Armored combat and sword-pistols

[David Zietlow]

Hey ARMA,

First, let me say your site is a fantastic writer's resource. I've spent a few hours reading your forums/articles, and already my story feels more alive, more realistic. But I'm only scratching the surface.

I'm a new writer trying to blend the 1860s (era of Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Dickens) and sword-fighting. Not as a quirk, but because I'm passionate about both. And my story is built on a total war, so the fighting style is critical.

Trouble is, I'm a stickler for realism. Clearly, I have to bend the world a little to make it feasible (i.e. invent an ideal metal), but past that exception, I'm dedicated to total, uncompromising realism. So before I build a whole world on a potentially terrible idea, I thought I'd run it past the experts. Here it is:

Historically, bullets and economics killed swords and armor. Thanks to an ideal metal (light, cheap, and bullet-resistant--call it "mythril"), swords have believably, realistically, survived as the predominant form of combat.

1860s: Civil War-era technology: rifles, revolvers, gatling guns. But thanks to mythril, bullets have limited effect on fully armored knights. Hence, infantry combat is predominantly armored sword-fighting, ARMA-style: mostly half-swording and grappling, thrusting into the chain-mailed gaps between the armor plates, many fights ending on the ground. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

But then I realized, revolvers exist, and armored combat is all about piercing the gaps. (Without any historical precedent, here's where I'm forced to start theory-crafting and most need your help.) A knight with a six-shooter (which is kind of hilarious) now has an advantage over a sword user. Where the swordsman has to half-sword with lots of force, a revolver can get in close, point the gun between the gaps, and fire, all with one hand. But that fails my goals...I wanted swordplay, not the Wild West in plate.

A rifle would be too unwieldy; I'm guessing the swordsman would have an advantage there. Reloading is a disadvantage for all guns; you might see strange combinations of a sword in one hand, revolver in the other. But swords' role seems too...secondary. I was shooting for primary.

Hence, the sword-pistol. Tapered for thrusting, it (again, hugely theoretically) allows a one-handed fatal thrust: you don't need the force of a half-sword thrust when you can pull the trigger. But it can't just be an artistic whim--it has to actually work, work better than the revolver. And it just might, because oddly enough, a sword-pistol might have a range advantage over a revolver. It can accurately pierce armor gaps from farther away, whereas the revolver only works point-blank, when shoved into the other guy's armor gaps.

If this works, it may restore swords' status as primary weapons, enabling 1860s swordplay.



(In reality they were rather eccentric and useless, but let's assume swordsmiths got serious about sword-pistols and crafted properly balanced, refined weapons.)

Correct me if I'm wrong on any of this; I'm very new, and criticism will only improve my story. If this is crazy BS, then it's out--I'm very serious about realism--but I'll keep searching for ways to blend the 1860s with ARMA's authentic sword-fighting. Thanks for reading all this blather.

[Alex Bourdas]

Sounds very interesting. I'd read it.

I just wanted to quibble a bit about guns having have limited effect. Obviously there still need to be gaps in the armour, such as at the visor for example so they can see. Surely then, if they had Gatling guns, a good tactic would be to fire as many bullets as possible at the knights, and some of them would likely gaps?

Also, even if the armour prevents bullets from penetrating, the knights would still get knocked down by the percussive force.

Neither of those would necessarily mean that swordplay could not be used, but rather than there would need to be a realistic balance between the two. It would be a bit like the balance between the bow and the sword on the medieval battlefield, except that Gatling guns have a substantially higher rate of fire than bows, so would be a bit of a game changer.

It would also be worth considering if the knights are mounted or not. If they are, why don't shoot the horses? Are the horses armoured too?

Finally, I just wanted to point out that halfswording is not just about power, it also makes it easier to control the point, which is vital when you have to hit a small target. So even with sword-pistols, halfswording would still be very useful.

Best of luck.

[David Zietlow]

Ha, I'm thrilled. Maybe I'm not so crazy after all! (We'll see.)

Thanks Alex--your details are very good; I can hear the life in them. I really like your comparison of the gun-vs-sword balance to the old medieval arrow-vs-sword. Some knights would definitely fall to Gatlings, bullets piercing their gaps, just like some knights would fall to hails of arrows. That's the kind of balance I'm going for.

Guns' percussive force: Good call, I hadn't even thought of it. That's important. I wonder if a front-line shield wall (like the Romans' tortoise formation--thanks, Wikipedia) would help. Might lessen casualties. I wonder if a shield could be designed to reduce percussive force.

Cavalry definitely exists. Mythril is light and cheap, so the horses should be armored. Gatling guns versus an armored cavalry charge...I have no idea what would happen there. Probably lots of death.

Artillery also exists. Knights on foot may be supported with cannons behind them, firing on the enemy Gatlings. The knights may have Gatling support themselves.

Half-swording is definitely part of the game.

EDIT: I should probably add, economically, my countries are in a depression, and given the needs of total war, it's not economically feasible for every millionth soldier to wear full, Gothic, airtight plate. Different armor levels exist for different quality units. So the armor gaps in the low-grade infantry are larger than the prized heavy cavalry. (Everyone has the basic plates though; even the lowest footman is ~90% armored.) But as with everything, I'm very open to criticism.

[LafayetteCCurtis]

Historically, bullets and economics killed swords and armor. Thanks to an ideal metal (light, cheap, and bullet-resistant--call it "mythril"), swords have believably, realistically, survived as the predominant form of combat.

Well, by the 1860s, swords might not be "predominant" but you'd be laughed out of the room if you tried to suggest it was already obsolete. Part of it was military conservatism, but the sentiment also reflected the fact that sword-armed cavalry still had a very important role to play in an era when poor communications forced the use of relatively inflexible command arrangements and prevented the full use of the greatly increased range of the newest rifled gunpowder weapons (including artillery).

1860s: Civil War-era technology: rifles, revolvers, gatling guns. But thanks to mythril, bullets have limited effect on fully armored knights. Hence, infantry combat is predominantly armored sword-fighting, ARMA-style: mostly half-swording and grappling, thrusting into the chain-mailed gaps between the armor plates, many fights ending on the ground. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

Well, the thing is, could such an ideal metal be produced so cheaply? If anything, I'd expect it to be quite expensive, and as a result there ought to be large numbers of unarmoured or incompletely armoured troops that would still have been vulnerable to firearm rounds. Not that different from the 16th century, in fact.

Another serious concern is that if one could make armour out of the ideal metal, why couldn't one make bullets out of it? After all, Renaissance cavalrymen realised that lead balls wasted too much of their energy flattening out when they struck armour, so they loaded their pistols with harder steel balls instead when they felt they needed armour-piercing qualities more than lead's abilities to wound unarmoured flesh. If there are concerns that the ideal metal ball would erode steel barrels too quickly, why not make barrels out of it too? This is the same objection I normally advance to schemes for reintroducing armour to 18th- or 19th-century warfare--it's normally cheaper to produce large numbers of more powerful guns than to beat out similar numbers of armour capable of resisting the firepower of such guns.

Never mind that even the ideal metal probably still wouldn't do any good against artillery--you can only stretch physics so far, and a ball fired out of a smoothbore six- or ten-pounder is probably still going to put a dent deep enough to fatally crush a knight in ideal-metal armour. Rifled artillery was much more powerful (the difference was far more dramatic than rifled vs. slick musket) and any armour strong enough to resist them would probably have to be mounted on a fortified redoubt (or a tank-like vehicle).

But then I realized, revolvers exist, and armored combat is all about piercing the gaps. (snip) But that fails my goals...I wanted swordplay, not the Wild West in plate.

I don't see how it would be like the Wild West as such. It'd still be much more like medieval armoured dagger combat, the only difference being that one would pull the trigger rather than stab once the weapon was properly lined up. For a somewhat more dramatic version, imagine the "gun kata" from Equilibrium (the movie with Christian Bale).

Always assuming that nobody was smart enough to build an ideal-metal revolver firing ideal-metal bullets, that is . . .

A rifle would be too unwieldy; I'm guessing the swordsman would have an advantage there. Reloading is a disadvantage for all guns; you might see strange combinations of a sword in one hand, revolver in the other. But swords' role seems too...secondary. I was shooting for primary.

A combination you see all the time in the hands of policemen or dismounted cavalrymen in urban combat--or in colonial riot control (the use of deadly force was much more widely accepted back then). And the sword was by no means a secondary weapon in such situations -- it's much more intimidating to a hostile crowd if the wielder was aggressive and knew how to use it.

Hence, the sword-pistol . . . It can accurately pierce armor gaps from farther away, whereas the revolver only works point-blank, when shoved into the other guy's armor gaps.

I don't see the advantage in range. Half-swording is very close and intense business, and the level of fear and "intimacy" (for lack of a better word) is more akin to that of dagger fighting than more conventional swordfighting. For that matter, the entirety of medieval swordsmanship is like that, with all the terrifying close-in actions at the bind and the lack of reluctance to close into grappling ange.

If this works, it may restore swords' status as primary weapons, enabling 1860s swordplay.

Heh heh. There was a great deal more swordplay in the 1860s than you imagine. War wasn't all about big battles and sweeping manoeuvres. The bayonet and the sword still held critical importance in small-scale skirmishes and meeting engagements, especially when stealth had a role to play. It's a different beast from medieval close-quarters combat since in the 1860s the numbers were greater but the average skill (at hand-to-hand fighting) was presumably lower, so expect things to be a bit more messy and brawly.

That being said, your ideal-metal scenario is not 100% implausible. While I can't see armoured men-at-arms dominating the battlefield on foot, I can easily see units of heavily-armoured soldiers serving in special roles, perhaps as shock units or combat engineers spearheading assaults into enemy trenches or redoubts. Armour never ceased to play a role in trench and siege warfare in Europe; there was a direct line of descent between 18th- and 19th-century sappers and later trench assault parties, or even armoured Soviet assault engineers in the last couple of years of WW2. Besides, such special units will be easier to write about since the scale of the actions they're involved in is a great deal easier to describe than the entirety of a major field battle.

[LafayetteCCurtis]

Mythril is light and cheap, so the horses should be armored.

Seems like our posts crossed in the Great AEther of the Information Superhighway (see, I'm getting steampunk-ish already). Anyway, if the ideal metal is this cheap, the problem remains: why aren't people making guns and bullets out of it?

Of course, even when the metal is used to make both armour and bullets, there'd still be some variation in the firepower vs. protection equation. An armour might not protect against musket balls or rifle rounds but be quite adequate against pistol/revolver balls. This brings us back to the special assault engineers thing--they're probably the ones who could reasonably expect to come up against enemy revolvers (and swords, and bayonets, and Bowie knives) while assaulting trenches and redoubts, more so than long muskets/rifles that would have been quite cumbersome in confined spaces.

[David Zietlow]

Haha, I see that. I was only just logging out.

Lots of very good points there--I'm gonna read up on it, wrestle with it before I reply to your points, but I really do appreciate the acid test. I've got some solid direction for research now, thanks.

Regarding the metal I can write a little. They'd certainly make guns and bullets out of it too. But would a mythril bullet from a mythril gun really pierce mythril armor because they're the same metal? Guns are another thing I should research (I know very little), but I assumed the power of their velocity had much less to do with the metal than the firing mechanics.

Also, swords and armor aren't always the same material: modern body armor is Kevlar and ceramics, modern bullets are...well, all kinds of metal alloys and tips. Maybe a super-Kevlar would be more likely than a super-metal?

I could also play with the metallic properties of mythril. (Brainstorm of angles I could approach: Maybe mythril, for some bizarre chemical reason, makes for poor bullets. Maybe mythril is so light, its bullets are weaker than regular ones. Maybe the metal is strong in large, thick plates, but weak in small, high-surface-area bits and bullets. Maybe 1860s metallurgists aren't technologically advanced enough to craft mythril on the small, precise level required for bullets.)

Worst-case, I'm comfortable declaring Word of God: "Mythril bullets don't pierce mythril armor," and, "Mythril is cheap," because the whole system is built on this idea, this one divergence from reality. I'm inevitably going to have to bend the world a little for it to evolve differently than ours--but only a little. (Doesn't mean it's not worth exploring the metal; I'd certainly like to minimize the fantasy.)

Artillery shells would kill a knight, no question. Armor deflects bullets, not shells, but I'm hoping its bullet-resistance makes it a necessary investment.

I'll be back after some research.

[Stacy Clifford]

But would a mythril bullet from a mythril gun really pierce mythril armor because they're the same metal?

A steel car door is harder than a lead bullet, but the bullet will still pierce the car door because it applies an extreme force to a small area for a very short period of time. I've also seen a picture of a piece of straw driven into a telephone pole by a tornado. Material hardness is a minor factor in puncturing power when you're talking about ballistic speeds. Brittleness vs. ductility is probably more important. A hard but brittle object (like a diamond) may shatter in all directions on impact with a hard surface, while soft materials like lead hold together and continue moving forward despite spreading out. Remember that your ideal metal can come in different grades, alloys, and tempers for different applications. The steel for a sword, a breastplate, a gun barrel, a leaf spring, a soup spoon and a girder beam are not all made the same.

Also, a rifle with a bayonet can be used with half-sword (and spear) techniques very easily and effectively. Some great points above otherwise.

[LafayetteCCurtis]

Also, swords and armor aren't always the same material: modern body armor is Kevlar and ceramics, modern bullets are...well, all kinds of metal alloys and tips. Maybe a super-Kevlar would be more likely than a super-metal?

Note that a full magazine of armour-piercing (tungsten or even depleted uranium-cored) bullets today is much cheaper and easier to produce than a ceramic trauma plate that can absorb only three shots before disintegrating.

Maybe mythril is so light, its bullets are weaker than regular ones.

Easy: put a mythril jacket around a heavy lead/steel/tungsten/whatever core.

Maybe the metal is strong in large, thick plates, but weak in small, high-surface-area bits and bullets.

Then put a plug of mythril in the nose of what's otherwise a conventionl bullet!

Maybe 1860s metallurgists aren't technologically advanced enough to craft mythril on the small, precise level required for bullets.)

Then they wouldn't be able to achieve the precision needed for things like hinges, sliding rivets, or even rolled edges in armour . . . .

Worst-case, I'm comfortable declaring Word of God: "Mythril bullets don't pierce mythril armor," and, "Mythril is cheap," because the whole system is built on this idea, this one divergence from reality.

In which case you'd be violating your obsession with realism and accuracy! Mashing up historical elements from two very different eras is never easy. It's like making a compound out of two very different elements; table salt is nothing like metallic sodium or green chlorine gas. Don't rush into it, take your time to research and extrapolate really well, and you'll end up with something much better than just crudely grafting medieval armour and swordfighting into the American Civil War.

[Jonathan Hill]

You may consider moving your time period back to the 17th century. Single shot pistols/guns still exist but the rate of fire is low enough that swords and pole arms are still the predominate weapons and thus armor is still used on the battlefield.

I’m sure you can play with some type of ‘inventor’ who just started making revolvers, but they can’t be mass produced so they will be expensive and not available to many people.

When you get to the civil war era you have people dropping swords to bring extra guns. This I what Terry’s Rangers did in the Civil War and they apparently did very well as shock troops. Leave it to Texans to pull an extra gun out when you think they are done shooting at you.

[David Zietlow]

Hey, if you guys don't mind, I'd like to put the metal aside. Not that it hasn't been useful--in my old notes, I had the "metallic weaknesses" of mythril (e.g. good as armor but bad as bullets) listed as a very real possibility, which you've convinced me is unrealistic. (That could have been a major audience-groaner.)

I also realized it can't be light and cheap. Mythril exists purely to save armor from what killed it: bullets and economics. So let's just say, mythril is light enough, and cheap enough, to save it from history. But it still weighs a body down. Further, it's expensive enough that only some units strategically use it (like heavy cavalry, most likely), but others go largely unarmored. I'm imagining a wide spectrum from breastplates/helms only to full Gothic plate.

It's still magically bullet-proof. (Sorry, Lafayette--but I did say this was gonna be my one and only break from realism.)

But I'd like to ask you guys about the sword-pistol. The whole point of mythril is the swordplay it enables, and I would really hate to pour hours of research into ideal metals only to find it didn't give me the authentic sword-fighting I wanted in the first place.

What would kill 1860s sword-predominance for me is some grievous tactical oversight I'm missing. Something that would make the audience groan, "That would NEVER happen! Why would she EVER use a sword when she could just ____?" Those are the kinds of "realism" flaws I'm looking for. If the sword wouldn't become predominant even with mythril, that I would accept as too unrealistic, as a call for major restructuring.

For example, I found a worrisome flaw: the revolver. Why bother piercing mail armor-gaps with a sword, when you can just shoot it? Surely that's easier than half-swording; who would use a sword? The revolver is better than the sword at piercing armor gaps, so the sword loses its predominance. I thought it was game over.

Then I found the sword-pistol, which to my naive inexperience seemed even better at piercing armor gaps than the revolver. Is that true?

In other words, if revolvers and rifles were fair game in one-on-one, bulletproof-armored combat, would the sword-pistol's predominance survive? At the very least, would it share equal footing with the bayoneted rifle and revolver? Or would other weapons simply outperform the sword-pistol?

(For example, half-swording with bayoneted rifles seems awfully similar, and I hear a cutting edge is useless in armored combat. But a rifle lacks a crossbar, it's poorly balanced for swordplay...maybe this would benefit the sword-pistol, but these are variables I need your help with.)

I don't see the advantage in range. Half-swording is very close and intense business, and the level of fear and "intimacy" (for lack of a better word) is more akin to that of dagger fighting than more conventional swordfighting. For that matter, the entirety of medieval swordsmanship is like that, with all the terrifying close-in actions at the bind and the lack of reluctance to close into grappling ange.

Hmm. I naively assumed that one-handed thrusts had some use in armored combat. Are one-handed techniques ever useful in armored swordplay?

Even without the one-handed thrust, the range of a sword-pistol versus a revolver seems similar to a sword versus a dagger. Even if you're only half-swording with the sword-pistol, maybe half-swording is still longer-range than a point-blank revolver? (Assuming you don't shoot yourself in the hand...I suppose the "pistol" extends halfway down the blade.)

Leave it to Texans to pull an extra gun out when you think they are done shooting at you.

Haha. My heart's set on this time period though--I've got a plot drafted, and spent a lot of time in history books. I'd sooner lose swords than the era, unfortunately.

[Stacy Clifford]

If you're worried about the problem of piercing the armor gaps, redesign the armor. If you look at the history of armor development, they were steadily reducing the amount of gaps available over time. By the early 1500s, Maximilian-style armor almost doesn't have any gaps above the waist except for the face, and that doesn't leave much either. Now add 350 more years of technological development. Couldn't that be enough time to develop more sophisticated enclosed metal joints to prevent projectiles from getting through? Of course that would also mean that stabbing doesn't work well either. Swords would remain useful as wrestling tools and against semi-armored and unarmored opponents, but for fully armored opponents fighting each other you would probably need to emphasize hammers, axes and maces more. I believe I've seen a pistol with a tomahawk head on it somewhere before.

[Jonathan Hill]

A few threads below this one is one entitled ‘new test cutting video,’ watch that video. You will see what is takes to get through standard chain armor, now you are planning on armoring these people in plate that is far stronger than our metal. The point I’m trying to get at is you don’t cut armor, the only thing that gets through is the blunt force trama so as Stacy said you will need Axes, Hammers and Maces if you want to deal with the people in armor. Two guys in armor with swords wouldn’t be swinging them at each other they would be using them to grapple with and try and shove the point into a gap. But standing back swinging a sword in armor is just an exercise in who gets tired first so that you can then close in lift the visor and shove a knife in his face.

That brings us to the point of a crossbar/quillion, it really isn’t as important when you are halfswording, you have metal gauntlets protecting your hands, thus a bayonette on a rifle will give you the same result as a sword. This brings us back to maces, axes and hammers being the better weapons as well as bring a pistol into grappling range and shoot him in the armpit. But really if I can get a pistol into that range why not take a shot or two at the helm and try to hit him in the eye? You may be able to just hit the head and give him a concussion with the bullet even if it doesn’t make it through the helm. Then you go take the helm off the guy and use a knife!

I always thought Lancelots harpoon was a great weapon for armored fighting, probably why good polearms also have a hook…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPiYBfTE1ec&feature=player_detailpage#t=179s

Swords are great fun for unarmored people but even with standard metal armor (none of the special metal you are going for) the sword was not the preferred weapon to use against armor; you got a poleaxe for that. Swords are fun weapons but they are inefficient against armor, a wise warrior will use a different weapon.

Sword pistol: why wouldn’t I just pull a pistol use that then pull a sword? Perhaps I can halfsword with it then take a shot when I get in close? How about the pistol parts taking damage while the rest of the fight is happening? Seems like a highly unstable thing to use when a standard sword may hold up better. If it is a single hander, why not just use a dedicated pistol and dedicated sword, I have two hands: sword in my right, pistol in the left. That of course begs the question of why pull the sword when I can shoot you?

Aside from the economice etc, what kills armor is that it is not efficient to use anymore. You wear armor because it protects you, when it does not protect you then it is not worth wearing.

Random idea: Instead of looking to full plate harness, what about sewing this metal into a jacket? This will protect you from swords as well as bullets and still allow decent freedom of movement. You are working on a time period where this is not out of the realm of reality and it would give the qualities of cloth as well as the protection of chain armor.

[David Zietlow]

Well, the sword's predominance is looking pretty dead. It almost sounds like Maximilian armor and poleaxes killed it long before the 1860s...among wise armored combatants, at least.

That's okay, I'll shelve the idea for now...besides, I'm growing more interested in the armor itself.

The question with mythril is starting to become, "Well, what WOULD kill a knight?" Even the ideal metal shouldn't be invulnerable: just like modern body armor, there must be risks of broken bones and fatal piercing. Knights must still fear bullets.

Even so, I was banking on armor gaps as the weak points. (I.e. bullets may threaten plate like they threaten Kevlar, but they're guaranteed to pierce mail.) But they need a reason to exist. Is there any? ...What about mobility? Mobility might be more important in a war with Gatling guns and rifles. Gothic/Maximilian plate looks more cumbersome than earlier plate armor. Is there a significant mobility disadvantage from extra armor around your joints? (I doubt the added weight makes much difference.) My gut tells me "no, the gaps are probably unrealistic," but I can only speculate.

Maybe there's some other justification for armor gaps--modern soldiers only wear what, body armor and a helmet? Granted, that's a totally different game, but at least it shows a possibility.

Regarding the sewn metal jacket--I'm hesitant to make mythril armor any lighter, because it's already starving for disadvantages. But maybe the jacket compensates with a disadvantage of its own: I imagine it gives zero protection from broken bones. Gunfire might wreck your skeleton without piercing your armor...hmm. It'd certainly lower the death rate. I'm not sure if it'd change the tactics of warfare.

Thanks for all your help--hope I'm not being a pain with all these questions.

[Stacy Clifford]

Armor, including Maximilian armor, was designed to be mobile, or else you can't fight (and it was made for a king after all). NASA studied suits of armor like those to help them design space suits because the joint designs were so effective. Some gaps may be necessary to ensure mobility, but as a fiction author you have the option of saying that clever armorers found a way to close those gaps without sacrificing too much mobility (but maybe a little).

Here's the rub, though. As mentioned, blunt trauma is the most effective attack against plate armor. If you bash up the metal around a joint, however, you not only injure the man inside, you also damage the moving parts of the armor and decrease its mobility. More metal around the joints may decrease your chances of getting pierced, but the advantage is partially offset by the increased chance of your elbow joint getting jammed by a stray piece of lead. The protection is still worth the risk, but it's something the armored man still has to keep in mind while fighting.

Also, just as there were many kinds of arrows for different uses, there can be many kinds of bullets. If small piercing projectiles won't phase your perfect metal, what about designing a handgun that will deliver a hammer-like blow instead? Larger bullets with blunt tips for impact at close range, for instance, instead of pointed bullets (look at the "bullets" for the Navy's latest toy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uV1SbEuzFU). An .80-caliber pistol would have a hell of a kick, but a knight would know he'd been hit. Well-shaped armor could still deflect some shots and survive long enough to reach hand-to-hand range, but there would be significant danger on the way in, just as there was against the longbow.

Also, as I mentioned above, as long as there are still partially armored and unarmored opponents to fight, a sword is still a wonderfully versatile weapon to have available. Are fully armored people really only going to fight other fully armored people? The point of warfare is to exploit your advantages, so sometimes you're going to send your heavy armor against their light armor.

[David Zietlow]

War should see plenty of armored-vs-unarmored. I think the most compelling fights would be one-on-one between armored champions, like Hector vs Ajax amidst the Trojan War.

I'll abandon armor gaps--your points on Maximilian's mobility were really helpful, thanks.

Armor trauma is really growing on me--sounds like that's the route I have to take. Guns are inevitably better than melee weapons at percussive force, so I'm imagining armored knights like Hector and Ajax would probably duel with some kind of anti-knight armor-trauma gun (that railgun is ridiculous, wow), and maybe some sword for unarmored footsoldiers. Hmm...this might work, I'll think about it.

Another thing I'm thinking about--I'm tempted to bend reality again, invent some magic sword that would bash armor better than guns. (Assume the magic technology wouldn't transfer to guns/bullets. I know it violates "total, uncompromising realism," but I feel I should at least explore the idea.) Sort of like a blunt lightsaber, increasing the force of melee strikes enough for armor trauma.

But technology aside, let me just ask you a conceptual question--if swords were (magically) better than guns at causing armor trauma, would swords become predominant?

Also, what do you think armored combat would look like, with such a weapon? I'm imagining something halfway between the more cautious, graceful unarmored fencing and the more intimate, rugged halfsword-and-wrestle of (real) armored fights.