title: Panzer Tactics: German Small-Unit Armor Tactics in World War II
author:  Wolfgang Schneider 
description: Wolfgang Schneider, an expert on German armor, lives in Germany.
zlib_text: [Back](0743435230___6.htm) | [Next](0743435230___8.htm)  
  [Contents](0743435230_toc.htm)
  
  # Chapter 7
  
  Steel. Heavy steel. Angular and Gothic. The spike-shouldered breastplate had
  curlicues and inlays on the points, for heaven's sake. Not for the first time,
  Erik Hakkonsen stared in irritation at the heavy plate armor, as he stood
  sharpening the blade of his Algonquian war hatchet. He was waiting, not with
  any eagerness, for his squire-orderly to help him into it. He'd drawn the
  guard-stint for this State banquet. He looked balefully at the closed-pot
  helmet he'd be sweating in one hour from now. No good German _Ritter_ would
  consider wearing anything else but full armor.
  
  Only . . . Erik was not a German _Ritter_. An Icelander wasn't as stupid and
  hidebound as these continentals. Any Icelander, much less one who had
  skirmished on the Vinland frontiers, would turn up his nose at elaborate plate
  armor. A crossbow bolt would punch through it and a ball from an arquebus or a
  good pistol w