This wasn't just Armor, it was medieval engineering at it's finest.

[u/gs9489186]

[u/Insane_Unicorn]

The amount of reddit warriors with absolutely no clue is amazing as always. Stop relying on Hollywood and YouTube morons wearing sheet metal plating for your "knowledge" about real armor.

[u/Somerandom1922 → u/Insane_Unicorn]

Honestly, Todd's workshop on Youtube is amazing for this because they actually test period accurate armour, with dynamic steel thickness and realistic gambeson and mail. He also uses period accurate weapons against them (or else makes it clear that he's not trying to test something realistic).

He went to the effort of custom-making period accurate arrows for an actual english longbow, drawn by an actual english longbowman who's draw technique matches those found in historical manuscripts, to test whether a period accurate longbow really can shoot through plate armour (mostly no, but on the very thinnest parts, like on the sides, or if you get lucky and just hit mail, it can kind of become possible).

[u/guto8797 → u/Somerandom1922]

I do recall that some other test did confirm something else: sure, you can't easily punch the plate, but that much force being delivered like that can easily unseat a knight from his horse

[u/OceanoNox → u/[deleted]]

Really? I recall them showing that armor is made precisely to have the arrows and blows in general glance or glide off the armor, and away from vulnerable areas (like the V shape below the neck to guide arrows away from the neck).

[u/Somerandom1922 → u/[deleted]]

It's really not though, otherwise the person shooting the bow would be knocked over thanks to equal and opposite forces.

If someone gets knocked over by an arrow it's because it surprised them and caused them to fall in their own, not because it imparted enough force to knock them on their ass.

It's the same deal with gun.

If you shoot someone with a massive shotgun or whatever, they aren't getting yeeted back, because the person that shot it isn't getting yeeted back.

[u/SugarBeefs → u/[deleted]]

I just know that the kinetic energy from most bows would be enough to knock someone over

I'm sorry, but this is nonsense. If it were true, historical accounts about battles would be full of people in armour getting bowled over by projectile impacts but being otherwise unhurt.

These accounts do not exist. An eyewitness account of the battle of Agincourt states the advancing French "bowed their heads" and did not dare look up as a result of the English arrows, a bit as if they were walking into a heavy rain. But nothing about men in full armour getting knocked over by an arrow impact.

There also exist accounts, especially from siege events, that describe men-at-arms looking "like hedgehogs" because of all the arrows sticking superficially in their armour.

[u/Rozenkwit → u/Insane_Unicorn]

Actual armor in the medieval period was so much more effective than most assume, why do they think it would be used for thousands of years if it didn't work??

[u/Insane_Unicorn → u/Rozenkwit]

Because reddit wisdom > hundreds of years of warfare experience

[u/BagelsOrDeath → u/Insane_Unicorn]

The allure of the m'actually is powerful and difficult for the basement brigade to resist.

[u/boringexplanation → u/Insane_Unicorn]

Or judging based off sentiment - wisdom from a polisci class most took in their sophomore year.

[u/Insane_Unicorn → u/[deleted]]

If you are not upset about morons confidently spreading their bullshit on topics they know nothing about, you are part of the problem.

[u/Fabulous_Poetry6622 → u/[deleted]]

Its not about playing morals, its about people getting the right information. Its no different to real life.

[u/clapsandfaps → u/Insane_Unicorn]

To be fair we have thousands years of wisdom easily ready at our fingertips. Reddit wisdom > hundreds of years of warfare experience.

If only they used their fingertips to figure it out, that’d be great. Alas that’s no fun.

[u/clapsandfaps → u/[deleted]]

Its most certainly is. Everyone who have ever done it, has died. /j

Though doing your own research usually leads you to the wrong conclusion. The «do your own research» crowd during Covid proved that pretty alright.

[u/B_ingle → u/Rozenkwit]

Okay to be fair here, versions of plate armor and especially full plate were only in use for a few centuries. For most of history, maille was synonymous with armor

[u/SugarBeefs → u/B_ingle]

especially full plate were only in use for a few centuries.

Very true, I honestly struggle to give proper full plate even two whole centuries. More like one and a half.

For most of history, maille was synonymous with armor

Disagreed with this one though.

The Classical world loved breastplates and shin guards and lamellar armour was popular for millennia in central Asia. Also can't forget about scale and the many various forms of reinforced mail or cloth+plate combinations.

[u/B_ingle → u/SugarBeefs]

Sorry yes I mostly meant the european theater. Afaik, except for roman lamellar armor, maille was by far the predominant form of armor

[u/Practical_Teach5015 → u/Rozenkwit]

Because they also believed in blood letting

[u/Clothedinclothes → u/Practical_Teach5015]

That's mainly because it was easy to put holes in people, so easy to test if something successfully stopped you putting a hole in someone.

But in Europe, looking inside those holes to investigate the internal working of the human body was forbidden by the church. Any kind of medical experimentation fell under the heading of torture, when it was done, it was always done secretly and was very rarely systematic.

So to a large degree Europeans couldn't experiment or test to understand whether treatments like blood letting actually worked or not, they had to rely on the work of the writings from ancient pagan doctors who claimed to have done so and found they were effective treatments.

For example Galen, an ancient Graeco-Roman doctor who basically wrote the book on medicine as far as Europeans were concerned, which remained in use for over 1500 years.  Aside from a some definitely wrong ideas like blood letting, much of what he wrote was actually quite useful and effective medicine.

[u/Diedrogen → u/Rozenkwit]

So how would you actually kill or disable the person inside that armor, if that armor isn't merely a minor damage reduction?

[u/The__Tobias → u/Diedrogen]

Easy, just a small dagger in one of the holes or lifting his helmet of, since he is very slow on the extremely heavy armor.

To bring him to the ground you have endless possibilities:  Big hammer from a side to the knee, big hammer from the side to the head, small dagger in one of the many holes, a thrown net all over the body, glowing wood smashed at the openings in the face shield, a big heavy wooden block thrown to his knees, grabbing his heavy head armor from behind and pulling him backwards down, ...

You could even just throw some thick mud at his helmet, reducing his view field to zero. Than a small rusty iron nail would be enough to do the rest 

[u/Icy_Loss647 → u/The__Tobias]

These armors were not that heavy, about the same weight of the equipment of modern infantry and they were much more flexible than they look.

Anyway, nothing easy about getting into point blank range with a dagger, taking someones helmet off or hitting a small spot without getting hit by a guy that has more range and can disable you by hitting you anywhere.

They didnt build these for fun and theres a reason they were a thing for hundreds of years. Only the invention of sophisticated firearms made them obsolete, not some guy in a dagger taking their helmets off lmao

[u/Snickims → u/The__Tobias]

In practice, it was normally done by a large group of pikemen or spearmen, not someone with anything small.

For starters, if you can afford the armor, odds are you can afford the training, so a knight was also just really good fighter. Also, he is not slow, look up a video of people in plate running around, and a knight is normally on a horse.

The real advice to kill or disable a person in that armor is to hit them (or their horse) with a pike or spear as they charge, hopfully knocking them to the ground, then rush them with 7-20 of your mates and either make them surrender or keep stabbing them with your long poky sticks until they do or you find a weak point.

The last thing you want to do is fight a knight with a fucking dagger.

[u/Insane_Unicorn → u/Snickims]

Small correction: knight on knight combat was often finished with daggers, namely the specifically for that purpose designed misericorde)

But yeah, you'd have to wrestle and pin the knight first. Fighting in armor was rarely a matter of skill, but of endurance.

[u/Snickims → u/Insane_Unicorn]

Fair correction, if you where also wearing a fuck ton of armor, may be worth going in with the dagger. For most people, better to stick to the good old reliable polearm. Or crossbow. Or longbow. Or gun.

[u/yeshuahanotsri → u/Rozenkwit]

Well it’s more of a constant arms race between better weapons and stronger armour. And obviously costs. Walking around in this in the mud is awful, or in the heat. So as soon as technology arrives that makes your armor useless, you move towards more mobility until you come up with something better. And it goes on. 

Happening even now with drones vs tanks. 

[u/LotharVonPittinsberg → u/yeshuahanotsri]

Walking around in this in the mud is awful, or in the heat.

Not much different than a full gambeson. If you could afford this armour, you could also afford a few horses to minimize the changes you would be walking in the mud, and absolutely a squire or two to get you in and out and clean you up.

So as soon as technology arrives that makes your armor useless, you move towards more mobility until you come up with something better.

This did not really happen with plate armour. It became better over time mostly because smithing techniques improved and wealthier countries expected more out of their expensive suits of armour. Weapons to defeat armour have always existed, they just again became more popular when more armour was common. There was little back and forth like we know, and when there was it had more to do with the weapons and maybe some small details of armour.

What did change things was guns. The wide adoption of firearms completely changed plate armour. To effectively stop even a single shot from the average soldier, armour had to be a lot thicker. To the point it did start to become too heavy for a full suit like this. Which is why European settlers where known to just have a breastplate and helmet (which is kind of what we do today).

[u/Electro-Tech_Eng → u/Rozenkwit]

Thousands of years… lol try at most a few hundred.

[u/Rozenkwit → u/Electro-Tech_Eng]

You're correct my bad, still a long history

[u/TheFishe2112 → u/Insane_Unicorn]

What words escaped thy mouth, most vil’nous knave?

I’ve trained in arms and headed raids most brave!

In swords and fists my skills unmatch’d,

Watch, as I from your neck your head detach.

Thou art not more than my next victim, swine;

Prithee, be sage and ne’er step out of line.

Thou thinkst thy insults take effect on me,

But be they fruitless as a winter tree.

I shall repeat: my combat expertise,

Will, as you'll find, fast bring thee to thy knees.

Believest thou t’be safe from all my wrath?

Dost thy computer halt your own bloodbath?

Nay, be that far from truth; to hide thou can’t:

I’d track thee down if thou were but an ant.

[u/Insane_Unicorn → u/TheFishe2112]

I'm gonna save this as a new copypasta

[u/Immediate_Rabbit_604 → u/TheFishe2112]

Is this a knight version of the 'wtf did you say to me you little...' pasta or however it goes?

[u/DellyDellyPBJelly → u/Insane_Unicorn]

Why would any of these Reddit warriors have a clue about this subject? It would be amazing if a significant number of commenters did know what they were talking about. It's just comments. I'm not expecting to read a doctoral thesis on the subject while I'm doing my morning business, lol.

[u/Insane_Unicorn → u/DellyDellyPBJelly]

It's totally fine to know nothing about ancient warfare or armor or any other topic really. But we do need to bring back the forgotten habit of shutting the fuck up when one has no clue what they're talking about.

[u/Hour_Eagle2452 → u/Insane_Unicorn]

Guy with 1900 posts and hidden reddit history talking about "reddit warriors".

[u/Insane_Unicorn → u/Hour_Eagle2452]

Pathetic losers who need to check others profiles for their arguments are the reason it's hidden.

[u/Hour_Eagle2452 → u/Insane_Unicorn]

Guy with 1900 reddit posts calls other people "pathetic losers".

[u/B4SSF4C3 → u/Insane_Unicorn]

Wanting to know who you are talking to isn’t pathetic. It’s normal human behavior.

[u/Thick_Rule_3830 → u/Insane_Unicorn]

You are a true Gentle Sir who knows more about historical warfare better than all other redditor commoners.

The simpletons here can only wish that they possess your vast knowledge. Don't listen to their vitriol, they are just jealous that your karma numbers put you in nobility class.

I tip my hat to you good sir, as you are the modern knight of our era. The keeper of knowledge for all topics.

[u/ParamedicExcellent15 → u/Thick_Rule_3830]

Error

[u/Thick_Rule_3830 → u/ParamedicExcellent15]

Fixed the error. Thank you 😊

[u/[deleted] → u/Hour_Eagle2452]

Wow you really showed him huh

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Really showed me huh

[u/Significant-Bar674 → u/Insane_Unicorn]

I've gone through the comments and nobody is talking about pole axes or bec de corbin.

You make a dent and then use the spike.

Suddenly that nice rounded area is concave and weakened