myArmoury.com - Testing Armour

Posts: 80 Location: St. Cloud, MN

Tue 22 Feb, 2005 12:12 pm

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Has anyone tried to make and test the best mail that is possible to make today? What were the results?

Jesse,

Nobody has yet performed the test you describe. Some have come close, but still fell short by a good margin. ARS is currently in the process of putting together just such a test, but as I stated earlier, the results will not be publishable for quite a while yet for the reasons stated earlier.

You have to understand that there was a good deal of variety to mail. I mean here you have an armour that for all intents and purposes was manufactured and used for roughly two and a half thousand years straight. In addition to that it was used by many different cultures. With such a large number of variables involved it will take time to sort through them so that an accurate test can be designed.

Now, as for your reference of spring temper, there have been samples of mail that were hardened and tempered, but they represent a very small percentage of the mail that was in use. There is also good reason to believe that shirts composed of this type of link, were used under civilian clothing to protect the wearer from asassination.

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Elling Polden

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Posts: 1,576 Location: Bergen, Norway

Fri 25 Feb, 2005 8:07 am

I posted this some time ago, on a different thread, but it for those that didnt get a look at it then, I'll repost it..

http://www.sivilarbeider.no/kh1308/testkutt2.htm

The sword is a sharpened Lutel, the gambeson 30 layers of linen canvas. Unfortunately, the pictures of the test cut vs the unarmored ham has been lost in the mists of time... The result is a clean cut through the entire ham...
There where also a cople of aditional test cuts towards the armour, where less than perfect cuts failed to penetrate at all...

Yours
Elling

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Jason Daub

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Posts: 162 Location: Peace River, Alberta

Fri 25 Feb, 2005 9:19 pm

Regarding the earlier mention of plate armour, I don't have anything at hand as to it's effectiveness against arrows, however, in Weapons & Warfare in Renaissance Europe by Bert Hall he mentions tests conducted in Austria in the late 80's on 16th to 18th pistols and muskets. One of the test targets was a breastplate made in Augsburg ca. 1570 that was mounted on a sandbag with two layers of linen meant to simulate clothing. According to the test the 9.54g ball was moving at 436m/sec when it hit the armour. The ball penetrated the plate but not the linen and did not cause any spalling. I hope this is, at the least, interesting.

- Jason

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Gordon Frye

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Posts: 1,191 Location: Kingston, Washington

Fri 25 Feb, 2005 10:46 pm

Jason Daub wrote:

Regarding the earlier mention of plate armour, I don't have anything at hand as to it's effectiveness against arrows, however, in Weapons & Warfare in Renaissance Europe by Bert Hall he mentions tests conducted in Austria in the late 80's on 16th to 18th pistols and muskets. One of the test targets was a breastplate made in Augsburg ca. 1570 that was mounted on a sandbag with two layers of linen meant to simulate clothing. According to the test the 9.54g ball was moving at 436m/sec when it hit the armour. The ball penetrated the plate but not the linen and did not cause any spalling. I hope this is, at the least, interesting.

- Jason

Jason, this test, to my mind, has GOT to be one of the coolest tests ever done! Jeeze, shooting original armour with original guns, how cool can you get? Not a whole lot of room for argument (other than over powder, but the foot-pounds per grain/joules per gram hasn't changed ALL that much in the past 400 years of black powder manufacture). Lots of good 1st person accounts of penetration of armour by firearms from 16th Century authors is noted by Hall as well. I count Hall's book as one of the best in this subject in a generation at the least.

Cheers,

Gordon

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Dan Howard

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

Sat 26 Feb, 2005 1:47 pm

Gordon Frye wrote:

Jason, this test, to my mind, has GOT to be one of the coolest tests ever done! Jeeze, shooting original armour with original guns, how cool can you get? Not a whole lot of room for argument (other than over powder..)

What about the fact that the armour has had half a millenia to deteriorate? For a decent test the amrour has to be made today using period materials and techniques.

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Gordon Frye

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Posts: 1,191 Location: Kingston, Washington

Sat 26 Feb, 2005 2:10 pm

Dan Howard wrote:

Gordon Frye wrote:

Jason, this test, to my mind, has GOT to be one of the coolest tests ever done! Jeeze, shooting original armour with original guns, how cool can you get? Not a whole lot of room for argument (other than over powder..)

What about the fact that the armour has had half a millenia to deteriorate? For a decent test the amrour has to be made today using period materials and techniques.

Dan;

Do you think that the chemical structure of the steel is going to have deteriorated sufficiently to invalidate the test though? If the breastplate were a rusty one, stored in a damp environment and was subjected to serious oxidation, then probably so. Or if it were significantly polished over the years, removing any surface hardening that it might have had, again, probably so. Unfortunately I don't have the actual reports to read, in which they describe the plate in detail though, so I can't say. I am, however, fairly confident that the Austrian Museum Authorities were rather thorough in their criteria for what would constitute a valid test.

What I think is significant is that it validates a great deal of what was said in the period (late 16th Century) by such authors as Francios de la Noue, the Sieur de Tavannes, Sully, etc. about armour's effectiveness. They stated that it was fully effective against the older arms, especially the Lance, but that at close range (and by close, they meant VERY close, under 10 feet) range the pistol was an effective, and in many cases the only, killer of men wearing armour.

Now, you probably are correct that a more valid test would be to take iron ore from the Innsbruck area, have a competent armourer forge it and form it into a breastplate of period proportions, and THEN blow holes in it, but I suspect that it was more cost effective to just punch holes in an original, unfortunately. But doing such a test WOULD be very interesting, and VERY cool to do! No questions there!

In any event, this is still among the coolest of tests of period arms vs. period armour that's been done, to my knowledge.

Gordon

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Dan Howard

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

Sat 26 Feb, 2005 2:26 pm

I'm just trying to bang into people's heads that unless the test is done using parameters described by Erik, there will always been enough problems with the results to invalidate them.

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Gordon Frye

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Posts: 1,191 Location: Kingston, Washington

Sat 26 Feb, 2005 2:40 pm

Dan Howard wrote:

I'm just trying to bang into people's heads that unless the test is done using parameters described by Erik, there will always been enough problems with the results to invalidate them.

Dan;

I certainly agree with you that to be at all valid, tests need to be conducted under strict guidelines, which is why I am rather partial to the Austrian's tests, at least in this case. Although they may not have answered some of the things that would be nice to know, they DID conduct the tests under very well-defined conditions and criteria. As such it is valuable to the researcher to know what, under these conditions at least, does what, and doesn't do something else. Not exactly battlefield replications, but at least replicatable in the laboratory.

BTW, I DO laud what you fellows are doing with this, with the Arnour Research Society. Bully for you, and I look forward to the publication of papers!

Gordon

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Jean Thibodeau

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Posts: 8,310 Location: Montreal,Quebec,Canada

Sat 26 Feb, 2005 2:54 pm

The closer to what was used at the time in the same condition as when new using strict guide lines is obviously the best and most valid.

But even less rigourus test should at least tell you something usefull: Like the most you could expect as possible protection by armour against various weapons or projectiles and maybe the least you could expect.

Like using a breast plate or breast plates of iron, mild steel, surface hardened steel, fully hardened spring steel and then using an arrow shot at each of these at ever increasing velocities matching and then wildly exceeding the velocity normally reached by arrows. Same tests with various velocities of musket balls etc..... Same tests with swords, Pollaxe, lance.

Now, realistically this might be very expensive to do and not practicle without some serious money.

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Benjamin McCracken

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Posts: 83

Sat 26 Feb, 2005 7:34 pm

Wouldn't it be nice if there was some grant money set aside for just this type of experimentation. Perhaps the history channel... Just dreaming out loud. :blush:

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Erik D. Schmid

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Posts: 80 Location: St. Cloud, MN

Sun 27 Feb, 2005 7:15 am

The problem with television companies designating funds for this type of thing Benjamin, is the fact that they work under a very strict schedule. The time constraints are ridiculous. However, they are not in it for the research, but instead to get something on film that they can edit to appease an audience. This is why people like Alan Williams are behind ARS in a big way. He has been screwed by these TV types too many times. They promised they would fund the research, but instead they cut corners and the research suffered. I have dealt with this same thing.

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Gordon Frye

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Posts: 1,191 Location: Kingston, Washington

Sun 27 Feb, 2005 6:48 pm

Erik D. Schmid wrote:

The problem with television companies designating funds for this type of thing Benjamin, is the fact that they work under a very strict schedule. The time constraints are ridiculous. However, they are not in it for the research, but instead to get something on film that they can edit to appease an audience. This is why people like Alan Williams are behind ARS in a big way. He has been screwed by these TV types too many times. They promised they would fund the research, but instead they cut corners and the research suffered. I have dealt with this same thing.

No kidding, anything of this sort, be it film or video, is a money making business and time is money. Now, if you cozy up to some nice Ivory Tower and manage to somehow squeeze some funds from them for research, THAT is a workable deal. Of course they tend to expect published papers and the like, but hey, they need return too.

A nice private foundation, like you fellows with ARS are putting together , is even better.

Cheers,

Gordon

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