Ok so I was watching the test cutting of the arm wrapped on leather and it seems the sword was unable to effectivly penetrate the unhardened leather with trusts, so I have to wonder if somebody is wearing hardened leather or even metal, how do you kill him?

And how would you kill somebody in full plate?

Lance

Hi Lance,
The general rule for fighting with a sword against a person in armor is to attack where the armor isn't.

For example, check out this article on the type XV sword:

http://www.myArmoury.com/feature_spotxv.html

This particular style was created with a more acute tip for more accurately thrusting at the joints of plate armor, such as in the armpit or underneath the helmet. Period fighting manuscripts that taught armored combat showed techniques involving getting close in, often times grasping the blade of the sword to be used as a short spear (known as going to the half-sword) for just this purpose. These manuals also used a number of grappling maneuvers to throw the opponent to the ground, often times using the sword itself as a lever. The sword could be also used as a blunt impact weapon by striking with the hilt end.

Which leads to another method of fighting someone in armor: Blunt impact. Weapons such as maces, hammers and picks were often employed to rattle the guy underneath his defenses. Longer weapons, such as poleaxes, could also be used for many forms of grappling as well.

In my experience, what gets you "killed" when you are wearing armour is situations, not individual blows; Facing the wrong way, beeing pushed over, and so on. Disabling someone in full armour requires so many, or so accurate hits, that it is almost imposible to do it while your opponent is tanding up and facing you. Thus you try to put him in a situation where he cannot defend himself propperly, preferably on the ground.
This is accieved by moving into close combat (What the german longsword schools refer to as the War), and push or sweep him to the ground, or by using a polearm to push or hook him. If you can manage to land a blow in his helmet, it will probably stun him long enough for you to get in close, and take him down.
Once he's on the ground, hit or stab him until he stops moving.

It must be noted that actually KILLING someon in full plate is very hard indeed. But in most battles, merely bashing him until he stops fighting is sufficient...


PS
My experience with armour fighting is not very extencive. My group does not regualry train in armour. So when we do break it out, it is usualy for some kind of show or display. But personaly I have found that freeform show fighting is often more "realistic" than regular reenactment fighing; It features less "gamey" technques, and most importantly, the number of hits you take before going down is based on subjective judgement; A hit is not necessarliy a hit; armoured fighters go on even if hit multiple times, and goes down when it "feels right". Usualy this involes beeing ganged up on and brought to you knees, or beeing closed and stabbed by another armoured fighter...

Just my two NKr's worth...

In the videoclip here

http://arma.se/video.html

we are three guys trying to take out Nisse who is in armour with padded polearms, we don´t land a sigle effective blow on him and we defenetly don´t want to tackle him. That would be a world of hurt. Pointy edges everywere. In about five bouts we didn´t got one "kill" on him.

Very illustrative, Martin, and it ties well into my point.

Want to kill someone wearing plate? Then wear plate yourself. :cool:
That will keep you alive from *his* attacks long enough to knee him in the balls, trip him and knock him down, kick your spurs into his ankles, twist his arm around, tackle him -anything to get him off of his A-game and make him more interested in making the hurting stop than in truly defending himself or in actively fighting you.
Then he's at your mercy. Line him up for a full-armed shot with a heavy weapon to spit his helm and dash out his brains, or thrust though his maille voiders, or shove a dagger into his eyeslots if he's wise enough to have his visor down. But more than likely if you can get him to that point, you can force him to surrender and take a ransom. ;)

Thanks...

There is though som halfswording quite effective. To throw some halfsword trusts in his facial region and then apply som of the armlocks and stab him in the behind enough to bleed him dry. Got to gather the guts to do it though. It´s easy to fall to the "Armour-fobia" as the clip shows. (Myself I don´t even get to bash him, he gets my hands in the first strike. I´m the guy in the red ARMA shirt.)

The botom line is that killing people in armour is all about brutalty.
The reason you guys got beaten up is that he is beeing agressive, and you are not. As for effective strikes, i see several.
For instance, when he gets hooked over the shoulder with the poleaxe. Pull, he goes of balance, get wacked by your other friend, goes down.
Geting poleaxed in the back of the knees is also not very plesant.
Or, he strikes, you block with your polearm, and push him. Just by binding his sword for two seconds, you have effectively killed him, if your friends are able to exploit it. (Talk to the viking guys on how to do this; "Hærkamp" fighters might not know a lot of manual tecniques, but we are realy good at ganging up on people ;) )
Of course, he has a great advantage because he is armoured; He can be agressive without fear of dying from a hasty conterattack.
The theory is easy, but doing it is hard.

I'm sensing some serious anger issues in this thread. :lol:

hande gunne anyone? :lol:

I'm definitely no expert on armoured fighting, but i know that if you have an axe or mace, and you use close attacks to leave you opponent unarmed, he's as good as dead. If you hit your opponent through the visor or the helmet with a pointy sword like a type XV with half-swording techniques that works too! I sure don't think I'd be standing if i took a huge axe to the gut! :D

If I were ever in a real armoured medieval battle, I'd just stay waaaay in back of the front line and find a clueless opponent and
I think you know the rest. I think you're right patrick! :lol:

Seems to me you should have a couple linebackers with big shoulsder pads that just run around slamming into guys knocking them over, one after another, then the others would come in and and take 'em out while they're down. :surprised:

I don't think I'd even take a sword to a plate mail fight, I'd be going with a mace and shield.

Lance

You are all very correct in your statements and I am personally just adding my opinion. I think what you could do I would either bring a huge halberd about 10 feet long so I dont have to get close to him then trip him up and keep bashing him in the neck until his head came off :lol: . Either that or I would bring a mace and a shield and just keep bashing him again in the chest because your bound to dent in a piece of that armour and if its in the right place it could penetrate the skin and that might be the end of him just keep on hitting.

Let's say your armored opponent is on horseback and you're on foot. Hold your sword by the blade. Get behind the horse and use the cross of your sword to hook him, preferably around the pauldron (shoulder armor). A quick jerk downward could yank him off that horse. Once he's on the ground and you're standing above him, you pretty much own him.

Keep in mind this would work best if he doesn't know you're there and you can sneak up and catch him by surprise. Best to wear gauntlets because, well, you're holding a sword (a Type XVa preferably) that you'll be using as a crowbar! I've found out the hard way that armor does have a disadvantage that an opponent can easily exploit: there are lots of grab-hook-pull places.

Even if he doesn't come all the way down from the horse (i.e. his feet still in the stirrups), he'll be in a very awkward position -- not to mention that you caught him totally by surprise when he wasn't ready; he's yours.

Like I always say: "Work smarter, not harder." ;) -Ted

I may be wrong, but it appears to me that the third man, at right, lands two decent blows against the leg of the armoured man. The second blow especially appears to hit from behind where there isn't any plate. I think that the knight would have lost his left leg in this melee.

Again, I may be wrong, and if I am please point out what I missed. Thanks.

Cool video!!

Scott