Thread: Got a Real-World Weapon, Armor or Tactics Question? Mk. XVI

my laymans answer would be that it was a odd length for that time period, most likely a middling length between the typical "short" and "long" swords (whatever those mean in this context). thus, its a "bastard child" of the two.

First half of 13th century is where longswords of some kind are starting to appear in Central Europe, so it's certainly not impossible at all that somebody in Iceland had seen such sword already, and with a name 'bastard' being used in this meaning already.

Especially since it does seem that those early longswords would often basically be large 'normal' sword with simply elongated hilt/bigger pommel thus looking 'bastardish' to new observer.

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Answering this more accurately would probably require some serious etymological searching - if and when 'bastard' started to be used to refer to swords and if in the meaning of 'both 1 and 2 hands hold possible'.

I've been horribly busy, now catching up on threads. Going way back to the end of summer:

Originally Posted by Yora

As another question, how practical is it to fight with a polearm indoors? I am having an idea for a story and I don't like how everyone is always swinging around swords when spears and their like seem to have been the weapon of choice for so many more people and cultures. But can you fight with a reasonably sized polearm, say 2m in length, inside of buildings? Or would it be much more sensible to drop it and draw a long knife or an axe? I've seen some naginata tournaments and they seem to be fighting at very close ranges but with a lot of space to move around (though fighting for points and not for survival might quite possibly make a major difference on how close they get to each other).

The weapon of choice for war is going to be the spear or pole arm. The sword is the back-up, as we deem the pistol a "side arm" in today's military. Indoors you go to the back-up weapon.

Originally Posted by Incanur

As Miyamoto Musashi wrote, staff weapons aren't much use in confined spaces. In general, you don't want a polearm indoors. Obviously certain structures are spacious enough, but most aren't. But shorter polearms could work; in 1448 Margaret Paston wrote for short poleaxes to keep by the doors.

I used to work night shift in a motel. I could do my staff-derived techniques in the space between the coffee station and the front desk. My stick was a 4� feet, and the space was a little over 5 feet wide. You don't need tons of space. The main problem is headroom. Back then most private homes had very low ceilings compared to today's standard 8 feet. The motel lobby had a 10 foot ceiling, which was more than sufficient for my short staff but would have been insufficient for good use of a more typical 8 foot quarterstaff.

Originally Posted by Carl

What i meant with the catching and manipulating part refers to a documentary i saw years ago, the name escapes me so I've had no luck digging up a video, but in it a history professor demonstrated several techniques with what he claimed was a halberd, (i can describe the weapon if you wish), in which he used the shape/s of the axe and hammer heads on the business end of the blade to catch the enemy swordsman's blade between the blade/hammer and the haft of the weapon, and then depending on the technique used, twist the blade out of the enemies grasp, break the blade in half, or force it through an arc that moved the enemies center of balance forward or backward, leaving them off balance and unable to effectively respond as he disengaged their blade from his weapon to then deliver a fatal blow. The two examples i remember involved him overbalancing the enemy forward so he finished bent double allowing him to bring the axe blade down on the back of the neck, and another that overbalanced him backward leaving him on his back on the floor where the conical point on the butt of the haft could be brought on the chest armor.

Yes. The staff has four main wards, while the bill/halberd has eight in Terry Brown's modern Silver-based system. The head is used to catch a weapon and either block it laterally or pin it to the ground. The user then swings the head back in/up to counterattack, or swings the butt around if too close.

G: If you (or anyone else for that matter) is interested the danish national museum homepage have a lot of information about a different weapon sacrifice bog, called Vimose (most of it unfortunately poorly excavated back in the late 19th century, thus a lot of information is missing).

There a consecutive sacrifices from around 1 Ad to 7th century, but the main deposition is around 2nd or 3rd centery.

http://natmus.dk/en/historical-knowl...t-from-vimose/

Here is a few pics from the homepage:

Germanic sword and other weapons from around 2nd century AD (note the one edged design):


Roman pommels of ivory:


Roman sword with factory stamp:


Roman Bandoler plate from Vimose



There is more pictures on the homepage (of a chain mail, spears, gaming pieces, personal gear, and more).

If anyone wants to investigate 2nd century weapon designs, army gear etc, Denmark is the to go to place (which is why Russel Crowe uses an Illerup sword in Gladiator).

I was actually searching for chain mail from 350BC-300BC bog sacrifice of Hjortspring, the only larger BC sacrifice we have (three ships, 80 javelin/spear/lance heads and some swords, see below), but couldnt find any.

Swords 350-300BC

The first and last picture appear to show single edged swords. I've never seen such in Northern European contexts. Interesting.

Yes, the swords are single edged, this is actually the common design for swords in the Early Iron age in Scandinavia/northern Germany (500-1BC), and also still very common in the following centuries (as the one from Vimose from the 2nd century AD).

The same design is used for larger fighting knives of the period. Post AD imported Roman swords (and a few that could be central European copies), seem to become more prestigious and thus the single edged sword become a poor mans substitute. After the 5th century we have almost no bog-sacrifices, thus it is more difficult to be sure of which sword type is dominant (and in Denmark there is few or no weapons in the graves from the early 3rd century and some hundred years onward, instead drinking equipment of Roman and later "Black sea gothic" origin is favoured amongst the elite).

However those weapon graves we find from Scandinavia do contain some single edged swords, and they also seem common at least for the shorter version all over northern Germanic areas. As frankish weapons become popular (the new ideal) in the post Roman era, we see copies of these by local producers (like copies of the Ulfberth swords), and we might argue that the single edged sword becomes less common (though as GraaEminense show still used), and the design is more and more only used for shorter secondary weapons (large knives and/or short swords), and mostly north of Denmark (Norway and Sweden) when we reach the Viking age.

Originally Posted by Tobtor

we see copies of these by local producers (like copies of the Ulfberth swords)

Nitpick: The inscription "Ulfberth" is the main way to identify a counterfeit Ulfberht.

Originally Posted by Yora

Nitpick: The inscription "Ulfberth" is the main way to identify a counterfeit Ulfberht.

Not to mention "Made in India"

The fun part of that is I've got a sword that legitimately (as in, with documentation) made it from the Sepoy Revolt of 1857 to the 1st Texas Cavalry in the American Civil War, and nobody believes it's real because it was...well...made in India.

According to wikipedia "the main difference is in the method of construction: a brigandine is riveted whereas a jack is sewn." From images I've seen, jack of plates also have smaller metal plates, which I would assume makes them more flexible. But it seems indeed to be simply a more refined version of the brigandine.

This has most likely been asked atleast 20 times through out these threads, but to be honest I do not care for going through each page of each thread to find my answer...
In my upcoming campaign we are going to be using the Armor as Damage Reduction rules from UA, but as I am also going for something more gritty this time around, one wish to have each have the damage reduction surpassed by a weapon which would be able to, in real life.
So my question is, I guess, which type of weapon would be able to bypass armor on the armors from 3.5 PH (Padded, (studded) leather, chain shirt, Hide, Scale mail, chainmail, breastplate, Splint mail, banded mail, half-plate and full plate)??

Also, if there is someone who knows exactly where to find this in a previous thread, I would love to be linked :-)

Wearing armor is always better than not wearing at, against virtually all types of weapons. No attack, unless magical, should ever ignore armor. But if you're using a system where armor can both deflect attacks harmlessly and reduce damage from actual hits, then applying only the deflection (bonus to AC) against certain damage types might be "reasonably realistic".

In D&D, there are three types of damage: Piercing, slashing, and blunt.
Gambesons (padded armor) is actually surprisingly good against piercing attacks. Slashing attacks can cut it to ribbons after several hits, but since in D&D you don't tend to get a lot of hits per battle, I think DR should apply against these as well. I am making a pure guess, but I think a soft armor that would significantly cushion blunt attacks would be too heavy to move in, so I would say blunt attack ignore the DR.
With leather armor (leather, studded leather, and hide) I am at a loss. The kind of leather armor you tend to see in fantasy wouldn't really protect much at all. Actual leather armor that has been used for battle would probably be quite decent against all types of attacks. Maybe set the DR very low, but let no type of weapon ignore it.
Mail (which would be chain shirt and chainmail) is extremely good against slashing attacks, but doesn't do much against piercing and blunt attacks. However, the badding under the mail can reduce the damage from such attacks, but not near what other types of armor can do. If all armor helps avoiding being hit, then I would say apply the DR only against slashing weapons.
Lamellar and scale type (scale mail, splint mail, and banded mail) would be impossible to penetrate with a slash and possibly even stand up against most piercing attacks. Blunt weapon would most probably still hurt quite a lot.
Plate armor (half-plate and full plate) has basically the same qualities as lamellar in this case. Slashing damage is not going to happen and piercing attacks would have a really hard time, if they penetrate at all. Blunt weapons have traditionally been the weapon of choice against these.
Breastplates are weird, as they are basically plate armor for the torso, but don't cover anything else. Probably best say blunt damage ignores DR. Got no better idea here.

Game mechanics wise, we're getting a bit of a problem here: Blunt works great against everything, slashing is stopped by everything. Piercing ignores only the DR of mail. Not sure if that's worth implementing.

Mail (which would be chain shirt and chainmail) is extremely good against slashing attacks, but doesn't do much against piercing and blunt attacks.

There's really no indication from sources or few better experiments that mail was particularly vulnerable to 'piercing' attacks, leave along 'doing not much'.

It was used all over the world as a top grade armor in setting where 'piercing' was by far most common threat.

So my question is, I guess, which type of weapon would be able to bypass armor on the armors from 3.5 PH (Padded, (studded) leather, chain shirt, Hide, Scale mail, chainmail, breastplate, Splint mail, banded mail, half-plate and full plate)??

Question is sadly somehow hard to answer because armors in 3.5 are constructed very arbitrarily and with no touch with 'reality'.

Generally though, the answer would be that if someone is wearing decent weight of armor of whatever material and construction on him then no hand weapon can really 'bypass it'.

Without going in firearms, or weapons more powerful than hand held, at least.

Originally Posted by Yora

Wearing armor is always better than not wearing at, against virtually all types of weapons. No attack, unless magical, should ever ignore armor. But if you're using a system where armor can both deflect attacks harmlessly and reduce damage from actual hits, then applying only the deflection (bonus to AC) against certain damage types might be "reasonably realistic".

In D&D, there are three types of damage: Piercing, slashing, and blunt.
Gambesons (padded armor) is actually surprisingly good against piercing attacks. Slashing attacks can cut it to ribbons after several hits, but since in D&D you don't tend to get a lot of hits per battle, I think DR should apply against these as well. I am making a pure guess, but I think a soft armor that would significantly cushion blunt attacks would be too heavy to move in, so I would say blunt attack ignore the DR.
With leather armor (leather, studded leather, and hide) I am at a loss. The kind of leather armor you tend to see in fantasy wouldn't really protect much at all. Actual leather armor that has been used for battle would probably be quite decent against all types of attacks. Maybe set the DR very low, but let no type of weapon ignore it.
Mail (which would be chain shirt and chainmail) is extremely good against slashing attacks, but doesn't do much against piercing and blunt attacks. However, the badding under the mail can reduce the damage from such attacks, but not near what other types of armor can do. If all armor helps avoiding being hit, then I would say apply the DR only against slashing weapons.
Lamellar and scale type (scale mail, splint mail, and banded mail) would be impossible to penetrate with a slash and possibly even stand up against most piercing attacks. Blunt weapon would most probably still hurt quite a lot.
Plate armor (half-plate and full plate) has basically the same qualities as lamellar in this case. Slashing damage is not going to happen and piercing attacks would have a really hard time, if they penetrate at all. Blunt weapons have traditionally been the weapon of choice against these.
Breastplates are weird, as they are basically plate armor for the torso, but don't cover anything else. Probably best say blunt damage ignores DR. Got no better idea here.

Game mechanics wise, we're getting a bit of a problem here: Blunt works great against everything, slashing is stopped by everything. Piercing ignores only the DR of mail. Not sure if that's worth implementing.

Alright thanks, this means that I most likely won't implement it then. And if I do, it won't be based too much on realism ;-)

Originally Posted by Yora

Wearing armor is always better than not wearing at, against virtually all types of weapons. No attack, unless magical, should ever ignore armor. But if you're using a system where armor can both deflect attacks harmlessly and reduce damage from actual hits, then applying only the deflection (bonus to AC) against certain damage types might be "reasonably realistic".

Sort of. Wearing armour has ancillary complications - primary amongst them in reducing your mobility (try swimming in most armours, or running for any length of time) and making it hard for your body to lose heat (which is a significant consideration when doing something as active as fighting). The real problem with the D&D paradigm, couched as it is in the mid/late medieval era, is that it trivialises shields while lumping all protective power in body armour alone.

In antiquity, the shield was often protection enough - not just because it was cheaper than armour, but with a large shield like the aspis, it could cover your body from cheek to knee and was proof against arrows and sling-stones. Even javelins if you angled it right against those you were aware of.

Grappling also comes up in antiquity; pankration, an ancient Greek form of unarmed combat, had as its foundation boxing and wrestling. It was intended to be used by a hoplite when his spears were broken and he was too close to use a sword, or perhaps it had been lost. It was considered a necessary part of a warrior's training.

That's true. What I meant is it's always better to have something between a weapon and your body when the weapon hits you. There would be very few, if any weapons who cause more severe injuries when they go through armor first.

As someone mentioned helmets, in recent years I've heard repeatedly that knights most probably not actually fought with the visor covering their face. The visor can be a huge life saver when you are trying to cross open ground with enemy archers shoting arrows at you. With enough arrows flying around, even having just 5% of your front uncovered by armor is a huge hazard. But with many types of helmet, with the visor down, you are virtually blind and deaf and have a hard time breathing and getting very hot. For a one or two minute charge over open ground, that's something you can live with. But when you have to swing around your weapon to hit a moving target that is within arms length and can move behind you, you can't realistically fight with something like this in your face:

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It might still be easier to get a stab under the arm or into the hip, as the arms are very well positioned to keep something away from your face. Keeping a blade away from your kidney while a guy in full armor is lying on top of you would be much more difficult and akward.

I could well believe that. I do full contact martial arts, and for certain types of sparring, we're supposed to wear head guards. Supposedly for "safety" but the reality is they stop you getting cut - they make brain injuries worse, when combined with padded gloves.

Anyway, the point here is that most people (myself included) hate wearing them, not least because they make your head sweat something chronic (lots of sweat running into your eyes) and mess with your vision (especially if someone knows the trick of throwing a hook punch to the guard, which spins it around across your eyes). That's something without a visor to enclose your breathing, add that in and I can't imagine it's terribly comfortable for more than a minute or so.

With boxing gloves and head padding, I believe it doesn't actually make the injuries worse. What happens instead is that it normally hurts a lot to hit a skull with your fist, so boxing sports that don't use padding tend to avoid strikes at the head.
With boxing gloves and the like, you can hammer on your opponents head all day without hurting your hands, and so that's what's actually happening. A single unpadded strike to the head would certainly be worse than a padded one. But getting punched repeatedly, even with padding, is going to cause some serious damage to the brain in the long run.

Similar with rugby. Rugby uses almost no protection compared to american football. And while there are a lot more relatively minor bruises (even if they bleed), the players take a lot more care not to crush into each other with big impacts. With padding each individual impact may not hurt a lot, but the brain still suffers some small damage, which adds up over time and doesn't go away like a bruise.