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Dothraki Weaponcraft


Mithras

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Here, this is the amount of force you would have to generate to get past plate. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCtV_M1n38c

Feel free to mute the annoying music, you just need to see the video, the sound doesnt help.

The titel is "Cutting of Swords and Armor ". We are talking thrusting, not cutting ;)

At the end of the video:

"The only method, approved by fencing manuals, is THRUSTING!"

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Nope. The helmet was the strongest part of the armor. The steelplate on other body parts was not as strong.

Yeah, I agree. Hitting that part of the armor with the edge of your blade would definitely damage your sword and not cut, but you would still ring your opponents head pretty badly with the sheer force of the blows.
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The titel is "Cutting of Swords and Armor ". We are talking thrusting, not cutting ;)

lol, in the video he does an equation for thrusting too, and, in the comments he says that a thrust MIGHT go past the armor. Here, I will quote.

I am by no means an expert, all I know I got from research papers and scientific literature. Can A Two-Handed sword pierce plate armor? It depends. If your sword has an acute awl-shaped point and you're run into that plate full force, it may punch a hole in it. But even if, it will be a tiny hole which most likely wouldn't treat the opponent inside that armor. Most historical two-handers however have more rounded points because they weren't designed for armoured fighting in the first place. Hitting plate even with a 13 pound sturdy ceremonial piece will have no effect.

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lol, in the video he does an equation for thrusting too, and, in the comments he says that a thrust MIGHT go past the armor. Here, I will quote.

He is talking 2h sword, with a completely different blade and point geometry then those swords used mainly/only for thrusting.

And as I said, it can go through without the sword breaking, BUT only about an inch max. and won't hurt the enemy, because he would be wearing chainmail under the plate.

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ot: I just read a post in a weapon forum from a guy claiming, that katanas wouuld have easily been able to CUT through plate armor and apparently he wrote a paper about katanas in college. What a complete moron....

I've once seen a professor claim something similar during a tv show. Some myths are really hard to kill...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osTQrJ_axfc

at 2:15

They use a sword to pierce mail, the sword is still ok after, it pierced, but not even an inch. So you can pierce through full plate with a sword, it just wouldn't hurt much with the underlying armor.

It's plate, nor mail :cool4: On a fixed surface, no less. With a lot of time to get the angle right as well.

By the way, I love that idiotic block edge on edge they did. Brings back memories of my childhood. But was never used in real combat.

Is it possible to slash through helmet?

No. Leaving a concussion, maybe. But seriously damaging the helmet? No.

You could stab through the visor though.

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Alright this plate thrust argument is getting silly. Lets just all agree that you cant cut through plate, so a slashing sword is useless against it. And it would take like 8 dothraki with arakhs to bring down one plate armored man.

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He is talking 2h sword, with a completely different blade and point geometry then those swords used mainly/only for thrusting.

And as I said, it can go through without the sword breaking, BUT only about an inch max. and won't hurt the enemy, because he would be wearing chainmail under the plate.

Padding, not chainmail. Full plate armor got rid of the chainmail. Westeros is still in the transition phase between plate-and-mail and full plate though.

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I've once seen a professor claim something similar during a tv show. Some myths are really hard to kill...

It's plate, nor mail :cool4: On a fixed surface, no less. With a lot of time to get the angle right as well.

By the way, I love that idiotic block edge on edge they did. Brings back memories of my childhood. But was never used in real combat.

No. Leaving a concussion, maybe. But seriously damaging the helmet? No.

You could stab through the visor though.

I was just saying, that it is possible to pierce plate with a sword.

I didn't talk about actual combat ;) I would use different (dirty;)) tactics if unarmored vs a knight in full plate.

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Alright this plate thrust argument is getting silly. Lets just all agree that you cant cut through plate, so a slashing sword is useless against it. And it would take like 8 dothraki with arakhs to bring down one plate armored man.

Maybe less. Two falling under the first blows, then one holding each arm and the fifth going for a decent maul... if they jumped him all at once while he's alone without backup to save his bacon.

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Im glad we have these videos now, im bookmarking them for the next westeros vs dothraki thread. Since, not matter how many times you say it, people insist you can slash plate. The equations should clear this up. The dothraki would have to be supermen.

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Maybe less. Two falling under the first blows, then one holding each arm and the fifth going for a decent maul... if they jumped him all at once while he's alone withuot backup to save his bacon.

:laugh: Those numbers still don't favor the dothraki they would need exactly five times as many men to bring down one guy. fighting on his own.

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Padding, not chainmail. Full plate armor got rid of the chainmail. Westeros is still in the transition phase between plate-and-mail and full plate though.

Not completely. At first they would be wearing chainmail under the plate armor. Only later did the chainmail shirt get replaced with chainmail only at the weak spots.

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I would like to thank all the wonderful people here for their swiftness in shooting down the twin headed monstrosities of the Katanas Beat All and You Can Totally Cut Through Plate myths.



As to the discussion between E-Ro and the Inquisitor, the historical fighting manuals of the 14th century and onwards show techniques used for piercing plate with a sword: Half-Handing. Basically, you use your off-hand to hold the blade of your sword halfway up, thus strenghtening it (otherwise it would break long before piercing the plate) and allowing much more force in the thrust. Using such a technique, plate could be breached, even in the more solid parts (or the people writing the manuals were just idiots, which I assume they weren't considering they were highly paid professionals).


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Not completely. At first they would be wearing chainmail under the plate armor. Only later did the chainmail shirt get replaced with chainmail only at the weak spots.

If you are referring to the armor worn in the early crusades period, I would advise against calling that "plate armor". A more correct term would be a coat-of-plates, which was indeed worn over chainmail. Later, as the coat developed into "true" plate, the chainmail could be discarded, as it was no longer necessary.

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I would like to thank all the wonderful people here for their swiftness in shooting down the twin headed monstrosities of the Katanas Beat All and You Can Totally Cut Through Plate myths.

As to the discussion between E-Ro and the Inquisitor, the historical fighting manuals of the 14th century and onwards show techniques used for piercing plate with a sword: Half-Handing. Basically, you hold the blade of your sword halfway up, thus strenghtening it (otherwise it would break long before piercing the plate) and allowing much more force in the thrust. Using such a technique, plate could be breached, even in the more solid parts (or the people writing the manuals were just idiots, which I assume they weren't considering they were highly paid professionals).

That's right, these swords had almost no or no edge at all, where you would grab them with the 2. hand. Sometimes the blade geometry was specifically designed at this spot to offer a better grip.

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Blade sharpening is a field of study all in itself. I think saying they had no edge at all is misleading (unless you are referring to Zweihanders, which often did have such an area. Halfhanding was not restricted to such swords, though, I've seen it much more in depictions of "langes-schwert", what is often referred to as "bastard swords"), but it is true that whereas earlier swords were sharpened to a razor edge at the front end, this changed with time.



Gripping even a sharp sword is perfectly fine, btw, as long as you are in control and have a firm grip that means your hand is not actually sliding down the cutting edge.


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The quality of the bows is probably pretty high. I don't think it's mentioned what sort they are, but even primitive Scythian bows work perfectly well.

And they are a threat to these great cities because you can't grow crops inside them. The Dothraki can swoop in from the steppe and cut your city off from your farmland and steal all your labour. If you send an army out against them, then the Dothraki can withdraw faster than you can advance, and they can fight while they do so.

Swords are sidearms. Pistols don't win battles, neither do swords.

Real khopesh are very different from the Show-arakh. They are one-handed and the blade is on the outward curve. Think sabre, not sickle.

But most of these cities have ports. As in, who cares if some barbarian horde is outside your walls, you can fish and bring over supplies to your hearts's content, while they can only live off your land for so long, especially if it's a Khalassar as gigantic as Drogo's with more than a hundred thousand mouths to feed. I understand why weaker Free Cities pay them to go away because it's more convenient, but you'd think at some point powerhouses like Volantis would get tired of their shit. Perhaps the Dothraki's underserved reputation preserves them from retribution, but as said elsewhere against a semi-competent army I don't see them winning. Jorah was sucking up to Dany big time; horse archers are not the game-breakers many people (including, seemingly, Martin himself) make them out to be. The Romans cut the Parthians to ribbons well enough when they weren't being led by a complete tool, so I don't see how a much more technologically advanced force (Volantis or a Westerosi army) couldn't duplicate that.

I mean, their bows might be good, but there's only so much bows can do against metal armor, and the Dothrakis are incredibly poorly suited to melee combat against anyone wearing anything more than a shirt. The Arakh is a weapon made to kill unarmed civilians and other Horselords, as far as we know.

And of course, that still doesn't answer the logistics part. In Dany's chapters (IIRC) there never is any mention of a supply train, and where would it come from anyway? They have no farms, no settlements except one that is never mentionned to grow crops, no reliable source of food (at least not enouh to feed such massive numbers). They can't be simply hunting food for such numbers, that's impossible, they would depopulate the ecosystem of anything they touch, and quite obviously they probably don't fish much either. There are only so many Lamb Men villages they can pillage and loot (and why oh why did said Lamb Men establish themselves smack-dab on the Dothraki sea in the first place anyway?).

I know I'm going off an a bit of a rant here. But it seems that worrying about the Dothraki's weapons when their entire society makes little sense to begin with is putting the horse before the Khal, as it were.

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Just what percentage of Westerosi armies were actually wearing plate armour though? I'd presume the vast majority would be peasant levees, wearing boiled leather at best. While a knight fully clad in armour is probably worth more than the Khalasar equivalent, an opposing army would only have maybe a few hundred to 1000 knights at best, and of those there's no guarantee they all have full plate, as a good number will probably be unlanded hedge knights.



A khalasar of 100,000 "screamers" could probably cut through peasant levees like ribbons, and would probably outnumber the "core" soldiers more than enough to make the difference in equipment negligible.



Not to mention from horseback it's a lot easier to ring the enemy infantrymen's helmets, and it seems like virtually everyone in the Khalasar rides.


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Just what percentage of Westerosi armies were actually wearing plate armour though? I'd presume the vast majority would be peasant levees, wearing boiled leather at best.

You presume incorrectly. I'll leave it for E-Ro to dig up the reference or link to a thread where he's already done so.

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