Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-32865299-20171004210031/@comment-33009418-20171104061502

WoodenBox wrote: I don't know much about "saxes" (seax, actually, John Flanagan perpetuated a lie), but nothing short of an industrial laser can cut through a good piece of plate. Strength (of the blade) has nothing to do with it.

Bodkins- "as they were a straight point". As opposed to all those arrows with... bent points? A heavy arrow could maybe punch through​ a weak piece of chainmail or a gambeson, but would most likely be slowed or stopped by chain and deflected by plate armour.

A thin dirk might split a link in chainmail, but it would take repeated stabs (2-4) in the same area to cause a mortal injury, which is how the Muslins killed armoured Crusaders, holding them down and repeatedly stabbing them. Under no circumstances could a dirk "peirce it quickly" when refering to plate armour. Ever.

You are repeatly  talking about cutting through a quarter of an inch thick piece of hardened metal with a knife. No matter how thin the point of a knife or arrow is, it isn't going to happen. A large percentage of the arrows fired at a chestplate would be deflected by the curve, and the others would have a tiny chance at best of going through the chestplate, much less the hauberk, gambeson, and flesh behind it. Weapons that can break plate:

Crossbow

Hammer

Cavalry charge (w. lance)

Pike wall (against cavalry charge)

Remember that most steels of this era where not particularly good, as the smiths didn't have the best forging/smelting techniques.