Message no. 1

From:	WILLIAM FRIERSON <will1am@*****.ASU.EDU>
Subject:	Rapiers vs Plate Armor
Date:	Mon, 3 Jul 1995 04:10:47 -0700

SSHERMAN@****.STEVENS-TECH.EDU (SilverFire) wrote:

> 'Nother note. Increasing usage of the rapier at the beginning of the
>renaissance, end of middle ages helped to put an end to various kinds of
>armor. Chain mail is useless against a rapier, and an experienced fencer
>could get his rapier into chinks in plate armor. Also the guy with the
>rapier is faster than the guy in the plate armor with a two handed sword
>that is longer than I am tall.

One thing that a lot of people don't realize is that plate mail is _not_
slow and bulky. It doesn't hinder the wearer. That's one reason why the
guys who wore it stayed on top of the power pyramid for so long. If it
was that easy, any person with a small sharp stick would lunge, hitting
the eyes through the slits, and viola! end of knights. The guy in plate
armor trained from a young age wearing it. He wasn't slow.

Another is that the big 2 handed swords were specialist weapons. They were
kept in motion (figure 8) all the time.

Armor didn't fade until gunpowder made it easy to defeat the knight before
he could close and kill you. Armor was modified, and smaller swords came
into usage, as the people you were fighting likely would have little or
no armor.

Later


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William Frierson Internet: WILL1AM@*****.asu.edu