I believe it will bend more easily as it's not hardened - and while a bend is easy to fix it's my experience that they never quite settle perfectly. Estoc, if I'm not mistaken it's mostly cavalry weapon. At least the Polish Hussars used an estoc of their own design as a durable lance after they ran out of lances which often happened quickly - their lances were hollow and broke very easily and had zero effect on armor and when they did not hit the enemy they often just discarded it so they could draw their cavalry sabers which they tended to prefer over the estoc they had. While generally a blunt sword sucks as a blunt weapon greatswords start to have the mass and leverage to hit very hard. So hard in fact that they cave in the masks. It's surprisingly good in narrow confines too like corridors. Thrusts are powerful even with blunts - just if it bends easily it will get bent instead of pushing the opponent!
Yeah there's a lot of steel to bend, I'm not terribly worried about that XD. There's a wide variety of blades that could be called estoc, but the design is quite literally the very first explicitly designed weapon for piercing armor. Unlike the rapier which is generally light, thin and flexible the estoc is designed to drive that point home and yes frequently from horseback. People often underestimate long weapons in tight spaces, making the fairly reasonable assumption that losing the mobility to the weapon limits it's capabilities. This is true to a point, however they often forget that in order to take advantage of that weakness, you first have to get -past- the weapon itself. In a one on one circumstance this will often not end in the favor of the guy with the lighter weapon, it's only when there's more than one enemy that this weakness becomes most prevalent, usually at the cost of the first assailants life. You can stab just fine in close quarters, it's recovery that is more difficult. XD
Luckily with a greatsword the recovery is usually quite easy unless the blade really gets stuck in the worst way in the ribcage and shoulder blades or so. Pizzarro for one was doing just fine against multiple assassins until his rapier got stuck on one of the attackers' chest. With two handed weapon you can have a shit ton more leverage to keep the weapon in line but also to really yank it backwards so that if it comes to it the other person will be yanked with it - who will also be blocking the corridor until you can apply your leg to him. Rapiers are not supposed to be very flexible because this will make it harder to parry and to penetrate the target. Also they should be able to mostly cut just fine except for the extreme Italian versions that are really min-maxed to one end and not the most common type. Cutting just fine also varies heavily depending on blade mass etc. And they tend to be just as heavy as most other swords - in total mass - but you are most correct, the weight is around the hand in the form of hand protection and the forte to allow effective parrying and the tip is indeed very nimble. So nimble that shooting your arm forward results in a very unstable and less than accurate structure. And then something beautiful!
Rapier's are supposed to be flexible, not bendy. You should be able to flex the blade roughly 35 degrees and return to true. Now, how much strength it takes to flex the blade varies on the steel composition, width and mass of the blade but this is one of the defining traits of the rapier. There's a difference between flexible and flimsy, a flexible blade can parry just fine without deviating from it's form. On the flip side, a skilled swordsman can abuse the flexibility of their blade to score a touch that would otherwise be impossible XD. For the most part though the flexibility should be more on the firm side for a rapier, it should only flex with direct pressure against it. Unless you're this guy
Yes, I just misunderstood what you meant - absolutely. That's one of the problems that Japanese and many other smiths had - without spring steel they didn't have flexible steel and steel that isn't flexible tends to produce swords that tend to break down or bend ridiculously or when combining the two types of metal have the blade edge break and the core bend ridiculously. Then you'll need a whole fencing system that avoids stuff that breaks it. Not unlike in rapier where also there are often things to mind so the sword doesn't break. Such as hitting a hard vertical cut to ground!
Look at this thing! It's a 16th century armor in black and white which means that as an armor it was from the lower price range. It could very well be built for an infantry officer or so, such as a sergeant of a pike formation or so, assuming it's a mostly full kit. Could be wrong about that, I'm no expert and there was scarcely any information with the photo.
http://closertovaneyck.kikirpa.be/g...le1=0.0131465¢erX1=1186.2¢erY1=5010.4 Beautiful altar piece with great detail on XV century armor now available. Details include that the saddle metal piece has some rust on it while the plate armor itself is polished to mirror sheen.
Whenever you start thinking weird thoughts such as "there is too much detail on my Warhammer figures" or so, look no further but to the actual medieval armor. And all of the Negroli armor: Sure, it looks good but it's also fully functional. It's just that the smith fashioned the structural supports into pieces of art.
There's details and then there's details. Sure you can add artistic bits to your model and dress it up, but it is just as reasonable to make it simple, functional and utilitarian. Both of these are going to have a light patina of tarnish from long days fighting without the ability to adequately upkeep their gear, small bits of damage that has yet to be repaired, mud, blood and other bits of the battlefield that has found it's way above the realm of the boots to etch into the canvas of your model's life. It's more often the little touches that breathe life into the figure than the excessive artistry. XD
That's all true and the most common type of artistry indeed was small things, such as a little heart shaped hole for the leather straps etc. At the same time hierarchy was seen as a very natural part of life and nothing to shy away from. As companies were raised by company masters and often from the company master's own pockets the company master would obviously spend a decent fortune on his own gear to really stand out from the crowd. Then he'd hand pick his 'squad leaders' and they would often get either full or part of the funds to recruit and arm their squads. Again the squad leaders would stand out from their squaddies and the rank and file squaddies would often have the most utilitarian gear available but not always - some prestigious and elite units would have even the rank and file themselves hold a title and be equipped with especially good - and good looking - gear. By the time we tend to see this good looking plate in the 16th century and so militaries are already very professional and organized. This means they carry a lot of things with them on the campaign and have actual drawings for the standard layout of how the camp will be set up including the camp's fortifications and so. The camps obviously included their smiths for doing more robust maintenance and the various servants that sometimes weren't important enough to be even mentioned on the company ledgers and registry would be kept busy performing tedious polishing and maintenance on the gear. That is even the rank and file squaddies might get to see their gear tended by their squad's dedicated servants and their clothes washed by dedicated loundry maids and all stitched up and repaired and when the clothing would fall too tattered and too much of patchwork the company master would issue some squad leader to acquire new fabrics so the servants can tailor new uniforms and such. Usually this was done by just giving them actual funds to go buy the fabrics as opposed to the sourcing of food which often resulted in what amounted to raiding the peasants for supplies. 500 or more years really takes it's toll on the armor. We see that they all tend to have either that black or slate grey look about them but there is a lot of surviving evidence that even the plain looking armor was often at least polished to mirror sheen and often decorated - it's just that 500 years is plenty enough time to fade a lot of the beautiful detail as well as dim the polish quite a bit. Truly, a medieval army was far cry from modern Hollywood of "grimdark where the only shades are black, grey and the darkest of browns". It was colorful, shiny, polished and vibrant, rich with detail.
most notably is the term 'hooker' which may not have originated with General Hooker's personal arrears but he certainly aroused some value to the term given his proclivities. Almost every army would have a gaggle of civilians that may or may not have been allowed to be there for support purposes, most frequently they would be ambitious artisans, craftsmen and workers who may not have had sufficient capital to establish their own business. Of course some of them would be women, laundress' seamstress' and other kinds of 'ress, none of which would have been considered part of the military, they were at best official hangers on, at worst they'd just be folk trying to pick up some work without getting run off by the leadership.
Yes, there were many types of militaries over a long period of time and across vast areas in Europe alone. Roman Empire had some of the most sophisticated logistics and most professional armies but they were overextended and under tremendous pressure. Once they collapsed the new empires and petty kingdoms seldom had the kinds of organization and technology that the Roman Empire had - it's one thing that your warlord has served with Roman army and knows their tactics and that your people are a warrior society and on top of that the move as a people, fielding massively more men than any stationary society could in proportion to the populace. It's a whole another thing to be able to field dozens upon dozens of legions with impeccable logistics. Some regions such as Byzantium retained much of the professionalism while also at the same time falling victim to bureaucracy and corruption. In other regions eventually the professionalization of armies greatly changed the shape of how things worked. Company rosters might either already include these auxilary civilians as part of the company or they might have a semi-official status but be deemed outside of the interest of the more directly militarily aligned documents and 'self explanatory'. The status and rights of these auxiliaries could be very different in different regions and armies but in general as they were quite important for the well being and running of an army on the campaign they tended to themselves be more of civilian workers than rabble just tagging along and indeed many companies even developed very specific listings of civilian personnel that ought to be hired to serve with the company. Then on top of these there would be various merchants and entrepreneurial spirits and even 'fans' that would pick up following an army maybe near a city or so and trace them for various periods of time. Many armies themselves were temporary seasonal affairs - raised at some point in the spring or early summer and serving until autumn as opposed to permanent year round standing forces. Most military campaigns were built around the limitations of these seasonally available forces.
Which wasn't asked by anyone, really. I mean who gives a damn about what the French Fencing Federation thinks? It's not like people are queuing up to receive recognitions from them!
https://www.facebook.com/christopher.gilman.5/posts/10158438662812861 They really made some great armor back then in amazing precision work. Things like lock-into-place visors and such, clever release mechanisms and so on. Spring steel, springs, all manner of things and mechanisms and details too if you could afford it. Or maybe you couldn't and your lord or company master would simply issue you with them. In some cases you could rise into the role of a squad leader by simply being able to equip your own squad - and this would place you higher on the social ladder too. Thus a rank and file soldier in best cases might be given equipment to begin with, fully good basic equipment with nothing wrong with it except lack of decoration. Then if successful he could gain enough loot to be able to equip his own squad and advance the ranks into a minor noble. Upon the end of the military career he could buy land if he didn't earn any and he could then allow people to farm it and pay a rent for him and live from those rents. In some cases some of the rent was paid in goods or cash and some as labor service meaning you could easily have 10 workers for a day or two every week to work on your personal fields, construction projects etc. - free of charge to you of course. Also if your rent farmers got richer you'd also be able to earn more rent and have less risk of them being unable to pay what they owed to you.
