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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ArmoredSaint" data-source="post: 5879626" data-attributes="member: 54539"><a href="http://www.livinghistory.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=24007" target="_blank">LivingHistory.co.uk • View topic - c14th Highland/Isleman Clothing?</a>Scroll down that page a little bit.  Those stone tomb effigies are of highland chieftains and nobles.  Note that they wear padded armour and mail for the most part.  That's the environment in which the claymore evolved, and the armour it faced most often.  Not plate.  It is not meant to combat plate armour, and would fail where a more acutely-pointed continental-style sword optimized for the thrust might prevail.  Again, you don't combat plate armour by just trying to cut through with the edge of a sword.  Anti-armour weapons are always either optimized for bludgeoning (in the case of maces and hammers) or piercing (in the case of picks, etc.).  Claymores, while probably excellent for cleaving lightly-armoured poor men, just are not good at dealing with well-equipped men in plate armour.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-sword" target="_blank">Half-sword - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</a>Note the portion that reads: "...a slice or a cleaving blow from a sword is virtually useless against  iron or steel plate. Most medieval treatises show armoured combat as  consisting primarily of fighting at the half-sword; the best options  against an armoured man being a strong thrust into less-protected areas  such as the armpits or throat..."That's how you fight a man in full harness with a sword.  You don't uselessly try to cut him with the edge--you jab a pointy thing into a spot where he has little or no armour.</blockquote>

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