Best weapon for armored/unarmored opponents?

...It brought them within enemy lines where they would be shot repeatedly and blown apart by shrapnel, with the ever-present risk of the mace backfiring or exploding?

Must've missed that in my history books

Always bring a shield or buckler, unless you use bows, polearms, pikes, or heavy armor.

Blunt weapons for armored opponents. They have harder time outright killing unarmored opponents but are excellent against guys in plate armor. It will broke bones, but not kill unless you hit the column or the head.

Some people DID just carry a mace or sme equivalent as their regular weapon. Swords were used often not only as a tool but also a sign of status. Still, swords are also quite effective against many kinds of opponents. Sure, it won't penetrate a full plate easily but a swordsman won't try to cut through plate as much as target joints and other weak points (provided he'll be forced to fight heavy armored man which is always risky if you're not similarly armored).

Spears are ideal for untrained soldiers and for killing monsters/horses. Polearms, such as glaives, halberds, poleaxes are weapons meant for warfare.

Aw yeah Motherfuckin' MURDER STROKE!

Pollaxes will cut you open better than a sword, with more power and at longer range.
>slow
kek

In addition to everyone talking about the differing wound types, I would just want to point out that when facing unarmored opponents, a sword is almost always going to have more reach than a mace, certainly more so than a mace that weighs as much as the sword does.

Reach is really important. Hitting first correlates with hitting last.

Plate armour negates maces' reach disadvantage.

Swords are good all-purpose weapons. Not as good at stabbing as a spear, but almost as good (one hand on the pommel and the other on the blade, thrusting it spear-style.) Not as effective as a mace or warhammer, but almost as good (mordhau.) Not as good at cleaving or dismembering as an axe (larger surface area, not balanced specifically for dismembering strikes,) but almost as good.

I'm still waiting for a Chinese warrior in For Honor.

No, but plate armor makes it harder to hurt your opponent, especially with the longer swords of weapons. That makes the first strike less important; a first trike that glances off your opponent's breastplate might hurt him, but it might not do anything at all. It almost certainly won't incapacitate or kill him.

I think he meant you're the one wearing the plate armor and not your opponent

...

It doesn't really matter who is wearing the armor. If one and only one person is wearing plate, or both people in a fight are wearing plate, or nobody is wearing any sort of armor at all (Reminder: Armor existed before the evolution of full plate), the guy with the sword is probably going to swing first over the guy with the mace, and he will have a reach advantage if the weapons are of equal weight.

That just means less the heavier the armor gets.

That's what I said.

I wasn't agreeing with him I just wanted to clarify

>armor negates reach disadvantage
>"nuh-uh! Actually, armor negates reach disadvantage!"
user...

As for the spear, it's important to keep in mind the huge range advantage, allowing the user to kill a (for example) sword-wielding opponent without ever being in range for retaliation. It is of course possible to beat, but rushing into a spear and not dying is not easy to pull of; especially if the spear is wielded in two hands, the point is very nimble and fast, and a swordsman getting past your point can still be countered by simply choking up on the shaft (can be done very quickly). Assuming equal skill level, my money would be on the spearman in an unarmoured spear vs. sword/mace/other-weapon-of-similar-range-fight.

Lack of cutting potential means very little against unarmoured opponents, as a thrust can easily incapacitate an opponent wearing clothes. So a very good weapon in a civillian context, to be used by guards etc.
The spear is significantly less OP with shields involved especially if the spearman also carries a shield, making him significantly less nimble. Not to mention being fairly ineffective agains full plate armour (partial armour could still bypassed relatively easy due to the nimbleness of the point and the precision of the tip.)

In the end of the day, swords were the go-to sidearm due to being easy to carry, and useful against most opponents. A convenient tool for anything that might come up, as said.

Also seconding scholagladiatoria. Definately worth checking out.

... Do your maces not?

Flamethrowers didn't explode when shot. They specifically used nitrogen for that reason

No. Negating reach advantage would mean that the reach advantage no longer exists. It introduces a new factor that makes the still existing reach advantage less important. Not to mention that not all armor is plate armor, and that statement isn't even remotely true if you go from two unarmored dudes to two dudes in gambesons.

>Why wouldn't someone just carry a mace around instead?
I'm no expert on the subject, but what about the weight difference? I would think the guy holding the sword could hold out longer without tiring out their arm

>That just means less the heavier the armor gets.
That's exactly what he was saying. The reach/speed advantage means less as armor gets heavier. The advantage of a mace means more.

Maces aren't actually that heavy, they're about the same weight as a sword but the difference is the distribution of weight.

The further weight is from your body the greater the strain you're putting on yourself though. I'm not really sure how much of a practical difference it would make, but at a glance I imagine it would be the biggest reason to pick a sword over a mace to me

Dacian Falx is great against armoured and unarmoured opponents, it can even pierce through shields.

Maces are only for the strong.
The Chad choice of weapons.

And then get stuck, getting you stabbed to death.

Yes, but at the cost of really only being useful fur chopping. Nearly no potential for thrust or pull/push cuts. Thrusts may be on the table for versions less curved than your pic, but then again, that makes it just less "falxy".

Disclaimer: I'm just basing it of what I know about other weapons and what seems logical to me. I'm not especially knowledgeable about falxes in particular.

Tests like this make no sense. What kind of legionnaire has an arm as stiff as that without give and good luck with making a running, telegraphed attack like that. And like another one wrote, have fun if you actually get your falx stuck like that. You're going to get a gut full of gladius in a split second.

Also, cutting into a wooden shield and cutting into metal armour isn't the same thing.

maces need a lot of room to build up speed for a swing, and If you miss you need to quickly get pull out, since your wide arc leaves you open

swords need less room to swing, or can just stab, their slim profile also makes them easier to store
medieval medicine could heal broken bones fairly well, but a even a small cut haf a chance of death from infection

so if you dont know what to pick, pick a sword, though a mace isnt a bad choice, it's better against armor and a good swing can knock a mans brains out

People, especially gamer nerds, seem to have really weird ideas about blunt weapons. You don't make something more effective at hurting someone in armour by removing an edge. A sharp blade with the same force behind it will cause just as much blunt trauma, buckling, etc. At best you do the same damage as a sharp implement but save yourself the cost of a sharp blade and worrying about it snapping, etc. which was probably why most people who used maces chose them (although weirdly maces were also a high status weapon, so maybe there's some more complex shit I'm missing).

Yes, a mace could have more force behind it thanks to weight distribution, but you can make short, tip-heavy swords as well. It's just an extra cost which you probably don't want on a weapon which is specialised at dealing with armour which makes sharpness irrelevant.

Also, maces weren't usually blunt. Most of them had pretty sharp flanges and/or long spikes. Which gave them some of the utility of a sword against flesh at a far lower cost.

Plus there were anti-armour swords, like the estoc, but most swords were effective against plate armour because they could thrust into the joints or places unprotected by plate (often the legs and groin on footsoldiers and most of the horse on cavalry). That whole 'mordhau' thing seems to be a fairly obscure technique which was far from the only option when confronted by someone in plate, but it looks cool and it's weird enough that someone with no real understanding of swordplay can notice it being used, so it gets made into a huge meme.

Swords aren't necessarily better at fighting unarmed folks- blades certainly do much more grievous wounds to flesh, but if I were to hazard an armchair swordsman's guess, I would say that it has a whole lot to do with thrusting, at least in europe. I mean, stabbing somebody from far away is always the best option in warfare, but you can't always carry a spear/halberd. Maces and cudgel weapons can be used in thrust-like attacks, but they're less suited to it.

My understanding of all warfare is thus- the person who can stab the other person the fastest and easiest from the furthest away is going to win 9/10.

>armoured
Crossbow
>unarmoured
Crossbow

which is exactly why england fought their battles with longbows.

>A poleaxe or a halberd is devastating, and it's a weapon of war. No one is gonna let you walk in a town with a fucking halberd.
Cover or remove the blade, hang a lantern on the shaft.

Nothing to see her Mister Anachronistic Town Guard, just me and my trusty lantern stick passing through, entirely unarmed.

I think you are severely underestimating the design of most maces.

Cruciform swords would be the ideal weapon, regardless of whether the other guy is armed. Crosspiece can be used as a warhammer, pommel can be used as a mace (inb4 ending anything rightly) blade can be gripped to guide tip like spear or dagger through visors, and the cutting edge will either dismember an unarmored opponent or severely batter an armored one.