Matthew Amt wrote: | ||
Huh, I don't think I've ever seen a published weight for an original helmet (early medieval and earlier) that was more than 4 pounds, in fact the vast majority were 2 to 3 pounds, even well-preserved ones with little corrosion. You know what I say? I say, Screw blunt trauma! We go over this same thing when arguing about mail, and everyone is all worked up over blunt trauma. Sure, if Babe Ruth walks up and you put your head over home plate, he's gonna knock it out of the park. That's called "losing". But such an event was uncommon, at best. The men who went to battle really don't seem to have considered that to be the most likely possibility, at least. They seemed to be more worried about getting slapped or prodded by something sharp. We'd probably consider most battle blows to be pretty wimpy, but you really don't need much force to lay flesh wide open with an edged weapon. They knew that while a weapon *could* be made to penetrate their armor, or squash them to jelly inside it, most likely an opponent was simply not going to bother hitting them in the hard crunchy parts, but go for something softer. Armor limits an attacker's options, forces him to strike at fewer/smaller/faster-moving targets, or forces him to put a LOT more effort (at more risk to himself) into an attempt to damage his target *through* the armor. Will any of that work? Well, it might! IF he's heroic, lucky, strong, and have really good aim. It's a battlefield, and no armor is perfect, so anything could happen! But all the talk about scientifically perfect padding, suspension, compression, and contact with your helmet makes it sound like getting hit while wearing an iron hat is worse than nothing at all. I've even heard a reenactor say that the typical nasal helmet or spangenhelm had a bad disadvantage because it would not keep your *neck* from being broken by a strong blow from a 2-handed axe! Um, was that really a high-priority consideration? Would I be better off without the helmet? No, of course not! A helmet which many of us would consider way too thin and poorly padded was vastly better than no helmet at all. Could you set it on a stump and crunch it with an axe? Yup. You gonna wear it in battle anyway? Yup. Valete, Matthew |
well thats how much my helmet weighs *shrugs* take it or leave it, i have no idea how much the historical originals weighed but min weighs 3.5kg
tht said i forgot to mention the 2000 ring aventail that goes along with it each ring is 8mm ID 1.4-6mm wire i forget precisely which one since it was made for me to order but its about 2000 rings and i suspect it adds nearly a kilo to the weight of the helmet.
and yeah noone argues that armour significantly increases your lifespan
in fact this entre thread is based around the premiseof discussing in exastive detail PRECISELY how unlikely it is to actually damage armour and helmets using cuts and chops as shown in the macejowski bible.
when faced with a maile hauberked man, you have three choices, ry and go for the exposed points..
get a a nice rigid pointedspear and try and run him tough and hope it works or
3. ditch both sword and spear, grab a mace 2 handed axe and proceed to reduce the man inside to a small twitching lump of meat
for maile, the trauma effects arnt always negligable. yes it stops you from having your stomach slit open.. but your still at ish of your arm getting broken if your hit by a particularly heavy blow. maile will not stop yor arm getting broken or your collarbone being shattered by a hit by an axe or a mace, especially in viking times when general consensus is that there is not much evidence for padded underarmour garments like jacks or gambesons during that period.
maile is a flexible defense
heres a good example, now most of us will know of the byzantine cataphracts these men are know for being armoured almost as well as a plate harness, the exact makeup of their armour is debated but oft includs a knee length hauberkpadded inside and out by gambesons/ quilted jacks, with maile covering the entirity of their faces except the eyes
these guys were VERY hard to kill and were mounted on armoured horsesfor good measure, but i was told of precisely what happens when yo become too difficult to kill by a simple stab to the belly.
one unfortunate cataphract, in a battle with the franks (i forget which) was simply dragged off his horse and subsequently beaten to death with the butts of the frankish lances when their attempts to stab him with their lances didnt work.
and no sane peperson would say no helmet is better than a simple nasal'd spangen their point is that compared to the plethora of helmet design we have come up with the conical spangen especially without aventail is a fair disadvantage and has more weaknesses. and one would indeed be at much greater risk of having their head removed from their shoulders via daneaxe wearing a naselled spangen even with a mail aventail or coif
get hit in the knexk with a bascinet , a barbute or a close helm, and then get hit i the neck wihile wearing an aventailled spangen guess which ones going to break your neck more likely.
Till J
you seem to forget there is another possible effect of being smacked , wearing mail or not. that risk is of broken bones. and no its not a trivial concern i mean also if yur whacked with a harder blow than usual on the head, the hit might daze or concuss you instead of simply caving in your skull,which IS a major mprovement, that im not disputing
the tv show conqest is famous for getting things horribly wrong but they illustrated a very clear point when they attacked the shirt of (butted) mail hanging on a T frame if someone slams you, mail or not, on theshoulder with a mace or axe, your shoulder will be at a decent risk of being broken
te point of these discussions is based on theidea that 'o we know all these armrs protect you... bt which does it BETTER. and where can it not protect you, for example a greek spolas has no armpit protection, a hauberk does.
comparing a hauberk to aplate harness, what happenes to each if you lay at them with a mace to the sternem, maile. = possible cracked strnum, plate.. very low chance of broken sternum.
as you pointout a low quality helm is slightly better than no armor at all.
saying thatlower quality armour is worsethanno armour is like saying a not so good steel capped boot is wore than no steel cap because a heavy fall will causethe steel cap to slce your toes off.
though conversely one piece of advice given to me abot my slapped together attempt at recreating a splinted vambrace using piecesof what was pretty much sheet metal strips, was that the 'splints, didnt ACTUALLY give any protection fr my wrist because thy were too thin i.e they bent to easily. bt they gave me the thinking they WOULD. i.e a false positive
that said this is reenacting where all weapons are blunted so getting slashes isnt an issue but bruises and broken bones are still a problem. which is in itself a not invalid observation even without sharp edges, without protection your still in danger it proves that even a blunt sword is going to still cave in or damage a unprotected skull.
over relying on your armour is almost as foolhardy as not wearing any, its like wearing butted maile to a battlefield and expecting it to stand up to arrows. or sword thrusts.
at least if your not earing that butted maile you know whereyou stand , you know that all you have to rely on is yourself, which would make you more cautious. but less likely to survive a stroke of bad luck.
i say ALMOST because even butted mail will at least stop you from dying from slashes and possily the thrusts of a type X sword. (i sincerely doubt that a viking sword tip would be able to trust through butted maile even.its just too wrongly shaped)
the roman empire alone stands as being one of the few civilizations in history that had a standing army and to have almost their entire army kitted out in metal armour of one form or another. as a testiment to the romans quite immense reserves of money resources and manpower (ill admit thats alittle unfair since by the time anyone after the romans were richand advanced enough to equip large masses of people in armour i.e enlightenment period, the use of armour began to declinedue to the increased incidence of firearms)
very few people had such access to standardised armour and protection than the romans did.