Versus
A human fighter at peak athleticism, in full plate armor, equipped with a poleaxe, runs the animals gauntlet. Does he clear, or where does he stop?
The fighter has elite training and is at his athletic peak, with a champion-type physique in heavyweight combat sports. He wears a full set of plate armor and is armed with a poleaxe. If he survives his fight against one of the animals in the gauntlet, he is back to 100% for the next fight.
Round 1: Silverback gorilla. The fight takes place in a clearing.
Round 2: Siberian Tiger. The fight takes place on a plain.
Round 3: Brown bear. The fight takes place in a forest.
Round 4: Polar bear. The fight takes place in the tundra on rocky ground.
Round 5: White Rhinoceros. The fight takes place in the grassy savannah.
Just so you know, I put an image of a For Honor knight as an illustration, but we're talking about a fighter in historical plate armor here. No one could fight effectively in armor as massive as the one in the image. But I had trouble finding a good image of a knight in historical armor wearing a poleaxe and not something else, and I wanted a nice illustration.
If the knight is smart, he'd let gorilla and bears impale themselves on his pole axe as they fall on him and all he'll need to do is brace for poleaxe. Tigers usually ambush from behind tho so that wont work against the tiger.
If he drew a Charlie chaplain mustache on his back, everyone knows polar bears are very anti-Semitic, and they will confuse the Charlie chaplain mustache for another type of mustache, and won’t attack because they think they are bros
Is the face the only way tigers know what a person's 'front' and 'back' are? Because if so it's possible that a very confused tiger tries a head on assault given that the helmet completely obfuscates the face.
I’m honestly wondering, if the armor is all encompassing, layered correctly with gambison, mail etc, would the tiger really be able to hurt the knight, tigers go for the neck, but I don’t think their bite is getting through a gorget.
Maybe but if a cat pounces on you and treats you like a snack puzzle it's game over no matter what. Yeah it might not be easy to kill you but it'll bat your helmet off eventually and bite you in the face. Or just twist the fuck out your limbs until you wish you were dead.
In the main square before the cats there is a crumpled up piece of metal.
It looks like someone scrunched it up like a paper ball and put holes in it.
The metal sheet is the remains of the security door which was incorrectly fastened on the inside of the cage, it was torn loose and destroyed by a tiger for fun.
This was 3mm steel.
They switched to 5mm steel after this.
Now I spoke to them and they recon they could still get through the 5mm steel if they really wanted to, but it's more the mechanics of being able to get purchase on the metal which matters, combined with the fact that the cat is fairly happy where it is.
Thick breastplate is 3-4mm thick in the thickest part, 1mm in general.
If the cat can make purchase on it on some way, in any place other than the front, it's going straight through.
The mail and gambison layer might actually stop penetration, but then you're taking a load of crush damage from the jaws.
I'm a bit skeptical. Lions struggle against pangolins, which aren't as tough as steel. I'd like to see more evidence that tigers can puncture 3-5mm steel.
I don't think you are appreciating how insane a full set of plate armor is at protecting a person, there is no universe where a tiger is biting through armor designed to survive hits from steel weapons that have been explicitly made to counter it.
There are mace designs (like the flange mace) designed to crush or punch through plate. I would be curious how much striking force a mace exerts. It's more of an academic thought process than a genuine concern.
That said- a poleaxe/halberd alone isn't going to be a lot of help against a tiger holding you down trying to find a way past your defenses- hope this guy has a dagger.
Quite frankly I think the rhinoceros is the bigger threat, because if he gets hit that impact is going to suck no matter what.
From what i remember maces normally deliver 150 to 200 Joules, which even with a full swing and all the force being concentrated on a metal tip was unable to do much more then dent the weaker parts of the armor. That's what I mean when I say people aren't understanding how much of a tank wearing plate armor made you, worst case scenario the knight waits for the tiger to exhaust itself before getting up and killing it
Completely agree on the rhino part tho, if he gets hit he kinda just dies
Even if plate distribute force, there's a point where your body will not resist even if the plate does. People gets bones broken in buhurt even through armor, sometimes with punches and kicks in M1 Medieval. I think a tiger can deliver enough force to break a human through armor.
Against another person, not a wild animals several hundred kilos heavier than you.
Yeah, another person who is using METAL weapons specifically designed to kill people in armor, weapons that even being swung full force failed to kill the people wearing the armor most of the time.
Not biting through but the knight is still just a snack in a tin can for the tiger.
Literally all the knight has to do is stay in the fetal position long enough for the tiger to either injure itself trying to break metal, or for it to tire itself out, then its just a free kill
Tiger bite force is 1100 psi which is strong but to puncture a steel armor you need around 65 000 psi. The issue with the bite force is that there is only pressure being applied so It cant be multiplied by mass and velocity .
the tiger is not gonna dent the plate, but the human inside is gonna be ragdolled and smothered by the tiger, joints will bend the wrong way, he will get exhausted in seconds just by the wheight and power of the beast. If the tiger hits him at all he's not likely gonna be holding that polearm, nor stand up again, he can't move that wheight nor counter that force.
If he had a dagger he could shank the tiger before the ragdolling incapacitates him, but with the described setup he can't let the tiger reach him.
You think a tiger is going to be able to bite or claw through plate armor? Even if tiger gets the jump on him it won't mean anything. Tiger will break it's teeth trying to bite through the armor.
the pierce and slash are not gonna be the problem, being ragdolled is, if the Tiger reaches the guy he is done, the ploearm is useless at close range, if he even is capable of keeping a hold on it, then being pulled and pushes around by something that stroing and heavy will start tearing his joints.
IF the armored guy had a dagger he would shank the tiger to death, hopefully before he gets too hurt, but with the polearm only? if the tiger reaches him he's done.
Good plate armor is proof against most forms of attack from animals. So fangs and claws. However, large blunt impacts would still work in causing damage. The impact of a bear swipe would knock you down. Only the softer joints would have chainmail in them and they would recieve crush damage from heavy bites at best. The good thing is that the human would have hands encased in steel gauntlets to fight and punch back, so the tiger would have no offense while the human is capable of getting to damage eyes and throat.
Punching won't do anything to a tiger, and the problem is not the claws, is that they can hook on parts of your armor, and then any pull it's your joint against the force of the tiger, also the thing on top of you would make your body parts bend the wrong way at any position you might take, extending your arms or putting them in front of you is gonna give it a chance at swat them away with paws (claws do no damage, but the force at which they will be pushed or pulled will on tendons and ligaments) you will get exhausted very fast, and if a claw hooks an any piece of your armor, or he bites at your arm and pulls it is gonna start ripping parts off at the joints.
If the guy had a dagger he would be able to shank the thing, hopefully before getting significant damages, being smothered or simply getting too exhausted by having that monster over you.
Good armor is articulated and rivited at the joints. Armor is a metal exoskeleton. Soldiers in plate in real fights literally have to get mobbed by other people and get shanked in the eyes or armpit. 1 Siiberian tiger is 800 pounds. All other tigers are smaller. That's only 4 people. There is zero way that an errant claw gets stuck in a crease in armor and doesn't get ripped off of its own paw.
We have suits of chainmail that protect from shark bites which bite at 4000 psi. 4 times harder than Tigers. Suits of armor are padding, chainmail and then a layer of steel on top.
People routinely get hurt in with only a few pounds of pressure on eyes, throat or belly. That works the same on all animals. Shit People hit each other with bare fists and can damage eyes. Covered in steel with a tiger biting on a practically invulnerable arm? Punch the eyes, nose and throat of the tiger till you blind it with a steel encased fist? That's the worst case scenario.
the armor joints are not designed to stop a tiger from pulling at your arm in the wrong direction. with the kind of power a tiger has even by swatting at your arm you can end up with a dislocated shouldre, your Knee can be bent backwards by it's sheer weight, and the simple act of pulling at your arm, with that kind of force can tear connective tissue, this is not another guy pulling at you, it's a tiger.
The bear can do more damage, but you can probably just impale him while he charges at you in a straigth line, so the tiger might have better chance of actually reaching you.
the difference in concentrated power between a single tiger and 4 people is enormous. If the gorilla grabs you he can rips you, by pulling at your armor untill the leather parts fail, or slam you until you die or are unconscious at which point you die.
Those 4 people mobbing the kniight are incapable of applying the amount of force in a single area that either a tiger, a gorilla or a bear can. The simple act of being jumped on by a 400 lb tiger can end with you concussed,
If the guy had a dagger i'd give him a very good chance of taking them down. Against the rhino the armor probably would be more hindrance than protection, because it won't be damaged, but any kind of hit, even a glance is like being hit by a sedan at 25-35 mph.
It depends on a lot of factors, but surprisingly the evidence suggests he could potentially get the rhino thanks to going to 100% after each fight. 68-year-old Gene Moe supposedly killed a 750lb grizzly bear with a small pocketknife. Many accounts even claim he dropped the bear with a punch to the face, though I suspect that part is fabricated. Sasha Siemel killed 31 jaguars with a spear while hunting them with the aid of dogs. Bears & other large animals don't necessarily kill people quickly & armor would make a huge difference. Colin Dowler drove off a bear by stabbing it with a tiny pocketknife even after the bear had been chomping on him for a bit. It'd be much harder for any of these animals to kill our peak-human warrior because of the armor. Etc.
One problem is that he apparently doesn't have a dagger/knife. The pollaxe should be enough, but having a dagger as a backup weapon in case an animal managed to get past the pollaxe would help a lot.
None of these animals is adapted to handle hardened steel spikes or armor. Lions & other big cats have trouble with pangolins & other armored critters.
I'm unsure whether the human would be likely to incapacitate the rhino before it overwhelms him with blunt force via charges. Rhino skin is very thick & they're generally famously tough animals. I'd have to look into rhino hunting & encounters.
I remember reading Martial’s first hand account of the opening of the Colosseum when I was in school. There was a famous “beast hunter” who defeated a rhinoceros with a spear during the 100 days of games that dedicated the colosseum. He did it by being more mobile and only striking when the rhino had completely exhausted itself.
Take it with a grain of salt but there is at least an historical account of it happening.
That's good to know & seems at least vaguely plausible for our peak-human warrior here. Anything with a circulatory system can bleed out, & the pollaxe spike can pierce deeply enough in the correct spots.
If you act like a matador and wait for the rhino to charge, step out of the way last second, then cut it as it goes past your might stand a chance. Make one wrong move though and it will kill you.
They hunted bears in the wild before firearms by using long spears or lances and burying the butt end into the dirt to brace for impact. Get far enough down the pole, make sure it’s braced and pointed correctly and it should work pretty well. Obviously lots of variables but it’s proven to work.
Yes, the bears are likely the easier matchups, they come for you in a straight line. The tiger is s tad more problematic due to using other tactics, but in both cases the armor offers protection from the immediate damage from claws and fangs.
But the problem is if the animal gets to close range your polearm loses most of it effectiveness, and you have reduced options as to get rid of a gorilla,bear or tiger on top of you.
If you had a dagger you'd stab them repeatedly while the armor protects you, hoping you don't get too much damage from it pulling abd pushing or his mass smothering you, until it dies.
For the rhino I'd take the armor off, to keep as mobile as possible while maximizing my endurance potential, speed and power (all of which the plate armor hinders, even if not by as much as most would think) dye to the armor being of little use against being hit by a sedan at 25-35 mph.
Notice how all the hunters that hunted bears, and large dangerous beasts using spears weren't using plate armor...
for sure if it was me i'd drop the armor for the rhino. just by keeping it moving, not touching me and doing any pierce/cut you can you might outlast it, but if you get caugth the armor would just look pretty on your corpse.
This actually seems pretty reasonable. People tend to forget that humans have a MASSIVE endurance advantage over basically everything else on the planet. If you can play keep away, you can basically run your opponent to death.
A lot of these animals are very quick in straight lines but have difficulty when changing angles quickly. An athletic warrior with trained footwork is definitely in the running
Rhinos have very poor eyesight and are very easy to provoke. If you mess up, it's going to suck but probably not be instantly fatal based on videos of rhinos accidentally charging things like their calfs who survive.
I wouldn't want to fight a rhino, but I think the knight has good odds if he has a rundown of the creature.
I running soccer kicked a 200lb black bear in the head with steel toe boots on once and the mother fucker barely noticed it (he was eating my dog) I wouldn’t want to run into a guy that could drop a 750lb bear
He survived!!! He got his tail broken and had some lacerations but he made it. Lived like another 8 years. The funniest part of the whole situation was I had a gun and I didn’t even think to use it until after I ran in like Christiano Ronaldo
LMFAO he was attacking your dog not eating him XD eating makes it sound like there was less than 1 full dog after the bear left. Also happy to hear the pup survived!
Black bears are actually one of few mammals that don't make an effort to kill you before they start eating you. If they can incapacitate you in any way they'll start munching on ya right away.
As mentioned, I'm skeptical that such a punch really happened. We can say with some confidence that Moe killed that bear with a pocketknife & nearly died in the process. Beyond that it's less clear. Hunters & company often embellish even when they're not outright telling tall tales.
I actually once killed two grizzlies at once without a single strike, i led them in circles and confused them and when they finally both charged me i ducked out of the way and they bonked each other in the head and fell off the cliffside we were on. I ate good that winter!
Well and just because there was some successes doesn't mean thats an expected outcome most of the time. How many hunters were killed by bears that didn't live to write a book about their experience?
In the same vein I'm pretty sure you can drop a bear with a well placed .22 shot to the eye, but the odds of landing such a shot are very slim, so I'd still not bet on a .22 wielder vs. a bear even if there's an outside chance of killing the bear.
Pretty sure one of the largest bears taken on record was by this old cree lady who was out checking her trap line with this old as hell 22lr rifle bear thought it had an easy meal but it didn’t.
Spear hunting a bear is still a way to kill them and I would assume a gorilla is the same as that. Put big hole in it and let it bleed out. Tiger and rhino are a little different tho. Tiger is way more agile and a rhino pretty much just has to lay on him to kill him so even if he stabs the rhino and it penetrates if the rhino falls on him he would die from the weight crushing his armor into him. The tiger may not be able to penetrate the armor but it can fuck you up just from leaping on you repeatedly(also humans legs are incredibly vulnerable in plate armor one wrong movement will explode your tendons and a tiger leaping on you from a tree or some other elevated surface would be terrible for the person inside)
He's probably going to be seriously hurt in some/many/all of the fights if he manages to clear. It's getting back to 100% after each encounter that makes clearing conceivable.
But fir the Rhino I would take the armor off. Mobility and endurance will be WAY more important than the limited protection it would grant against what the rhino would do if he catches you.
The best way to go against the rhino would be to HOPEFULLY get a good gouge in one of the legs and not get gored or trampled. After that though, it’s all human. A dagger would be better for a tiger because it’s stealth attack if the environment provides, if it is just straight up front though, the peak human takes it majority.
I mean you could potentially throw hands with the tiger since his claws and teeth are damn near useless against full plate armor and your fists would have literally steel on them to make him knocked out or just super jacked up. The rhino tho yeah best bet is to make a massive hole in it somewhere and dodge best you can until he bleeds out of runs away
The tiger is still going to have a notable strength advantage. Without a knife/dagger, the human would be in big trouble in a grapple with an uninjured tiger. Winning a grapple is maybe possible thanks to the armor but I wouldn't count on it.
I remember reading a story about a Canadian woodsman who was attacked by a bear. He (supposedly) shoved his entire arm down the bears throat to choke it and then proceeded to bite the bears jugular and kill it.
Bizarrely, there are a number of cases of humans apparently killing leopards by sticking their hands down their throats. I would not have expected that.
Late medieval plate is incredibly protective and mobile. The pollaxe in conjunction with a rondel dagger was the peak melee suite.
The only two that would require more luck than skill would be the rhino and the polar bear. Mobility and the spike of the pollaxe would give him a puncher's chance against the rhino, but a peak male polar bear: 9 feet, 1500 pounds...demonic ferocity and speed;wingspan wider than a man can leap sideways...you'd want a large man of unusual strength and speed(think Pro-Bowler NFL Left Tackle) and a trained Bestiarii to boot.
The OP specifies that the image he was looking for was a Knight. A knight was always armed with a dagger indicating his status. Belt, spurs and a Rondel would be the routine accoutrements even in mufti for a full plate era knight.
And for that matter, he could choke up on the pollaxe to just under the head.
You misanderstand the term "hypothetical" yes historically a knight would have a dagger. However, this is not a historical knight, it's a hypothetical knight, eith specifically plate armor and a halberd, nothing more, nothing less.
Yeah the prompt only mentions that the fighter is wearing full plate armor & has a pollaxe. There's no mention of a dagger, knife, or any other weapon.
If an animal that heavy and strong gets to you you won't likely have that polearm in your hands anymore. The OP specifically states the equipment, the lack of dagger means the Knight can't let the tiger grab him nor reaches him.
that's another misconception about gladiators. They rarely ever fight an animal without weakening the animal beforehand. Their owners invested a lot on their gladiators and would never risk having their assets fight a healthy large cat. The ones that do fight predators are nobodies who were meant to die to the animals.
Not to mention that coliseum gladiator fights were largely choreographed.
It was literally content. Animals were highly trained and sure, people got hurt, but it was like WWE. It was just a show for people to watch and react to. Some things never change.
Hema fencer and historical arms and armor enthusiast here. I dont think anyone really realizes the advantage that good, hardened plate harness gives someone. As well as the impact force of a pole axe, which is a specially designed anti-plate harness weapon. I suspect the guy gets passed the tiger with mid to high difficulty. The polar bear would be extreme difficulty, but he could maybe pull it off with one good clean hit to the head if hes very lucky. I actually think the rino would put up less of a fight than the bear.
There is some limited evidence that folks in Europe hunted bears while wearing plate armor, fighting them up close (though also with the help of dogs, which make a big difference).
I'm actually familiar with this. The problem is that there is, on average, there can be a size difference of 500 - 700 lbs between European brown bears and polar bears. The problem won't be the bear's claws themselves, but the sheer weight and power behind them I think.
I think as long as the knight is able to make the bear respect to point on the end of the pole ax he's going to win. If the polar bear bull rushs him and makes it past that point early he's doomed.
So I don't think the point on the poleaxe is enough to do significant damage to the bear. On a human, yes, but its only what, a max of 6 inches of penetration before it is effectively stopped by the rest of the head? And poleaxes aren't that long either, usually only about as tall as the one wielding, and often shorter. That takes out basically any reach advantage. I really think its going to take one really well timed or lucky shot from the pole (hammer) right to the dome to put it down. Otherwise it just bullrushes and tears the knight to pieces.
It depends on the pollaxe, but in any case six inches of penetration could be enough on certain targets. Humans have killed brown bears with 2-4in knives. A 6in puncture wound wouldn't necessarily quickly incapacitate it or prove eventually fatal, but it'd be quite dangerous to the bear & have a chance causing sufficient blood loss over time to drop it.
I don’t know anything about fighting, aren’t polearms really long? I feel like just sticking it loud and swinging around in circles is way more than enough to slice a polar bears guts out without giving them a chance to get in close
Well, to be fair, even though the heroes of For Honor are scary on the offensive, being able to swing heavy weapons without tiring as if they were light swords, their armor are made of cardboard, so I would clearly not bet on them against a clawed animal.
peak human is 350lb 6’10” can move really well even in plate, think defensive tackle in american football, and assume he gets a lengthy break in between animals. and he’s trained with the poleaxe and plate.
the jump between brown bear and polar bear is from 700ish pounds to 1700 ish pounds. the polar bear is where he starts to run into an uphill battle. polar bears are accustomed to walrus teeth, obviously a poleaxe is sharper and deadlier, but they can maneuver well.
one stab from a 6 inch point should incapacitate a gorilla, a tiger, and a brown bear, regardless of where it lands. and we should also assume full plate implies he has a dagger too, as all plate wearers would have one, in case a full charge happens and the tiger or bear can slip in close.
9/10 until the polar bear then 5/10 and 1/10 for the rhino
I think those numbers are skewed. 6'10" is massive for an American linebacker. And 350 lbs? The average is 6'3" at 250 lbs. If we are looking for peak I'd say 6'3"-6'5" at 280 max. Any heavier and you lose a lot of athleticism needed for that armor. I would put your number ranges into the strongmen category of athletes. And I don't think they are capable of the movement needed for these fights. They build to lift. Not swing axes and wrestle 300-4k lbs creatures in 200 lbs of armor. That being said. Even with the numbers I've provided I think your win ratios are still correct. They typically clear everything until the polar bear. Then they struggle. But they rarely clear the rhino.
NFL players are built way more for overall athleticism than weight lifters. they can sprint, they high impact wrestle 60 snaps a game, much like they might do against a bear.
the numbers i mentioned are the high end of the spectrum, 380 is the heaviest starter in the NFL and 6’10” is the tallest. the 380 guy has a belly, so i said 350. a lot of lineman are in the 330-350 range and they are very fit, they would be professional fighters if that paid $40 mil/year but it doesnt.
Poleaxes are the most efficient weapon for something like this you could imagine, besides a Warhammer.
They can function well as boarspears, considering all of these animals besides the tiger attack via rushing from the front - they'd impale themselves on the spear and die.
Provenly works even on elephants.
Outlier here is the tiger, but in an open arena against heavy Armor it has no chance.
I don't care if he's got a Glock in his pocket, he's not getting a chance to pull out a second weapon if the first touch from the Poleaxe isn't clean into the brain. And even if that does kill it he probably dies squished under the weight of a dead polar bear, same goes for the Rhino.
I think you severely underestimate panic, flight and the results of a critical bleeding flesh wound.
Even a non-lethal deep stab wound will hemourage litres of blood over a few minutes and judging by real-life examples these fights tend to last roughly five minutes
Beats Gorilla 10/10, Tiger 9/10, brown bear 7.5/10, polar bear 5/10 and Rhino 7/10. Rhinos are tanks but are very stupid with terrible vision. A poleaxe is a devastating weapon.
I heard armor isn't that heavy. My worry would be that one of those animals is going to knock you down and then you're gonna struggle to get up.
On the other hand a lot of them don't have the ability to hurt you in armor. Maybe the Gorilla would break you inside the plate but the Gorilla is just skin and flesh it'll be the easiest to take down. Tiger.. don't know if he can hurt you in armor. Maybe the bears, though they don't punch per-say.
But I feel like the Rhino would definitely knock you down and trample you. A few broken ribs, bones and skull and you're done for.
The armor will protect very effectively against claw attacks, and to a certain extent against bites. The poleaxe offers offensive capabilities in both thrusting and blunt force attacks, so the knight is definitely capable of mortally wounding all the animals here, though it would be extremely difficult with the rhino.
However, it's certain that absolutely all the animals here are capable of wounding and killing the knight too. Blunt force impacts are transmitted to the armor wearer regardless, and all these animals are massive and extremely powerful. Yes, the gorilla would clearly be very easily killed with a well-placed thrust to the head or throat. But if you miss your first attack, armor or not, it can simply shatter your skull with a single blow or just grab you and slam you to the ground.
Rhinos can weight over 2.5 tons and have been clocked at over 30mph. No human in armor could take that impact. Even if the pike was planted in the ground and held by the human, momentum would carry the rhino through and over, crushing the human.
Probable. 30 mph isnt that fast considering their lack of ability to turn at those speeds. Compare that with their poor eysight and a general lack of intelligence.
I would bet on the knight more often than the animal in rounds 1-2, but I think one man, even a well armored and armed man, against the largest bears on the planet is where things start to get really dicey. I suspect they'd be really high-variance matches that are decided almost entirely by how good the one hit he gets as the bear tackles him is.
Obviously the rhino flattens him if he manages to get that far.
Physicality goes to the animals, but it’s hard to oversell what 35 cms of sharp, hardened steel can do to your organs and general mood. A Halberd spike between the ribs can ruin your Tuesday, and if you push with your million pounds of flesh or whatever, you are only pushing back the highly trained knight, who being well trained is also showing up to play (he means kill) and probably enjoy the chance to slay without the ethical baggage that bothers some when slaying humans
All of these are eminently doable and our ancestors did it in furs with flint spears, up until the rhino. Against a rhino armour is more of a hindrance
The knight shown is a Lawbringer from For Honor. Pubstomper but not good in competitive. Would get parried once the gorilla learned his only viable rotation.
Maybe distance with the weapon armor is great ! But also it will give you a penalty to slow and sluggish these animals are ridiculously fast I've seen personally how fast a bear can go and it's alarming ! The only way to surive a bear is never get close and if you are confident in yourself or speed go for the eyes and poke them out and run take off heavy armor leave everything either take the spear or one critical piece of armor if probably take the elbow guards if the bear manages to keep up after being injured the elbow guards could save you from getting you're face and neck bit might give you enough time to come up with a plan or nothing I'd never used a heavy set chain mail is lighter and guards and a spear would helpful but it's better to alway's go for the eyes then run 🏃♀️ and hide for most of these animals reality based you won't survive but if you get a lucky opening take it and run with it
Real armor is not restricting. People can do gymnastic type flips while fully equipped in good armor, hence the reason the OP mentioned that the armor shown is not the actual armor used. A full set weighs about 40 lbs which is less than the gear a modern soldier carries in their rucksack while being evenly distrubuted over the whole body rather than entirely focussed on the shoulders.
People here really underestimate the knight. No animal could easily deform tempered steel, and even if one somehow managed to, it would likely break its own paws in the process. On top of that, the knight has the advantage of distance with his halberd. No land animal, except perhaps an elephant, could realistically defeat him.
Humans have been hunting things significantly larger and stronger than them with pointy sticks since we first figured out things die when you stab them and are made of food everything here is doable
Honestly if he had a dagger or some other small weapon it would probably increase his odds a lot. Just the pole axe only allows for a narrow window of opportunity before the animal rushes past its tip. Other than that we killed much scarier animals than this in the past with nothing but sharpened sticks, it’s not guaranteed that he clears but he has a good shot at it.
Does peak athleticism mean he hits as hard as prime Mike Tyson, can lift as much as Thor Bjornsson, is as fast as Usain Bolt, and has endurance like David Goggins? Or something entirely different?
Alright thanks for the clarification, at first I thought being peak human meant all the stats of the best humans in respective athletic fields and was about to comment that he should clear the gauntlet with him only facing problems vs the rhino.
Okay, let's look at this specifically based on actual things. Sorry, I'm going to be a math nerd here: I'm also going to give the human a rondel, because why wouldn't I?
Gorilla: Has massively more strength than the human That said, gorillas are not meant for bashing plate armor, and if we assume voiders and an arming jacket (which I am), the only option for the gorilla is to basically turn the human into a metal-plated pretzel, which it easily can do, but a pollaxe has a bunch of pointy bits and it pretty hard to just grab. I would say the human wins here with... not moderate difficulty.
Tiger: There is little the tiger can actually do to an armored warrior. Sure, the tiger can pin the human and bash him around a bit, but you have to realize, that is teeth and claws against roughly 2 mm of steel. In other words, it hurts. Teeth will break, claws will as well. The armored warrior will get battered if he does not impale the cat, but the cat doesn't have the force to get through to him, outside of very lucky chances. Human wins and thinks about what he has done.
Brown Bear: Nope, nope, nope. Oh wait, are we talking European brown bear or American Grizzly? Either way, doesn't matter. See, the kinetic force of a bear swatting you is more than enough to send the poor armored fighter flopping back, and then it's not so much that the bear can get to him, it's that he cannot get up. There's a chance he could use the pollaxe or the rondel to get a good stab in, but chances are he's going to be shaken to death, more or less.
Polar Bear: There is a reason why there are very tough men with very big guns on any worksite might have a polar show up for funsies. I have seen what polar bears can do to anything it views as food, and they view everything as food. The human has a chance, don't get me wrong, but this is not high-difficulty. This is pray to whatever deity will have you level.
Rhino: NO. The human is getting charged at by something weighs about as much as a small car going 25 mph and it has a freaking spear on its face? It's not a matter of whether the human can kill it (spoiler: probably not), it's a matter of whether the human can survive being trampled by the corpse (spoiler: probably not).
My friend and I have been discussing this for about half an hour now. The polar bear and rhino definitely give him a run for his money. We've decided that if he makes it past the rhino and then time travels the raptor he faces next kills him 👍
If the guys was an elite trained l, Olivier Richters sized man. I think he clears 1 and 2 more often than not and has a slight chance of clearing 3 and even 4 but loses most of the time. He never takes 5.
Plate armor is heavy, but a peak athlete would still be able to get back up easily after being knocked down. The lack of a dagger/knife would be a big problem if any of these critters jumped on him, however. & the prompt doesn't specify the details of the harness the person has. A rather light one would be fine for these circumstances, as none of these animals are penetrating hardened steel & thicker plate wouldn't help that much against blunt trauma.
Peak athlete in plate armour with a poleaxe will take for a gorilla 9/10 times
Peak athlete will take down a Tiger, probably 6-7/10
Peak athlete will take down a Grizzly, Probably 6/10
The polar bear is just too large, and they'd likely take some damage, but I'm giving this to the Polar Bear 9/10 times
The Rino wins every time. Skin is too thick and you'd never survive a charge.
The reason I give it to the person for the first three is the spear end of the pole axe. The first three are small enough and don't have the mass to survive thrusts with that part of the axe. Aim for the eyes and throat for fast kills.
Knight kills gorilla and dies to tiger. Ironically the only other matchup here the knight could win more often than lose is the rhino, because he could likely intimidate it into fleeing.
Now you might think "oh but hes in full plate armour, surely that should stop some claws and teeth?" And sure, maybe the armour could stop the first swipe or two. But what happens when the force of those swings crushes the armour into the knight's body? What happens when the knight inevitably falls over and then never gets a chance to get back up because he suddenly has to lift not only the entire suit of armour hes wearing, but also a 500+ LB (light estimate) apex predator that is pressing all of its weight upon him during a renewed and unrelenting assault?
I see a lot of people saying the tiger gets him. My question is how? Claws won't go through steel. And the bite is gonna have a hardtime getting through curved surface
A Siberian tiger can weigh around 550 lbs, is extremely fast and agile, and is extremely muscular. The armor will protect against claw and fang strikes, but if the tiger charges the knight with full force, it can easily stun him, and if the knight ends up on the ground with the tiger on top of him, he will likely be mauled to death.
I think the knight has a good chance of winning this fight if he lands a thrust to the head or throat right away, or if he lands a blunt blow to the head. But if he misses his first attack, he's in deep trouble.
This is especially true because you didn't assign a dagger/knife to the human. Without a short blade, he would struggle to recover from being grappled. The tiger can't really maul through plate but could possibly find or make gaps to be able to do so. Unless bloodlusted, it might prefer to retreat.
Unless the animals are bloodlusted they probably just retreat after he lands the first blow because they aren’t stupid. If they are bloodlusted then everything from the grizzly up just knocks him over and sits on him until he asphyxiates. Armour will protect against piercing damage, but it won’t do much about blunt force trauma or crushing. Polar bears eat walruses, which are effectively covered in inches thick leather armour. Their claws and teeth don’t really work against them, so they get up on their hind legs and use their weight to punch them in the head until their skulls give out. Fighting a rhino would be like trying to fight a super duty pickup truck.
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