I have been wondering for a while now if breastplates made of a single piece of steel has any advantage over those made with two or more. I know breastplates were made with two pieces throughout the 1400's and then they just switched to a single-piece style near the end. Theoretically a single-piece breastplate would be stronger as there are no weakpoints. I would just like to know for myself as I can't seem to find the information myself.

Greg, you've kind of answered the question your self. They made them from multiple plates at first and then switched to and stayed with after, one piece construction. There would a pretty short list of reasons for making this transition 1) its easier to build, or 2) one piece construction provides a better defense. Making a breast plate out of multiple plates is quite a bit easier than hammering it out of a single sheet of steel/iron so thats not the answer leaving better protection as the answer which you'd pretty much concluded yourself.

Through the first 2/3 or so of the 14th century there was much expirementation in how to simply cover the body in plates and the intitial answer was using a number of plates often attached to a leather backing ( the plates were not attached to each other moving on a shared rivet but rather attached to the leather backing which allowed each plate to move) solving the problem of covering alot of the body. These sorts of plate defense while offering an improved level of protection could be improved on further by making the coverage of fewer plates and attaching them to each other rather than a leather or fabric backing ( these were more "flexible" due to thier soft base material and the larger number of plates required to make them. While flexibility is desireable its drawback is that it tends to allow more force transmition from blows that a fewer number of larger plates and expirimentation developed how to mantain desireable "movement"flexibility while creating a more ridgid defense to better block "force transmition" ) as demostrated by the progression through the 14th century to complete plate harness's made from elements articulating on shared rivets rather than the previous riveting to soft leather/fabric backing material.

There are 17th Century breastplates, normally for Horse, where the breast plate consist of 2 pieces of plate forged together. From what I've read this normally uses older breastplates. The intent was to increase the protection from shot to the body. It was done For Horse because the rider wasn't walking anywhere!

I would personally prefer a two-piece breastplate, held together with one rivet - opposed to a single piece breastplate.

The two-piece breastplate, if made correctly, offers a higher grade of maneuverability - with the same lavel of protection as a single piece breastplate.

To my knowledge the two-piece (sometimes even three-piece) breastplate was the prefered option in the mid-to-late 15. c. - while most of the single piece ones were what we would consider as "cheap" mass produced ammunition grade breastplates. Of course this is not to be considered a rule - qute a few of the late 15. c. milanese armours had single piece breastplates and quite a few two-piece breastplates were mass produced in the amouries of southern Germany and northern Italy.

Unfortunally many modern day armourers has misunderstood the concept with the one rivet holding together the two-piece breastplates; most of the two-piece breastplates on the market today is held together with more than one rivet - thus loosing the advantage of maneuverability.


/Jakob

Hello all!

I have a question that I've wondered about for a while now: how far do the breastplate and plackart overlap in a 15th century harness? I would imagine if they overlap for a considerable degree, then the "two-piece" breastplate might have a slight advantage due to having more than one layer of metal. A deep wound to the abdomen would invariably be fatal due to rupture of the body cavity and subsequent infection, even if the warrior survived the wound itself. Doubled-steel over this vulnerable area might be a good idea. Of course, I don't know if the plates overlapped that far.

So, how far did they overlap?

Thanks for any information regarding this question!

Happy New Year!

My first Post, but this should help.

The plates did overlap a certain degree, and usually at places where blows were more likely to fall. However, the metal was spread when being beaten so it was thicker over those areas anyway. I would imagine there wasn't much difference therefore, except in weight and manouverability.

I prefer multiple plates. It looks cooler link

see?

Might be nice with an illustration, its not that often you see pics of the parts separated. In swedish armour-termonology a 15th cen two-peice breast plate is actually called "crayfish" or "Kräfta".
You can see how far they overlap messuring from the rivet-hole.

Beautiful breastplate, by the worlds friendliest armourer Stanislav Prosek..;/

[ Linked Image ]

Hello all!

W. Stilleborn wrote:

Might be nice with an illustration, its not that often you see pics of the parts separated.

Yes, the illustration was very helpful. Thanks!
By the way, could you post one of the breastplate and plackart together, for comparison? If you could, it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks again!
Nice piece!

I'm going to say that two-piece breastplates are superior to one-piece models, at least if the two-piece one is a mid-to-late-fifteenth century Italian breastplate.

The c.1450 'Avant' harness in Glasgow is 3-4mm thick through the center of both plates, which is far, far thicker than any of the measurements for contemporary one-piece breastplates I've ever seen.

Hello again!

Nathan,
Thanks for the photo! Great stuff!
Having both posted really helps me to visualize the overlap. It seems it overlap more in the chest area than the abdomen, but it still gives doubled protection over at least a part of the torso.
Thanks again!
Stay safe!

Thanks for filling in Nathan..;)

Josh,

The avant 3-4mm is only at certain spots. its drops to around 1m in other places.




I think it perhaps is in part that later one pieces get fairly simple. the 17th century ones are very straight and use simple curves for much of it. They also tend to be fairly thick 2mm upwards. I have seen 7-9mm thick one piece breastplates. It would seem easier to make multipiece breastplates in the same manner but aside from anime's do not know of this being done. I really think it is not just what is better as each case is different. doubling the thickness makes it stronger but what if a one piece is thicker? What if the two pieces are riveted on so it does not give any more or less flexibility.

It is an interesting conversation but it would rely on much more being done looking at individual pieces and seeing if there are noted patterns and trends between thickness (both alone and overlapping), perhaps material used and other thngs..

RPM

Try beating out a breast plate by hand.....From chatting to a friend who's tried it you have to start with thicker material than you think to get the thickness you're aiming for! He tried a breast plate with16 gauge plate and ended up with a central ridge at 16 gauge and outer areas at 18 gauge and thinner.

Josh,

Sorry about that. I just did not think it was clear. A 3-4 mm breastplate uniform thickness would be totally unique. I agree that in its time they were the top of the line as far as I can tell.

RPM

No worries, Randall. I wasn't trying to sound defensive, FWIW. Sorry if it came across that way...