Posts: 1,525 Location: Sydney, Australia
Wed 06 Jul, 2011 7:54 am
of course with the varangian guard themselves, though they arnt at all representative of the viking world at large due both to the status, and numbers of the men who served, it stands to reason (if not current evidence) that the norse, being in the service of the emporer, who indeed used gambeson like garmens, apparently they possessed two types, the epilorikion, bambakion and esolorikon the former being described as being paddingused to cover on top of whatever metallic armour they would have worn. and the latter two refer to under armour padding,
for example, the vestiaritai swordsmen of the byzantine armies are described, as having a bambakion (which is a 3/4 inch or more thick cotten cloth padded gambeson a lorikion of scaleor
chain maille. then a epilorikion noted as being a quilted cloth armour gambeson on top, to help stop blunt force trauma.
as for the test of police vests having little to offr, i disagree, mainly since, kevlar armour , testing against stabbing weapons would be extremely similar to testing against a quilted gambeson, primarily because a spike or a blade can pass through and pushthe fibres aside, you can really do that with
maille.
and also, kevlar exists almost exclusively to stop bullets, because the material is elastic enough to stop high velocity blunt trauma, which is essentially what a bullet impact is. unless you count FMJ and armour piercing steel rounds which are often sharp to the touch
though id agree that the particulars of the test are irrelevent, since we had neither firearm bullets (we had slings though) nor kevlar.
but it does prove that flexible woven (of either metal or cloth) armour which is not in itself broken, can cause blunt trauma wouns if not backed up with something to absorb blunt force trauma that results from the material giving under stress.
these guys seem to have shown this pretty substantially.
http://www.youtube.com/user/ThegnThrand#p/u/30/Q74SOH9Bgp4 seeing what happens when you attack a maile shirt with a katana. cut and thrust, note the thrust impacts in particular.
they also test against piece of home made lamellar based on the japanese style. attacking it with a viking type X sort of sword, it doesnt turn out well for the lamellar. might be of interest to you dan. though its not a ACTUAL piece