Talk:War/@comment-60.48.255.13-20160130154810/@comment-89.169.181.142-20160205094614

For the sake of argument - no, bastard swords wouldn't split the knight in two. Another urban legend. Plate armor, even chainmail, provided a very competent defence. Hence why they were so widely used in western Medieval Ages despite the weight and price. In fact, sword manuals of those times suggested half-swording two-handed swords (holding the sword with second hand around the middle of its blade) and precision strikes as viable tactics against heavely armored opponents. In some cases those manuals even suggested holding the bladed part with both hands and using the sword handle as an improvised club/pick to deal with armor. Or suggested targeting unarmored joints in the armor with slashes and so on.

Any sword, be it the overpraised katana or two-handed medieval one, definitely had problems dealing with a solid chunk of metal on its way. While there are definitely cases where swords did manage to punch through with slashing strikes and the damage was quite morbid, those were just that - cutting wounds. Maybe relatively deep, but nowhere near "spliting knight in half" with the sword. Too much metal to cut through. If anything, cutting even an unarmored human in half is a surprisingly difficult endeavor. I would say any sensible knight or samurai would avoid doing those "Hollywood style" all-out slashing attacks at all costs in the first place. You don't want to find yourself in the middle of the fight with your sword stuck dead in your enemy. So in certain sense, it is true that blunt traumas were (or at least should've been) quite prominent in sword fights, when both opponents were properly armored and neither provided the opportunity to strike the weakpoints. In fact, as far as archeological finding go, most lethal wounds were usually delivered on an already downed opponents, which had their joints struck or head hit with a blunt weapon (for example).