That is actually fairly easy to do. Straight up kevlar is notoriously vulnerable to stabbing weapons, arrows, and other narrow tipped objects and projectiles. That is partly why Spitzer Boat tail style bullets tend to walk through most kevlar vests. The hard plate inserts on the other hand can take a lot more punishment.
Who watches the watchmen?Bel: If you haven't seen it yet somewhere there is a video where they use a solution soak and a pressure roller to basically impregnate Kevlar with Non-Newtonian fluid and the result of ice pick and bow shot tests is fairly impressive.
Speaking of which some of the composite armors of the eras were surprisingly effective.
edited 5th Sep '17 6:24:54 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?I've been visualizing some representative weapons
◊ from my main, Clock Punk setting; The main relevant details are that plate armor is common(so weapons are usually designed with that in mind), and steel is of much higher quality than what was available in the late middle ages. I don't have specific questions, but if there are any thoughts on them I would be interested. Picture does not include the repeating crossbows and airguns that are also commonly used, and weapons not different enough from their real-world equivalents to warrant inclusion.
1. Imperial Sting: Mostly a backup weapon for defense, mostly inspired by Cold Steel's "Chinese Sword Breaker". The main "blade" is unsharpened but very pointy, and its convex-triangular cross-section makes it extremely rigid. Meant primarily for thrusting, but has enough heft to hit hard despite the low point of balance. The small blade on the knuckle-bow is for when there isn't much room to move around, and to have another way to attack right after blocking.
2. War club: Made of a thick steel plate sandwiched between wooden handle-scales and riveted to them. Simple to make and maintain, and quite effective against armored troops. The spike on top is pointy and lightly sharpened, the rest are just prismatic extensions that don't get any thinner than the central part.
3. Cross spear: Very rigid main blade. Side-blades have dimples in them to reduce the chance of enemy weapons sliding over.
4. Legionary stiletto: Mostly here for size comparison. The very thin and narrow blade can pass through many eyeslits unimpeded, but doesn't do so well against visors and goggles.
5. Legionary longsword: The guard has the shape of a warhammer-head for better performance when half-swording or holding the sword upside-down, and its unusual thickness allows it to block more things.
6. Legionary pole-hammer: About two meters long. The part on the right is somewhat wedge-shaped, but not a blade. It's jagged for the same reason warhammers usually have teeth, reducing the chance of it sliding over armor plates. Covering a 90 degree angle gives it a higher chance of hitting properly than the part on the left, and applies force in a different shape that may be more effective in some cases.
7. Illorene battleaxe: Just shows the handle-scaled construction that's more common in this world than it was in reality, and the Annunites' teardrop/noose symbol.
8. Guard's club: A less-lethal weapon, at least when aimed at limbs.
9. Militia sword: Made of weaker, but very corrosion-resistant steel(and made bulkier than usual to compensate for that), so it can remain in good condition after being left neglected in a dank corner and handled by careless people. The chemically-treated stain marks the center of percussion, which is the best height on the blade to cut with because of the way it vibrates when hitting something; Since this sword is meant for people with little to no training, someone figured they need the reminder. It is not a good weapon against metal armor, but the militia usually doesn't deal with well-equipped enemies.
10. Short sword: Optimized for thrusting, with the length making it easier to go at awkward angles. The guard is partly a blunt extension of the blade like in feders, and partly a disc underneath it.
11. Shortbar: Smaller, fancier version of the war club.
12. Great estoc: Optimized for thrusting from afar, and for fancy maneuvers. The very long ricasso makes half-swording easier. The guard extends into a little warhammer and axe-head. The shape is not good for cutting, but the size compensates for that somewhat.
13. Light warhammer: Not much to say.
14. Wavy arming sword: The blade's shape may help concentrate force when chopping, as well as combine some cutting advantages of curved blades with the thrusting advantage of having the point go straight up. It's easier to make than it was in reality.
15. Long mace: Harder to make than the war-club, more unwieldy because of the higher point of balance, and not quite as durable with the all-wood shaft, but hits really hard.
16. Crown lance: Its high ratio of weight to length forces it to be shorter than more familiar lances, but it's designed to neither break nor get stuck when it hits someone. Has a threaded pommel to easily replace the wood part.
17. Front-dagger: Can apply force in a less awkward manner than a normal stab.
18. Short spear: Not much to say.
19. Hinged warpick: A warpick(or warhammer depending on your emphasis) on a hinge, allowing it to be swung with very high speed in the right hands, but making it very awkward otherwise. Strip-shaped springs on the handle keep the business ends from hitting it.
20. Battle scourge: Traditional Illorene weapon, with persistent rumors about its wielders using to to self-flagellate. While it requires the spikes to face the enemy to be really effective, having a row of them can make it harder to block.
The only one of those I really have an issue with is the Crown Lance.
For one because the handle seems a little too thick and short to do proper under-arm tucking.
But mostly because there's a really good reason why most lances are build to break on impact: It's to cushion the blow. Most knights performing charges with lances would let go of their lance at (or near) the moment of impact to prevent themselves getting unhorsed by said impact. A lance specifically designed to not break seems counter-productive.
Angry gets shit done.The lance as described sounds rather similar to the style of light lance that took the place of the heavy lance and were not intended to break. In fact the preferred method of use was thrusting of the lance or allowing momentum to pull it free as they passed a victim using the rope or lanyard typically attached to help retrieve it. They were also easier to use on foot. Some variants were even reinforced or made out of metal before they were effectively abandoned altogether. Lances were typically dropped after the charge if the knight foundered, the lance broke or lodged, or the knight was forced into close quarter fighting.
The heavy lances on the other hand were not dropped unless they became lodged or broken and were not intended to break but tended to anyways because couching of the lance tended to lead to them breaking regardless. Knights were rarely unhorsed by the impact as the lances tended to break before the knight in upwards of 80+ lbs of armor on a saddle with stirrups would be pushed off. They trained to it frequently on the tilt, which was for more than just sport. They had devices that aided in bracing the lance outside of the method couching including lanyards, harness, and ropes worn over the shoulder. They used a rounded piece behind the van plate to keep it from being pushed under the arm meaning they could be braced more easily and they even added lance rests to help hold and brace the lance to armors around the end of the 1300's.
Jousting and training lances though were designed to snap and break by cutting them part way through because otherwise they would quite likely injure or even kill the other person on impact with even a blunt nose.
edited 9th Sep '17 7:59:27 AM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?![]()
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The hinged warpick facinates me. Not because it's all that effective as a weapon, what with the pick being hard to control and unable to build up momentum like a flail, but because it's capable of bypassing defenses like a shotel and binding an enemy like a billhook. I honestly don't know what to make of it.
edited 6th Sep '17 8:57:00 PM by Belisaurius
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; Hmm. I have very little familiarity with lances compared to the other types of weapons there, so problems should've been expected. I'll need to rethink this idea.
; You mean it would lack momentum because of the short distance it can move, right? So maybe instead of having these springs, the shaft could be split into two spaced parts so that the head would pass through it. As for the difficulty of controlling this thing, that was clear from the beginning, but I think it could be overcome with skill.
Thanks, then.
edited 9th Sep '17 9:00:30 AM by ManInGray
Man in Grey: Take a look at lancers from the around first quarter of the 1800's and up to 1900's. Those are the lances that ultimately replaced the heavy lances and some were made of hollow rolled steel tubes and weighed a few pounds apiece. They averaged 8-10 feet but instead of being held near the rear with a counter weight at the back to help balance they were held closer to the middle of the shaft. They were frequently pointed at both ends with front end being the spear point and a short spike on the back. Various light lances were in use before the end of the medieval era and were popular in Eastern Europe and the Steppe regions in general.
Most lances were still made of hard wood but they got reinforced spear caps that had a metal sheath that extended further down the pole to help prevent it flexing or breaking too much. Some variants seen with Indian Lancers had a spear stop, a disk just behind the spear point of the lance, to stop them from being thrust too deeply into a target sort of like the crossbars on boar spears.
Who watches the watchmen?The object in the image is definitely a jousting lance, what with the short handle with the thick (presumably weighted) pommel and the way the tip tapers out, rather than forming a point.
Lances, unlike jousting lances, never had counter weights, because they were meant for active thrusting, not couching and hitting, the way jousting lances were.
Heavy cavalry did couch their lances during a charge, but mainly to keep them steady for the thrust and having a large bulbous weight right behind the shoulder makes thrusting (and thus uncouching) with a couched lance practically impossible.
It helps to remember that 'lance' is just basically a catch-all term for any military thrusting spear used from horseback (although ironically the origin of the name is as a term for spears that were meant for throwing rather than thrusting).
Angry gets shit done.Couching was not for thrusting. The underhand couched lance is known to Europe literally as far back as the Roman empire and is believed at least to the time of Alexander the Great. The earliest lances being thrust were held closer to the center of the weapon as it gave it better balance. The couching of the lance tended to hold it by the rear 1/3 of the weapon to extend its reach. At one point lances were effectively identical in design and could be used overhand or underhand in thrusts or couched for an impact oriented charge. They were basically a fairly uniform pole capped with a spear tip and also frequently a spiked butt.
Just like the majority of the military habits of Early Medieval Europe they retained a lot of the influences of Rome and Greece in their military tactics and equipment. By the end of the 1100's that had begun to notably change. At the start of the 1100's lances were thrust over or under hand and sometimes couched. By the start of the 1200's lances were overwhelmingly couched and had started becoming heavier and a bit longer.
The manner in which couching was done among European cavalry makes any attempts at thrusting very impractical and defeats the purpose of couching the lance in the first place. Couching is again bracing the weapon to help control the length of wood while extending the reach of the rider. It was also to help absorb the force of the blow when the spear tip hits someone or something. Couched lances in Europe were almost universally held by putting the lance tucked under the arm and held in place by the elbow and side resting in the hand palm up. They even modified lances and armor to a point to brace the couched lance not to aide in thrusting. The long tapered and fluted lances were carved that way to reduce the weight of the lance and they still managed to deliver a lot of force on impact.
As for jousting lances the only part of that lance that is found on jousting lances only is the tip. If the front portions are metal having a large heavier counter weight helps balance out the rest of the weapon. War lances not only had counter weights, usually just a thicker carved piece of wood behind the grip, they also had the long tapered shape. Sport jousting lances had blunt rounded tips, cross like design, or even cup like tips. Their shafts were weakened either by cutting, carving, or apparently hollowing out part of the lance similar to how Polish Hussars hollowed theirs out only without the reinforcement they used after assembling the lances again. War and jousting lances had comparable lengths. You also have to remember the original jousts were military duels and they didn't use the sport lances and did their very best to injure, incapacitate, or even kill each other. Jousting got changed towards the end of the medieval era to be a lot less brutal. Even the semi-formal tournies before that point frequently resulted in injuries or death.
That lance would resemble some of the back slide in designs in terms of length towards the end of the medieval era before they either gave it up and went with pistols or turned to the light lances, though it should have a nice sharp spear point. I do agree the counter weight is a bit too bulbous but that is more easily fixed by drawing out into a tapered cone like shape instead.
edited 9th Sep '17 10:33:34 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?Hey all! I'm trying to illustrate my worldbuilding project, and I have a weapon idea that could benefit from some critiquing. This
◊ is a mock-up I did in Illustrator; it was initially inspired by the elven swords in the LOTR movies and is supposed to be the same length as a medieval longsword (up to 130 cm). The idea is that it's primarily a cutting weapon with a two-handed hilt that includes a heavy steel pommel to attack armoured opponents with. Is this a feasible idea? I'm kinda attached to the aesthetics of the concept, but I can imagine that the heavy pommel will crank up the thing's moment of inertia, making it unwieldy to swing around.
I'm thinking of plate armour, which to my knowledge is impervious to most bladed weapons. Heavy halberds and poleaxes might occasionally work, but I believe that the go-to solution during the High Medieval to Renaissance era was the spiked war hammer
◊. Basically, it packs enough weight in the head to dent an armour plate with a swing or bypass it altogether by dealing concussive damage to the wearer. The back spike can also penetrate the armour by concentrating the force of a swing into a single point. A flanged mace
◊ works on the same principle, with a surface contour designed to "bite" into the armour plate's surface instead of bouncing or sliding off.
Now, the downside of these bludgeon-type weapons is that they need a lot of room to swing, making them somewhat unwieldy - even if they were typically pretty light, at around 1.5 kg each. That's why a lot of medieval fencing manuals developed techniques to fight armoured opponents with swords, either by thrusting into gaps in the plate or using the crossguard and pommel as a bludgeon to deal concussive injury. This was what I had in mind when I got the idea for the thing, and I have a silly attachment for two-handed cutting weapons in general. :P
edited 14th Sep '17 10:27:33 PM by eagleoftheninth
One day, we will read his name in the news and cheer.Plate isn't impervious to anything especially any armor made of European steel even into Renaissance era. Axes, maces, flails, long swords, lances, spears, and an assortment of other weapons could most certainly damage it or even penetrate it. Also concussive forces does not simply bypass armor especially given the fact they wore layers underneath plate like leather, some chain attached to the leather, and padded cloth to help reduce the severity of impacts to begin with and to possibly keep a penetrating hit from being severe or lethal on the spot in the event it is just enough to get through what is immediately underneath. Even helms have some sort of padding in them to prevent their brains getting rattled into mush to easily.
Armor often required repeated blows to deal with, attacking thin spots, or even putting them on the ground and doing things like thrusting pointy bits through visors. Popular weapons for fighting even armored knights were things like halberds which were known to be effective against armor in general which was part of the reason for their popularity, flanged maces as noted, several varieties of swords that were all similar to the Estoc in one regard or another, war hammers and war picks both one and two handed with a variety of heads, Ahlspiess, and of course guns.
Hammer heads on weapons like that Lucrene Hammer had those pointed prongs which helped bash in and penetrate armor yes partly by biting in but also focusing the force across smaller surfaces, same for the flanged maces. Really that describes the entire key principle behind any weapon designed to defeat armor. Focusing force across as small an area as possible.
Armor that has been deformed by a blow can not only restrict movement, it provides less protection and is far more likely to be penetrated catastrophically on follow up hits. There are also several well known thin spots across pretty much all armor such as the limbs, sides under the arms, seams, helms and visor pieces, and joints in general. While later armors tried to protect those spots they were only good as incidental protection. Leeds did some tests with fitted layered armor that was known to be commonly worn reduced how well you could breathe in the first place. Smashing in parts of the chest plate would make that more difficult or severe enough damage could lead to dangerous restrictions on breathing.
In terms of swinging room even long swords were just under 3 feet to just over 3.5 feet long. You need a good bit of room unless you half sword. Most pole arms were as short as the swords up to a few feet longer and all the ones with spikes could be used like a short spear or grips similar to half swording. Many of the weapons meant to puncture plate armor of varying quality and type pretty much turned into spikes with triangular, square, rhomboid, or even hexagonal like shapes.
The arms manuals show a lot more than using those few strikes and included slashes to head, neck, shoulder, joints, limbs, and other more thinly armored spots with the blade. They worked so well they affected armor design resulting in additional attachable armor pieces as well as notable changes in armor shape and designs to begin with.
Basically to defeat armor you do one of two things. Either aim at the weak points or deliver as much force as you can over as small an area as possible. In terms of melee weapons there are actually quite a few options.
Who watches the watchmen?Depending on how complete the armour is, it can actually be pretty hard to find exploitable weak spots. With full plate you've likely only got the inside of the joints to aim for (apart from, or course, the face), and even those will be covered by mail and some kind of gambeson. It's usually easier to try to bash through it. Mind you, armour isn't going to protect you from everything, falling off a horse will likely still result in serious injury or death.
Surprisingly it protects decently against falling off of a horse unless you do something like fall onto pointy rocks or spears or land on your head. Otherwise there are plenty of accounts of knights getting knocked clean off the horse and getting back up and getting on a remount. While the breast plate was the hardest part to breach the various other weak points were appreciably easier. Yes that is with full plate.
here is something else to consider and that is the metallurgy of the armor in question. While steel was manufactured and eventually in high quantity its quality was notably lacking. Even the best steels were full of flawed metal containing a lot of slag inclusions. It was because the Europeans overwhelmingly relied on blast furnaces for iron and steel production. Also it was pretty common for knights of lower rank or even middling rank to wear iron plate to the field because it was both cheaper and easier to repair or replace.
There were some impressively resilient armor examples because the makers had a good grasp of how to harden even the larger pieces but they were rare and rather expensive. They typically came from the Armories in Italy or the Innsbruck Armory in Austria. Armorers from those two regions sometimes did work away at other courts or shops to produce armors on order for nobles or courts.
The absolute best armor was made in Italy by the Negroli family.
Interestingly they stopped relying on hardening as much and either making the plate simply thicker and heavier or limited production of layered armor. Though neither of those kept full plate alive and the eventual trend led to much reduced armor found on curiassers. The first bits to go were the armored pieces below the knees and not long after by the gauntlets. Eventually they just kept either the full or half torso armor and sometimes not even the helm.
Who watches the watchmen?Swords never fell out and knights increasingly carried specialized swords alongside their broadsword. Specifically they started carrying Estoc and related design blades for piercing the thin spots or obvious weak points if needed. Their daggers also followed suit. The swords eventually became sabers. Even Cuiriassers kept their swords. Also the only actual universal wasn't bludgeoning but spikes. Spears, axes, maces, halberds, and even a variety of a sword that was a spike like blade. In fact at the height of plate armor swords got a bit larger. They also started developing blades that longer tapered point. It wasn't exactly bludgeoning either given the put some sort of point or spikes or sharp angles on war hammers and maces.
Who watches the watchmen?All this is why I find the way swords are portrayed in popular culture to be mildly saddening - the whole Errol Flynn approach. Weirdly, Season Of The Witch is one of the few films (And it is a TERRIBLE film) that shows people using the sword at least with a few variances - gripping the blade, using the pommel, using the cross guard as a hammer.
I imagine it's hard to do that justice in a narrative without getting bogged down in descriptions, or in games where it's just easier to code and animate a simple swing. Even Mount And Blade (Which does medieval warfare fairly well) doesn't give you much weapon nuance....
Leeds Armoury does some great demonstrations of fighting in full plates and how agile you can be in it, as well as amazing demonstration of a lot of those weapon types and how they're used.

Well the pavise could also carried by others not necessarily the crossbowmen but yes the pavise provides a needed level of protection for crossbow troops. The bearers themselves feasibly could be armed with a short spear to protect the crossbow archer and most archers carried a secondary melee weapon of some sort.
For the record crossbows can hit beyond 70 yards. 70 yards was a stated point blank range of weaker earlier bows but in field use they would be used in a manner similar to regular bows and that is angled volley fire giving them longer range. They are fairly consistently reported with reach from 100 yards at the low end for the weaker and smaller bows up to 300+ yards with the steel prod crossbows. The composite ones fall roughly in between. Of course their modern cousins can and have shot much further IIRC the world record is over 1km at this point.
edited 5th Sep '17 11:22:02 AM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?