Comments on: In other news, bullets really can kill people, and swords really can cut people! http://www.holyfuckingshityouredumb.com/2009/09/11/in-other-news-bullets-really-can-kill-people-and-swords-really-can-cut-people/ Laughing at other people's dumbness since 2009 Wed, 09 Jul 2014 20:55:42 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1 By: Darien http://www.holyfuckingshityouredumb.com/2009/09/11/in-other-news-bullets-really-can-kill-people-and-swords-really-can-cut-people/comment-page-1/#comment-60 Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:05:24 +0000 http://www.holyfuckingshityouredumb.com/?p=184#comment-60 No, dude, dodging is useless because you can’t rely on it. All that matters is effective health.

RED = BLUE
BLUE = BLUE
YELLOW = BLUE

]]> By: Dave http://www.holyfuckingshityouredumb.com/2009/09/11/in-other-news-bullets-really-can-kill-people-and-swords-really-can-cut-people/comment-page-1/#comment-59 Fri, 11 Sep 2009 18:57:27 +0000 http://www.holyfuckingshityouredumb.com/?p=184#comment-59 The “mail armor is useless” crowd generally has a very odd definition of “useless”. Mostly they claim that mail armor wouldn’t protect you from hammer blows, and it couldn’t stop arrows shot at point blank range from a fine English longbow, and it couldn’t stop a really strong man with a big spear from killing you.

Of course, that’s all pretty much true. It’s also mostly irrelevant. Mail armor wasn’t designed to stop hammers. That’s what your shield was for. Also dodging is a useful tactic against hammers. And yeah, if you set up a piece of mail against a board, you sure can shoot an arrow through it with a longbow at point blank range. But medieval archers didn’t fire from point blank range! They fired massive volleys into the air, and the arrows rained down on you. That sure was a bitch, and a big inconvenience for a charging army, and extremely lethal to unarmored men and horses. But most of those arrows did not penetrate mail armor, and certainly didn’t penetrate the later plate armor. And again, you weren’t just standing there intentionally taking the arrows on your hauberk. Generally you or someone near you had a shield up protecting you. The same goes with the spear. You don’t intentionally let someone stab you in the damn chest with a spear, and that’s not what the armor is intended to protect against.

Even so, in all of these cases where mail armor “fails”, you’re still better off wearing it than NOT wearing it! It will provide some protection even in cases where it’s going to ultimately “fail”.

What mail was really good for was protecting against cuts and slashes. When the dominant weapon is the sword, mail armor is very effective. It’s very, very had to pierce mail armor with a sword, and it’s basically impossible to cut through it. That’s why people wore it. Again, if you drape some mail armor over a board and then stab or hack at it with a sword, sure, you’ll put holes in the board. But people aren’t boards, and rarely do you get to stab them full force directly in the chest while they’re pinned up against a wall or something.

]]> By: Darien http://www.holyfuckingshityouredumb.com/2009/09/11/in-other-news-bullets-really-can-kill-people-and-swords-really-can-cut-people/comment-page-1/#comment-58 Fri, 11 Sep 2009 18:35:11 +0000 http://www.holyfuckingshityouredumb.com/?p=184#comment-58 I don’t get the “mail armour is useless” people at all. I wonder if they got all their data by making their own “chain mail” out of like 20 AWG copper wire and finding out that their $20 wall-hanger sword that weighs 14 lbs. and that for some reason they fucking sharpened sure can break through that pretty easily. Right up until it snaps the fuck off and sticks them in the shoulder, anyhow.

I mean, have you ever tried to put a knife through normal, unboiled, non-hardened leather? It takes some damn muscle. And hardened leather like you use for armour is a lot tougher than that. And mail is tougher again than leather (AC 5 vs AC 9, bitches!). These people really think the mail was no impediment at all to murdering activities? Like EMF said before me: Unbelievable.

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