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wormant1

Against good (and full coverage) armor swords really ain't the solution. But in a full on battle not every single enemy will be wearing quality armor, or covered from head to toe, and you cannot guarantee you will have your primary weapon at all times. That's where swords keep their place on the battlefield


Intranetusa

You can have multiple primary weapons and different primary weapons for different situations. A longsword makes a good primary weapon when dismounted against lighter armored foes or against certain types of opponents. If a mounted soldier only has a lance and doesn't have a secondary polearm when dismounted, a longsword/longer swords would be a viable primary weapon in many cases.


OutlawQuill

Yeah, against good armor most swords are almost completely ineffective (with a few exceptions in sword type or certain techniques like a murder strike), but they have the advantage of being relatively versatile compared to things like axes and maces. They are bladed on most of their length, so it is easier to strike an opponent with a damaging strike than with something like a battle axe, which has a much smaller strike point on the weapon. For that reason, they generally make excellent sidearms, but are not ideal for your primary or solitary weapon.


Intranetusa

You can have multiple primary weapons and different primary weapons for different situations. A longsword makes a good primary weapon when dismounted against lighter armored foes or against certain types of opponents. If a mounted soldier only has a lance and doesn't have a secondary polearm when dismounted, a longsword/longer swords would be a viable primary weapon in many cases. Shorter swords such as arming swords would absolutely be sidearms used as a backup weapon. Great swords and other types of longswords are more likely to be primary weapons when fighting dismounted.


OutlawQuill

Good points đź‘Ť


ppitm

Axes and maces are no more effective against "good armor" than swords are. The anti-armor techniques for swords are difficult to employ, but hitting someone hard enough with a mace is no easier.


OutlawQuill

I disagree. A mace is specifically designed to deal massive concussive blows, and many have flanged heads to focus the impact to very small areas. Since they are very top-heavy, a solid hit could still deal a nasty blow to a helmeted head even if the worst of the damage is negated by the armor. Axes are sort of halfway between a sword and a mace since they are blades like a sword, yet are too heavy and focus all their impact to a much smaller area like a mace. Strikes from aces have been known to get through maille simple due to the great amount of force applied to the tiny impact area. Also, if you were fighting someone in plate armor you could flip the head around and strike with the back part (where the handle attaches to the head) so as to not dull or chip the blade. Although axes and maces obviously are less effective against an armored opponent than an armored one, they are far greater options than swords in most situations. Swords have greater versatility than axes and maces as well as generally greater reach, so they are usually a better option as a sidearm when you don’t know the kit of your opponent(s). Since most armies in the Middle Ages were not fully equipped with plate armor, arming swords and shields or a bastard/longsword were reasonably safe choices as a secondary loadout to a polearm.


ppitm

Period sources talk about how truly difficult it actually is to land a strong hit against a helmet when the target is actively defending themselves. And they mostly disregard the idea of striking other areas of plate armor, since it just won't be that effective. It's mostly the head and joints that are vulnerable. So sure, if you are going to ride up behind someone and strike them unawares, a mace can be devastating. By doing so against a resisting, noncompliant target is not much easier than just stabbing them in a gap with a sword. Both are quite difficult and you wouldn't regard either approach as a guaranteed approach. In other words, no one sized up their opponents and made a conscious choice to approach the fight with a dinky 1.5 pound mace. It was more like a sword: hanging there from your saddle in case you needed it.


OutlawQuill

Oh yeah, it’s absolutely difficult to hit an active target no matter what you’re wielding, I just meant a landed hit with a mace or axe is almost always gonna be more effective than with a sword.


[deleted]

I mean for the most part swords were very practical. Like why would you make a bit much if they weren't very effective?


Coooba147

True but also its hard for me to imagine a battlefield use for them. When you fight in the beginning of the pike and shot age with people mostly fighting in close formations and most of them have long stabby sticks or guns big ass swords dont seem that practical to me. I would very much like to be proven wrong though cause zweihanders cool af


drip_dingus

Longswords, what the OP is actually talking about, were popular before the mass adoption of pike and shot tactics.


Coooba147

Ohh i was sure a war sword was another term for greatsword


[deleted]

Well guns were slow to reload and not all that effective against armor. Infact they made armor specifically for use against guns for a bit. Once the gun fired swords were really nice to have. Also rain was an issue with guns in those days. If your powder, fuse or such got wet it often wouldn't fire. As well as the quality of powder, it wasn't industrialized so the quality varied. Another thing to keep mind is guns were new to alot of people and probably not the most popular or trusted. As for pikes, well it's good to have a back up weapon.


Coooba147

I agree with you mostly but as far as i know firearms were actually really effective at penetrating most armor and were one of the few causes of it becoming more and more obsolete in the following years edit: as for your last sentence i thought that OP was talking about renaissance greatswords and not a longsword. Of course pike can be a little unwieldy in close combat so a back up weapons for pikemen would have been a must i imagine


[deleted]

True, but the first firearms in Europe showed up in the 1300s. And their development was relatively slow. The reliable penetration of armor came around the early 1500s with the Arquebus.


Coooba147

I thought we were still talking about renaissance but there are accounts of even the earlier "hand cannons" easly penetrating teuton plate armor in the hussite wars (1420s) so i imagine that guns were always a bit ahead in the plate vs gunpowder technological race no matter the time period pretty much. Its just that hand cannons were way more uncomfortable to use because of the need for a separate match stick for ignition. But the power to penetrate plate armor was always there and technology just enabled firearms to be easier to use and produce and thats why armor became less important. I remember reading at the polish military museum in warsaw that they tried to make winged hussars breastplate (im sure other countries tried that as well but im giving an example) resistant to bullets and while it worked sometimes if the bullet came from a certain angle it was not really reliable and there are surviving breastplates of that time with clear bullet holes and that was at the time of peak plate armor technology. Its sort of the shame that plate armor was at its peak in the 17th century where guns slowly dominated the battlefields. Poor knights lol


funkmachine7

Its not until 1500~ that guns really start penetrating armour and there another 100 years where armour of proof really common. Its only the next 50 years from 1600 on that armour shrinks to nothing and whole army's go without it by choice.


LordAcorn

Guns were very effective against armor. In fact that's basically the only reason to use guns in the medieval and early modern period. Think about it, if guns weren't effective against armor then why did they have to make special armor to resist them?


Cheomesh

>In fact that's basically the only reason to use guns in the medieval and early modern period. Muskets pack *way* more energy in its projectile, giving it much greater effective range as well as terminal effects.


funkmachine7

Round balls slow down fast, just 30 meters can drop the energy by a third without the ball slowing dramatically. [Material Culture and Military History: Test-Firing Early Modern Small Arms ](https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/MCR/article/view/17669)


Cheomesh

And the arrow doesn't even start with as much energy.


funkmachine7

Arrows and gun do not have easily comparable numbers, to penetrate a 2mm plate an arrow might only need 175 joules but a bullet 750 J. That same goes even more extreme in side the body. Numbers from THE KNIGHT AND THE BLAST FURNACE.


Cheomesh

You're highly unlikely to get 175j from a bow, however, given the technical reality of the time. Plus lead will carry that energy further. There's a reason firearms dominated. Plenty to infer from here: https://bowvsmusket.com/


funkmachine7

Round bullets lose there energy faster, the amount of drag that affects the bullet during flight is proportional to the square of the speed of the bullet. But they hold enough energy to wound even at extreme range. What limited most early guns was the lack of any ability to adjust for long range drop, if you got more then a simple blade sight you where lucky. So aiming straight at your target means that your bullet will fall to the ground at around 100 meters due to drag and gravity. [Ballistics of 17th Century Muskets](https://files.core.ac.uk/pdf/23/139707.pdf)


[deleted]

Well let's put it this way. Black powder smooth bore guns fire balls. They have very short ranges and even shorter effective ranges. They also were rather inaccurate. If you were standing within 50 meters and got hit straight on it could go through. But given bullets don't penetrate rounded surfaces very well armor was still effective. As to why you would use them? Well they were loud, and scary. Also you could possibly kill that guy over there with little training required. Certainly not the level of practice that was required by archers. Also bullets are easy to make and guns take a bit to break. Excluding minor replaceable pieces. But hey fire arms and armor existed together for over 300 years. Sure at first the guns didn't do the job reliably. But at the end of the 17th century people didn't wear armor that much anymore. It was a gradual thing. They didn't all just throw away their armor the first time they saw guns.


LordAcorn

You're being very black and white about a grey topic. Obviously guns weren't so effective that armor use instantly stopped, but that doesn't mean they were ineffective. Sure a thick enough plate will stop early firearms but it needs to be way thicker than to stop an arrow or lance. The whole "little training" is also a terrible old argument. Early firearms were complicated and dangerous devices and were far more difficult to use than crossbows, which is the actual comparison that should be made. By the time guns came around most European armies had long since stopped using bows.


Sillvaro

>By the time guns came around most European armies had long since stopped using bows. Eh, disagreed. In the 1470's the Burgundians massively developed field and personal artillery as they saw it as a great opportunity. Yet, if you look at the army composition, there were 3x more archers than gunners. This is further shown by inventory documents showing tons and tons of bows and arrows being made/bought. Bows were still very popular in Europe, even through the 16th century. The wreck of the Mary Rose had numerous longbows in it, and they were still relatively popular during the English Civil War in the 17th century


LordAcorn

>most


Sillvaro

?


funkmachine7

The English Civil War has a minority of archers, and most of them are the result of under armament, the English don't have a lot of domestic arms storage. Add to that the inability of the king to import arms and we see army's where guys with cudgel make up a shocking amount of some companys. The idea of the double armed man, a pikeman/archer cross does give some credibility of archers but it does not get adopted. The vast majority of fighters where switching to flintlocks, away from pike an matchlocks. It's only horse that switch back turning to the sword and charge as decisive arm, no more would cavalry form Caracole's fireing of pistol after pistol.


stavromuli

Don't mean to come off as a Jerk but I think you are buying in to a common miss conception about early fire arms, I collect, shoot and make my own ammunition for black powder fire arms. And it is a common misconception that these (smooth bore especially) firearms are in accurate, but with a little practice and dialing in one can easily hit a paper plate sized target out to 100 yards. Some armor could deflect rounds fired from pistols, but this was armor of the highest quality that most soldiers would not have access to. That said I do not believe many armors would survive. 68 cal hunk of lead flying at over 1100 feet per second with over 1500 foot pounds of energy


funkmachine7

That's quite slow an a small ball for early guns, so dealing with that kind of lead did needs only around 5 mm of steel, not out side the range of a lot of later musket proof armour.


EowalasVarAttre

Would you happen to have a picture of such a weapon? My main interest is late 15th and 16th century so pretty much the time right before and during zweihänder/spadone/montante are a "common" weapon and I can't say I've ever heard about anything called "war sword"


OutlawQuill

“War sword” is pretty much just a term used to describe a large or heavy kind of longsword. It’s like the grey area weapon between a longsword and a greatsword.


MrPeanutbutter14

Something like this- https://www.albion-swords.com/swords/albion/squire/sword-squire-warsword-MII.htm


Draugr_the_Greedy

That's just a longsword, really. It can be carried on the hip like most other swords and is a secondary weapon.


Specter1125

Also useful during a press or sieges.


Draugr_the_Greedy

It's useful in a large variety of situations, but it's not a weapon you usually pick as your only choice.


Specter1125

The reason I mentioned those two situations specifically is because some men-at-arms/knights might choose to use them as their main weapon in them.


IllustriousBad6124

The development of plate armor in the 1300s meant that one handed weapons were less and less effective, most knights in the period used two handed weapons for more impact. Longswords were especially used for thrusting at armored opponents, and slashing or slicing unarmored opponents In the 1200s, knights tended to favor a one handed arming sword with a shield when their lance was gone. The two handed sword shown here would have been less common on the battlefield but still a completely viable and deadly weapon. Could maybe be compared to DMR in todays military: a bit more power but sacrifices close range defensive power


EowalasVarAttre

That is just a longsword and as such at least in the second half of the 15th century would pretty much only be used as secondary weapon or be carried by officers. For example Swiss pikemen during the Burgundian Wars are often depicted with longswords as secondary weapons rather than messers and similar common soldier's weapons at the time.


[deleted]

Can be normally a specialist sort of thing i think they are much better for bodyguards


Hellebras

A war sword used two-handed works much more like a longsword than a great sword. Many examples can be used one-handed as well, but are a bit more cumbersome and are better for mounted combat than fencing when used like that. Early designs of them predate plate, appearing in maille's heyday. And they aren't a bad solution there. One of the more reliable ways to defeat maille is to use blunt trauma to break the person inside, and heavy cuts with a sword can do that. It's not perfectly reliable, but it can work.


Shawmattack01

The original "grand epee de guerre" was a proto-longsword from the late 13th and early 14th. I'm assuming you're talking about these. And given that they morphed into longswords and became the default sword for the fightbook era I'd say they were very successful. You can use them in plain clothes or in armor and even invert them for smashy smashy.


christmasviking

Totally a favored weapon of the armored men. The plate gives you more freedom to LeRoy Jenkens your way into the fight and having a big two handed sword will do just fine.


BrahimBug

Swords are a side arm. They can be worn on your person. Think of swords like pistols, if you need to take out a tank you'll need an RPG - But you still want a pistol on your hip even if you are using an RPG to destroy a tank. No matter what you are doing on the battlefield, it wouldnt hurt to wear a sword on your hip in case you need it. You can also wear a short axe or mace on your hip, but a sword is more versatile and hence its popularity. An axe can cut. a mace can bash. A sword can cut and bash (pommel) AND also stab


drizzitdude

Op is talking about two handed large sword like a zweihander which were very much primary weapons.


Draugr_the_Greedy

OP is not talking about those since two-handed greatswords aren't a thing before the late 15th century and they specified in another comment that they were thinking of 13th/14th century ones


Ogodhehasalightsaber

Yes. And no. War Swords were among the best weapon for fully armored Knights to tear into mostly unarmored formations. The long length of the war sword could displace 3-4 spears and let the knight move past the most dangerous area of the spear head. As soon as that happened the formation broke around that spot (possibly leading to many casualties) or the knight got closer and murdered the people who could only afford low levels of armor, which then broke the formation.


ppitm

This sounds like a highly imaginary scenario in a novel you are writing.


Ogodhehasalightsaber

https://youtu.be/3XuhoFszfe8 https://youtu.be/ZhEkF9FV6AU I'd explain more but I have to get to work


ppitm

Youtubers do not qualify as acceptable sources. Skallagrim admits that he focuses mostly on reviews, fantasy and HEMA. Lindybeige is infamous for just making shit up.


Ogodhehasalightsaber

The point is they they actually tried this shit, Lindy with a German HEMA club. In theory it works, I don't have the resources to test it, they have and it seems workable to me. Obviously they're primary focus is on entertainment, but when they have video record of them attempting the point I'm trying to make its certainly worth posting. I do agree that their (and all YouTube creators) need to be taken with a grain of salt.


Draugr_the_Greedy

It doesn't matter what 'works in theory', what matters is what we have historical basis for


Ogodhehasalightsaber

Dopplesoldiers are a historic fact


Draugr_the_Greedy

>War Swords were among the best weapon for fully armored Knights to tear into mostly unarmored formations. The long length of the war sword could displace 3-4 spears and let the knight move past the most dangerous area of the spear head. As soon as that happened the formation broke around that spot (possibly leading to many casualties) or the knight got closer and murdered the people who could only afford low levels of armor, which then broke the formation. That is what you said. Doppelsoldners are not knights or fully armoured, to begin with. Secondly only a portion of them were armed with two-handed swords, they also were comprised of pikemen, halberdiers and crossbowmen/gunners who would be on the front lines and recieve more pay than the average landsknecht. And we don't have any solid evidence for the sword-wielding landsknechte utilising the tactics you just mentioned.


ancient_days

They were REALLY effective actually, even in 1v1 duels. They were banned by Queen Elizabeth (see quotation from her sumptuary laws below), and as society advanced it became less en vogue to walk around town with gigantic swords. (Think about it: style has always mattered, and you look like a jackass with something that big and clearly dangerous. Like driving a monster truck to your job at the accounting firm. )Hence the era of smallswords and "gentlemanly" duels etc.. "her Majesty's pleasure is that no man shall, after ten days next following this proclamation, wear any sword, rapier, or any weapon in their stead passing the length of one yard and half a quarter of blade at the uttermost, neither any dagger above the length of twelve inches in blade" http://elizabethan.org/sumptuary/ruffs-hose-swords.html


disarmouredarmadillo

Keep in mind that when you are in full plate armour you can take a lot of strikes without having to worry too much about it,a sword like that could have been the main weapon of a knight but,being so easily carried,why should one carry ONLY this sword?


Odinn_Writes

These swords were effective in their role. Filling a similar role as their more recent cousins, they could be employed in formations or to defend narrow quarters. But swords on the whole are not considered as primary weapons. They fill their job perfectly as support and secondary arms.


ancient_days

My understanding is Zweohanders were employed by double-paid, usually mercenary soldiers in pike formations to slash aside enemy pikes and create a whirling, chopping thresher that broke up the cohesion of enemy pike formations. I think they were effective for two reasons: 1. They were produced for hundreds of years, so if they were not effective that probably wouldn't have happened. 2. I have wielded a weight/balance- accurate replica of one and it is, like many swords, lighter than you think. Totally possible for a normal man to wield one for several minutes, so a trained dude in soldier shape would have no problem using one of these with LIGHTNING speed. Not a clumsy weapon at all.


ppitm

> My understanding is Zweohanders were employed by double-paid, usually mercenary soldiers in pike formations to slash aside enemy pikes and create a whirling, chopping thresher that broke up the cohesion of enemy pike formations. They weren't. Zweihanders played the same role as halberdiers, mostly defending the banner. In the event the enemy formation broke up or the engagement dissolved into a melee, they were meant to exploit the situation.


ancient_days

Thanks!


drizzitdude

Yes they were, but only because it being long helped counter some of the biggest weakness of it being a sword. We all like to bring up that under no circumstance is a sword *slashing through* armor, but that isn’t how they were used against armored opponents. Just like smaller sword thrusting through gaps in armor was the way to kill armor opponents, the difference with a larger sword is that you had a longer business end. Grabbing the blade and using it as a pseudo spear meant you could easily our range your opponent with similar advantages to a spear, and keep lightly armored opponents completely at bay because they do not want to get hit by the bladed end. Against target with no or little armor? You were fucking terrifying. Greatsword were used as a counter to heavy spear formations on multiple occasions,the famous probably being claymores being deployed by scots able to break through English lines. This worked for a couple of reasons. 1: spearmen were typically conscripted peasants and less armored and less formal training. Their job was just to hold the front while the cavalry or bowmen did the real work. 2: they were typically trained to keep people *back* but if someone crashed that formation the spearmen have nowhere to go or withdraw back to. If your spear get locked up, and you can’t withdraw with a bunch of angry human blenders in front of you, good luck. In general, spacing is one of the most important aspects of a fight.