So, help me figure something out here /tg/; I'm puzzle

File: Dracula_armor_-_Coppola_-_Stierch_01.jpg (75KB, 508x898px) Image search: [Google]

75KB, 508x898px

o now I'm thinking, ok, maybe spears, swords and axes weren't such overkill and maybe early armor didn't suck so much. But then why the fuck did armor keep evolving?


So now, here is my actual question. With all this in mind, how the hell did combat itself evolve around the fact that armor technology was improving at a fast-pace, while weapon design technology was moving as a much slower pace. Since even early armor already proved itself eficient in protecting the owner for weapon blows, then how did the warriors adapt to combat their better suited enemies with less than effective weapons?

I can imagine two shirtless barbarians hacking at each other with swords until one manages to land a light blow, then another, then another, then a moderate one, and another, and another and another until a few minutes later he is hacking away at the other guy. But I can't imagine two hypotetical roman era gladiators clad in full boiled studded leather armor, just standing there and trading blows over and over and over again hoping that they are the first to make it through the other man's armor after 30 minuter of hacking away at the same place.

And fuck no, I can't see two knights just punching the crap out of each other or beating themselves until one of them passes out from dehydration like we see on that "Polish Medieval MMA" shit on youtube.


Then how did it all play down? Did warriors start using the conventional weapons as a means to parry and tire the enemy, then would deliver the death blow with some other specialized weapon like a tri-edged dagger or a laser witch sword, shit, or would they after a while resort to muay thai'ng the other guy in the face hoping that his helmet would fall off so that you could hit him with an axe.

That's the kind of thing I shit I wanna know, basically.

>>55115176
There are weapons that were specifically designed to defeat armor. What you want is a long handle for leverage, a small point for the most pressure on impact, and a lot of mass at the head for the most energy. Hammers, halberds, maces, and even staves are all known for their ability to crush steel plate and cause debilitating wounds to those wearing it, even through chain and padding.

As for two armored opponents in a "duel" scenario, which was exceedingly rare outside of sporting scenarios, you would likely see the two combatants trying to close to grapple range in order to use a small sword or dagger to slide under the helmet or into an exposed joint.

>>55115176
Something you have to remember is that weapons are extraordinarily basic. Weapons are essentially one of three things.
Sharp pointy thing.
Heavy blunt thing.
Edged sharp thing.

Even arrows and bullets are just fast pointy thing. When armor started catching on was when people realized that if you have something between you and one of those three things, it hurt less. Armor technology only developed as fast as the technology to make it. gunpowder was the result of a taist practicing extrenal alchemy - once it was realized it could propel things, then armor was developed to counter that too. But the main thing is that weapons could be modified to punch through armor, but in the end, there are really only three weapons on earth.
Sharp pointy thing.
Heavy blunt thing.
Edged sharp thing.

All armor is created to mitigate those three facts.

>>55115172
>In other words, armor evolved but we mostly stuck with variations of the same designs of swords and axes.
That's not really correct. For example weapons went from simple copper bladed weapons to bronze swords, to iron swords, to steel swords. Beyond that the style of weapons changed with curved vs straight, single vs double edged weapons going back and forth across time and culture for swords while weapons like axes, maces, and hammers fell into and out of style.

Beyond that there are many ways of defeating an armoured opponent, the most obvious three are.
1. Just bypass the armour, using your pic as an example and assuming your weapon cannot get through the armour stab him in the armpit, hack his neck, slash his leg.
2. Take advantage of mechanics to increase your penetration, lances, picks, axes, and flanged maces do this best by focusing a ton of energy on a small area allowing for relatively greater penetration as penetration is heavily effected by force and impact area
3. Just hit them with enough force that the armour doesn't matter, it doesn't matter that the mace didn't penetrate your helmet if it dented your helmet annd crushed your skull

>>55115247
>>55115309
>>55115313

Not OP but I'm thinking something here.

Obviously the other guy wearing the armor we are trying to punch through doesn't want that to happen, so he will fight like hell to avoid that and punch our armor instead. Obviously after we somehow manage to kill this guy we are also gonna be tired as shit.

So with this in mind, this kinda makes us realize that in no way, shape or form did combat actually take place like they show it to us in movies: Both armies charge forth and beat themselves head-on, then the best warriors just stroll around cutting people with one move while other fighters just grapple behind them.

Realistically, if that actually happened then a lot of people would get hit in the back, or get hit by their own friends.


So how exactly wound a medieval battle take place? I can only think of multiple simultaneous but individual engagements, this actually plays well if we talking about niggas fighting in a castle or vilage.

>>55115423
One line of people presses against another line of people. Rinse and repeat until one side loses its nerve or makes a mistake and then you run them down.

>>55115172
>While padded armor went to leather scales, then to boiled leather pads, then full lboiled and hardedned leather armor with bronze or copper scales sewn in and all the way up to steel armor

No.

>weapon designs however stayed the same.

No.

The main advances in arms and armour were in material science with form being defined by that and fashion requirements. And even there it was a mixture of raw material cost and the physical limitations of the medium they were working in rather than a straight up race towards obsolence.

>>55115172
Nigga, chinks and romans came up with the same shit and it advanced at different rates depending on whose civilization was in the shitter at the time. Armour protected the legs and arms, shields fir the body/body of the guy next to you and spears or short swords to poke the other guy where ever the fuck you could. Ancient war was weaponized bitch moves. Pull a guy down, knock his buddy down and stab a bitch while he was on the ground. Like, thats it.
Armour evolved to ad more protection at the cost of stamina. Legionairs never wore full plate because they had to march everywhere. No horses to cart their ass around. Niggers started to use hook lances to puncture over the sheild wall so helmets became in vogue. Just escalating bitch move to counter bitch move ending with a 400lb full plate faggot running a couple of peasants over with his horse.

>>55115172
Knife beat bare hands. Club beat knife. Spear beat club. Sling bullet beat Spear. Spear + Shield beat sling bullet. Leather cuirass reduced where you could strike. Arrow beats everything.

Bronze discovered. Breastplate beats arrow, reduces strike points further. Chariot beats foot soldier.

Bronze collapse from dwindling supplies of tin. Iron forged. Gladius + scutum beats longspear. Stirrup allows cavalry, cavalry beats chariot. Forging improves. Faster sword beats gladius. Pike beats faster sword. Cavalry can now wear stronk armor. Heavy crossbow bolt beats stronk armor. Mace and hooked polearm beat cavalry. Lance and suit armor beat mace and hooked polearm. Dopplehander beat pike.

Bullet beat suit armor. Doublet rapier and pistol beat wheellock bullet. Grenade beat doublet. Soupbowl helmet and trench beat grenade. Tank beat soupbowl helmet and trench. Aircraft beat tank. Nuke beat airstrip.

>>55115172
Yeah except for the fact that you're completely wrong about every point and every assumption you make in this post.

>>55115172

OP you have to realize that a gladius is not a longsword and an estoc inflicts wounds diffrently than a dao, still all these weapons would be called swords by most.

Not an expert but this is what I picked up:

Mail armor was already known to the romans and they themselves had armor made out of larger metal pieces that formed an outfit. Later on plated mail became a thing too. For a long time these were simply the best armors one could make.

Only after metalworking tech improved and there became a need for fully enclosing armor did plate armor become a thing. Crossbows and firearms werent stopped by the earlier armor designs.

It didnt last that long actually and later on you actually see a decline again in the use of heavy armor as it had to be too heavy and bulky to actually be of use against newer firearms.

Also, leather armor wasn't really used in medieval europe, not how its displayed in most fantasy settings at least. Gambesson / padded jacks were actually the "basic" and cheapy armor.

Weapons did evolve too btw, as heavier armor was used weapons were developed that could pierce it. Examples are the estoc or horsemans pick. And new means of dealing with a heavily armored enemy were devised too of course.

>>55115423
"Battles" were exceptionally rare. Why would you stand around in a field to get slaughtered when you have a perfectly good fort to hide inside of? Hey would you chase after an army out in a field when you could go burn some farms to the ground then siege their castle and starve them out? Fighting like you see in movies NEVER happened, save for a few very specific ambush scenarios.

Shields have been very consistently used in warfare and are probably a bigger impact on the design of weapons than armour on its own.

Ancient civilisations throughout the bronze age typically used vary large shields of varying designs. Round shields, tower shields and figure eight shields were the standard and provided the main defense when fighting as an individual and when fighting in formation as a shield wall. The shape of the shield would often be designed to accommodate thrusting with a spear. They also gave the best protection against projectiles such as arrows or slings with their large size.

Horses in warfare in this time were typically only used in Chariots, so the large shield would be ideal for a 2 person team and would be the same design as the infantry. Depending on preferences, there would be on person driving and shield bearing, whilst another used a bow whilst making close hit and runs attacks. They could also switch and have the driver with reins in one hand and a close weapon in another and the second the shield and another close weapon.

Swords as sidearms at this time would be ideal at a short length when fighting close with such large shields, and a leaf shaped blade gave best cut and thrust ability with the shorter length. Other swords of less conventional shapes such as the Khopesh which the blade curving forwards allowed people to hook and pull away or reach over the large shield when fighting.

As armour moved from bronze or lacquered linen and into iron and hard boiled leather, single rider Cavalry also started to be introduced. The large shields were too cumbersome and new iron over padded linen armour gave better protection so a smaller round shield became more popular. These also provided ideal for better trained "elite" fighters to make attacks and retreat to behind the main army's shield wall as they were more suitable for individual defense from close weapons without the worry of arrows.

>>55116386
With the progression of knights in Europe, kite shaped shields became a new style for mounted warriors as they were based on a round shield with an extended tail to protect the horse's flank. Iron also allowed the forging of much longer swords, which were more desirable for cavalry and for individual fighting. The leaf shaped blade was dropped for a straight blade more ideal for piercing or in the case of cavalry as sabres for cutting from horseback. The length allowing them to fight mounted without reaching down, risking losing balance or being pulled down.

The shield wall stayed as the main formation right through until the introduction of plate armour. Now with a complete defense against ranged and close attacks without the need of a shield, two handed weapons became more popular as counters to others in plate and for mainstray troops with much longer pikes and other polearms. Firearms becoming introduced at around the same time made the larger shields redundant for projectile defense and they became even smaller as heater shields with the purpose of displaying heraldry and acting as an offhand weapon and targes and bucklers for individual defense, being used to parry rather than block.
With firearms becoming more commonplace and more suitable for warfare, plate armour too became redundant and beyond a cuirass or doublet protecting the torso for those who expected hand to hand fighting it was seldom used, being too expensive and restrictive to be worthwhile. Soon almost no one wore armour in battle with the rapid progression of firearms until modern body armour became introduced during the past 50 years.

>>55115423
go to an SCA event sometime. You might not approve of the philosophy, but it is educational in terms of battles and weapon use.

You can't really go wrong with Linen and Cloth armor with some chain mail under it protecting the vitals and the neck with a good helm that also protects most of the face

I can't tell if op is trolling or not

>>55116585
I'm pretty sure OP and most of the anons in this thread are genuine idiots

>>55116590
More likely they're just underage and gushing about what they saw on TV one time.