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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Galloglaich" data-source="post: 5373339" data-attributes="member: 77019">Yeah, Eastern Europe, what are you gonna do.... but it does make a point.  You'll notice they are using not just swords, but also axes, even halberds and pole-axes.  Sure the weapons are blunt but not very, there are plenty of sharp edges.  And I don't think anybody died in that even though I'm not going to stake my life on it....Still, it does show you how effective armor really is and was.  I mean the reality is in the late 15th Century they were making bullet proof armor which, from the figures I've seen, could stop a .357 magnum at close range.  They could certainly stop pistols of their day and even an arquebus ball.  Armor worked, that is why they wore it in spite of the enormous expense.  Even dedicated armor-piercing weapons were not automatically effective against armor.I think, however, that it's going a bit too far in the other direction to suggest that warriors, professional and otherwise, didn't use swords back in the heydey of armor.  It's quite obvious that they did, that swords were in fact the ultimate prestige weapon and not just for fashion.  Swords show up prominently in records, they are among the first things required for a muster, they show up in large numbers in excavated battlefields, they are all over period art and not just art depicting rich and famous people.  Every armed mercenary in any drawing I've seen had some kind of sword, a messer or a falchion or a baselard or a katzbalger, (or a longsword which seemed to be quite ubiquitous in spite of being difficult and awkward to carry around when not in use.)All this stuff is a bit more nuanced than our modern minds want to admit to, we tend to think of things in very black and white terms, either a sword worked or armor worked, since they worked against each other one seems to have to cancel the other out.  From what I've learned in the last ten years of plunging into the history of swords and historical fencing, they both worked extremely well.  <img src="http://www.thearma.org/essays/Talhoffer/HT-Web_files/image014.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Guy on the left, in good shape, the guy on the right, having a very bad dayThe fact is though that very few people ever had total 100% armor coverage, and the best way to kill somebody in full armor was to use an armor-piercing weapon.  Since armor-piercing weapons were in many ways (in every way except for armor-piercing, generally speaking) inferior to swords, wearing armor generally allowed you to use a fast, deadly and versatile sword and forced your opponents to a disadvantage with a less ideal weapon.  If you faced another fully armored opponent your sword was still effective using half-sword techniques and / or your would draw your dagger or pull that mace out of your belt..   but the sword could do the job against any opponent, if you had the right skillset.G.</blockquote>

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