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.

Way to miss the point, dude. Specifically the point that in Deadliest Warrior and other such programs they use cheap butted mail.

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.

Historical steel is not automatically crap because it's old. Historical steel was of fairly high quality, especially by the renaissance, and while we do HAVE better steel today, we don't usually USE better steel. Even the linked video's mail was made with steel worse than historical steel, because the guy making it is an idiot.

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.

Except they don't, they tell you to grab your sword by the blade and thrust with it. Alternately, it tells you to reverse your weapon and strike with the guard and pommel, but not with a zweihander. Swords are also terrible against armour just in general, which is why they were, with very few exceptions, sidearms. The zweihander was a primary weapon, but it was also a specialty weapon for defeating pike formations, as it was capable of knocking multiple polearms aside to the soldier could get past their points. It also only worked because the soldiers wearing them had plate armour and you can't stab through plate.

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

Oh yes, surely people actually trying things and them not working is less evidence than your completely unbacked word.

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.

Except that's not true. The tuck was designed for half-swording, it's an unsharpened, puncturing blade and it was used to thrust between plates, as it STILL couldn't penetrate them. Polearms can also be used this way, but the weightier ones were just used to bludgeon the target. As for lances, those are cavalry weapons. While I don't doubt that in some instances a lance might penetrate lighter plate, that's because it was being used from horseback and has an immense amount of power behind it, and even then it's likely the lance shaft will snap.

Further, all full plate was made to resist firearms, firearms predate full plate. It also isn't that hard to resist them.

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.

I have never found a single source that ever mentioned soldiers without daggers. Not only are they invaluable tools, but grappling was common and daggers outperform other weapons while grappling.

Way to miss the point, dude. Specifically the point that in Deadliest Warrior and other such programs they use cheap butted mail.

Still fallacious because you are trying to be and edgelord with a claim I get sourced by deadliest warrior and to discredit me overall which hasn't really worked.

Historical steel is not automatically crap because it's old. Historical steel was of fairly high quality, especially by the renaissance, and while we do HAVE better steel today, we don't usually USE better steel. Even the linked video's mail was made with steel worse than historical steel, because the guy making it is an idiot.

It doesn't mean that but it is generally true and one again, even if made better they would be much, much worse maintained.

Except they don't, they tell you to grab your sword by the blade and thrust with it. Alternately, it tells you to reverse your weapon and strike with the guard and pommel, but not with a zweihander. Swords are also terrible against armour just in general, which is why they were, with very few exceptions, sidearms. The zweihander was a primary weapon, but it was also a specialty weapon for defeating pike formations, as it was capable of knocking multiple polearms aside to the soldier could get past their points. It also only worked because the soldiers wearing them had plate armour and you can't stab through plate.

Oh but it does. I've done HEMA in continental Europe and Canada, you are explicitly told to go for a slashing motion at the armpits if they are not protected by the rosettes that came into use later. Swords in general were also duelling weapons often seen in conjunction with plate.

Oh yes, surely people actually trying things and them not working is less evidence than your completely unbacked word.

youtu.be/EDkoj932YFo?t=391
longsword stabbing through plate, along with grorious nippon steel cutting power elsewhere in the video. Because videos mean everything right?

Except that's not true. The tuck was designed for half-swording, it's an unsharpened, puncturing blade and it was used to thrust between plates, as it STILL couldn't penetrate them. Polearms can also be used this way, but the weightier ones were just used to bludgeon the target. As for lances, those are cavalry weapons. While I don't doubt that in some instances a lance might penetrate lighter plate, that's because it was being used from horseback and has an immense amount of power behind it, and even then it's likely the lance shaft will snap.

Oh but it is. It could, in fact and it did. If it was designed for half-swording it would just be a pick and the designer would be done with it. A two handed sword will be able to put more force into a thrust and certainly be better at penetrating through a man's plate. You're also ignoring my arguments, giving fun facts about lances whilst carefully skirting what I say and what I am saying leading me to believe you are a troll. If a longsword is able to be used as a lance for going at a bugger in plate, a zweihander is not so unfathomable.

Further, all full plate was made to resist firearms, firearms predate full plate. It also isn't that hard to resist them.

Now I am certain you are a troll, especially since I now see the few posts you have in the many days here and seem to not actually do shit on the site but this. Firearms were made in mid 1300s and could easily penetrate most plate they went up against, but were dismissed for proper combat (especially in Europe) until later in the 1400s. Meanwhile, breastplates and cuirasses of all sorts were made earlier in the 1300s and followed quickly with plate for the rest of the body, not to mention one-piece helmets being in use since long before.

I have never found a single source that ever mentioned soldiers without daggers. Not only are they invaluable tools, but grappling was common and daggers outperform other weapons while grappling.

Just because you haven't heard of something doesn't mean it exists. A dagger =/= many types of knives a soldier can take as a tool and you assume that a soldier is going to be grappling. Standing armies would not find it necessary to hand out daggers like candy as you propose because if your various formation perform assigned functions they would find grappling even less prominent.

arrivederci troll

So I'm pretty sure everyone who knows anything about armor knows that as soon as plate came around, everyone more or less abandoned scale mail. Scale mail is heavier and, while easier to make, it is more time consuming. Why make all those little scales fit together when you can just bend a full plate? Something that no one ever really addresses though is which one actually protected better. Does anyone know if the lapped steel on scale mail was harder or easier to pierce than plate?

- 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.

Aw, fuck. You're right. I got fuckin' played again. They're getting smarter (or I'm still dumb).

youtu.be/EDkoj932YFo?t=391
longsword stabbing through plate, along with grorious nippon steel cutting power elsewhere in the video. Because videos mean everything right?

You lost me instantaneously when you brought up a repeatedly debunked video with R. Lee Ermey. He didn't use a real breastplate OR a real sword, he used a wallhanger and a paper-thin piece of LARP costume. He shot through an identical plate with a HUNTING BOW in a different video, when actual historical plate has been shown to hold up to gunfire.

You're right, though. I was wrong comparing your information to Deadliest Warrior. That's a step above an R. Lee Ermey video where you can visibly see that they aren't using real weapon OR real armour. At least Deadliest Warrior TRIED.

How do you brrt?

for what it's worth

i'm still enjoying reading this thread, even though it's not because of historical discussion, more so just plain ol banter

@BrokenPromise, from what I have understood the plate was harder to penetrate in general and both were still vulnerable to blunt and bludgeoning weapons or, more specifically those that focused down into points. The plate because it would bend, deform and limit mobility as it attempted to deflect or reduce blows, or even worse, shred into its wearer if the hit was well placed and now act as exposed, sharp steel to already wounded flesh, and the scale because it offered not an ounce more of credible protection against it despite the design attempts to dampen the shockwave of the impact such as by backing the material or the scale itself in general.

@The Harbinger of Ferocity The "points" of weapons tended to be designed for stopping the weapons from glancing off smooth, angled plate pieces. The spikes on a morningstar, for example. Not for actually stabbing into the plate.

Yes, while this I understand was not their function, it did have some effect especially in the question posed about which was in general superior protection between plate or scale, @pugbutter. Plate was significantly harder to damage, deform or destroy overall was the gist of it, just what damage it suffered in the process had different outcomes.

@BrokenPromise

So I'm pretty sure everyone who knows anything about armor knows that as soon as plate came around, everyone more or less abandoned scale mail. Scale mail is heavier and, while easier to make, it is more time consuming. Why make all those little scales fit together when you can just bend a full plate? Something that no one ever really addresses though is which one actually protected better. Does anyone know if the lapped steel on scale mail was harder or easier to pierce than plate?

This is a more complex question than it may appear and it makes some assumptions that I cannot endorse. Nonetheless I will try to answer your question in an informative way, though I make need to make some assumptions about what you mean. Let me know if I misinterpret your meaning :-)

I suspect that you are referring specifically to the type of plate that emerged in 14th century Europe rather than the many types of plate that existed before this period. At the end of the 13th century a knight would be covered in mail from neck to feet and by the end of the 14th century they were nearly entirely covered by plates. Plate didn't replace scale in this case, it replaced and augmented mail (they were often used in conjunction).

Did the 14th century transitional harness and then the 15th century white plate offer superior performance to scale? Yes, across every metric. By the 14th century the lance and the polearm (of which there was a great variety) were considered a fundamental part of the knight's arsenal. Scale armor of any type will not protect you from a lance and it will not provide very much protection against the polehammer either. Scale was no longer suitable for the battlefield in Europe. Metallurgy had rendered it obsolete.

That said, I can't recall a single instance in which scale was replaced by plate. In every case I can recall scale had already been replaced by lamellar or mail before the arrival of plate. Do you have a specific example in mind?

There are also several types of scale armor, and not all of them were instantly abandoned the moent plate came out. You have the more "traditional" fish scale armor, little miniature plates laced over leather harnesses worn over a leather jack, as well as layered, sewn plate armor, which is a type of scale armor, quite popular in Europe amongst those unable to afford a full plate suit. There were also Japanese, CHinese, and Russian armor well into the early modern era were made of variations of scale armor.

And as for Europe, they did have the brigandine which was a variant of scale - that his steel plates layered over each other forming breastplates resembling the traditional lorica segmentata of the Roman imperial era - and in the case of the brigandine, it is scale armor only in the sense that it is layered strips of metal: the brigandine grew not out of eastern or ancient lamellar or scale armors, but as an evolution of the coat of plates - that is, a predecessor of plate armor, though its construction (of small squares or slices that were riveted or sewn into a backing vest or similar) does make it somewhat analagous to scale armor.

As for scale's advantages - it is relatively cheap, sturdier than mail, and relatively easy to repair.

Further there's also a metallurigcal point to be made - while it is "easier" in some senses to make a single larger piece of steel of sufficient quality... It also takes a much higher degree of skill and much more time. By this, I mean that when making a breastplate out of just two or four pieces of metal, you get many more chances to screw up while fabricating that singular piece. And if you screw up on any fo those panels, you essentially have to start over with that panel. On the other hand with scale, the time to produce is much quicker, meaning that there's less opportunity to screw up its production - and when you do, you're not screwing up a massive piece of metal, wasting it...but just a single piece that takes much less time to produce.

@The Harbinger of Ferocity Yes, that is all more or less true. I was more interested in why it was stronger, but thanks anyway.

@Kratesis@JDolan Thanks for that. While I know some about specific ancient/medieval era weapons and tactics, I only know about the most popular types of armor. That is to say if it didn't appear in an RPG or age of empires, I probably didn't hear about it. I just found myself googling one day and was surprised by this heated discussion comparing scale and plate armors. Now that I have all these other types of armor to learn about, I can continue to do my own research!

@BrokenPromise Happy to help :-)

But guys, how do I go brrt? No one's answered my question about going brrt.

@Dinh AaronMk: 6 easy steps (Note, this is something of a joke, given the vagueness of the question)

1 - Buy/find a GAU-8 or M61 cannon.
2 - Buy at least 4,000 rounds if you want to fire it for any appreciable amount of time. (cost of shells is an estimated $100 USD per bullet - it'll be expensive!)
3 - Hook the guns up to a power source.
4 - Press trigger
5 - Go brrrrt until the gun is empty.
6 - YOu have now brrrted, and wasted nearly a half million dollars for one minute of thrill.

This thread is honestly fascinating. Wish I had some questions to ask :(