Weapons vs armor tactics

[Danest]

When armed with a "medium" sized weapon or lighter, and facing an opponent wearing Roman segmented armor, how did warriors deal with the situation? It seems unlikely that strips of iron could be cleaved straight through by a less than massive weapon, so I figure warriors either hit the opponent in a place not covered by the armor, or just kept bashing and bashing until the armor fell apart. Was there any particular tactic for facing such heavily armored opponents, without using an armor-smashing weapon? Watching lightly armed troops with daggers and such (try to) take on Romans, I'm inclined to think that there probably was no tactic.

[Zaknafien]

All plated armor does is protect you against slashes, and thrusts to some degree. What alot of people don't realize is that someone encased in such a suit of armor still recieves significant concussion damage from heavy blows, and if he can be knocked to the ground an enemy can easily find an unarmored piece of flesh to stab, for instance. And in close, congested melee, being knocked down or thrown off balance and falling is one of your greatest concerns.

[Watchman]

Did you know, particularly heavily armoured fighters often ended up grappling each other with daggers ? One of the best ways to get at the unavoidable gaps in the defensive gear. There are well-preserved Sassanid reliefs of cataphracts and clibanarii wrestling on horseback for example.

Anyway, Roman infantry were never particularly totally armoured. Sure their "vitals" were pretty well protected, but there was still the throat, the armpits, the limbs (even short swords can sever arms, and spear thrusts functionally cripple them), the groin and lower abdomen depending on the exact type of harness...

[silverster]

^^^ thats why romans had big shields and fight in close formations... to acoid parts of that body be exposed.

[geala]

I'm sorry but there is no real way for lightly armed and armoured troops to deal with heavily armoured on the same terms. If you have to fight against a guy with a substantial mail armour backed with padding or a segmented or plate armour you will normally lose. By the way that was one of the reasons our forefathers wore such armour which was not very comfortable most of the times.

Of course you can hack and slash and stab at unprotected areas or deliver heavy (and therefore slow!) blows against the plate. But be sure you have one, two or three aides at hand who hold the armoured man to hinder him to hack and slash and stab at your (greater) unprotected areas at the same time. Otherwise you can still succeed but chances are with the armoured man. If you have a big shield and a helmet the difference is smaller but still exists.

Interesting discussions about arms and armour are found f.e. on http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/, http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/index.php or http://forums.swordforum.com/.