Arms and Armor Thread: Mail 'n' Plate edition

savebump

What sort of niche did greatswords fill on the battlefield?

wasnt used much but it could be used to fight spearmen but was mostly another sword to use or decoration

Wall defense during siege

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Oh fuck, wrong image!
Ignore that!

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nah its okay hes wearing super sikrit invisible armor

yeah, sure.
No homo

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gambesons are cool too

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Am I the only fucker in this thread...?

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I don't remember where I heard it so take it with a adequate amount of salt, but I've heard that they were used, among other things, by bodyguards on the battlefield to keep (numerically superior) opponents at arms length untill reinforcement could arrive to save the VIP.

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Heres a guess, you gave them to the biggest guys you had along with some playe armor. Then let them bully everyone else in a battle by simply smashing people into submission. They were probably solid knight killers as well, being more capable of killing unarmored or lightly armored horse in comparison to a warhammer.

They were rare though in any case, same as fuck huge aristocrats.

I can believe it.
You can threaten a LARGE area with a greatsword and when people get close you half-sword it and use it more like a staff.
And staffs can be real dangerous if you know what you're doing.

the movie "flesh and blood" shows some good greatswording.

Oof, someone left that in the acid for too long.

how practical is that eye slit?

A Greatsword is not a particularly efficent knight killer weapon. You'd be better of with some sort of armour piercing weapon such as a crow's beak for that purpose.

Just giving a huge fuck-off weapon to the biggest warrior you got isn't necessarily the best way to go around either as overkill is a waste of resources. You also have to take into consideration what sort of opponents you are facing as that heavily effects what weapon is ideal to field against them.
As long as you are not covered from head to toe in plate it's far more efficent to use a spear (or something similar) and a shield, aswell as a side arm than a two handed weapon (with the obvious exclusion of pikemen). And even if you decide to go with a two handed weapon you are better off with something multipurpose such as the previously mentioned crow's beak than a greatsword. There's a reason two handed swords were uncommon throughout history.

For the designed purpose of protecting against incoming arrows? I'd say pretty great.

For melee? Well that's why you got a visor for; open it up so that you can see properly if you desire to remain unwounded!

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What's that, bronze?

gold.

Like a true baller!

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>another ARMS and armour thread
>no one ever posts arms

Hammers, faggots. I need hammers.

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This is the best I've got.

>sword in the stone

Fug. How am I only just making the connection?

Not much of a thing in the ancient world or early medieval era considering if you've only got mail and you don't want a shield it makes more sense to use some sort of polearm than a massive two hander , but Two handed weapons sort of became the weapon of choice for plate wearers after shields became rather redundant in the late medieval period, being rather good for knight v knight and knight v lighter armored polearm group, and they aren't half bad at unhorsing people either. Later on in the pike and shot era they were good at keeping pikes from being as much of a threat as they otherwise might be.

I don't know. You were born next to a lead mine?

HAMMER

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That must've been a fun commission for the blacksmith.

they were literally non-existant except in pike-and-shot formations, like the landschneckts, for breaking up and deflecting pikes - they are unwieldly and useless. sorry to burst all the fantasy video game rule of cool memes.

So, was it polearms like that your heavy infantry would use?

pole axes weren't even around in pike and shot formations. greatswords only became a thing in the 16th-17th century. halberds were the pole-arms of the 16th-17th century

That was just an example, were they the sorts of things that the men-at-arms would use, then?

in the 15th century warhammers, pole-axes and picks were the armour-openers of their day, each knight/man at arms would provide their own panoply of armour and weaponry.

Oh. Just when I thought I had the grasp of all this stuff, I realize that it was all spread out over four or five hundred years of history and I've no idea where to start learning.

Fun.

read osprey books that are spread over the evolution of warfare of those centuries, which become progressively more and more distant from each other as they advanced. 15th century warfare was a completely different thing from 16th century pike-and-shot, which developed from the decline of cavalry due to disciplined professional infantry-heavy armies wielding long pole-arms, almost entirely stemming from the swiss methods of war.

transition from feudal levee to professional standing armies is the gradient from which the early medieval period developed toward the late, which changes everything, along with all the complexity of changing tech, social conditions, etc

So let me get this straight, greatswords were used to fuck up pikes? What about fucking up horses, like sweeping them under the legs and cutting them up? Any use at all against a person?

by the time you lifted how many kilos that thing weight your weak armour joints would be seized upon in moments

what evidence remains of pike-and-shot tactics involving greatswords shows them being used to bat aside pikes and create openings in pike blocks, for their comrades behind - or to fend off attacks from their own pike blocks' flanks, which could be horsemen, yes.

>Any use at all against a person?
Well, if he was wearing any armour worth spit it'd probably just knock him over. Plus it wouldn't be easy to swing around in a dense melee.

Y'know that bit in the Battle of the Bastards where Tormund gets pinned against the Smalljon by the crush, and there's so little room they just have to keep headbutting each other? Like that.

a note that if you were using a greatsword for actual hand-to-hand combat with another person rather than deflecting pikes, you use it as a spear by grabbing the upper half, which is blunted, and the bottom blunted part below the quillons to stab rather than swing it

What's with the bag around the guy on the right's neck?

coinpurse

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that armor seems really big

is that king Henry's armor?

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>that armor seems really big
>is that king Henry's armor?

I believe it is. When I visited the Tower of London about 15 years ago, there were multiple suits of his on display, from his younger, fitter days all the way up to his "we're gonna need a bigger horse" days.

What's this artist's name and where can I find books of their collected works? I see them posted so much but never really remembered who it was.

Angus McBride

>that jap/euro mixed-style armor
God that gives me the hots.
Please tell me this actually existed.

for you

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Shields are cool.

As are clothes. Gotta have art for those mages, or anyone when they're strolling about town or a gala without full protection.

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except these pieces of shit you posted

Then give me better ones, sempai.

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it did. When europeans came to japan they sold not only their guns but also some armours.
I've even seen a combed morion with added japanese neck-plates.

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