Flanged mace vs historical accurate hardened armor 

My first bigger colaboration is mayby something for you too. The HEMA equipment shop "Dominus Gladius" build a save flanged mace for my sparring and training. dominusgladius.com/flanged-mace-ver.1/

I used to be an adventurer like you. Then I took a mace to the knee, kept adventuring for another five years, met my wife and finally settled on a farm.

This show why pietro monte recommanded an ~ 90 cm "mace" with a head like a pollaxe, hand protection, and a grip long enough to allow two handed use (mostly used on horseback IIRC). He recommanded targeting the head and the hands. The only two techniques he describes are: "hold his weapon with your left hand and hit him hard" and "use your weapon with two hands and overpower the enemy".

Dequitem is single-handedly carrying the sword community beyond the realms of theory and skill into the realms of realistic rehearsal, and it's really unbelievable how much useful information we can get out of this... So thank you very much Dequitem. I wish I was rich to pay you for the effort, but for now make no mistake; your value on RU-vid for people who love fighting, historical fighting, everything armors, and weapons, cannot be praised enough. Thank you. Also thank you to your friend/comrade/sparring partner for all the sparring he does, as it is a very important part of all the testing and such. Cheers from Spain! 🗡️🙏

This is so unexpected that such weapond doesn't deal much damage to the armor at all. thank you for sharing!

there is nothing cooler to watch videos of my brother who randomly fights like a knight.

Wow im more than a little surprised at how ineffective the mace is compared to what i imagined. I have never seen content like this before on the internet.

It's meant to give concussion. A vomiting knight is easier to catch. That mace is however very effective against mail.

4:28 bro just straight up steals his opponent's dagger lmao

This is such a cool channel

My day is made better whenever I see you have a new video. Thank you for the great content! You are inspiring this buhurt fighter to get into Harnischfechten!

You are single handedly sparking my fascination with the nitty gritty detaisl of medieval combat, i have always loved the history, the wars, the people, but never thought about what it was like to fight your life in a duel as a knight. Love your videos and i will continue to support you by liking every video ans commenting on every one:)

Amazing that you got sponsored! Youre very underrated youtuber, theres not many youtube channels that do lots of lessons and knight fighting in videos this fun to watch.

This seems safe

Loving these videos testing out different weapons and armor

Great content as usual Ser Dequitem

First wondered how this showed up in my feed. Now binge watching while “working” from home :)

Awesom job. Putting your body to the hazard in the name of research

Ah the weapon of a cleric. If we don't convince you to follow our lord. Our trusty mace will.

I’ve always been fascinated by this type of dueling/warfare. I realize movies don’t constitute the most legitimate source for understanding how they really fought back then. WHAT REALLY INTERESTS ME; -What characteristics shaped and effectuated the most formidable and successful fighters???? Characteristics similar to what comprises a modern day professional athlete?? -What constituted the look of an authentic fight? Was it a dance of skill??? A bull rush of brutal strength??? Or more like a brawl, that ended up more a wrestling match? -Did skill or strength dictate, or a combination of both?? What other traits made the best the best??? Thanks for any info. A video dedicated specifically these concepts would be absolutely enthralling. The QUESTION BEING, Have we ever really seen what a truly authentic fight resembled from the Mid-evil times/Dark Ages????

Another outstanding video 👍...When the leather strap tore from the rivet it answered a question i was going to say...in that straps and rivets are more vunerable than the armour itself and could, if damaged impact mobility etc...But good job you make your armour well 😁

Great video. Before seeing this, I allwyas thought flanged maces are especially made against armor. But a practical test, like you did it, is better than all theory.

Only discovered your channel not that long ago but man your vids are incredible, this channel is a hidden gem

Thank you! This was a very interesting test and a surprising (to me) result

Those armours are really fascinating

I love this channel 😊😊😊

It's very impressive that you go to such measures to replicate things, but are able to recognize that maybe some more modern developments in brain protection could be better, such as increased padding like you guys seem to be wearing, or ways to prevent blows from actually breaking eachothers neck.

It really makes sense that a one handed weapon wouldn't be the best choice to fight armor. But the question is, what about being hit with the blunt side of a poleaxe? Has to be even more unpleasant, no? another thing that I don't know about. During such periods, plate armor was something from the elite. But how common was chainmail? or any other kind of armor, that wasn't as expensive. Because a mace would definitely make sense against such. I'm just wondering if the purpose of weapons was based on which enemy they would find the most.

A new Dequitem video, my week is complete and its only Thursday. (Also we need some 'Dequitem' merch).

hell yeah new Dequitem drop

Found the video. Pretty good test. I do worry the armour is not fixed in place, however, so you'll get far less damage. You also ought to try sharpening those flanges, so they really bite in. Not safe for sparring, of course, but if you want to make a hideous dent, it'll help a lot. Have to keep in mind that a one handed weapon against the best armour like trying to stop a tank with a hand-grenade--you can, but it's tricky. Same with daggers and swords--maile is not easy to pierce. Like Matt said in his response, maces are good against intermediate armour, as it's obvious to everyone that warhammers and picks are more dedicated anti-armour weapons.

Huh, I never really considered the idea of using a mace in mounted combat, but you make a some really good arguments for its use as such. I always learn something new, or get a different perspective on a topic from these weapon analysis videos. Great job once again.

Thanks for the research

Great video brother as always👍👍👍

Your videos are so awesome! Love watching these :)

yeah, against hardened steel it's gonna do nothing, you need spring or carbon steel to simulate medieval plate realistically, hardened is too strong...

epic.

More of this please!!

Loved this video man, well done

Your armor is OP...

"Bash 'em, lads!"

Really intersing video and first of all i have to say that your craftsmanship is awesome and your mace design is awesome! Really love it with the spike! But i have three points to point out about your testing: First of all the length: yeah there are 50 cm maces, but there are also many german and indian maces that are 60 cm and longer, i dont understand why you stick with making it this short... Second point: your testing stand isnt connected and is really padded, so it disperses the impact way more then if it where on a human or a more "stable" target, you can see skillgram's mace testing against armor and see the results. The mace was used to bypass the armor not necessarily destroy it, and i am pretty sure you will get the devestating result to the guy under the armor and way more damage to the armor if you will use abit longer mace and a more stable testing stand

Try that with a 36 inch 8 lb head sledge hammer. I would find a longer handle if they exist Just test it on a shield where someone holds the shield and for the rest test on armor that is on a stand where you test downward shoulder upper shots near the helmet and one with maybe an old helmet on a stand. You can block with a sledge hammer since most of the mass is in the head. You just move the handle around. Also see if you can knock a shield out of someones hands if a swing of the hammer goes over the top and you immediatly try to graple the shield off with the hammer. Also try hitting someones hand through the shield and build up until they feel the shield is at the limit.

Reminds me of the failures of baton and club in unarmored defense. 4:08

It would be really cool to give you horse riding lessons. Im curious what you could learn if you'd practice on horseback.

I thought the mace head would be bigger like fist size. Also thought they are at least 2KG and function like a pick with multiple edges. Guess it's used for chain mail?

I always thought a mace would be a good side weapon for heavy cavalry as their height would give them access to the head, but I never realized how short maces were.

good, thank you

very interesting video, and well done. congrats of gaining 98.4k subscribers, your channel is growing fast. videos like this make me love history more, God bless you, Jesus loves you.

Also, it seems like a mace is a very good, less-then-lethal weapon against unarmored people? For example being the medieval version of the local police would be interested in maces I think? Cheap, easy to use, and wont instantly kill anyone that its used against.

the principale difference is taht attached on your boduly this piece of metal can't flip and deflect.part of the energy recieved

I wounder who would get the better advantage from helmet design, that gave better all round vision. So you no what your enemy is trying to do.

Good video, but I will point out that while maces are not the armour crushing damage dealers that videogames have them to be. Knights are the medieval version of tanks, and where treated them as such. Cripple their movement by shooting thier horses and then overwhelm them. Maces, as simple clubs were still the first choice of peasants due to lack of real weapons, hardened wood with iron spikes... if they could afford the iron. Considering that the vast majority of soldiers were lightly armoured a spiky club is a great, cheap, easy to manufacture weapon.

Have you ever gotten a concussion during sparring? If not, was it because of the effectiveness of the armour, or the amount of restraint used by both parties? I love your content by the way!

Great video! I know you say it's intuitive but I think you should use it more as if you are going for a knockout punch i.e plant your feet, torque from the legs and hips and strike through the target rather than using more upper body and arms hitting at the target. (This is all conjecture as I've never used a mace just going off boxing experience and not meaning any offence!).

I wish each strike was followed by a close up still of each strike in succession. Also, an overhead mapview of each place of battle would be great as well

I permanently have one question about the sizes of weapon reproductions. People were smaller in the middle ages than we are today. Shouldn't those reproductions be bigger and heavier as we grew up? Thank you for the excellent video and for sharing your experiences!

I love those spaulders of yours. Are they based off of any particular example?

Some would say fist is an ineffective weapon too, and it's mostly true. Most men don't know how to throw a punch, even when one do, human hand is too fragile to last in almost any combative scenario. But then we got certain people who can end a fight within seconds with punches when certain conditons met, but it's not because their hand are different from other human, they're just flesh and bone, it's the body mechanic they're used to, and the timing, angles and such. This experiment is useful to show the limitations of a tool. But remember it's not just about the weapon, but also the person using the weapon. Iow, we need more sample before we can make conclusion of mace's effectiveness against armor.

Someone else noticed the ruin of Burg Regenstein in the background? 😄

Super interesting, where does the idea that mace is good against armor comes from if it is not true (at least in context of plate armour)? It is anti armour weapon in pretty much every video game, I myself am guilty of presenting it like this.

I wonder if somehow we had RU-vid back in those times, knights would also have RU-vid channels.

Another great video. Thanks for sharing. Will you be at the Way of Honour Buhurt competition in August?

Aqua sent me here!

The thing is, if it was completely ineffective, they wouldn't have kept making them that way, so it must have had some effect when used correctly. I can see the angle of it being used as a non-lethal/less lethal option, but if that were the case, why would the heads have trended towards flanged designs and not instead towards bigger rounder designs that spread the force against the helmet to optimize towards knockouts? Concentrating the force onto those flanges is a design that feels explicitly focused on piercing rather than spreading the force to increase the overall impact I would wonder if maybe this is a situation where survivorship bias comes into play, where the surviving examples of helmets and armor that we have are ones that were the designs that were the most effective examples that were able to survive against these threats, while the wider majority of armor might have actually been vulnerable to this style of mace, and given that they would have been crushed in battle, and likely thrown away, we have no examples to show what the true effects would be. For example, cervellieres were probably insanely common, but maybe a handful of examples survive today, because no one saves common soldier gear. Perhaps instead it was a weapon for heavy knights to deal with medium weight armored infantry, ones in open faced helmets, mail shirts, brigandines, etc, as by the 15-16 century that sort of threat would have been more common. If you are a fully armored knight against a common grunt with a billhook or something, a mace is at a perfect range at which you get close enough that you are too close for him to use his weapon effectively, so he can't hurt you, but you can split his cheap kettle helm or pierce his mail shirt or break his unarmored knees no problem.

Mace is for joints and head not shoulderpads or gauntlets. there is literally nothing we have to pierce or dmg proper armor until gunpowder. but if a cav hits you with mace on gallop to head you be sure to instant brain smush. Also why jennissaries learned how to wrestle and slap is coz of european armor usage in warfare. i work on steelworks i did try many steels with heavy machinery on amazing forces couldnt even properly damage it at that point i realized fully clad armored soldiers are tanks of the era and there is no way to kill them properly. thats also why gunpower changed whole concept of using armor not just coz of range advance downs sides were so much more then using close quarter weapons but armor was ineffective on certain parts yes you can deflect arquebus bullet with proper thick breastplate but your limbs and head are no humanly way to be thick to deflect it. if you ask me in my head ofc most battles looks like wrestling in the mud and zerging down enemy with pointy sticks or daggers thats also why its amazingly brutal. in a way this conculusion explains how roman soldiers won or stand days in a circle without budging against poor opponents even scale type armors they wear hold so good against weapon of the era they literally can stand in formations it looks like armor is godlike against anyweapon man can wield until gunpowder. then all man become equal as samuel colt says.

I think one needs to take into account that people were much smaller back then. There are several local historical buildings from the 1600th century in my small town, and I'm always surprised by how small the people were. Granted I'm 198 cm tall, but still, they were small, it's alost like seeing a hobbit house, and the weapons were made to their size. So, scale up those weapons to a modern sized man.

Good job 👍

from what i seen in buhurt only the two handed axes/poleaxe are able too that

About safety in general, have you had any injuries from being hit in training or fights?

Before i finish the video... Yes, but terms & conditions applied.

I've watched this video like 9 times

Awesome video! What about a similar video but for the Bec de corbin or a pollaxe?

Hey Dequitem, I really enjoy your videos they are visualy very interresting and informativ. Wich steel did you use for the mace and Armor?

Just wondering where you do your fighting, I always think the locations look great.

I have not read any mentions of using a mace during a battle or a small skirmish or I have seen some really few depictions of late medieval art depicting maces in battle, (if anyone knows various depictions feel free to recommend me), but I personally believe for such a weapon to still exist during these specific eras (mid 14th century - the entirety of the 15th and beyond ), it must have been used by people both in battle and sometimes, possibly in duels and not just on horseback. I believe (this is just my opinion, as I, again, say have not read any real life historical mentions of maces during battle), that they were used to knock armoured people off be it knights, men at arms or average civilians and peasants who could afford some plate armor , if they could knock them off at least and then either killing them with daggers or taking them for ransom, just as you said. It least that's my opinion for observing how the mace works and worked in mostly armored people.

Can you do some weapon tests against titanium armour?

What's something that you'd want to try, but can't for safety reasons?

Are you from Saxony? It looks like the type of forrest we have on our hills in North Bohemia... you know, Děčín region, Czech Schweiss next to Sachsische Schweiss....

Just wondering about the exhaustion factor when fighting in full plate. How long do you think a fit and well trained knight or man at arms could maintain an assault for, before having to retreat to recover?

Have you thought of simulating skirmishes or bigger battles ? I assume that wrestling on the ground will be less usefull if someone can strike your back while you try to stab with your dagger. I know there are 5v5 Battles but it seems more like MMA in Armor 😅

I would love to see some 2v1s or 3v1s having poorly equipped individuals versus a full plate knight to compare various weapons vs weaker armor not sure if it would be safe to do though

would a morningstar be much different than a flanged mace, the morningstar appears to have better spikes for piercing

so.. given the maces of the 12-1300s had smaller shafts and even lighter heads.. in the early ages of plate.. what do you forsee those even ligfhter maces doing.. yknow, when the head is like 300g of bronze.. even if its mostly mail with some plate..

Why not use the big Flanged Mace that can be wielded with 2 hands???? Those seem more effective. More weight, more damage.

Do you think a mace might be more effective against armour that was hardened in less consistent historical methods? Modern forging is almost close to perfect compared to in the middle ages.

Maybe they used it against weakly armoured opponents, peasantry or such, I don't know 😅

A mace hit might not outright destroy armor, but it's gotta hurt a lot.

*bonk*

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the most common material still iron or even low grade steel even in the 15th to 16th century? Couldn't that have had an effect on the effectiveness of maces compared to modern steel?

Huh. Well, so full plate does make you a medieval tank after all. A question arises, how do you even kill a knight in a pitched battle, where you're supposed to fight in ranks and thus cannot go for the grapple+dagger where it hurts combo?

Would the test maybe be more accurate if the armor piece is actually attached to a dummy or something that is more firmly in place? The fact that the stand does not have a lot of mass and can even fall over, and that the armor is able to bounce and flop around on that stand, means that a great deal more energy and damage potential from the mace is dissipated. Does that sound about right?

i wonder about, in a duel, being able to strike the back of the knee. there is no armour behind the knee, so how difficult is it to hook a swing to land behind the knee, to a resisting armoured opponent, to damage the knee and possibly immobilize with a single or just a couple blows

Pretty handy for mob control I would think. If you aren't armoured then who would pick an argument against a fully armoured knight with one?

Are there any maces with spikes or dagger-like blades on the other end (grip end)? Though it might take away some of the striking mass on the mace end, I could see closing and using it to stab gaps in the armor could have worked.

Hod you lose a duel if both of you are fully armored

So if maces aren't powerful enough to be good at armored fighting and aren't long enough to be good at unarmored fighting, what are they for?

it looks like you actually stabbed him at 4:38 though, there was no armor there... On that topic, if you guys are fighting 100%, how do you avoid not actually stabbing eachother? Points are dull I assume. But like even you get stabbed in the neck with a dull point...

These maces seem like administrative weapons for baliffs. They didnt want to kill criminals without trial.

You said you made your own weapon, did you make your own armor as well? If so how did you learn to make such incredible armor and if not where could one purchase similar armor?