Modern Materials/Methods for Medieval Armor and Weapons

[LaCroix]

Yes - full plate is pretty much immune against almost anything a knight would encounter on the field. Especially the french knights were known to sometimes protest and ignore orders to attack common foot soldiers, for reason of being 'unchivalrous' to mow them down. The only way to take down a full plate armored fighter is to either use a high-powered impact polearm (polaxe or halberd), and overwhelming numbers, or keeping heim fighting till he keeled over from exhaustion. And even then, most times the man would only be knocked out, not outright dead.

There's also 'grappling and slip a knife under a joint'. And for impact, maces and such work in addition to polearms, they're good for making dents and concussions.


The best thing to do with a sword is often to turn it around and use the crossguard as a blunt strike, which can be surprisingly effective.

You're up against a well armed fighting machine.
If you are armored less than full plate, you will want to knock him down with a polearm, first, before you will try to grapple and stab, or have overwhelming force when using maces, for he will cut down a lot of you before you get into range with them (they are much shorter than his sword). Actually, you will want to have a numerical advantange, at all times, because the bugger is so dangerous. Even grapping with him is dangerous, for he is wrapped in steel. A gauntleted fist to the face is nothing you'd want.

Most of the times, you will gang up on him with polearms and club him into submission from a distance. The archers at Agincourt only went into close combat with their maces because the knights were already falling over on their own accord. Any other encounter with armored knights would have been a massacre for them.

If you are in full, plate, yourself, then you know it is unchivalrous to kill the opponent, and are out for the ransom to finance your own war-hobby. So you will mostly only try to disable him for the ransom, and so will he. Knights usually pulled their punches with each other. On infantry, not so much.

[Q99]

Oh, yes, I definitely want to do polearms or such, and/or be in full plate myself, I'm just saying, there's options.

If I have a shield, I may be able to keep the sword away/blocked while I move in close enough that it's hard to use the sword any more, then I take out the knife and... well, maybe kill him, maybe get him to surrender. Which relies on him not outfighting me (which he has the edge with due to his advantages), but it's not out of the question.