Weapon/armour effectivness and categorization

[Ivan Curic]

OK... i did not make the table, just added the effects...
the fencing was meant to be a catgory of weapons such as a rapier...
as for the dagger vs plate... the table is meant for the armored locations... ergo if you hit an unarmored location, or a gap, it works... if you start poking and slashing the plate with your dagger, you're not gonna do any real damage, are you?

[Brian Hunt]

Nope,

the dagger is used to seek out gaps or openings in the armor, it was also used as a form of leverage by grasping the blade with one hand and the hilt with the other. Take a look at the various manuals under research and reading. Please note how they actually fought with a dagger.

hope this helps.

Brian Hunt
GFS

[Benjamin Abbott]

So, I guess that means that the motor control part of their brains weren't damaged. Were they wearing a helmet? Glancing blow, etc?

Helmets aren't mentioned in the accounts I'm think of. In 14th century Coronor's Rolls, a few men take cuts an inch or two deep and are still able to flee or fight.

Armour does not "swallow" some of the damage to the body, it either protects or not.

I don't agree with this. There are plenty of cases of armor turning what would have been a fatal wound into a minor one. It's not all or nothing.

A Rapier, for example has almost no weight and can still kill a full-grown man within a split second

Rapier generally weighed two to four pounds, and it would take a very well placed thrust to stop a man in a split second.

There were probably more knights in full plate armour killed by daggers than any other weapon IMO.

Sure, but not by piercing the plate. Perhaps by working through the mail on the armpits, though going for the eye slit would be quicker if it worked.

[Stacy Clifford]

Rapier generally weighed two to four pounds, and it would take a very well placed thrust to stop a man in a split second.

I've held just enough real rapiers to know that point control with a good one is frighteningly easy for a skilled swordsman. I believe there is one technique in one of the manuals known as "kissing the button" - you thrust your opponent in the teeth, and while he's spitting them out you put it through his eye. Nasty stuff.

[SzabolcsWaldmann]

As for dagger VS Plate.

Please note the Gladiatoria.
I am an armour-fan, so please consider this before you turn angry on me <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />
In Gladiatoria, on more than one ocassions it looks like they are using dagger versus plate. Against the belly, to be precise. Now, in our ARMA Poland/Order of the Sword Workshop we did those technics, and if you place the attack right, you can push the dagger's pommel with your own belly, wich *could* *maybe* even get the point through the plate. It must be noted that the daggers we are talking about are triangular in blade shape, very sharp and thin. Of course we did not test those technics.... we do not own such a dagger or would we be stupid enough to ruin our armours (if it should work accidentally). What MUST be said of course, that those technics are rather difficult to pull, and if you should fail by trying to do them, you will offer a lots of opportunities to your adversary to kill you in several ways.

It's somehow strange... in trying to fight old myths and beliefs we are creating new ones, which are maybe almost as incorrect. Actually, nobody truly knows the answer to Longbow VS Plate - there are just no convincing tests for any of the two sides, there is always something wrong with those testings. We do not know, if our Longsword fighting was well-known and used throuout the lands, or not. If those technics were used in battles, in quarrells, or only at juristical duells. And I don't know if one can penetrate plate with a Panzerstecher dagger or not... (the word means Armourthruster, btw.)

Szab

[Matthew_Anderson]

Yes, the preponderance of dagger techniques aimed at the breast or belly in Gladiatoria is puzzling to me. I have a very hard time believing that the author really thought that even a very pointy, stiff, strong dagger, thrust into a breastplate, was likely to penetrate. Certainly, a rondel will pierce maillle and the underlying fabric, or slip under a gorget or aventail, or in an eyeslot nicely. But actually puncture a breastplate with enough energy left to also penetrate deeply into the man inside? It seems very unlikely. I think it's important to note that most of the dagger techniques that involve thrusting to the body are actually counters to those thrusts. In other words if he thrusts at you this way, do this. The author doesn't seem to be advocating attempting to pierce the breastplate, but if someone thrusts at your torso, he's telling you how to take advantage of it and counter him with wrestling. Unfortunately, he also isn't very specific about how or where you should thrust your dagger, usually just saying something like "work with your dagger". Perhaps it was just considered common knowledge that you will have to find a vulnerable spot and target it, so it isn't addressed specifically.