[Benjamin H. Abbott]

Here is a WWII example of a katana plus scabbard incapacitating via a single blow to a helmeted head. Not a medieval/Renaissance helmet, though.

[Timo Nieminen]

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

That's probably thinner than all but the thinnest medieval/Renaissance helmets. The fronts of helmets for 15th- and 16th-century men-at-arms were often 3+mm. Stories of cleaving metal helmets - which appear from antiquity into the late 19th century if not later - possibly involve thin helmets in some cases.

[Henrik Granlid]

I seem to recall extant Sallets having a thickness of 0.6 at the back of the skull, even with corrosion taken into account, there was a thread on it on here a few years ago.

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

Huh. That's pretty thin. An 1380s bascinet was supposedly 3.81mm on the top front and thinnest at the visor at 1.27mm. On the other hand, Alan Williams gives 1.5mm and 1.4mm for helmet skulls for two 16th-century harnesses of hardened steel. Do you have a link to that thread?

[T. Kew]

0.6mm seems absurdly thin for functional armour. One wonders if it might be a result of long term polishing during storage or the like.

The back isn't targeted as much as the front, but nonetheless, that's extremely light.

[Timo Nieminen]

[Luka Borscak]

[Timo Nieminen]

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

Huh. The Cummins translation makes more sense. It calls to mind what Fourquevaux wrote instructing targetiers to only thrust and target only the face, legs, or any other unarmored spot.

[Timo Nieminen]

There's plenty of advice like that. Thrust in the gaps, cut where there is no armour. Thrust up under the tassets. A big feature in the anti-cavalry advice is "shoot the horse first" (bow or musket), "spear the horse first".

[Dan Howard]

The Wisby skeletal analysis supports this. There were hundreds of wounds to different parts of the body but not a single one to the torso. It shows that body armor was either completely proof against the weapons used in that battle or that nobody ever aimed at the torso.

[Henrik Granlid]

Or that the torso damage that did happen were to soft tissue in the gut?

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

[Timo Nieminen]

I mean there's plenty like that in the Cummins translation of Zohyo Monogatari.

Also notes that sometimes you want to shoot the rider first, so that the riderless horse will cause disruption in the enemy lines. (But usually you want to shoot the horse first.)

Some of the advice looks like it won't be found in any European manual:

Also, if you apply ground hot pepper from your arse to your tiptoe, it will prevent you from freezing. You can apply it onto your hands too, but if you carelessly rub your eyes with your hands, your eyeballs will be bloodshot and a lot of pain will follow.

I don't know whether that means chilli paste or chilli powder. Interesting from a food history perspective - chillies were common enough in Japan by the mid-17th century. Probably Mexico -> Philippines -> (Okinawa? ->) Japan.

[Dan Howard]

[Dan Howard]

[Timo Nieminen]

I only have the translation, not the original text, which should be clear. The 3 peppers have different names in Japanese: prickly ash pepper is sansho (from Chinese shan jiao, "mountain pepper", an alternative name for Sichuan pepper, more commonly called hua jiao, "flower pepper"; the Japanese variety is a different species of the same genus), chilli is bansho or togarashi, "foreign pepper", and Piper pepper is kosho, from Chinese hu jiao, "barbarian pepper". Those are the modern names; assuming those were in used in the 17th century, they should all be distinguishable in a Japanese text if the full name is used.

Cummins says in a note that it is chilli.

[Randall Moffett]

I really do not think they thought the torso armour was making them invincible. I am sure it was theoretically possible to find ways to deal with it. The reality is likely a combination of the most common types of weapons, likely singles handed weapons like spears and such that would not be AS effective. And the fact the guys fighting the Gotlanders were professional. Why would they bother hitting a place that is going to take far more work to accomplish he same goal where it would be easier. This was not their first rodeo, they knew the drill and the fact the peasants they were fighting had limited limb and facial protection seems to make aiming at torsos rather less useful. That said if people are not aiming at a vital area because the armour one could say it gave protection still just not only physical.

I'd not discount the sort tissue damage Dan. There have been people that have died of BFT with no skeletal damage at all. AS well in the Wisby finds there analysis may not have been able to see the more likely micro fractures that can be seen when force is distributed by something over a large area... like armour. I think this is still a topic that could use some good testing. I suspect it would be interesting. Even modern body armour includes BFT in its limitations.

RPM

[Jean Henri Chandler]

I find the persistence of the legends about how armor "might stop a sword blow but you'd be so badly stunned you'd lose anyway" to be amazing. Common in the 90's, ok that's bad enough. Still brought up on forums like this in 2015? I find it really absurd.

As Mike Ruhala noted, the HEMA tournament scene has been going pretty strong since about 2008. These days we use pretty heavy (around 1.5kg) steel longswords at full speed, with as Mike noted, plenty of people amped up with adrenaline and 'swinging for the fences'. We use little more protection than a fencing mask, a padded coat, and some hard plastic gloves. Minor injuries aren't unusual but people knocked out of a fight by being 'stunned' by a sword cut are very rare - fights typically have to be stopped by the judge or they will keep going. In a typical tournament you might have to fight 25 or 30 bouts just to get through the pools, if you advance to the eliminations you may fight anywhere from 5 to 30 more. I've been in 9 of these tournaments so far since 2010 and I've never been knocked out of a fight by a hit. It's very rare that I've ever seen someone unable to fight due to being hit, other than some broken hands especially in the early days before we had good gloves (and people have continued to fight with broken hands without even knowing it) The only temporarily debilitating / knock out effects I remember seeing in longsword matches were from throws, kicks or punches, or pommel strikes.

You do get bruises and so on but you don't really notice those until after (when everyone takes photos of them to post to instagram...) The bottom line is blades don't make very good hammers.


You can see dozens of these tournaments on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzNcbnEvv9U

In the bohurt type fights they do in Central and Eastern Europe now days, which are in full plate armor, people continue to fight after being hit over and over again not only with steel swords but even maces and giant 6 - 7 foot poll axes. Poll axes can have an effect of course but as often as not the guys seem to ignore it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM7Tn-K2eGI

So I think the whole idea of the 'stunning blow' of a blade through armor that is the staple of so many persistent legends is just that, a legend. It should be kept in the world of LARP, computer games and anime where it came from - and this is true whether you are talking about a katana like in the OP or any other sword.

J