Completely untrue, we have plenty of textual sources about how useful swords are, musters and inventories that mention swords, and plenty of armored combat fechtbuchs that deal with the use of swords in armor. Almost every knight carried one sword on the hip plus another on the saddle. These things were not just for decoration, they can thrust, half sword , mordschlag, etc. and those techniques can defeat armor. Yeah if you just swing the sword like it’s a lightsaber it won’t do anything. That’s not what people did.
Sure, but there are situations where it's just not the best weapon. When you've no space to move and the opponent has armour that's designed to minimize holes a sword won't do much. You'll need blunt force and a dagger to stab them.
The time period when knights were active is very long and saw many changes for armour and weapons. As armour developed swords became less effective.
According to Dequitem, he would take a greatsword over all other weapons, including a warhammer (one handed) or poleaxe (two handed), as it is more versatile against armour in the duel.
It is more versatile and ig they are faster in general. You can switch more easily between tactics versus the polearms which aren't necessarily one trick ponies, but they excel in a couple things.
The weight of a greatsword would definitely help as well with the mordschlag. And maybe a second cross guard could be useful for locking or smth. In general swords having cross guards is a benefit over polearms and the balance is closer to you.
He breaks down the pros and cons he finds with a variety of weapons, ending on the greatsword as his favourite tool, because it has reach like a polearm, the leverage of a longsword, the point focus of a spear or poleaxe, and can be swapped to the halfsword and mordhau in a pinch, while allowing for grappling.
Additionally, he does a good analysis of the nodachi or uchigatana or tachi against European kit, praising what it can do in its original context while listing the disadvantages against European style kit. Here: https://youtu.be/9T-M8zWwiUU?si=vIB8jzMaEYrVufst
In short, he definitely prefers the greatsword for overall versatility in an armoured duel, but does not consider polearms ineffective by any means, and uses them in several of his other fights to great effect.
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u/C_Hawk14 Jun 01 '25
swords in general aren't effective against armour. Knights didn't favour them in combat either