I've see these plates called 'sword breakers' but it seems to me they are more likely intended to keep lance hits from digging into the throat since I've seen German light cavalry form the early 16th century wearing only one of these pauldrons with vertical deflection plates on the left shoulder and no visible pauldron on the right shoulder unless it was a much lighter spaulder that was worn under the tunic on the right hand side in conjunction with the left hand pauldron which had to be worn over the tunic due to its size. It seems to me that the left shoulder is more likely to get a lance hit while they'd surely wear another one of these more massive pauldrons on the right shoulder if they were worried about sword cuts since that's the most likely direction they'd get cut from with a sword. Obviously the below knight wasn't taking any chances and wore two of these pauldrons.
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