[Richard Fay]

Hello all!

[Torsten F.H. Wilke]

Well thank you, Richard! For everyones info, higher elongations are equivalent to better toughness, in general. Low ones infer brittleness, but I don't recall the numerical ranges in practice. The 44 tons/sq.in translates into 88 ksi if an SAE ton is assumed, and the 51 tons/sq. in translates into 102 ksi. Even if metric tons were assumed, the figures would only be about 25 percent higher, and well under the 4-5 times the strength of mild steel brought up in the prevoius post by Daniel. Carburizing (ie; case-hardening) is only a shallow surface treatment, tending towards surface brittleness though. It does not have a huge effect on the overall strength, I believe. It creates a good bearing surface for long wearing items.

[Daniel Staberg]

Well hardness as measured by the Vickers Hardness test and tensile strenght are diffrent things, I'm not sure how far one can compare them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickers_hardness_test provides a basic description of the Vickers hardness test. VPH is the correct unit, not VPN as I misstakenly wrote in the earlier post. My numbers are taken from "The Great Warbow" by Hardy & Strickland who in turn quote Alan Williams masterly work "The Knight and the Blast Furnace" which is the most exhaustive and detaield work to be published on the metallo-archology of armour.
According to fig. 22 on this http://www.calce.umd.edu/general/Facilities/Hardness_ad_.htm#6 a VPH number of 498 is equal to a ksi of 238. (Assuming I read it correctly)

[Chad Arnow]

Europäische Helme is a great resource for helms, covering the Bronze Age through the 20th century. It lists weights for all 298 helms and hats it pictures. It's really a great resource.

[J.P.W. Verspay]

Hello to you all,

Although I've been a passive member of this forum for some time now, I'd like to join you on this subject.

I was very pleased to read Richard's post on weight and thickness of armour. I was wondering if any of you guys know anything about the weight and thickness of (late) fifteenth century Great Bascinets?

I am part of a dutch, burgundian re-enactment groups who does, among various things, jousting. We have currently undertaken a project to extend the tournament to include proper footcombat as well. Because of this we will be needing different armour and we are currently doing research but I just can not find any information on the thickness of these things. I was hoping that you guys could point me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance,
Johan Verspay

Stichting HEI
Compagnie d'Ordonnance

[Torsten F.H. Wilke]

Daniel, that new information is very helpful! By the way, it just so happens that there exists a direct correlation between the levels of heat-treatments, the Vickers, Brinell, and Rockwell hardnesses and the tensile strengths of iron alloys. Charts are available that let you determine actual material strengths from hardness tests, as this is done instead of full destructive testing on a finished piece. The extent of damage in this way is limited only to the small test dimple.

Daniel wrote:

The point I'm trying to make is that just because a material is "modern" it isn't necessarily superior in performance to the the "unmodern" material used in actual medieval and renaissance armour. There is a significant difference between untreated modern mild steel and the hardened steel armour turned out by the workshops in Augsburg and Milan.

Regarding the 1572 armour whose weight I quoted it is entirely possible that it wasn't shot proof, merly labled as such. Fraud involving substandard armour was not an uncommon crime despite being serverly punished if detected.


I completely agree, Daniel!

[Chad Arnow]

Some more weights:

Peter Finer's 1995 catalogue:
German Maximilian Burgonet, ~1520: 3 1/2 lb
German breastplate with tassets, ~1540: 12 lb
German breastplate with tassets, ~1560: 12 lb
English burgonet, ~1620: 2 lb
French Cuirassier 3/4 harness & burgonet, ~1620: 66 lb
German Cuirassier 3/4 harness & burgonet, ~1620: 60 lb
English Lobster Tail helmet, ~1620: 3 lb
Hungarian Zischagge, ~1620: 3 1/2 lb
English Pikeman's cuirass and pot helm, ~1625: 16 lb
German burgonet, ~1640: 4 lb

Peter Finer's 1999 catalogue:
Ostrogothic Spangenhelm, ~1500: 4 1/2 lb
German Sallet, ~1480: 5 1/2 lb
German haubergeon, ~ 1480: 18 lb
German Sallet for joust, ~1490: 2 1/2 lb
Composite German Maximilian Field Armour, ~1515: 40 lb
Horse armour for above harness: 64 lb
Italian Maximilian-style breastplate, ~1520: 5 lb
Italian close helmet/burgonet, ~1575: 6 lb

Peter Finer's 2001 catalogue:
German Sallet, ~1475: 51/2 lb
Associated bevor for above, ~1475: 14 oz
South German Black Sallet, ~1490: 51/2 lb
Flemish Armet, ~1500: 6 lb
German Haubergeon, ~1500: 20 lb
Italian Morion, ~1585: 2 lb

[Dan Howard]

There are several tables of 17th C breastplates along with weights, but not thicknesses, in the RA's Arms and Armour Vol 2, No.1 (2005), pp.5-26. It is a very interesting article about "duplex" plate. Armour made from plates of two or more different types of steel, forge welded together to improve resistance against firearms. The weights in the first table (30 entries) vary from 2813g to 4700g. A majority of them have proof marks.

[Josh Warren]

[Torsten F.H. Wilke]

Josh wrote:

[Brenton Hudson]

A common mistake that many people make is that medieval armor was heavy. Compared to the equipment that a modern day US Army soldier carries, a medieval soldier would be carrying a much lighter load. Unlike the uneven weight distribution of a modern-day soldier's equipment, the weight of the armor was distributed evenly so that the knight or other armored soldier could fight without hinderance. However, the only problem from wearing armor is that it got very hot. I have also read that many medieval armored soldiers died after having to cross a very cold river, although it is more likely that they died from overperspiration than from the cold water. It was possible for a person wearing full plate armor to be able to swim, although they would move very slowly. It has also been stated that some knights could even dance in plate armor, and some could even do acrobatics, although the acrobatics is probably farfetched and was done by those wearing very lightweight armor.

[Dan Howard]

No it isn't far fetched. Plenty of re-enactors with properly fitted plate armour debunk Victorian myths about plate armour weight by doing jump jacks, cartwheels, rolls, etc.

[Nathan Robinson]

This topic has been promoted into a Spotlight Topic.

[Juraj S]

Could anyone please put relative weights of different parts of mail armour?
Such as what proportion of the weight of a hauberk would be for example chausses, mittens, aventail, and coif?
Thank you.

[Dan Howard]

There are dozens and dozens of different types of mail. The heaviest types weigh 2-3 times more than the lighter ones and there are many ways of tailoring it to vary the coverage of different body parts. Which type were you interested in?

If you want a rough approximation for a game or novel then take a look at GURPS Low-Tech.
http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/low-tech/

Armour weight was calculated by using the Wallace Rule of Nines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_rule_of_nines

The surface area of different parts of the human body can be determined by using multiples of 9.



You can see that torso armour would weigh the same as leg armour and that arm armour is half as heavy. So you determine the total weight of the armour and apply the above multipliers. Then round up to allow for overlap between different armour pieces and you are done.