Ok, so this may be a simple and stupid question...

Ok, so this may be a simple and stupid question. But after seeing that swords can't penetrate a knights armor like they do in movies. What was the point of the knights having swords? Why wasn't the main weapons a club or some kind of pike with a sharp end to smash holes in the knights armor ? why bother with swords and having to find those small openings?

Because you use the blade part for the unarmored and you flip the sword and use it as a warhammer for the armored opponents.

Alternatively, if your blade is rigid, you can deliver a heck of a blunt impact by thrusts.

Also;

> Why wasn't the main weapons a club or some kind of pike with a sharp end to smash holes in the knights armor ?

It was, polearms were the main weapon for most.

> why bother with swords

Because swords are excellent sidearms and are better in many situations than polerams.

Considering how often a heavily equipped soldier in Europe would find himself either besieged or besieging, assaulting walls or fighting in corridors isn't exactly the best situation for a big ass polearm.

well what did you want them to have, they had yo have something asshole

>main weapon
A sword is usually your sidearm. Most infantry would have a polearm as their primary weapon and most Knights would have a lance or something.

Also remember that the concept of "Knights" on the battlefield covers a 1000 year long period. The later on you go the better armored Knights get and weapons evolve to deal with that.

Plus in a pinch you can grab your sword by the blade and use the pommel and crossguard to strike with.

Swords are incredibly versatile and a decent weapon against just about every type of opponent. There's a reason they turn up in pretty much every culture in every part of the world at every point in history until the 1920s.

I see thanks. I always thought a mace or something would have benefitted them more. But I guess swords worked if they kept using them

Oh I see. I guess i've been fooled by the movie memes that the knights would just rush eachother with only swords and a shield. And then you have the front men with pikes etc. Just a few lines of them, and not that everyknight had a polearm or a pike or the likes

>What was the point of the knights having swords?
They were sidearms and dueling weapons. Unlike in films, by the late medieval era, when full plate harnesses had become common (and even before, due to the prevalence of mail), swords were never used as a primary weapon. They were there for when you got unhorsed or lost your bec de corbin or whatever your primary weapon was. They were, however, a weapon that could be carried outside of battle as well, namely in towns and social environments, without causing offence, and were very effective in unarmoured duels, such fighting being a very common test of skill and virtue. This meant that swords were the most common weapons that the nobility (and others) would encounter and would use, both in battle but also in daily life.

>Why wasn't the main weapons a club or some kind of pike with a sharp end to smash holes in the knights armor ?
The main weapon of a mounted knight was almost always the lance. The primary secondary weapon of the mounted knight was almost always a percussive weapon such as a warhammer. On foot, a knight's primary weapon would be a bec de corbin, or a halberd, or long warhammer or some other short pole-arm.

>why bother with swords and having to find those small openings?
Because you don't need to use the sword to do that. The point of the sword in a fight where both combatants are fully armoured in plate is not to penetrate the armour with the sword, but to knock the opponent off their feet, to put them at your mercy so you can kill them with a dagger (or your sword if necessary). To this end the sword is used as a blunt force weapon, and most importantly, a lever, in what is an engagement effectively half way to a wrestling match.

>What was the point of the knights having swords?


Most armies would have mainly levies, this soldiers are not armored like knights or nobles.

>What was the point of the knights having swords?
It would have looked silly if they just argued and pushed each other till someone fell and could not get up again.

>Most armies would have mainly levies
Wrong-o, most later medieval soldiers were professionals

>What was the point of the knights having swords?
You can always easily carry a sword by your side, no matter what your primary weapon is. And due to carrying swords on a daily basis for self-defence, people were most familiar with swords and felt comfortable with them. Also, swords do a great job against more lightly armoured opponents.

>Why wasn't the main weapons a club or some kind of pike with a sharp end to smash holes in the knights armor ?
Even with clubs and pikes you wouldn't easily smash a hole into armour. Keep in mind however that few people could afford the type of armour that would cover the whole body.

>why bother with swords and having to find those small openings?
People generally didn't bother with swords. They bothered with swords if for some reason their primary weapon was gone (e.g. after having broken a lance from horseback), or if the situation they were in didn't permit the usage of other weapons, e.g. in tight spaces during sieges, when somehow caught off-guard, etc. - or ritualised duelling situations, such as judicial combat.

Is plate really that much better than chainmail? or is it just a videogame meme?

At the very least, it's lighter.

Plate is slightly better against penetration but leagues better at impact absorption.

Lamellar and mail are equally shit at absorbing blunt impact while you need a fuckton of force to hurt someone wearing plate, especially in the torso area.

hammers and polearms wre more common

the sword you posted is a type XVIII. it can be used for half-swording easily to maneuver the point into gaps in armr

>rush each other

Everyone has fallen for the entertainment meme. Soldiers did not rush at each other screaming at the top of their lungs like fools. They would be exhausted by the time they reached the enemy lines, there would be no rank and no discipline. Well-disciplined and trained infantry fought as a unit under their commanders' orders. Battles and skirmishes were not won by who had the most skilled swordsmen.

the greeks could make a rush work, but then again they were Veeky Forums as fuck

> Soldiers did not rush at each other

They would sprint sometimes at the very last few meters or tens of meters.

In fact, European renaissance pike formations doubled pace when they got in musket range and started sprinting the last 50-30 meters and then smashed into the enemy with their pike line.

Obviously this required very good drilling.

>In fact, European renaissance pike formations doubled pace when they got in musket range and started sprinting the last 50-30 meters and then smashed into the enemy with their pike line.

It's actually a really common misconception that pike formations were always defensive and static. Of course plenty were, but many of the most famous examples were the exact opposite.

Another good one is the Macedonian phalanx that Alexander used. Once they lowered their pikes and got within a few hundred feet of the enemy, the entire formation would advance at a sprint all the way to the point of impact, often causing mass disorder and confusion in less disciplined lines, making the job of the Companions that much easier. This tactic was one of the most underrated but important factors in Macedonian battlefield success, as the training and discipline required for these maneuvers turned the phalanx into a very versatile force, capable of devastating shock assaults as well as withstanding any frontal counter-assault.

Of course, later phalangites adopted heavier and heavier equipment when their opponents became other phalangites as opposed to forces not equipped to face their frontal engagement, leading to them becoming slower and more static. This is why, when the Romans encountered them, they were (after many defeats and a LOT of difficulty) able to out-maneuver the phalanxes and use their infantry versatility across rougher terrain to fragment phalanx lines.

Alexander's phalanx was a completely different machine, and this is why in almost every one of his pitched battles, the defining positioning factor is the rapid advance of the phalanx line itself, not the advance of the enemy into the phalanx line. This gave the Macedonians the initiative in their battles, which further enhanced the effectiveness of the aggressive maneuvers of the Companions, and allowed Alexander to completely dictate the flow of the battle.

Just to chime in, full plate knights rarely used shields. This was because the plate armour was that good at protecting them from harm.

Because Most men weren't in full armor, you can wear it easily, and you generally don't defeat armor directly anyway.

It's vastly superior.

>Plate is slightly better against penetration
It's vastly fucking superior, according to a basic understanding of physics, modern testing, and period accounts.

>le half swording.
Good meme fag.