This question is tailor-made for my good friend, @Andres77, who has first-hand experience with these things. Yet I also welcome anyone else to join in.
Is blunt trauma (as opposed to something which delivers an impact on a finer point all the way to something like a spear tip) actually effective against plate mail armor as we find in, say, the 16th century and onwards or even slightly earlier?
So many video games and role-playing systems just categorize "blunt damage" as so effective against armor whether it's coming from a flanged mace or a baseball bat or a sledgehammer.
That so defies my experiences when I was a sponsored vert skater. Even my little cheap, plastic pads with a layer of cloth and insulation made me feel borderline invincible. I did fracture my tailbone and jaw and things like that but those were the unprotected parts; I didn't have jaw pads or tailbone pads. Hit me in a protected part like elbows, head, or knees, and I'm invincible even if I fall 20+ feet on them after hanging up on the coping and plummeting straight to them.
Of course, if I was lying on the ground and someone slung a sledgehammer as hard as they could where my body can't move anywhere into my knees and my pads would probably break and my knees and legs shatter with it. I'm not talking about blows when someone is already on the ground since that's a whole separate category. But on our feet, a blow to the head, knees, and elbows, tends to cave things without much damage in my experience even with plastic shields.
But I think plate mail armor has to be pretty awesome. As long as we aren't lying on the ground, I would think even a sledgehammer to the torso or head -- given my experiences in extreme sports -- can't really do that much damage except making someone fly off his horse, e. g... at which point maybe we can do a lot with the same weapons if we hit them while they're on the ground with nowhere to move.
Is blunt trauma (as opposed to something which delivers an impact on a finer point all the way to something like a spear tip) actually effective against plate mail armor as we find in, say, the 16th century and onwards or even slightly earlier?
So many video games and role-playing systems just categorize "blunt damage" as so effective against armor whether it's coming from a flanged mace or a baseball bat or a sledgehammer.
That so defies my experiences when I was a sponsored vert skater. Even my little cheap, plastic pads with a layer of cloth and insulation made me feel borderline invincible. I did fracture my tailbone and jaw and things like that but those were the unprotected parts; I didn't have jaw pads or tailbone pads. Hit me in a protected part like elbows, head, or knees, and I'm invincible even if I fall 20+ feet on them after hanging up on the coping and plummeting straight to them.
Of course, if I was lying on the ground and someone slung a sledgehammer as hard as they could where my body can't move anywhere into my knees and my pads would probably break and my knees and legs shatter with it. I'm not talking about blows when someone is already on the ground since that's a whole separate category. But on our feet, a blow to the head, knees, and elbows, tends to cave things without much damage in my experience even with plastic shields.
But I think plate mail armor has to be pretty awesome. As long as we aren't lying on the ground, I would think even a sledgehammer to the torso or head -- given my experiences in extreme sports -- can't really do that much damage except making someone fly off his horse, e. g... at which point maybe we can do a lot with the same weapons if we hit them while they're on the ground with nowhere to move.
