On Sat, Aug 17, 2002 at 12:35:14PM -0700, magical truthsaying bastard roney! wrote: > Sean writes: > Steve said: > > >a weapon originally developed to > > >kill people in plate armour, but gradually modified as armour fell out of > > >use because too many armored men were being killed by assholes with > > >rapiers. > I always assumed it was assholes with guns > > No, this is definitely pre-guns. The English longbow could punch > through plate armor. Hrm. I talked to a professor at GenCon who was giving a talk on pre-firearms era arms and armor. I asked him, "can arrows penetrate plate armor?" His answer: "If they hit the plate square-on, yes. If they strike at an angle, even a slight one, they're more likely to glance off." To me it seems likely that this is true, but I have no sources to cite. That being said, I'm still not clear to what extent the crossbow (outlawed at some point by... the Pope? not sure... because it was so effective against heavy armor [so I have to ask here - was the crossbow really more effective than the longbow because of its massive draw weights, or some other factor?]) firearms, and rapiers each influenced the outphasing of heavy plate armor. Tsarren