How to construct an anti-shard hammer

[Quantus]

48 minutes ago, Karger said:

If you are going to start using aluminize then why not weighted nets of the stuff that could tangle the shardbearer?

If it negates their strength enhancement it would be great, but if not they could likely rip out of it.  If the shardbearer also has a blade they'd still be able to cut themselves out, but it would be somewhat slow and awkward, as cutting wire with a ridiculously oversized blade isnt particularly easy no matter how sharp the mundane edge is. 

[Karger]

Exactly, I doubt there is a perfect solution here Shards are designed to be peaty OP but a weighted net would slow them down long enough that you could move in with several people with heavy clubs, lances, or axes.  They charge or smash and break sections of the armor while the man struggles to free himself and then if that does not kill them you can just have several skilled archers put arrows through them.

[Patrick Star]

We know that aluminum is inert, so maybe an aluminum hammer might disrupt shardplate and let you break through it.

If so, I would sneak up behind the shardbearer using the incredible silence of my Noctua NH-D15, then beat them over the head with it.

Edited March 13, 2019 by Patrick Star

[supersmith]

On 3/12/2019 at 8:16 PM, Patrick Star said:

We know that aluminum is inert, so maybe an aluminum hammer might disrupt shardplate and let you break through it.

If so, I would sneak up behind the shardbearer using the incredible silence of my Noctua NH-D15, then beat them over the head with it.

Or better yet, aluminum bullets. 

[Scion of the Mists]

On 3/18/2019 at 0:25 PM, supersmith said:

Or better yet, aluminum bullets. 

Even regular bullets would do pretty well.  There's a hot-off-the-press WoB from the recent Orem signing that it would only take two or three bullets to break Shardplate.  

Quote

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

How many shots would it take for Wax using his gun to break a section of Shardplate?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Depends on the gun... Okay, so Vindication. He could probably... depends on the bullet, cause he's got several styles. But let's just say two or three. There's an argument he could do it with one, with the right shot, the right bullet, in the right moment.

Orem Signing (March 16, 2019)

[supersmith]

28 minutes ago, Scion of the Mists said:

Even regular bullets would do pretty well.  There's a hot-off-the-press WoB from the recent Orem signing that it would only take two or three bullets to break Shardplate.  

Well this makes shardplate significantly less cool in my book. 

[Quantus]

55 minutes ago, Scion of the Mists said:

Even regular bullets would do pretty well.  There's a hot-off-the-press WoB from the recent Orem signing that it would only take two or three bullets to break Shardplate.  

I get the right shot (well aimed at the proper structural spot) and the right bullet (aluminum almost certainly) but what's "The right moment" going to mean?  Would he have to hit the piece right as it was taking other stresses, meaning that it wouldnt be shattering the piece so much as negating it's magical structural enhancement just as it was taking some other stress?  For example Im pictuting him shooting the boot piece just as the shardbearer tried to land from a high-jump, with the aluminum bullet turning off it's magical properties at the critical moment for the weight of the bearer to crush their own plate. 

[Calderis]

1 hour ago, Quantus said:

I get the right shot (well aimed at the proper structural spot) and the right bullet (aluminum almost certainly) but what's "The right moment" going to mean?  Would he have to hit the piece right as it was taking other stresses, meaning that it wouldnt be shattering the piece so much as negating it's magical structural enhancement just as it was taking some other stress?  For example Im pictuting him shooting the boot piece just as the shardbearer tried to land from a high-jump, with the aluminum bullet turning off it's magical properties at the critical moment for the weight of the bearer to crush their own plate. 

Aluminum isn't going to "turn off" plate. I honestly think people strongly overestimate Aluminums uses against plate in general. 

In my opinion, until the metal actual punctures the plate it shouldn't be doing anything to it at all, and there are much better metals for inflicting damage to it.

 

[+Invocation]

Consider the following: Gravitation-assisted Project Thor-eque kinetic bombardment.

RIP Plate and the person inside.

[Quantus]

5 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Aluminum isn't going to "turn off" plate. I honestly think people strongly overestimate Aluminums uses against plate in general. 

In my opinion, until the metal actual punctures the plate it shouldn't be doing anything to it at all, and there are much better metals for inflicting damage to it.

 

Turn Off the plate as a whole is an overstatement, true, but it would (potentially) negate whatever active investiture effects are happening in a (very) small field around the bullet itself, right at the moment of impact (of just after with fragmentation), no?  It would take an extremely Fortunate shot to time such a thing perfectly, but I think it could have an effect. 

[Numuhuku]

On 3/10/2019 at 11:43 AM, Oltux72 said:

That means you want range. If you are attacked you must dodge. Hence your fighters will carry only their weapon, no shields or armor. The weapon can be swung with both hands.

 

In a fight directly against someone in shardplate this makes sense, but it's probably worth considering that in the context of a battlefield, a shardbearer in plate is unlikely to be fighting unsupported. Plate requires aid to be donned quickly, so I feel it'd be unlikely to be used in context when the shardbearer wouldn't have other soldiers with them. While a mass of unarmored troops with great weapons are theoretically efficient way to defeat shardbeaerers, but said troops would also be incredibly vulnerable against other conventional troops. Look at how vulnerable the bridgemen were in Way of kings were when they had to fight in battles with no shields or armor. A detachment of unarmored troops like this I feel would simply get shredded by arrow-fire, then break upon even a thin spearwall. Especially if these men are supposed to be expendable poorly trained troops.

 

Also worth considering. It's conspicuous that when the regular Parshendi nearly killed Sadeas, that was done skillful, motivated and heavily armored troops. And they lost dozens of men to swarm him. I don't think that poorly trained conscripts would have the morale to put up with the losses you would take fighting a Shardbearer. 

 

In practice I think siege weapons or elaborate ambushes are far more likely to be successful against Shardberears. 

Edited March 22, 2019 by Numuhuku

[+Oltux72]

15 hours ago, Numuhuku said:

Also worth considering. It's conspicuous that when the regular Parshendi nearly killed Sadeas, that was done skillful, motivated and heavily armored troops. And they lost dozens of men to swarm him. I don't think that poorly trained conscripts would have the morale to put up with the losses you would take fighting a Shardbearer. 

Sadeas had no blade.

15 hours ago, Numuhuku said:

In practice I think siege weapons or elaborate ambushes are far more likely to be successful against Shardberears. 

That means needing to predict where they go. As they know that you will try exactly that, that is a difficult task.

[Numuhuku]

1 hour ago, Oltux72 said:

Sadeas had no blade.

Indeed. So if anything human wave tactics by unarmored suicide troops against a full shardbearer with support would go even worse.

 

1 hour ago, Oltux72 said:

That means needing to predict where they go. As they know that you will try exactly that, that is a difficult task.

Admittedly the same could be said of specilized anti-shardbearer troops. A shardbearer mounted on a horse is in practice going to have much better battlefield mobility than a battalion of specialized anti-shard-bearer troops. Getting those troops to where the Shardbearer is at, and pinning him down, I think is going to be almost as difficult as orchestrating an ambush.

[+Oltux72]

1 minute ago, Numuhuku said:

Indeed. So if anything human wave tactics by unarmored suicide troops against a full shardbearer with support would go even worse.

Yes. These troops are not expected to come back. The comparison to Bridge 4 is fitting.

1 minute ago, Numuhuku said:

Admittedly the same could be said of specilized anti-shardbearer troops. A shardbearer mounted on a horse is in practice going to have much better battlefield mobility than a battalion of specialized anti-shard-bearer troops. Getting those troops to where the Shardbearer is at, and pinning him down, I think is going to be almost as difficult as orchestrating an ambush.

Yes, but with troops you can react to where he is going. You can try to trap a shard bearer. This is still a good idea. Even if the trap is only reducing his mobility, it will have done its job. But then somebody has to go in for the kill.

[Numuhuku]

2 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Yes. These troops are not expected to come back. The comparison to Bridge 4 is fitting.

The main issue is the bridgemen were only meant to be on the field for a very short part of the battle. They'd run the bridges in the initial assault, provide a distraction, and then run off. And even that brief exposure saw the ranks of bridgemen routinely decimated on even moderately tough battles. Having them stand in ranks without armor or shields for an extended period of time on the front line will see them destroyed before shardbearers can come into place.

10 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Yes, but with troops you can react to where he is going. You can try to trap a shard bearer. This is still a good idea. Even if the trap is only reducing his mobility, it will have done its job. But then somebody has to go in for the kill.

In practice I think this would be very hard to do. Keep in mind this isn't an RTS where the commander has a top down view of the battlefield, and can transmit orders to all his units instantly (no field spanreeds at the squad level). It takes time to dispatch orders, and for battalions of men to form up and move out. ESPECIALLY if those men aren't very well trained. A man in shardplate, being a one man army almost, can move about the battlefield much faster than regular soldiers, raiding and spearheading various assaults all over the battlefield. 

I think there's also a matter of morale. Unless they were fanatics, your suicide troops might not be very motivated to chase down a shardbearer on a chaotic battlefield. I think they'd find excuses to lose track of them. You might be able to whip men into doing something suicidal if its straightforward, but its very difficult to get them to take the initiative in it if they're not motivated.

[twenty second of the sun]

On 3/11/2019 at 2:10 PM, Bigmikey357 said:

I think guns would actually work, well, cannons. Someone would have to invent or discover gunpowder though. That will likely have to be an offworld import though, at least until a soulcaster understands the properties enough to mass produce it. I don't see many native bats on Roshar.

Roshar does have bat like cephalopods .

[Turin Turambar]

So in short to this conversation, you want either A ) suicide troops with massive hammers, B ) guns, or C ) enough kinetic energy focused at one point. 

Personally, I'd vote that creating some form of way to add a massive amount of force to a weapon blow is the way to go, maybe some form of system. perhaps add some form of heavy liquid down the shaft so when you swing it, it adds weight (and momentum). I'm pretty sure it's not my idea, but I don't know where it came from. It might be just a bit steampunk for Roshar, though, though we do seem to be going that way with fabrials and all. I suppose you could make the same argument against guns.