based on the well-known St Maurice from Magdeburg (mid-13th Century)...

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I'm making a leather "surcoat" reinforced with steel plates (1,5 mm) on the torso

I'm using solid brass rivets and home-made leather washers

pics coming asap :D

a view from the inside, just two plates attached for now (5 x 12 cm)

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as seen from the front side, the steel washer was necessary to avoid the rivet head cutting into the leather

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still work in progress but you can catch the overall thing

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Not to undermine your project at all, which is looking very nice by the way!

But I had thought that the plates overlapped? Perhaps not always?

thanks Matthew

no mining at all, comments and critics are welcome

at the best of my knowledge I have no access to original findings to look the inner side, so I guess it's a matter of speculation

since it's a very early stage of plates usage for armour I thought it would be (perhaps) more accurate a simple side by side assembly

overlapping plates implies they are capable of moving as an articulated piece of armour, this would be far too technological for the second half of 13 C.

this is only my opinion though ;)

Serarch for the book :
Armour from the Battle of Wisby 1361. Vol. I, Vol. II
There you will find a lot of C.O.P.'s with detailed description and images.

Hi,
Wisby plates are known to me but there about 100 years in the middle

It is very rare for these types of armours to not have overlapping plates. The protective capacity drops considerably if they don't overlap. The sleeping guard is one of the few examples that appear to show non-overlapping plates but there are plenty of reasons why this may not have been the case in reality.

I can assume that protective capability drops particularly against thrusts since an acute point could find its way into the cloth /leather gaps between metal plates

I am no expert in 15th C. but brigandines aren't made of many small not overlapping plates, are they?

update... only four plates missing on 2nd and 3rd row; I left a little room for side stitchings for which I was drilling holes in advance

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If the plates overlap they also transfer the force from a blow over multiple plates.
withs give a lower impact to the wearer or at least a bigger transfer area.

A long time ago, I constructed a CoP based on that sleeping guard statuette, almost exactly like the one the threadposter is making now, only using linen instead of leather (and leaving off the long flaps); when worn the non-overlapping plates still rest against each other, and part of the force of a blow is transferred around the body of the wearer. At least, that is my experience (when worn over a gambeson and maille)

Doesn't tell us anything without a comparative analysis. How much better would it have performed if the plates overlapped?

ive heard the 'sleeping guard' 'COP' as being described in one book of mine as a reinforced surcoat and one could say that its an exmple of the step BEFORE the full blown coat of plates just as a way of adding something solid to go in front of the rest of the armour

remember that russian kolontars and japanese tatami dou consisted of non overlapping plates within a maile matrix instead id imagine this reinforced surcoat would go over the mail hauberk.