Combat vs knights in full plate

[Bungus]

If fighting against a knight in full plate armor, what would be the best weapons? Can your standard "D&D" broad sword or long sword slice through plate armor? Or, is it like George Martin and how he describes an experienced swordsman like Bronn going for the joints in the plate, and that's his only chance?

I know a heavy warhammer can bash in plate, while bodkins fired from longbows may be able to penetrate plate as well. What other weapons are good?

Thanks

 

[Hand of Evil]

What other weapons are good?

Thanks

Pole Arms. But do not confuse fiction and reality.

It is not that knights were walking tanks, they were skilled combat elite vs unskilled with sub-standard equipment. Some of this is because armor has always been designed to protect against the most common weapon of the time and only when a new weapon was introduced did armor get changed.

Knight vs knight, it happened but most times it was to a yield so the winner could ransom the loser.

 

[Jhaelen]

Knights in full plate were generally mounted. So, first make sure to kill the horse (or find other ways to unhorse the knight). Then finish the downed knight using a dagger or a 'Panzerstecher' (I don't recall the English name, but it's a thin-bladed type of longsword created specifically for the purpose of going for the joints in heavy armor).

 

[trancejeremy]

Big axes, flanged maces, either big, heavy swords like the Zweihander (though you'd still probably want to stab with it against armor) or big pointy ones like the Estoc

The other interesting thing that you can do with a big sword is whack the guy in plate on the helmet with the hilt

I saw a thing on TV about a book written by a 15th century arms master that was full of illustrations about fighting (a lot is forgotten, we only have books like this to really go on, so take any answers in this thread with a grain of salt, we don't really know). And it has several illustrations of people on foot in full plate fighting unarmored guys who fight with a 2 handed sword reversed.

You can get a PDF at:

http://www.thearma.org/Fight-Earnestly.htm

Fascinating just looking at the pictures, since it's german, I certainly can't understand any of it.

 

[Bungus]

Thank you everybody. Good replies so far.

 

[Dioltach]

And it has several illustrations of people on foot in full plate fighting unarmored guys who fight with a 2 handed sword reversed.

It looks like the chap on the right is running up to surrender his sword to the fellow in armour. Which, to be fair, is what I'd be doing.

 

[jasper]

book title dump follows.
Oakeshott, Ewart books and articles.
A Knight and his Armour, A Knight in Battle, A Knight and his Castle, A Knight and his Castle, A Knight and his Horse , A Knight and his Weapons, Dark Age Warrior*, The Archaeology of Weapons , The Sword in the Age of Chivalry . Journal of the Arms and Armour Society of London, A Royal Sword in Westminster Abbey in The Connoisseur Magazine 1951*. The Sword in Anglo-Saxon England *, Fighting Men (with Henry Treece)*, The Blindfold Game*, Sound of Battle (with Leonard Clark)*, European Weapons and Armour, Records of the Medieval Sword*, Sword in Hand*, Sword in the Viking Age* (not yet published). http://www.oakeshott.org/

David Edge, John Miles Paddock Arms and Armour of the Medieval Knight
Boutell, Charles Arms and Armour in Antiquity and the Middle Ages
David Nicolle
Arms and Armour of the Crusading Era 1050-1350 Western Europe , The Crusades Essential Histories, Medieval Warfare Source Book, History of Medieval Life*, The Hamlyn History of Medieval Life*,

Alfred Hutton Old sword play Techniques of the Great Masters
The Sword and the centuries: Or old sword days and Old swords ways *

ignore the * those for me either buy or convert to kindle.

 

[Umbran]

Dagger. A good way to deal with armor is not to go *through* it but to go around it. A classic way to deal with someone in that kind of armor is to knock or drag him off his horse, and then put a long dagger into his un-armored armpit, or into the guts under the bottom edge of the breastplate while he's on the ground.

 

[Grogg of the North]

Halberd.

Use the hook to pull a knight off his horse and then use the axe head or the spike to deal with them. It was a peasant with a halberd that ended the Burgundian Wars with a single stroke.

All in all, the halberd is a pretty versatile weapon.

 

[Bungus]

Dagger. A good way to deal with armor is not to go *through* it but to go around it. A classic way to deal with someone in that kind of armor is to knock or drag him off his horse, and then put a long dagger into his un-armored armpit, or into the guts under the bottom edge of the breastplate while he's on the ground.

True - I think the dagger (or Oberyn Martell's spear tip) going through the armpit or behind the knee is what I meant. However, if it were sword vs sword, does either sword have a chance to slice through the plate itself, or does each combatant have to try to poke the other guy in the weak spots in the plate?