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Maggot · 10-24-2007, 04:59 AM

What I've seen in this thread is that there is a whole lot of bad Victorian history being presented, regarding on the nature of armour. The average suit of plate armour worn on the battlefield weighed about 50 pounds. There were heavier suits of armour made, but they were generally only for jousting or some high noble's parade armour or if they felt like a complete pansy and didn't want to fight.

When I say 50 pounds, it's not 50 pounds in a box, held in your outstretched hands. It's 50 pounds very lightly distributed across the body. Please do not get your historic research from some RP gaming manual. If armour restricted a knight's fighting ability they wouldn't have worn it. Period. Guys have worn these suits and done gymnastics in them. By the 1400's quenched steel armour plates were a remarkable thing.

When you fired an arrow at them, they were generally angled, like today's tank plates, so not only are there more deflections, but the armour at an angle is thicker. A lot of people showing off the longbow always have a 90 degree angle of plate to shoot at, which is completely inaccurate. Where it's commonly said that the archer defeated the French knights at Agincourt, it wasn't with the arrows. Mostly they just pissed them off. The French at Agincourt advanced down a funnel terrain without adjusting their ranks and the archers jumped them from the flanks and clobbered them with maces and stuck them with daggers, at a high cost.

The idea of the medieval warhorse as a big plow monster, heavily encumbered and barely able to move, with a crane needed to get the rider on, is more bad history, passed down to us by the Victorians. They weren't as big as the horses that were bred for slow plow work. They would have compared better to the big horses in todays showjumping rings and what armour they wore was very lightly distributed on their bodies. They would sweat more, but that's about it. These horses were built for speed and power in the charge, as well as the pursuit and maneuver. They weren't plow horses. The Knight fought in battle with a lance or cut down to a spear. The sword was symbolic, but mostly you used it when you broke your poky stick.

The Samurai really never hit their full bloom until the 16th century, a full century after the knights hit theirs. Musashi wasn't dicing things up till the beginning of the 17th Century, by which time their warfighting style was so behind the Europeans that it wasn't even funny. Cool martial arts and anime films aside they were two completely different warriors from two completely different realities. European knights trained for years in a fighting style and weren't just a punch of drunken thugs. Japan wouldn't have had the spare metal to create the European knight. The Samurai in battle was more of a mounted archer, but their bows wouldn't have done that much to a decent set of plate armour. The Naginata (Japanese glaive) was also very much used and would have been pretty useless against the armour of a knight. The Samurai used small metal plates, if they were lucky, covered in bigger patches of boiled leather for armour. Boiled leather armour, besides being rations on bad logistics days, is very good at blocking a slashing attack but has a cut through buttery feel when facing a thrust attack. So for Japanese warriors, boiled leather rocked, because they never had to fight Europeans in them.

10-24-2007, 04:59 AM	#293 (permalink)
Maggot Regular Join Date: 10-20-07 Location: British Columbia Posts: 109 Country:	What I've seen in this thread is that there is a whole lot of bad Victorian history being presented, regarding on the nature of armour. The average suit of plate armour worn on the battlefield weighed about 50 pounds. There were heavier suits of armour made, but they were generally only for jousting or some high noble's parade armour or if they felt like a complete pansy and didn't want to fight. When I say 50 pounds, it's not 50 pounds in a box, held in your outstretched hands. It's 50 pounds very lightly distributed across the body. Please do not get your historic research from some RP gaming manual. If armour restricted a knight's fighting ability they wouldn't have worn it. Period. Guys have worn these suits and done gymnastics in them. By the 1400's quenched steel armour plates were a remarkable thing. When you fired an arrow at them, they were generally angled, like today's tank plates, so not only are there more deflections, but the armour at an angle is thicker. A lot of people showing off the longbow always have a 90 degree angle of plate to shoot at, which is completely inaccurate. Where it's commonly said that the archer defeated the French knights at Agincourt, it wasn't with the arrows. Mostly they just pissed them off. The French at Agincourt advanced down a funnel terrain without adjusting their ranks and the archers jumped them from the flanks and clobbered them with maces and stuck them with daggers, at a high cost. The idea of the medieval warhorse as a big plow monster, heavily encumbered and barely able to move, with a crane needed to get the rider on, is more bad history, passed down to us by the Victorians. They weren't as big as the horses that were bred for slow plow work. They would have compared better to the big horses in todays showjumping rings and what armour they wore was very lightly distributed on their bodies. They would sweat more, but that's about it. These horses were built for speed and power in the charge, as well as the pursuit and maneuver. They weren't plow horses. The Knight fought in battle with a lance or cut down to a spear. The sword was symbolic, but mostly you used it when you broke your poky stick. The Samurai really never hit their full bloom until the 16th century, a full century after the knights hit theirs. Musashi wasn't dicing things up till the beginning of the 17th Century, by which time their warfighting style was so behind the Europeans that it wasn't even funny. Cool martial arts and anime films aside they were two completely different warriors from two completely different realities. European knights trained for years in a fighting style and weren't just a punch of drunken thugs. Japan wouldn't have had the spare metal to create the European knight. The Samurai in battle was more of a mounted archer, but their bows wouldn't have done that much to a decent set of plate armour. The Naginata (Japanese glaive) was also very much used and would have been pretty useless against the armour of a knight. The Samurai used small metal plates, if they were lucky, covered in bigger patches of boiled leather for armour. Boiled leather armour, besides being rations on bad logistics days, is very good at blocking a slashing attack but has a cut through buttery feel when facing a thrust attack. So for Japanese warriors, boiled leather rocked, because they never had to fight Europeans in them. __________________ Work is the curse of the drinking class. Last edited by Maggot : 10-24-2007 at 05:08 AM.