OK,
In a couple of threads, I've seen people arguing about weapons and their usage, with all parties making statements that fly completely in the face of reality...

"Reality?" you say, "What do you know about reality, Eric The Mad?" A good question. My answer is being a member of the Society of Creative Anachronism and a authorized fighter (admittedly off and on) since '88. I also have fought in Amtgard and sparred with people from various other LARP and Historical Re-inactment groups. I do NOT claim I am a great warrior in RL. In fact, I rather suck.
Dragon Ball Z Theme sound: ringtonesfree.info/dragon-ball-z-them…
But what I do offer is that I have worn the armor, have swung weapons (or their various replacements, depending on the group) at other people who have been trying to do unto me at the same time. Plus, I am a History major.

If I haven't done it, I have sources and contacts who may have. If that doesn't answer your question, I will happily research the matter for you., cheerfully share my findings, as well as point you in the right direction to let you draw your own conclusions.

I do not claim to be infallible. I have little to zero experience with various oriental martial arts styles and techniques. But again, I have sources who may know the answer to your question. If you don't like or disagree with my findings and answers, I won't tell you are wrong to rule differently in your game.

If we're talking about modern firearms as well, I'm your man.

And as a former reenactor myself, feel free to direct 17-19th century queries my way.

Dark Ages through Renaissance guy standing by

If you need answers on early-to-mid 20th century weapons, such as those used in WWI and WWII, I'm ya gal.

So are you saying that in reality my female warrior can't wear the sexiest, skimpiest piece of armour and not be fully protected? That is so unfair and I refuse to believe such lies! Can't you see? You can even wear this stuff to bed as lingerie and still be protected while you sleep!

Female armour is like a condom for knives and swords, whisper thin but super effective for preventing demons from taking your future life and freedom.

I actually have some questions for the original poster.

- How am I suppose to take you seriously when you use frickin' LARP as an experience credential?

- If you suck at fighting in real life, what makes you think you should be an authority on fighting?

- Why do you, a D&D spam bot, continue to plague our forum with topics that don't do anything? This was a very convincing topic, except that you called yourself "Eric the mad." And then your other 3 posts were topics about D&D.

Well, there are definitely some real people here, so...

Can anyone tell me about zweihanders? I'm a big fan of Dark Souls, and especially that weapon in it, but when I found out they are a real thing they just seemed, well, impractical. Can a weapon that large really be effective in battle? You would risk hitting allies around you, and every swing would leave you open to attack. Were they ever really used, or is that a myth?

(On a side note, I really wanna get a replica zweihander at some point. They seem extremely cool to me.)

@JaceBeleren going by my knowledge of swords and not specifically zweihander, swords have about half of their weight in the hilt, below where you grab the sword. That is why giant 5-10 lb swords can be handled so easily if you are strong enough to pick them up. You'll occasionally hear people saying "the weight is off." If the blade is too heavy, the blade constantly wants to dive. If there's too much weight in the hilt, then it is difficult to swing the sword downwards, as you're fighting to lift the hilt towards yourself.

@JaceBeleren they were definitely used historically. Their primary use was in formation with pike and against pike. I'm sure you have heard of 'landsknecht' or 'landsknechten', who used this type of weapon. They came from Germany but their most famous applications were used by the Spaniards who hired them. It was also not as much 'a sword' as it was a combination between a polearm (without pole) and a sword.

Arguably I wouldn't say it's a very efficient weapon in smaller scale combat - the weapon seemed most efficient in combination with pike (and shot). But there is application of it in duels, although admittedly I am unsure of how well they fared. I'm not sure on this, but I think the zweihander is considered the appropriate weapon for a lot of late-medieval sword arts books.

Now here's the kicker - the weapon was only efficient in trained hands. As in, you can give a peasant a sword and a shield and he'd be able to cut down a few men, but if you gave him a zweihander he'd be dead before even swinging it. It's a professional's weapon. That's where it power was but also it's drawback in my eyes. Due to the small amount of zweihander experts available, you'd never be able to amass an army consisting of them. They were more supplementary expert troops than 'main battle troops' so to speak.

So, while they were effective in battle, there were also very few of them. If I had to choose between arming 10.000 peasants with swords or hiring 2.000 landsknechts for a larger sum of money than the peasants cost me, I'd probably arm my peasants, mostly because that's almost free (granted that I have the swords) where as landsknechts and mercenaries were historically unreliable and prone to looting and pillaging cities if they weren't paid precisely on time.

The weapon itself is dope.

Uh... cookies guy here.

By armor, are we also counting larger, more mechanical things like AFVs, IFVs, Tanks, and APCs?
Or...just talking about worn armor?

Because if we're gonna allow the former, I can give ya some info.
I can cover most, if not, all armored vechicles in WW2, and a small handful from before (Great War and interwar). I can also help with some vehicles from the Cold War to the present day.

---

If you need answers on early-to-mid 20th century weapons, such as those used in WWI and WWII, I'm ya gal.

The M3 Grease Gun.
I'm still baffled by it's existence.

@JaceBeleren
*clears throat with just a little too much hacking*

first off, dark souls has proportions just a bit wrong with them being just a bit too thick and long but that's not too much of a problem. One thing considered in any type of sparring be it fencing or unarmed is reach. A zweihander not only has considerable reach like a spear, but it is useful throughout (where as the shaft of the spear can at best be used as a staff which despite the shaolin monk meme was not actually a very good one) because it is a long blade. Now, many vidya have two handed swords as weapons that pierce armour simply because it is two handed. This is just stupid. The blade would definitely cleave apart mail, gambesons and maybe even lamellar armours of the east but never, ever would one slice through plate. In theory, one can stab through plate with a two handed sword, however the conditions have to be very much in your favour because you need to get your hands in a funny position from which your fatfuck sword is hard to move from whilst easy to parry. Instead one would like with a longsword try to either wedge it into the weakpoints of one's plate armour (armpits and such) or flip it over to use the crossguard almost like a pick to bash through armour. With a two handed sword however, one also can in theory used the weight of the blade to create new weak points. If using enough force in a slashing motion the weapon can whack off a visor on a helmet to make the face oh so vulnerable, or to remove the rosette thingies protecting armpits (no clue what they're called in English). HOWEVER, the zweihander is oddly placed in dark souls because it was actually used in the very late medieval/proto renaissance period where full plate was rarely if ever used and one could comfortably hack off arms or legs or even heads which would be more or less exposed; apart from a breastplate/cuirass and a helmet covering the top of the head/face one would not wear much armour as bullets by now made armour have to be really thick to have any sort of protection and was very heavy thus making soldiers not have enough many nor energy to carry more than that. In this time period where plate was even more thick you would certainly not try to stab through it.

You would not be worried about hitting your allies because you can simply hold onto the ricasso, or the small bit of unsharpened blade above the crossguard if the enemy or you have closed the distance effectively turning your weapon into a longsword.

They were most certainly used commonly by people and not just a weapon of elite forces, I would say the proportion of swordsmen to handgunners and pikemen or halberdiers would be 1/3 or so. The long/warknife or messer which is essentially a one sided blade zweihander was actually one of the most popular weapons of peasant revolts and insurrections, although some historians contest that this was simply because parts of Europe had a law that said a one sided blade was a knife and thus legal, allowing many types of swords to be made for preparation for these things.

Also, shit I have experience in:

Modern military equipment (not as much, only because I served [then deserted] and less than two years)
Any close quarters combat from ancient history to WW1 trench fighting (done HEMA, Fencing and took history in school)

@JaceBeleren
*clears throat with just a little too much hacking*

first off, dark souls has proportions just a bit wrong with them being just a bit too thick and long but that's not too much of a problem. One thing considered in any type of sparring be it fencing or unarmed is reach. A zweihander not only has considerable reach like a spear, but it is useful throughout (where as the shaft of the spear can at best be used as a staff which despite the shaolin monk meme was not actually a very good one) because it is a long blade. Now, many vidya have two handed swords as weapons that pierce armour simply because it is two handed. This is just stupid. The blade would definitely cleave apart mail...

And like that you've lost me. No, no they would not cut through mail. This isn't Deadliest Warrior, people aren't running around in butted mail made of low-grade galvanized steel. They'll be using at least soldered and more likely welded or riveted mail, and you aren't going to cut those with any kind of sword. Here's an example of an idiot with a claymore trying to cut through crappy soldered mail. This mail is one step up from butted, and he barely damages it, much less "cleaves it apart". Welded mail was both more common and stronger, and the top of the line riveted stuff was stronger still.

youtube.com/watch?v=p_I_fkRngNM

There's more tests like this out there. Mail is by far stronger than people think it is.

And also no, you can't stab through plate. Not even with a zweihander.

Uh... cookies guy here.

How would I go about double-wielding a pair of snickerdoodles without getting crumbs all over myself?

@Vilageidiotx

I'd try a thick glaze of some kind, but donuts are more my specialty.

<Snipped quote by ArenaSnow>

How would I go about double-wielding a pair of snickerdoodles without getting crumbs all over myself?

Saran wrap and a ginger grip my boy.

<Snipped quote by Vilageidiotx>

Saran wrap and a ginger grip my boy.

And when in doubt, play slinger.

And also no, you can't stab through plate. Not even with a zweihander.

There's a reason every self respecting soldier carries and carried around a dagger or knife. If you can't go through the obstacle, go around it. Your points were all very good, thanks for those insights.

1)And like that you've lost me. No, no they would not cut through mail. This isn't Deadliest Warrior, people aren't running around in butted mail made of low-grade galvanized steel. 2) They'll be using at least soldered and more 1a) likely welded or riveted mail, and you aren't going to cut those with any kind of sword. Here's an example of an idiot with a claymore trying to cut through crappy soldered mail. This mail is one step up from butted, and he barely damages it, much less "cleaves it apart". Welded mail was both more common and stronger, and the top of the line riveted stuff was stronger still.

3) youtube.com/watch?v=p_I_fkRngNM

There's more tests like this out there. Mail is by far stronger than people think it is.

4) And also no, you can't stab through plate. Not even with a zweihander

1) A stupid and silly comparison because in deadliest warrior weapons are often shown as weaker than they are, i.e. a crank based crossbow failing to go past lamellar armour in one of their tests.

1a) People had much worse steel then than now, with far worse methods of purification and such and it would often be too brittle or soft, irregularly shaped, much worse maintained and weathered, etc.

2) If that were true than fencing manuals and schools would not teach one to go for a slashing movement for the armpits that are typically protected with mail. Unless of course you are of the meme "European swords kill people with blunt impact" school of thought.

3) Yeah and I can post a video of a man using grorious nippon still slicing through plate armour, videos mean shit.

4) Perhaps not renaissance era cuirasses and such which were much thick and designed to take on firearms, but more traditionally medieval ones you most certainly could. Thus weapons like the tuc were formed. "...As armour improved, so did the methods of attacking the armour ... long tapered swords could also be used as a lance once the lance was splintered..." lances and many polearms being notorious for being able to give plate the old stab.

There's a reason every self respecting soldier carries and carried around a dagger or knife. If you can't go through the obstacle, go around it. Your points were all very good, thanks for those insights.

Also not wholly true, many soldiers were found without daggers and those that did often brought knives along to be tools, weapons as a last resort and not really brought for that purpose.