Got a Real-World Weapon, Armor or Tactics Question? Mk. XXV

[snowblizz]

They may have had high status, but I think I'm on firm ground when i say that it was far more common for pikemen to be limited to a 'static' role in the 17th Century whereas in the 15th (and through at least the middle of the 16th) I can cite numerous occasions when they played a highly dynamic role, the Swiss in particular of course were famous for their sudden decisions and decisive attacks, but there are many others.

I think you are undervaluing the later pike and shot armies, and dare I say overcompensating for the aspersions normally cast on the medieval period. There are fair few examples of pike manuevering around, e.g. The Swedish army at Breiftenfeld swinging part of the army to establish a new front when their Saxon allies collapsed, that's not dumb static pike compared to trained super medieval pike. In fact the Dutch reforms and the Swedish brigading system derived from it was in fact a much more manouvre friendly system for individual units than any medieval system. That is the basic idea they worked to after all. To copy the Roman manipular system to weigh up their comparative troop deficiencies compared to massive Spanish tercios. They also wanted to more effectively bring firepower to bear. The Spanish Tercios were more "wasteful" of their shot than later developments which increased firepower downrange by bringing fewer troops to fire more often.

The older Spanish Tercios were in that sense much closer to the medieval way of fighting in more massive bodies. The Swiss may have been mroe dynamic but they were also utterly defeated by increased firepower. 17th century pikeblocks were not static because they weren't so highly trained, they were static because the main fighting was shooting (artillery and muskets) and no longer hand-to-hand. How exactly do you define a highly dynamic role? Sure moving en masse to attack with pikes may be highly dynamic but when you get moved down with cannon was it dynamic or dumb? Isn't that basically what defeated the invincible Swiss phalanx?

It would be really interesting to pit say, a mixed force of 10,000 from Venice, Bern or Bohemia circa 1480 vs. 10,000 soldiers from say the army of Louis XIV in 1680. I wonder which side would win. The French army would have better guns, the earlier army much better (and more ubiquitous) armor and every other kind of weapon.

First problem I see is that you are in part making a "1000 modern US Marines in an open battle defeat 1000 insurgents", because ofc they do, they represent about a million times more resources. You say yourself you consider the medieval army per capita more costly than a later pike and shot force (and I agree with that), which means it's not entirely an equal fight. We should get more of the cheaper troops who through tehcnological progress may be less trained, but pack more punch troop for troop. Same as a modern infantry platoon has the firepower of a WW2 company or however it goes.
My money is probably on the French though. Better guns (muskets *will* punch through plate) and artillery means armour is much less significant a factor. I would expect the French cavalry to be better able maintain themselves as part of the army. But I've liked the idea of putting tens of thousands of arrows into the air and hitting large blocks of barely armoured men before. And they are definitely more capable in close combat. I guess it boils down to, can they get there?
Going to come down to who gets the more suited terrain I guess and doesn't do something stupid.

It's basically why we are communicating in English right now instead of Turkish.

I'm sorry but that's massively hyperbolic. You can't just pick one battle (or war) hundreds of years ago "hey this saved XXX". I hate it when they do that in books, because invariably whatever the authors period of choice is tends to have the most important battles. An observation I've made over the years reading books on "most influential battles" "biggest battles" and so on.

Warfare changed and the armies of the 17th Century were what worked for the Absolute Monarchs of that era.

Or Absolute Monarchies shaped warfare and armies to fit their goals.

For the most part, it was the best they could come up with. Observing the 80 Years War perhaps gives us a hint of what a desperate struggle between late medieval vs. Early Modern armies might look like. In spite of all the silver in Peru and the wealth of the Philippines, ultimately the Spanish lost control of what we call today the Netherlands, but they did retain the Spanish Netherlands (Belgium etc.) and it took 80 years for the Dutch to break free.

To be fair, they had long spells of inaction. The 100YW wasn't a 100 years of war either. The de facto independence was realised more quickly it's just that the Spanish had no incentive to accept de jure what was de facto true by 1609 and the 12 Year Truce. Bit like that Korean war that's currently on hold. So they kept spending even more financial resources on a lost cause hoping later to recoup territory. I've seen it argued somewhere the Spanish crown rather stupidly spent vast resources trying to hold things together because Deus Vult! and they felt obliged to as the premier Catholic power. After all they had interests all over the globe they were trying to manage.

The advent of military "Science" may or may not represent a steady march from primitive to more sophisticated, I think it's more accurate to say it was a system which worked for the political world it was part of - the Musketeers of Louis XIV were very much his musketeers, and could be counted on to do what they were told in a way that a King in the 15th Century could never have dreamed of. But that army in the 15th Century may have proven more tricky to deal with and had more 'weapons' in it's arsenal of a less obvious nature.

I don't quite agree with the idea that having more different kinds of poelarms necessarily means you are more effective compared those only using pikes (just to use an silly example). I do agree that military science wasn't always very scientific. Or shall we say overly scientific. Because some of the earlier pike and shot tactics were deeply invested into the mathematics and geometry of formations, e.g. by imitating the new scientific military engineering principels used in fortifications. Things like being hugely obsessived with number of troops and frontages.

But not necessarily. It's a very general trend I'm talking about. There were excellent soldiers in the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries as well. In all eras. It's just the nature of warfare that changed. I'm just suggesting that change didn't (and doesn't) automatically improvement. Sometimes it's just that - change. Different but not necessarily better.

G

Remember that change also doesn't mean things got worse either...
Because the way you aruge quite often it seems civilization peaked in the middle ages.

[Martin Greywolf]

O yeah, rivers for transportation, sure. I just always figured the best castles sit on the highest hill within charging distance of the river, like in Budapest or Prague, and that moat-castles like we have in the Netherlands (yes, my location says something different, short story) are a second best option for lack of any hills.

Well, what's a best castle? If it's the most unconquerable, then I think the prize of those I've visited goes to Ostry Kamen (Sharp Stone), it sits in the middle of a mountain range above an old pass through the Carpathians. It's not the most impressive looking one perhaps, but the trek to get there is a massive pain, and it was used strictly as a border fortress, mostly because none of the nobles wanted to live there - control it for massive taxes yes, actually live there, not so much.

Spoiler: Ostry Kamen, closest river is 30 km away

Show

The thing about river castles, natural moat aside, is that they look very impressive if you have the right terrain - river tends to wash away anything that isn't rock, leaving these massive boulders on top of which you can build. Problem is, they are often near fords, and with river right there, you have a lot of ways a besieging force can get supplies quickly.

Spoiler: Orava, closest river is a jump from the walls away

Show

Spoiler: Saris, no rivers anywhere, good luck marching up that hill

Show

Spoiler: Spis, largest castle in central Europe, no river

Show

In the end, the presence of castles is dictated by having a military of certain tech level and little else. Once you have such a society, you build castles wherever they are needed strategically, and do your best to fortify them with what terrain types and materials you have.

Spoiler: Ishiyama Hongan-ji

Show

Spoiler: Mehrangarh Fort

Show

Spoiler: Gyantse Dzong

Show

We could go and argue semantics, but if we take the simplest definition of castle, primarily a fortified building complex that also serves as a daily home for soldiers and (optionally) other people, then the non-European examples certainly can't be overlooked. Hell, some of the American pueblos probably qualify.

Edit: One sneaky castle was present twice

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Well, what's a best castle? If it's the most unconquerable, then I think the prize of those I've visited goes to Ostry Kamen (Sharp Stone), it sits in the middle of a mountain range above an old pass through the Carpathians. It's not the most impressive looking one perhaps, but the trek to get there is a massive pain, and it was used strictly as a border fortress, mostly because none of the nobles wanted to live there - control it for massive taxes yes, actually live there, not so much.

And at least as a border fortress it serves some purpose, but generally the point of a castle is to defend something. Take the difference between those Saris and Spis examples. I'm sure Saris is extremely unconquerable, but why would I even want to conquer it? Maybe to prevent them from following me when I leave and attacking me in the rear. Spis on the other hand sits in what looks like a fertile valley, probably near what was in that time a main road, definitely near a village, a bunch of farmlands and a forest you could conceivably cut for wood that you can then actually transport out of there.

You see this even more in later defensive lines, Naarden-vesting is a good example: (Zoom in a bit on "Naarden", you'll see the six pointed star shape.).
That lake to the north was a sea back then, the land to the north of that lake was sea as well. The land to the south of the "vesting" was an inundation, in wartime it would be flooded and become a big muddy landscape too deep to wade at any decent speed, too shallow for halfway decent boats, with no cover at all. Between the "vesting"/fortified city and the then sea to the north you'll notice a road. A highway in fact, today. Even now that's pretty much the main road towards Amsterdam from anywhere further inland. In wartime it would have been the only way. The fortress guards that road like a madderfakker. That's a strategic position. That's why I was considering a hill next to a river versus a moated castle near a river, because I was thinking of castles build to guard something (other than the people inside, which to be fair could often use guarding, so out of the way on top of a mountain castles have their function, but I was thinking of the other kind of castle.)

I saw a video by I think Shadiversity who was raving about the castles in Game of Thrones, and the very best in his opinion was one build up as a giant tower far out in the sea connected to land by one tiny bridge. Unconquerable! Sure, but if I blow the bridge up and leave a platoon of archers to shoot anyone coming out to fix it I can go and conquer the rest of their lands while they starve to death. They don't even have a decent harbor in there by the looks of it. In fact, I can just go and conquer the rest of their lands without blowing up the bridge if that suits me. I'll have to fight their armies, but the castle itself will never bother me. It sits out in the sea, guarding nothing at all. So yeah, I like castles build to project power, rather than just to have it. That's why I like the castles in Budapest and Prague, those castles are definitely guarding something.

I'd still say a lot of castled hills, especially the nice solid granite places people would carve later fortifications out of, rather than building anything weaker on top, are better than flat land with a moat. But for tunneling at least there's a very good argument for that last setup, and I simply never considered that.

[Lapak]

And at least as a border fortress it serves some purpose, but generally the point of a castle is to defend something.

Often, but not always. Sometimes it is just power projection rather than active defense. As I understand it, a lot of castles in Wales were built by the English not as strong points to defend a particular town or road but to serve as a safe base of operations for a garrison that projected power beyond the walls. You weren’t worrying about a foreign army as much as an insurrection by a not-quite-conquered population, so it was more a matter of potentially surviving an attack until the main army came in to put down the resistance. A smallish garrison could more-or-less safely hold down a much larger region than they otherwise could because of their fortified home base.

[rrgg]

They may have had high status, but I think I'm on firm ground when i say that it was far more common for pikemen to be limited to a 'static' role in the 17th Century whereas in the 15th (and through at least the middle of the 16th) I can cite numerous occasions when they played a highly dynamic role, the Swiss in particular of course were famous for their sudden decisions and decisive attacks, but there are many others.

There is also evidence that medieval gunners, and those again in the early to mid 16th Century, were expected to do a little more with their weapons, even though these were typically simpler and less powerful weapons, than later 'regular' musketeers were in the 17th.

Pikes were still used as very mobile and aggressive weapons occasionally, most famously by the swedish. They were also still considered very important for attacking or defending a fortified position and even get mentioned being used in skirmishes, raids, and ambushes quite a bit. George Silver excluded, the pike also seems to start being seen as a very effective weapon for single combat as well. In some ways later europeans seem to have held the pike in a higher esteem than even the medieval Swiss did, who always included large numbers of halberds or two-handed swords in their ranks.

It is true that pikemen by the late 16th century had become much more defensive. Even when they did charge, they weren't considered agile enough to pursue and execute fleeing enemies. By this point most pike and shot armies had lots of musketeers and cavalry to carry out the killing though, so even then I'd argue that it was less a case of pikemen becoming worse as it was them adapting more towards their new role. Commanders and military writers at the time were well aware that pikes rarely ever actually killed anyone anymore, but they continued to emphasize their importance and continued to see quality pikemen as a key deciding factor in battles.

Pikemen were seen as essentially an army's "anchor", If pikemen wanted to take ground, then unarmored musketeers and cavalry would be forced to run away as long as the pikes advanced bravely. Similarly, if the pikemen remained brave then no attack by cavalry or light infantry could force them to give ground without slowly killing them all from a distance, and as a result the unarmored musketeers fighting alongside them wouldn't have to retreat either. The pikemen also made their bravery readily apparent to others on the field, both friend and foe alike. If they kept their stand of pikes upright, and in good order without flinching even under fire then it helped convince the enemy to keep his distance while emboldening allies. Conversely, writers mention that when the pikes and standards in the middle of a formation started to sway back and forth, becoming "tangled" amongst one another it was a signal to everyone else on the field that the pike square was nearly broken and became a sign for the enemy that now was the time to charge, whether on foot or on horse.

The first thing to go was most of the short weapons, since a dense forest of uniform Training also soon focused extensively, or almost entirely on formations and marching drills. Doubling files, doubling ranks, countermarching, wheeling about during a march or quickly turning a column into a ring or an S shape. But it became more important to learn to do this as smoothly as possible without breaking ranks or "cohesion" than to simply focus on speed.

You might argue that all this sounds more like form over function, but people at the time certainly felt that it was very important and it definitely took a lot of work to try and achieve this. The late medieval Swiss were certainly valiant and had a lot of ingrained instinct, like you said. But while they were the primary inventors of modern pike tactics, the popularization seems to have had a lot to do with the Landsknecht mercenaries, who could demonstrate their skill to prospective clients by gliding across parade grounds in large, colorful bodies of men, swinging about to create various geometric shapes with each component appearing to be a solid mass.

Anyways, I just realized that I spent way too responding to your first section so I'm going to try to just touch on a couple of main points from here.

On military "Science"

I agree that any "military revolution" during this period tends to be way overstated. This sort of military thinking certainly didn't appear out of nowhere in the 16th century, instead it seems to be the continuance of a conversation which was taking place among various military minds throughout the middle ages alongside frequent experiments. That we know more about the 16th century probably just has more to do with the spread of the printing press and the fact any random mercenary or armchair general was now more likely publish their thoughts in book form and leave surviving copies for us to read.

There's also aspects that early military books tend to just leave out. In particular I've got sort of an axe to grind with certain authors who conclude that volley fire wasn't invented until 1595 or so despite a mountain of evidence suggesting that various forms of volley fire drills were developed very early on, probably even before guns, but no one bothered to write them down in detail because they seemed like common sense at the time.

There's also the question of how complete any sort of "revolution" actually was. Military writers themselves certainly complain a lot about "many of our captains" who outright rejected the idea that book learning could teach them anything about fighting, or conversely they complained about those who claimed that the ancient Romans or "our forefathers" had already figured everything out about the art of war and that there was nothing new to discover. Secondly, you can still find a lot in these military treatises that most authors all seemed to agree on, but remained very disconnected from real world due to social realities and limitations on how much monarchs were actually willing to pay.

Many writers actually did propose major social changes from the ground up, with young people from an early age being taught military history, respect for the military profession, and to favor games that promoted athleticism and martial skills. They wanted a professional standing army where troops could gain experience over a long period of time and then pass that expertise onto new recruits. They agreed that the soldiers themselves should be strong, brave, obedient, and perfect Christians who never drank, never gambled, and instead spent all of their leisure time exercising, studying, or training with every kind of weapon. There was even a fairly broad agreement that officers should be promoted through the ranks based on merit and experience rather than wealth and social status (lol).

In practice though most monarchs during the early modern period didn't want to pay the great cost to maintain these large professional armies. Many wanted to be able to quickly raise and train large armies in just a few days for cheap and then dismiss them just as quickly. When standing armies were created, rather than model citizens the typical soldier was more often drawn from the dregs of society, or even literal criminals and given just enough pay and food to get by. The appointment of captains also continued to be a rampant problem in many countries. It wasn't uncommon for a captain to buy his commission, and then attempt to recoup his "investment" by stealing as much of his soldiers' pay as he possibly could. And then Monarchs in turn would do everything they could to avoid paying their captains.

Some armies managed to get closer to the ideal than others, and they would frequently pick and choose certain elements of the ideal military that could be adopted more easily while ignoring others. But there was always a major gap between the theory and reality.

Late medieval gunmen vs early modern gunmen

So this is an interesting subject. And I honestly don't think it's the case that people over the course of the early modern period just forgot how to make accurate muskets or forgot how to shoot accurately. The best explanation seems to be that handguns during this period suffered from a literal version of "conservation of ninjutsu."

1 on 1 against a charging knight or other attacker, a perfect handgunner should always have a major advantage. If you have two handgunners working together, one firing while the other is almost done reloading, they can keep up a constant fire at extreme distances while at the same time being extremely dangerous to approach without heavy casualties. As a result, mobile firearms were a fantastic weapon for loose skirmishes, or in the hands of a few skilled sharpshooters to pick off import targets and demoralize the enemy. The hard part was figuring out how to use large numbers of them in pitched battles. La Noue wound up summing this up pretty well:

"It is as if a man should say, that because in the field one harquebuzier may kill a pike man armed with his corcelet, it followeth that in pitcht fieldes the harquebuziers should ouerthrow the battailes of pikes: which neuerthelesse falleth out cōtrarie, for it is certaine that for the most part those battailes do giue the victorie."

If you have thousands of musketeers standing in a dense formation only those in front can actually fire at any one time. Even those who are good shots get distracted and frightened by the smoke, noise and screaming of those around them. Men bump into each other while trying to perform their complicated reloading process, and if the initial volley does fail to stop a charging mass of enemies, the musketeers' great numbers and tight order makes it difficult for them to retreat even in the face of heavily armored footmen without turning into a chaotic panic. On the other hand, a smaller number of loose skirmishers or a handful of sharpshooters with their slow-firing weapons simply couldn't do enough damage to actually slow or stop the advance of a determined army.

So while arquebusiers quickly became seen as fantastic light infantry, and we start to see parties of skirmishers or mounted infantry armed entirely with arquebuses more and more during the Italian Wars, if not earlier. But with armies hiring more and more shot due to their effectiveness in "small war" the quest was on to figure out how to make large numbers of them effective in pitched battles.

This is where volley fire drills come in, which in general allow the front rank to fire and then retreat to the rear of the formation to reload while making way for the second rank to fire with as little confusion as possible. These were probably initially developed as early as the 15th century as a way to maintain a continuous fire during skirmishes when skirmishers started arming themselves with firearms almost exclusively. And were likely practiced at a small community or company level while slowly being altered to better suit larger numbers of men and deeper formations.

Their adoption was neither consistent nor linear however, and there were many different methods of conducting volley fire floating around. Some required more practice and discipline to conduct than others, some allowed for better accuracy, some allowed a better rate of fire, some were stronger, some were more flexible, etc. Exactly which type was practiced during the 16th century was probably left up to the judgment of individual captains or experienced sergeants, who were also responsible for teaching new recruits the method they thought best for loading and aiming their weapons prior to the introduction of "official" drill manuals.

Even with volleys however, late 16th century authors noted that it was still typical to see 10,000 arquebusiers fire into an enemy formation at short range and inflict only 30 casualties. There were multiple explanations for this given but in general writers attributed it to human error. Either the soldiers weren't trained well enough, they didn't trust in their weapons, they didn't take the time to aim or fired their weapons into the air out of fear, they were using bullets much to small for their barrel or didn't take the time to ram them home with a patch allowing them to roll back out, their weapons misfired because they either loaded incorrectly, didn't keep them clean, or allowed their powder to get damp. One problem in particular which gets mentioned is that when common soldiers were expected to pay for their own powder and bullets for target practice, they often just wouldn't practice. (Really, how anyone managed to conclude that the musket was somehow the perfect weapon for arming untrained peasants I have no idea.)

Some, like Robert Barret at the end of the 16th century, continued to reject the typical fire-by-rank drill as inefficient, claiming that it was more effective to instead divide your shot into many small troupes of skirmishers so that you could send just a few of them forward at a time to skirmish in a loose formation, and then replace them with new troupes of skirmishers as they grew tired or ran low on ammunition.

While improvements to the musket and the socket bayonet eventually did phase out the pike completely, there seems to have continued to be some back and fourth among military thinkers even into the 19th century between "Accuracy in combat becomes impossible, we need to instead focus on teaching soldiers to put as much lead downrange as they can" and "Our soldiers are firing hundreds of rounds for every casualty they inflict, if we can at least teach them to hit the broad side of a barn we would be unstoppable." For example, in the mid 18th century the Prussian army focused almost exclusively on rate of fire, with their musketeers supposedly achieving up to 6 shots per minute, Britian on the other hand, especially after the French and Indian war began investing heavily to teach their regulars marskmanship and light infantry tactics as well.

Then of course Napoleon ruined everything again and found that with poorly supplied conscripts given only a day or two of drill, good esprit de corps, and some brilliant maneuvering he could completely surround and destroy the far more expensive and better trained professional armies of France's neighbors. :\

[Spiryt]

Proven and experienced commanders recommending some 'Ye olde time' warfare methods, and explaining their points well seems to be very common trope.

Yet pretty much always none of such ideas had seen any serious realization.

It seems that the case is that what is most cost efficient, most easily organized and what actually exists as lively training tradition - wins.

Here are some interesting points about Maurice de Saxe recommending 'Polish style' heavy lancers return as decisive means of breaking enemy formations in necessary spots.


http://dariocaballeros.blogspot.com

Needless to say, nothing like that seen use.

[Martin Greywolf]

And at least as a border fortress it serves some purpose, but generally the point of a castle is to defend something. Take the difference between those Saris and Spis examples. I'm sure Saris is extremely unconquerable, but why would I even want to conquer it? Maybe to prevent them from following me when I leave and attacking me in the rear. Spis on the other hand sits in what looks like a fertile valley, probably near what was in that time a main road, definitely near a village, a bunch of farmlands and a forest you could conceivably cut for wood that you can then actually transport out of there.

These are both the same type ofr castle, actually, provincial centre castle. They served as a seat of king-appointed duke, and were usually fairly large, since they also served as a refuge for the surrounding villages. They are both located in the way you describe with Spis - fertile valley, road, villages etc etc. Orava is also of this type, but a bit smaller, as the region wasn't well settled.

Ostry Kamen, on the other hand, was almost pourely a border fortress, extremely hard to get to and once the kingdom was invaded, its purpose was pretty much to be a pain in the neck by blocking the pass it sits in unless you manage to siege it.

Hungarian western border had a defensive line some 80km deep, with first line being Ostry Kamen-like fortresses and second line usually being the provincial centre castles and fortified towns. There were exceptions, mostly towns right on the border (and they tended to change hands fast once a war started), but not many. Once you got past that, you had mostly provincial castles or castles of nobility, but there was a sort of internal defensive system of - the translation here is a bit wonky - natural/country gates, natural obstacles or choke points, that sometimes had a fortress castle built near it.

That's why I was considering a hill next to a river versus a moated castle near a river, because I was thinking of castles build to guard something (other than the people inside, which to be fair could often use guarding, so out of the way on top of a mountain castles have their function, but I was thinking of the other kind of castle.)

If you happen to have any rock nearby, you usually see any human settlements near or on top of it, and therefore, you have little reason for moving the castle (well, not until renaissance is over, anyway). One of the reasons, apart from defense, is that rivers in pre-modern times aren't exactly locked into a single riverbed, and can create a maze of streams, marshes and islands that changes so rapidly only locals can keep track. A rock like this offers a solid point and a place that doesn't get flooded.

If you don't have anything of the sort, then you start to see moat castles - Malbork/Marienburg is a pretty good example of one.

I saw a video by I think Shadiversity who was raving about the castles in Game of Thrones, and the very best in his opinion was one build up as a giant tower far out in the sea connected to land by one tiny bridge. Unconquerable!

Honestly, bigger problem is that the lords in GoT explicitly refuse to offer refuge to their paesants - everyone would die of starvation by season 3.

Sure, but if I blow the bridge up and leave a platoon of archers to shoot anyone coming out to fix it I can go and conquer the rest of their lands while they starve to death. They don't even have a decent harbor in there by the looks of it. In fact, I can just go and conquer the rest of their lands without blowing up the bridge if that suits me. I'll have to fight their armies, but the castle itself will never bother me. It sits out in the sea, guarding nothing at all. So yeah, I like castles build to project power, rather than just to have it. That's why I like the castles in Budapest and Prague, those castles are definitely guarding something.

Only thing is, those castles, especially the Budapest one, were designed to work with a system of border fortresses (e.g. Ostry Kamen) that stopped invaders from freely marching up to them. Sometimes a fortress castle and a provincial castle like these are really close together - Bratislava and Devin castles are 10 km apart. Mongol invasion of Hungary and battle of Rozhanovce are a good example of how this works, Mongol invasion was actually an impetus to start building castles like this on a national scale.

Rozhanovce are a pretty interesting in how the castles were used - royal armies used Saris castle to use as a staging ground to come to the aid of besieged town of Kosice, and various fortress castles stopped besiegers of Kosice from simply blocking off the roads and passes, resulting in them deciding to stop the siege of Kosice and meet royal army in the field near Rozhanovce. They left a small force to keep defenders of Kosice inside town, but the defenders made a counterattack, routed the small besieging force and managed to make it in time to battle itself and attack besiegers in the rear.

Fortress castles in besieger's hands also played a role in stopping the royal forces from intercepting their reinforcements, but the besiegers simply ran out of time and only a small forward force of their reinforcements made it in time for battle. The rest of the reinforcements withdrew behind the safety of their castles, and royal forces couldn't pursue.

This battle really showcases how a castle systems works on a strategic - rather than tactical - level, if you boither to look into army movements before the battle itself.

[rrgg]

Proven and experienced commanders recommending some 'Ye olde time' warfare methods, and explaining their points well seems to be very common trope.

Yet pretty much always none of such ideas had seen any serious realization.

It seems that the case is that what is most cost efficient, most easily organized and what actually exists as lively training tradition - wins.

Here are some interesting points about Maurice de Saxe recommending 'Polish style' heavy lancers return as decisive means of breaking enemy formations in necessary spots.


http://dariocaballeros.blogspot.com

Needless to say, nothing like that seen use.

You definitely see quite a bit of that, especially among the more hardcore classicists. By the second half of the 16th century they seem to have started recommending that musketeers and arquebusiers wear no armor at all in order to make them even better light infantry, but most continue to want pikemen and cavalry to have far more complete armor that it seems even the soldiers themselves were willing to wear, even if it wasn't musket-proof.

The subject of the lance in the 16th century is an interesting one and has two main elements to it. The first has to do with the shift from charging "in haie" to charging "in squadron", where it seems to have been generally concluded that 300 horsemen charging as a dense "squadron" with multiple ranks would easily be able to rout the same number charging as a single rank or as a swarm of small companies 15-30 men each, even if the former were slightly less well armored and slightly less well horsed. The second has to do with the advantages of the lance vs the pistol. When charging in squadrons only the first rank of horsemen would actually be able to use their lances, but this didn't matter so much if the lancers started carrying pistols as well in saddle holsters and were trained how to use them. Generally well-ordered squadrons of lancers continued to be able to beat squadrons of reiters, however Huguenot captain La Noue and Sir Roger Williams argued that this was only when the reiters were improperly trained and tried to caracole and retreat in the face of an enemy cavalry charge. If the reiters charged home as a solid mass like they were supposed to, they claimed, then the lances wouldn't actually make any difference since pistols were better at penetrating armor anyways. Additionally, the lance was heavy and difficult to carry around while being a very situational weapon. It could only be used on very hard, open ground, and could only be used when charging in a straight line at full speed, while a pistol was just as powerful when fired at a trot, to the side or rear, and could be reloaded.

King Henry IV reportedly started ordering his cuirassers to charge sword in hand while saving their pistols for the melee or pursuit in order to insure that they charged home. By 1600 the lance had almost disappeared completely from western Europe. In the 17th century King Gustavus came to a similar conclusion after his experiences with the Polish lancers. When his horsemen attempted to perform a caracole they were easily routed, but if he trained his horsemen to save their pistols and charge home instead then they could stand toe to toe with the polish cavalry or even come out ahead.

During the 18th century however armor had largely fallen out use completely and you tend to see more and more interest in readopting the lance, and by the Napoleonic wars lancers were pretty highly regarded. But because the lance tradition in western europe had died out it had become an extremely difficult weapon to learn how to use, especially in dense formations. Christopher Duffy mentions one Prussian attempt during the 18th century to imitate the Polish lancers which ended in disaster after they charged into a squadron of sword-armed hussars and reportedly impaled more of each other than the enemy.

[Yora]

I came across this really good examination of the oil situation in the German-Soviet war. Nothing really amazingly new that people familiar with the subject would never have heard before, but it does a really great job of putting it into context.
(And it also points out why this aspect is not part of the American-Western European narrative of the war.)

[Metahuman1]

So, I have a friend who's writing a story, and she mentioned needing to know about some weapons, particularly Chinese and European in origin, that were designed, and historically used, to smash through armor, similar to how the Japanese Kanabo was used.




Anyone know some sites that have lists and explanations on them I can point her too?

[Lvl 2 Expert]

So, I have a friend who's writing a story, and she mentioned needing to know about some weapons, particularly Chinese and European in origin, that were designed, and historically used, to smash through armor, similar to how the Japanese Kanabo was used.




Anyone know some sites that have lists and explanations on them I can point her too?

In the European tradition those would be maces and war hammers, and various pole arms, either war hammer derived or using back spikes, a bit later on. The general term war club might also yield some good results.

In general the more spiky versions aimed more to punch through the armor while the ones with larger surface areas, blunt force impact weapons (just throwing some extra searchable terms in there) were maybe more geared towards breaking bones and damaging organs despite armor.

[Kiero]

You definitely see quite a bit of that, especially among the more hardcore classicists. By the second half of the 16th century they seem to have started recommending that musketeers and arquebusiers wear no armor at all in order to make them even better light infantry, but most continue to want pikemen and cavalry to have far more complete armor that it seems even the soldiers themselves were willing to wear, even if it wasn't musket-proof.

The subject of the lance in the 16th century is an interesting one and has two main elements to it. The first has to do with the shift from charging "in haie" to charging "in squadron", where it seems to have been generally concluded that 300 horsemen charging as a dense "squadron" with multiple ranks would easily be able to rout the same number charging as a single rank or as a swarm of small companies 15-30 men each, even if the former were slightly less well armored and slightly less well horsed. The second has to do with the advantages of the lance vs the pistol. When charging in squadrons only the first rank of horsemen would actually be able to use their lances, but this didn't matter so much if the lancers started carrying pistols as well in saddle holsters and were trained how to use them. Generally well-ordered squadrons of lancers continued to be able to beat squadrons of reiters, however Huguenot captain La Noue and Sir Roger Williams argued that this was only when the reiters were improperly trained and tried to caracole and retreat in the face of an enemy cavalry charge. If the reiters charged home as a solid mass like they were supposed to, they claimed, then the lances wouldn't actually make any difference since pistols were better at penetrating armor anyways. Additionally, the lance was heavy and difficult to carry around while being a very situational weapon. It could only be used on very hard, open ground, and could only be used when charging in a straight line at full speed, while a pistol was just as powerful when fired at a trot, to the side or rear, and could be reloaded.

King Henry IV reportedly started ordering his cuirassers to charge sword in hand while saving their pistols for the melee or pursuit in order to insure that they charged home. By 1600 the lance had almost disappeared completely from western Europe. In the 17th century King Gustavus came to a similar conclusion after his experiences with the Polish lancers. When his horsemen attempted to perform a caracole they were easily routed, but if he trained his horsemen to save their pistols and charge home instead then they could stand toe to toe with the polish cavalry or even come out ahead.

During the 18th century however armor had largely fallen out use completely and you tend to see more and more interest in readopting the lance, and by the Napoleonic wars lancers were pretty highly regarded. But because the lance tradition in western europe had died out it had become an extremely difficult weapon to learn how to use, especially in dense formations. Christopher Duffy mentions one Prussian attempt during the 18th century to imitate the Polish lancers which ended in disaster after they charged into a squadron of sword-armed hussars and reportedly impaled more of each other than the enemy.

There's a powerful psychological element to the whole business as well. Relying solely on your pistols means you never have to really engage and risk both yourself and your mount in melee. This was an advantage Cromwell's Ironsides enjoyed over Royalist cavalry in the English Civil War - they were prepared to commit to melee and charge home with their swords, whereas their opponents weren't.

[Brother Oni]

So, I have a friend who's writing a story, and she mentioned needing to know about some weapons, particularly Chinese and European in origin, that were designed, and historically used, to smash through armor, similar to how the Japanese Kanabo was used.

Further to Lvl 2 Expert, the pollaxe was pretty much the default anti-armour weapon of foot knights in the late medieval period.

While I'm not aware of any dedicated anti-armour Chinese weapons (I suspect the relative lack of plate harness in Chinese warfare didn't require the development of specialist anti-armour weapons to the extent of European tradition), they did have a very nice range of polearms as well. Using the pollaxe as the 'ideal' shape, you have the Ge (dagger axe) and to a lesser extent, the Ji (halberd).

Going towards things that just hit very hard, you have the pudao, which was intended as an anti-cavalry weapon, but would probably do nasty things to enemy infantry, regardless of armour.

Is there a particular period of history your friend is interested in? The Ge was obsoleted by the Ji around about the Han dynasty (2nd century BC to 3rd century AD) and later Song dynasty (10th-13th Century) Ji are becoming more like western halberds rather than pollaxes.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

and to a lesser extent, the Ji (halberd).

That's always an awesome weapon. It's basically a halberd after ditching the weight of the large primary axe head, leaving you with a lighter more controllable weapon that serves both as a braceable spear with "stop the dead horse from falling all the way over your weapon" guard and a spike for hooking (shields and horse legs) and puncturing.

I don't know how tough the blades were in practice, because they really are blades rather than rounder, more solid spikes. But the design always looks very good to me.

[Metahuman1]

Further to Lvl 2 Expert, the pollaxe was pretty much the default anti-armour weapon of foot knights in the late medieval period.

While I'm not aware of any dedicated anti-armour Chinese weapons (I suspect the relative lack of plate harness in Chinese warfare didn't require the development of specialist anti-armour weapons to the extent of European tradition), they did have a very nice range of polearms as well. Using the pollaxe as the 'ideal' shape, you have the Ge (dagger axe) and to a lesser extent, the Ji (halberd).

Going towards things that just hit very hard, you have the pudao, which was intended as an anti-cavalry weapon, but would probably do nasty things to enemy infantry, regardless of armour.

Is there a particular period of history your friend is interested in? The Ge was obsoleted by the Ji around about the Han dynasty (2nd century BC to 3rd century AD) and later Song dynasty (10th-13th Century) Ji are becoming more like western halberds rather than pollaxes.

I think were mostly looking at "Anything before gunpoweder was dominating Warfare is fair game.".

That said, she's definably looking more for blunt for approach to armor rather then penetrating spikes for her purposes.

[Brother Oni]

I think were mostly looking at "Anything before gunpoweder was dominating Warfare is fair game.".

That said, she's definably looking more for blunt for approach to armor rather then penetrating spikes for her purposes.

There's the Chui or bonbori, which is essentially a mace, but from looking at various designs, it's not intended to be an anti-armour weapon (no ridges to focus the force from a blow to defeat armour).

Spoiler: Chui

Show

I think it's a round bar mace that's used by Shu Lien against Jen in the semi-climatic fight of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (a nice detail is that the weapon appears to be made of brass to make it heavier than an equivalent iron or steel weapon, which was known to happen).

Spoiler: Late Qing dynasty era Bar mace

Show

Spoiler: Modern replica of an Italian bar mace

Show

That said, I am dubious of the battlefield use of the weapons, or whether they were solely used by kung fu martial artists.

It sounds like your friend is using the typical RPG inaccuracy of 'blunt weapons beats armour' or is more interested in duelling - if that's the level of detail she wants, then just pick any of the blunt 18 weapons.

Edit: A bit more digging has found that the bar mace was also a 14th Century Italian weapon, although it never spread beyond the period or area:

Spoiler: Fortitude painted by Giotto in the Scrovegni's Chapel of Padova ca. 1303-1305

Show

Spoiler: Bar mace from the Odescalchi collection

Show

It looks like hitting people with what is effectively a glorified fence post has a long and illustrious history with broad cross cultural appeal.

[Vinyadan]

Honourable mention of anti-armour weapon: the estoc, although I doubt that's what the poster is looking for.

[Brother Oni]

Honourable mention of anti-armour weapon: the estoc, although I doubt that's what the poster is looking for.

There's also the rondel dagger which technically doesn't count as a penetrating spike as it goes through gaps in armour, rather than through armour like the beak of a warhammer.

[Socratov]

There's also the rondel dagger which technically doesn't count as a penetrating spike as it goes through gaps in armour, rather than through armour like the beak of a warhammer.

Ehm, to be fair, once plate armour could be heat treated the gaps are pretty much the way to damage anything underneath short of crushing them or by hitting the joints with blunt force.

so, in armour fighting a rondel dagger is pretty much THE way to actually get to do some damage to armoured opponents.

Plate armour was expensive as hell, but all that money invested was ultimately worth it as a well made suit of armour really protected you against anything that did not get in between the gaps.

That is, until the invention of gunpowder and rifling made sure that even plate wasn't enough protection anymore.

hardened and tempered steel is simultaneously hard enough to counter piercing weapons and tough enough to not shatter in the impact of a club or hammer. One of the best inventions of man in (post-) medieval warfare.

[Jormengand]

This is a really open-ended question, but...

I need to know what the commonly-used weapons and armour were, everywhere, over the past... oh, let's say 2500 years, what was common when, and how much the prices of these items changed. Does anyone have any links to good explanations of how weapon and armour technology has changed over time (since I doubt anyone can tell me about how weapons have changed and developed over the entire world on their own, but you're welcome to try)

Also, I'm writing a game, and need to make some essentially-arbitrary technology levels. I don't mind having large numbers of them, nor do I mind having them irregularly-spaced, but suggestions on where to put the breakpoints would be great.

[Brother Oni]

Also, I'm writing a game, and need to make some essentially-arbitrary technology levels. I don't mind having large numbers of them, nor do I mind having them irregularly-spaced, but suggestions on where to put the breakpoints would be great.

It's a ridiculously broad question and non-military inventions have an equally important effect (writing for example or development of a dedicated warrior caste) on cultural and societal development.

I think going to the level of granularity that is typical for this thread would be impractical for a playable game. Have you considered borrowing from existing systems like GURPS or the Civilisation franchise tech tree?

[PhoenixPhyre]

On a related question about categorizing weapons:

What are the basic "simple verbs" of weapons? I'm talking about the ways that any particular weapon might deal damage to an opponent summarized in very simple verb forms: "I <Verb> with my <Weapon>."

Is the list (speaking here of melee weapons, and any weapon might be capable of several of these) anywhere near reasonable? Complete? Different enough to be separate things? For right now I'm only concerned about causing damage, not the defensive properties that different weapons might have.

Bash: Use concussive force to cause injury without worrying as much about penetration.
Stab: A thrusting motion designed to cause a (comparatively) small but deep wound
Slash: Cuts designed to sever limbs, open wide/long but (comparatively) shallow wounds
Chop: More stab-like than slashes but with a wider blade like an axe.

[wolflance]

There's the Chui or bonbori, which is essentially a mace, but from looking at various designs, it's not intended to be an anti-armour weapon (no ridges to focus the force from a blow to defeat armour).

Spoiler: Chui

Show

I think it's a round bar mace that's used by Shu Lien against Jen in the semi-climatic fight of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (a nice detail is that the weapon appears to be made of brass to make it heavier than an equivalent iron or steel weapon, which was known to happen).

Spoiler: Late Qing dynasty era Bar mace

Show

Spoiler: Modern replica of an Italian bar mace

Show

That said, I am dubious of the battlefield use of the weapons, or whether they were solely used by kung fu martial artists.

It sounds like your friend is using the typical RPG inaccuracy of 'blunt weapons beats armour' or is more interested in duelling - if that's the level of detail she wants, then just pick any of the blunt 18 weapons.

Edit: A bit more digging has found that the bar mace was also a 14th Century Italian weapon, although it never spread beyond the period or area:

Spoiler: Fortitude painted by Giotto in the Scrovegni's Chapel of Padova ca. 1303-1305

Show

Spoiler: Bar mace from the Odescalchi collection

Show

It looks like hitting people with what is effectively a glorified fence post has a long and illustrious history with broad cross cultural appeal.

Although Chinese mace does not (usually) have flanges/ridges etc, it is definitely intended to be a anti-armor weapon. (They don't have plate armor anyway).

There are two versions of so-called Chinese "bar mace". Late Qing Dynasty bar maces are essentially souped-up police batons, while earlier, military-grade bar maces are beefier anti-armor weapons (but not as insane as the Crouching Tiger movie depiction).

Unlike the "Italian" bar mace, these are balanced more like a sword (i.e. center of balance closer to the grip) and thus are considerably more agile. It can be used like a clumsier estoc as well.

Both weapons (mace and bar mace) are common military weapons in the past.

[Brother Oni]

What are the basic "simple verbs" of weapons? I'm talking about the ways that any particular weapon might deal damage to an opponent summarized in very simple verb forms: "I <Verb> with my <Weapon>."

How much granularity do you want? Sabres can be designed to draw-cut (causing slashes by placing the weapon next to the target and pulling towards the wielder) or push-cut (the same, except pushing away the wielder), but both fall under 'slash'. I think it's also a bit of a stretch to put reverse sword techniques under 'bash' as that's your sole anti-armour technique (I'm not sure you can really bash with the anti-armour spike of warhammers and the like).

I'd also take dismemberment out of 'slash' and put it into 'chop' - both butchers and headsmen use the same sort of motion to remove body parts.

I'd add 'impale' - this differs from 'stab' as you intend to leave your weapon in the target to either restrain or cause additional damage (boar spears for example); it also covers typical use of anti-cavalry pikes/spears, javelins and other thrown spears.

How modern do you want it? Non-projectile electroshock weapons (hand held tasers) are technically melee weapons and don't fall into any of the suggested categories.

Although Chinese mace does not (usually) have flanges/ridges etc, it is definitely intended to be a anti-armor weapon. (They don't have plate armor anyway).

Interesting - do you have any examples or information on its performance against lamellar or mountain pattern armour?

Outside of video games (Dynasty Warriors mainly) and fictional media (one of the gods in Uproar in Heaven, Shampoo from Ranma 1/2), I've not seen any mention of Chinese maces - do you have any examples of its historical use?

[Carl]

Not strictly a weapons or armour question, but like a number of other things it falls into those odd side history things this thread often deals in.

I suspect Mike_G will be best able to answer it since as i recall he's the resident thread medic.

It relates specifically to human branding and burns. The problem is like many of my "big" details in worldbuilding it came from snap flashes of a dream. Dreams can be great inspiration but somtimes they can fall way of reality.

The specific problem here is the way the dream displayed the results dosen;t really match up at all with any image i've ever seen of a burn, but of course the human body can heal in a lot of ways and it may be that the human body can heal burns differently to what i've seen.

The specific broad details of the scenario are related to slavery in my white wizard setting. Whilst it's pretty much one of the most reviled thing a mage can do, they can using magic place markings on someone that can be used to turn them effectively into a slave as it allows the creator to inflict intense pain or kill the slave at a whim. Normally a small tattoo is used, though anything that leaves a permanent mark on the body will do, but a much larger more intricate design that completely surrounds a body part can allow the creator to literally take control of that body part.

In the case in question the person creating it is being particularly nasty and burned the necessary symbology over most of his victims body, both for the extremely painful method of applying, and because if somthing should happen to him and she survived the burns unlike a tattoo cannot be removed. The problem is as noted i'm not sure it would really work for such a detailed intricate design, or that it would discolour or texture in the way the snapflash displayed it, which was as a blackened depression, (sort of like shallow etching), in the skin. But just about every burn i've ever seen imagery of has healed as a randomly lumpy flesh coloured plastic looking mess. The colour may be subject to contaminants as i know it's possible with some art objects to burn a dye into the object, but i've no idea if that even works with human skin and flesh.

Given the use of magic you can assume infection wouldn't be the issue it usually is.

[wolflance]

Interesting - do you have any examples or information on its performance against lamellar or mountain pattern armour?

Outside of video games (Dynasty Warriors mainly) and fictional media (one of the gods in Uproar in Heaven, Shampoo from Ranma 1/2), I've not seen any mention of Chinese maces - do you have any examples of its historical use?

No one appear to be testing a mace against lamellar armor, except maybe this one (no a serious test in any way) so I don't know how well the armor protects against blunt strikes. Given that lamellar armor is usually semi-rigid, I'd say better than mail, but worse than plate.

Mentions/depictions of mace can be found in many Chinese sources - most visual depictions tend to be either ceremonial or fictional, but archaeological finds (there are many) point to actual usage as serious weapon. Many military treatises (Tang to Qing) mention them, particularly as cavalry weapon, and some military reformers opted to replace mace with other weapons, indicating that it was quite common.

The Later Jin (predecessor of Manchu Qing) had a special division that's entirely made up of mace-wielding troops (literally called "iron mace army"), and mace was one of the standard issue 18th century Green Standard Army equipment.


Chinese "bar mace" was considered a symbol of justice and impartiality, so it was a weapon of high status (bonus point for being similar to a sword). While even less common than the ordinary mace, it was nevertheless fielded in some numbers (particularly by generals). Quite a lot of "bar maces" are modified into a handcannon as well.

One Korean source mentions that Ming cavalry armed with "bar mace" defeated the Japanese at Battle of Jiksan (1597), although it's unknown whether they described the event in a literal sense, or figuratively.

I personally think very highly of the Chinese "bar mace" as a weapon. It may not hit as hard as a normal mace (probably), but it swings much faster, has a reach advantage over normal mace, and fairly newbie-friendly.




======UNRELATED QUESTION======
For these questions, let's assume a plate armored knight with heavy, couched charge-optimized lance.

1) Why knights never parry each other's lances in (modern?) jousting match?
2) Did they parry (smash aside etc) other knight's charging lance during a real battle?
3) Did infantrymen attempted to parry a charging knight's lance?
4) Did knights poked at other knight's mount instead of the rider, during a charge?

[Jormengand]

It's a ridiculously broad question and non-military inventions have an equally important effect (writing for example or development of a dedicated warrior caste) on cultural and societal development.

I think going to the level of granularity that is typical for this thread would be impractical for a playable game. Have you considered borrowing from existing systems like GURPS or the Civilisation franchise tech tree?

The trouble with the GURPS tech levels is that even I know that they're conflating a lot of technology (from 600-1450 is quite a lot of technological advancement), but I don't really know how to do the breakpoints more sensibly. There must be some detailed explanations of how military technology has evolved; this seemed like the obvious place to see if anyone knew of any.

[Deepbluediver]

There must be some detailed explanations of how military technology has evolved; this seemed like the obvious place to see if anyone knew of any.

From what I've read, there's not precise linear progression, at least not one that can be condensed into a reasonable length for a forum post. Military tactics evolved in fits and starts, particularly since some groups kept invading others and you got a lot of cultural mixing. In the time periods you mentioned, you had large groups that were still in the stone age, those that had learned to refine soft metals (gold & copper), iron-age cultures, and groups that were producing decent steal.

If you really care about being real-world accurate in your game (personally, I wouldn't) then I think you're going to have to do your own historical research and decide at what level of detail you want to stop.


Edit: We've discussed pricing before because I asked a question related to that, and the short answer is that it's really hard to translate old-timey currency into modern equivalents. The best you can really do is looking up how long it might have taken to forge certain types of weapons, and then making some estimates about what a skilled laborer/artisan might have earned for working for that length of time. Think of where certain crafts fit into society today and extrapolate backwards from there.

Edit2: One thing these threads have helped me realize is that gunpowder came into play much earlier than I had thought. Europeans might have gotten their first taste of it during the Mongolian invasions of the 1200's, and it played a large part in the conflicts between the Ottoman empire and various Christian groups in and around the Mediterranean for much of the second millennia. So you need to throw in a breakdown of firearms technology as well, adding yet another layer of complexity to any analysis.

[snowblizz]

Ehm, to be fair, once plate armour could be heat treated the gaps are pretty much the way to damage anything underneath short of crushing them or by hitting the joints with blunt force.

Not at all. Blunt force is the worst you cantry really. Though it should be noted a very good suit of armour is liable to become restrictive to movement or restrict you if you get dents in the armourplates, e.g. in the segemented parts.

so, in armour fighting a rondel dagger is pretty much THE way to actually get to do some damage to armoured opponents.

No, no it isn't. THE way to damage armoured opponents (excluding gunpowder and powerful crossbows) is really with a pollaxe or similar beaked weapon. A rondel dagger is a coupe de grace weapon, not a main "armour piercer".

Plate armour was expensive as hell, but all that money invested was ultimately worth it as a well made suit of armour really protected you against anything that did not get in between the gaps.

Again, no it wasn't. Plate armour wasn't necessarily cheap but it was well within the reach of anyone who was geniunely expected to do serious fighting. A weeks-months pay for a farmer/craftman about. An example usually brought out is the Milanese being able to re-equip an army of 3000 in full whiteplate in a week. The numbers aren't precisely accurate but the ratio of units to time is. The centres of armourproduction could churn out thousands of sets in an astonishingly short period of time to very competitive prices.

That is, until the invention of gunpowder and rifling made sure that even plate wasn't enough protection anymore.

That's not really correct either. Plenty of weapons could pierce plate. Genuinely it's mainly a matter of how close you needed to be. Arguably artillery may have been the eventual deciding factor because now no armour at any range helped you anymore, G certainly think so. I'm willing to share the blame on other factors too. Fact is plate didn't even become common until gunpowder weapons (including cannons) was getting widely deployed. Obviously without clear breakpoints it's hard to say that one thing or another caused the decline of a third.
There's a solid argument to be made that gunpowder pushed the development of plate instead of the former invalidating the latter. Similarly rifling is pretty incidental in the whole matter. It co-existed with plate for centuries (mostly in one of custom weapons) before being widely adopted due to improved ability to mass manufacture with greater precision and new types of ammo helping with the windage problem. By this time plate armour had been out of fashion for centuries.

hardened and tempered steel is simultaneously hard enough to counter piercing weapons and tough enough to not shatter in the impact of a club or hammer. One of the best inventions of man in (post-) medieval warfare.

It may be great but it's not as magical as you make it be. Fact is hardened tempered steel could and was shot, bashed and pierced through plenty enough. But it was effective enough in most cases. Not all cases of platearmour was created equally either, there were better or worse instances. For every instance of the lord whose name I can't recall who was killed in the English Civil War in a battle after falling of his horse and could only be dispatched by a pointblank pistolshot under the visor* there are those where masses perished from cannon or melee, armour be damned. That platearmour could only be gone around and not through is as much a myth as just how easy armour in movies tend to be to part.

*Going to go look up that quote because Charles I made a great quip about the invulnerability of said lord.

======UNRELATED QUESTION======
For these questions, let's assume a plate armored knight with heavy, couched charge-optimized lance.

1) Why knights never parry each other's lances in (modern?) jousting match?
2) Did they parry (smash aside etc) other knight's charging lance during a real battle?
3) Did infantrymen attempted to parry a charging knight's lance?
4) Did knights poked at other knight's mount instead of the rider, during a charge?

1) It's not very easy to do. Also, how do you imagine you parry a lance? Though I could swear I've read about people twithcing an opposing lance just a bit so it doesn't get a solid hit. But the lance is a long unwieldy thing, anything you do might mean your own lance isn't properly aligned either. And you're not supposed to. Jousting is a sport with oodles of rules to make it safe-ish for both sides as you clearly want to survive the match. In fact you get points for breaking your lance on the enemy (it looks cool). You absolutely do not want lances going uncontrollably somewhere.
2) I honestly don't think they did. In battle a knight wouldn't charge each other with lances as they do in jousting anyway. Knights with lances are there to scatter infantry formations.
3) That be a very very bad idea I suspect. Because how exactly do you parry it and not get run over by the horse and knight? It's not a conincidence anti-cavalry usually meant poke them from so far they can't get at you.
4) Not to my knowldge no, could probably be done, but I'm not sure you survive putting the lance into the chest of an opponents horse, assuming it's unarmoured, means you are risking getting you arm wrenched off in the process. Again, knights didn't fight on the battlefield in the same ways as in jousts. I'm not even sure to what extent you'd try and kill the opponent's horse. Horses were super expensive even for knights and same as you wanted everyone to respect the idea of ransoming you'd want people not to randomly kill your horse.

Hoping someone more knowledgeable in such matters chime in though.
I'm just a placeholder for a real expert.

[Haighus]

Not strictly a weapons or armour question, but like a number of other things it falls into those odd side history things this thread often deals in.

I suspect Mike_G will be best able to answer it since as i recall he's the resident thread medic.

It relates specifically to human branding and burns. The problem is like many of my "big" details in worldbuilding it came from snap flashes of a dream. Dreams can be great inspiration but somtimes they can fall way of reality.

The specific problem here is the way the dream displayed the results dosen;t really match up at all with any image i've ever seen of a burn, but of course the human body can heal in a lot of ways and it may be that the human body can heal burns differently to what i've seen.

The specific broad details of the scenario are related to slavery in my white wizard setting. Whilst it's pretty much one of the most reviled thing a mage can do, they can using magic place markings on someone that can be used to turn them effectively into a slave as it allows the creator to inflict intense pain or kill the slave at a whim. Normally a small tattoo is used, though anything that leaves a permanent mark on the body will do, but a much larger more intricate design that completely surrounds a body part can allow the creator to literally take control of that body part.

In the case in question the person creating it is being particularly nasty and burned the necessary symbology over most of his victims body, both for the extremely painful method of applying, and because if somthing should happen to him and she survived the burns unlike a tattoo cannot be removed. The problem is as noted i'm not sure it would really work for such a detailed intricate design, or that it would discolour or texture in the way the snapflash displayed it, which was as a blackened depression, (sort of like shallow etching), in the skin. But just about every burn i've ever seen imagery of has healed as a randomly lumpy flesh coloured plastic looking mess. The colour may be subject to contaminants as i know it's possible with some art objects to burn a dye into the object, but i've no idea if that even works with human skin and flesh.

Given the use of magic you can assume infection wouldn't be the issue it usually is.

The biggest short term issue is that burns over more than about 30% of the body have systemic effects, not just local ones. Infection is a risk, but the most immediate risk is that such widespread burns cause a massive release of inflammatory mediators into systemic circulation that the victim goes into distributive shock*. This is similar to anaphylactic shock- both are caused by systemic inflammation. In a pre-modern medicine setting, shock is essentially fatal without adrenaline, IV fluids and blood transfusions.

If they somehow survive that, dehydration is also a major issue. Fresh burns lose fluid rapidly as the skin loses its barrier function, and even healed burns are usually very dry due to the loss of glands in the skin. Dry skin is a worse barrier and prone go fluid loss and infection.

In terms of how the skin looks after healing, I am not sure. However, scar tissue usually contracts as it heals, which leads to a lot of the deformity in large wounds and burns. Good physio can reduce this, and also procedures to keep the skin open and prevent contraction. We are into the realms of plastic surgery now though.

Of course, depending on the capabilities of the available magic, you could handwave any of this.


*For clarity, shock in this case refers to hypovolaemic shock, essentially low circulating blood volume for a variety of reasons. Not the common term of shock to refer to psychological shock