Plate armor is your best bet. Padding helps, which was worn under chain. The padded garment worn under chainmail is called gambeson. Gambeson would help, but it wasn’t close to perfect. Put on a dense, thick puffy coat and have someone hit you with a steel baseball bat as if they were trying to kill you. You’ll feel it. Plate armor is the best choice. Obviously with enough blows from a hammer or mace and it could cave in and crush you, but that was rare. Best way to kill a knight in full plate was to get a few of your friends, pile on him, and put a dagger in the gaps of the armor. Throat, thighs, groin, anywhere there would be gaps in the armor.
Pretty much yes. Blunt force is kinda the apex. No amount of personal protection protects you enough when the force hits. With plate you would disperse it to kinda spread it through the area of the plate itself and with padding you would divert force into deformations of the padding. But given enough force neither of them protects you.
That being said those protective options are still the best there are against blunt force and that would remain until the introduction of firearms.
![I mean... Where's the chainmail? [GoodBearComics]](https://startrek.website/pictrs/image/0a6719bb-f06c-48a6-8e41-f575a1d36ebd.png){kind=link}
What would protect you against blunt force?
Plate armor is your best bet. Padding helps, which was worn under chain. The padded garment worn under chainmail is called gambeson. Gambeson would help, but it wasn’t close to perfect. Put on a dense, thick puffy coat and have someone hit you with a steel baseball bat as if they were trying to kill you. You’ll feel it. Plate armor is the best choice. Obviously with enough blows from a hammer or mace and it could cave in and crush you, but that was rare. Best way to kill a knight in full plate was to get a few of your friends, pile on him, and put a dagger in the gaps of the armor. Throat, thighs, groin, anywhere there would be gaps in the armor.
Plate or padding
Weren’t war hammers specifically used to fight against plate?
Pretty much yes. Blunt force is kinda the apex. No amount of personal protection protects you enough when the force hits. With plate you would disperse it to kinda spread it through the area of the plate itself and with padding you would divert force into deformations of the padding. But given enough force neither of them protects you.
That being said those protective options are still the best there are against blunt force and that would remain until the introduction of firearms.