a halberd could slice through armor: first, John of Winterthur was a later chronicler who was not a soldier (to my knowledge) and certainly not an eye-witness to the battle. As I understand it, he wrote his chronicle in 1340, 25 years after the battle of Morgarten. Because of this, it is hard to judge how accurate his statement that halberds sliced armor into pieces. No one is arguing that halberds were not effective against armor, but as others have pointed out, the issue is what part of the halberd and in what way they are effective and against what parts of armor?

Welcome to history! These are all good points which illustrate the issues with historical sources, but in actuality, the chronicler here is living within the time in which the Swiss are still using halberds. That's a huge point in his favor. Further, it's within living memory, which is also a point in his favor. Many of our historical sources are far later. This one is useful for our purposes. And keep in mind, we would indeed be in error to rely exclusively on one source!

Were they "slashed into pieces" when they were already downed and therefore the halberdiers could weaken the armor with repeated blows and leverage the ground to help break apart the armor? Were they hit in joints and other weak spots of the armor (remember, this battle was in 1315, rather early in the evolution of medieval plate armor)? Or did they simply cut through the armor and cleave flesh underneath with the blade? It is hard to say, especially given that Winterthur was himself Swiss and may have been engaging in the kinds of rhetorical embellishments that chroniclers are known for in order to give praise to his country's favored weapon.

All of those are good questions as well, but they don't really diminish the narrative. As I showed, plenty of other historians accept it and have made other similar claims. My point here is not to present an odd interpretation, but simply to suss out the consensus view among the scholars, if we can find one. There's really no reason to torture the statement unless we have reason to believe it's not possible.

But even this does not clearly show

There won't be any better evidence than what we have. That is how history works, unfortunately. What you ought to ask is why do you think they couldn't cut through any armor?

This is precisely why the basic GURPS rules for how blades interact with DR are problematic: bladed weapons do no damage until they defeat the DR and then they immediately get the 1.5x cutting modifier.

This is the injury portion that I have mentioned before. Armor defeating DR is one side of the issue, the other is the injury itself. There is a granularity here that makes this unsatisfactory. Further, I'm inclined to think a deep broken bone (a rib puncturing a lung, say) might be worse to heal than a clean cut (based on historical surgeon's views). But we have the rules as such and there is no need to re-write all the rules to get things "just so." It has to remain playable.

This does not seem to track with the historical development of anti-plate armor weapons in the Middle Ages--which tended to start including hammers (often designed with small spikes or split heads to help the head not glance) and picks in addition to or instead of axe blades.

There are a lot of assumptions built into this line of reasoning that are controversial.

There is a big problem with the conclusion of this author in his dissertation: the battle that he uses to come to this conclusion was in 1315, as I say above, and others have said before, this was rather early in the development of plate armor in the middle ages

.

This is really talking about a peasants versus knights debate. These battles were sometimes called the infantry revolution of the 14th century, and yes, indeed they did speed the demise (in the longue duree) of knights and plate armor.

The other problem with this quote for our purposes is that it does not clearly indicate which part of the halberd was so effective against the 1315 armor and in what way.

Our sources almost never give us the full information. But clear words such as razor and slash should tells us that is was the axe head.

I think GURPS basic rules on the interaction between cutting weapons and armor, even unbalanced ones like axes, are way to close to the movie depictions of armor as little more than costume against cutting weapons.

That's a perfectly subjective opinion to have. I somewhat agree, once you get into higher ST. But the idea here is to play an adventuring game that is "good enough" for adventuring purposes. For me, and YMMV, the first rule I want see is how it matches up to historical battles. GURPS gets it done.

Granted, I do not think it is a perfect solution, and I think DR is still too weak against all forms of muscle powered weapon damage, but at least it tries to model cutting weapons hurting someone in DR before they actually are able to cut them.

GURPS DR is very simplistic, I agree. Like most parts of the system, it's meant to work during a fast-paced adventure game. Looking to it from a strict simulationist perspective will always result in certain aspects being frustrating.

One way to think of damage, though is less about the narrative description and more about just the numbers. That is, "cutting" represents a certain portion of crushing damage, tissue shock, deep broken bones, nerve damage, and significant bleeding. Saying "cutting" and thinking of slicing a carrot is not quite right, just like saying crushing doesn't cause bleeding. I've hit myself in the finger a few times with a hammer, back when I was in construction work, and let me tell you, I bled profusely!

[cbower]

A more realistic take would probably be to give armor different DRs for all types of attack, like in Harnmaster. I attempted this, but it proved to be a major pain-in-the-neck to keep up with at the gaming table so I dropped that after two sessions. DR being like it is, without Edge Protection, is certainly quicker and easier, and that has its advantages when you're running a game for six to eight other people.