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Originally Posted by Tordenskiold1721
Thanks for posting this important and very good Estoc Victrix !! It's a pleasure seeing it.
As you point out it is designed to penetrate mail armor, a job the sharp and strong tip would do with ease when trusted hard into mail. Mail of any quality does not hold up well against a good trust from a solid sharp tipped blade.
I found two of the old History channel documentaries that might be of interest to some. It is orientated around the development of armor from chain mail and how, when the mail armor was not strong enough to stand piercing weapons the plate armor started developing. Here we also see some tests of the weaknesses of mail against trusting weapons:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98hRtOJqOYE&t=121s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syPjIZIrG7k
The plate armor was developed due to the weakness of the mail armor and especially the weakness the mail has against trusting weapons. The above two History Channel documentaries explains this development.
In the drawing below it seems as the mounted rider to the left is penetrating his enemy's mail with an "Estoc" type weapon rather than an lance:
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Many thanks for posting the interesting links and the pictures, Tordenskiold! I have never seen contemporary pictures of estocs in action before. It seems the rider in the picture is clasping his estoc close to the chest to absorb the shock from the impact? I have heard suggestions that the wearer sometimes grasped the hilt under his armpit to wield the estoc like a lance. This must have been relatively rare however, as the estoc is very much designed as a sword with a hilt and a grip to hold in the hand.