myArmoury.com - How effective was a 16~17 century musket against armour?

Posts: 3,641 Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia

Tue 03 Apr, 2018 4:13 pm

Benjamin H. Abbott wrote:

Ralph Grinly wrote:

Modern test just prove that it is POSSIBLE to penetrate armour with firearms - not that it regularly was during the battles of the day.

Modern test aren't clear on the matter. It's the period sources - Smythe, Barwick, Williams, etc. - that unambiguously say that muskets could pierce any wearable armor.

It depends on the armour. Hussar breastplates were up to 9mm thick. We have at least three separate eyewitness accounts of these breastplates protecting the wearer from cannon shot.

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Henry O.

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Posts: 189

Tue 03 Apr, 2018 6:38 pm

Dan Howard wrote:

Benjamin H. Abbott wrote:

Ralph Grinly wrote:

Modern test just prove that it is POSSIBLE to penetrate armour with firearms - not that it regularly was during the battles of the day.

Modern test aren't clear on the matter. It's the period sources - Smythe, Barwick, Williams, etc. - that unambiguously say that muskets could pierce any wearable armor.

It depends on the armour. Hussar breastplates were up to 9mm thick. We have at least three separate eyewitness accounts of these breastplates protecting the wearer from cannon shot.

Unless it was a glancing blow I'd still be a bit skeptical about that.

Anyways in theory yeah if you stripped away everything else you could make an extremely thick breastplate that is still quite a bit lighter than most full medieval harnesses, but the "common knowledge" at the time was that armor in general was unreliable against guns and that any armor thick enough to be "musket proof" would be too heavy to be practical. You can find authors who think more highly of armor or at least reccomend that soldiers continue wearing lighter armor for protection against ricochets and melee weapons, (if anything most military thinkers continue to reccomend far more armor than was actually worn for everyone except musketeers). But even they tend to make it clear that their opinion is in the minority and complain that most soldiers flat out refuse to wear any armor due to the belief that it is too heavy and won't actually protect them.

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Dan Howard

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Posts: 3,641 Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia

Wed 04 Apr, 2018 1:41 am

Henry O. wrote:

Dan Howard wrote:

It depends on the armour. Hussar breastplates were up to 9mm thick. We have at least three separate eyewitness accounts of these breastplates protecting the wearer from cannon shot.

Unless it was a glancing blow I'd still be a bit skeptical about that.

There is a difference between being skeptical and being in denial. We have at last three separate incidents observed by unrelated eyewitnesses saying that it happened. It is more than enough evidence.

This has been discussed over and over again. Here is one thread:
http://myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=25576

The only reason to create a new thread on this subject is if there is some new data to examine.

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Henry O.

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Posts: 189

Wed 04 Apr, 2018 1:46 pm

Dan Howard wrote:

There is a difference between being skeptical and being in denial. We have at last three separate incidents observed by unrelated eyewitnesses saying that it happened. It is more than enough evidence.

This has been discussed over and over again. Here is one thread:
http://myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=25576

The only reason to create a new thread on this subject is if there is some new data to examine.

Thanks!

Dan Howard wrote:

Hussar plate resisting cannon shot:

Siege of Smolensk (1609-1611). Jan Wejher was hit by a cannon ball shot by a Russian on the rampart (it did not bounce first). He was saved by his cuirass, which was damaged but not penetrated. Wejher barely survived; when he recovered he donated his armour to the Carmelite Monastery in Loretto.

Aleksander Gosiewski from the unit of voivode of Smolensk was was hit by a cannon ball in 1633. The armour was dented but not penetrated. Unfortunately it skidded off the surface and continued through his arm, leaving it severely mangled.

During a battle between Liubar and Chudniv (1660) a hussar named Prusinowski, under field hetman Jerzy Lubomirski had his breastplate crushed by a cannon ball, denting but not penetrating it. There are three separate accounts saying that he was wounded but survived. One eyewitness (colonel Samuel Leszczyński) wrote that the dent was so large that he could put his hand in it.

I seem to recall some similar english accounts from the Elizabethan period, I'll have to try and find them again

What I meant though was that when trying to make assumptions about cannons you run into a lot of the same problems as with small arms. They come in a wide variety of different calibers, their velocity can vary drastically depending on the quality of the powder and how it was loaded, and a dent on armor doesn't necessarily imply a direct hit. Adding to this the fact that a larger projectile has a much larger cross section and needs far more energy to pass through a metal plate in the first place I don't think you can really jump to the conclusion that examples of armor resisting cannonballs proves that same armor would be impervious to a full powered musket fired with the barrel nearly touching the breastplate.

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Graham Shearlaw

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Posts: 153

Mon 09 Apr, 2018 1:23 pm

With muskets there's a real difference in the power of each shot, in the heat of battle just ramming down charges will not be the same twice.

Thickness is poor measure of how good an Armour is, a tempered multi layer armor breastplate can be much better but thiner then a thick heavy Armour.

By the 16 and 17th-century duplex and triplex armour is really coming in to use.
Read about it in Arms &Armour, Vol. 2, No.1, 2005, Duplex armour: an unrecognised mode
of construction link below
http://www.mediafire.com/file/t7uzrvb8x8ykdsx...uction.pdf

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Philip Dyer

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Posts: 507

Wed 11 Apr, 2018 8:58 am

Graham Shearlaw wrote:

With muskets there's a real difference in the power of each shot, in the heat of battle just ramming down charges will not be the same twice.

Thickness is poor measure of how good an Armour is, a tempered multi layer armor breastplate can be much better but thiner then a thick heavy Armour.

By the 16 and 17th-century duplex and triplex armour is really coming in to use.
Read about it in Arms &Armour, Vol. 2, No.1, 2005, Duplex armour: an unrecognised mode
of construction link below
http://www.mediafire.com/file/t7uzrvb8x8ykdsx...uction.pdf

Yeah, but it would seem like to be good measure for common breastplates because I would imagine fitting three found tempered breastplates together or making three tempered breastplates would allot more difficult that hammering a very thick, softer piece of metal. http://c7.alamy.com/comp/EW9W9T/old-engraved-...EW9W9T.jpg Also, this makes me think that these types of cannons were optimized for shooting down Heavily armored men and horses. Longer barrel for higher velocity, accuracy, small diameter ball for higher pressure and it is wheeled so the length and weight isn't limited to what a man can carry.

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