I’m wanting information on a rare form of sword I heard about. I believe it was from the early/middle Renaissance period. The sword was designed to try and bust right through full-on-Plate armor, but never caught on as it just wasn’t reliable enough. It was developed because older sword styles (such as the Viking-style broadsword or the basic military sword) just couldn’t deal with plate and couldn’t cut at the legs like they used to. It was never very popular, and lost out to pikes, 2-handed swords, axes, and maces.
Anyone know of the weapon I describe? Have any pictures of it or more information?
Sorry, But no sword could bust through plate armor.
Late era longswords meant to be used against such opponents usually sported crosssections with high, thick risers. They were stiff and tapered to a sharp point. The idea was to bipass the plate and use the point on the articulations and anywhere there wasn’t plate armor.
The estoc is essentially this concept taken to the extreme - essentially a spear made out of metal.
Are you thinking of a flambard? While generally held to be good against pikes, I have heard it theorised that the points would help armour penetration, but no evidence, and like a lot of sword myths, I think, probably so much hooey.
The dopplehanders or “True” great swords of the renissance were field sword, and would have been used much like a longsword. Same principle as I spelled out above.
Something like this would have been in use against plate armor or at least potentially plate-armored foes ( but as Kinthalis has already pointed out swords weren’t optimal for dealing with heavy armor ). But they weren’t that rare or unusual.
The Dane pictured above IS a longsword. The term applies to any medieval two-handed sword from about 40 to 52+ inches. This particular type of sword is definitely meant to be used against amored opponents. But the principles remain the same: the point goes where there is no plate armor.
I have never heard of a sword that was designed to “bust” through plate armor, specially since it would have obviously failed. To have a chance of “busting” through plate armor try a pole-arm or hammer.
Oh, certainly - I wasn’t posting the above as a correction to your post. Just as a visual example ( with a nice description ) of what you were talking about. Perhaps I should have made that more clear :).
Kinthalis is right, IMO - the only weapon type I can think of that’s intended to punch through plate (actual success is another matter) are the pick-bearing polearms like the bec de corbin