[Ben P.]

Okay the Polish Winged Hussar's Three Anime Quarter Plate Armour was 5-10 Millimeters thick on the cuirass and 2-3 On the Arm and Leg Plates and Helm.

My question is: How was this wearable? How much did it weigh? Was it because of some property of the Anime Cuirass?

BTW I'm thinking that Winged Hussars were possibly the best Cavalry in the world, horse archers, lancers, pistoleers, light cavalry, heavy cavalry, par excellance (Of course being cross-trained and never being beaten on the field in their 120 year existence kinda helps as well) So what's everyone's opinion?

[Daniel Staberg]

There is nothing special about the thickness of hussar armour, western style cuirassier armour was just as thick or even thicker.

The notion that the hussars were never beated in battle is without any fundation in the historical sources, they suffered their fair share of defeats during their existence. The Swedes defeated hussars at Torzjok 1609, Tver 1609, Wallhof 1626, Wenden 1626, Selbork 1626, Drobbusch 1626, Mewe 1626, Dirschau 1627, Treiden 1627, Gorzno 1629, Honigfelde 1629, Wojnicz 1655, Golab 1656, San 1656, Gniezno 1656, Warsaw 1656, 1656, Filipow 1656, Klisow 1702, Saladen 1703 to name only some the defeats suffered by the hussars at the hands of a single foe.

[Luka Borscak]

Plus defeats by cossacks...

[Michael Curl]

And quite a few of those were by Gustavus Adolphus (I would be surprised if a Swede didn't mention him ;P )

But ya he really gave the poles a beating for a few years.

[Ben P.]

[Daniel Staberg]

[Ben P.]

[Bartek Strojek]

Well, getting over Husars invicibility or not, I'm actually surprised to hear about very thick hussar armours.

Classic armour of Stanisław Skórkowski contains of breastplate, shoulders, pauldrons, arm plates and helmet and weights about 14,5 kg. Which is rather light.

Similary Żygulski junior writes about similar armour but a bit atypical - without arm plates but with greaves that weights 12,5kg.

Generally he writes that those armors were generally made 3- 4mm thick at breastplates.

I don't know what "Anima" is though, maybe that changes something.

[Daniel Staberg]

What infantry worship? Most of the time it was the Swedish cavalry which beat the hussars.

Gustavus was not wounded at Honigfelde at all, a very basic fact that any serious student of the history of the Polish-Swedish wars would know. Honigfelde was a pure cavalry battle except for the battery of leather cannon overrun early on on the battle. The only infantry to take part were 50 or 60 musketeers of the Yellow regiment led by Lieutenant Unruhe, the regiment had no men killed in action and only 4 men wounded. So much for the "smashing" of the Swedish infantry at Honigfelde.

Hans Georg von Arnim led the Imperial troops at the battle and afterwards reported " In the Polish troops we could not trust as they would neither keep their order nor stand their ground". Swedish eyewitness full support this description.
The 700 hussars and 1000 cossack-style cavalry led by Hetman Koniecpolski was simply not enough to defeat some 5500 battle hardend Swedish & German cavalry on their own. While Koniecpolski defeated the Rhinecount's wing with a skillfull outflanking manouver he could not stand up to the counter-attack by Herman Wrangel's wing and was only saved by the intervention of Arnim's cuirassiers. The rallied Poles then joined the Imperials in the pursuit and got ahed of the slower cuirassiers& harquebusiers thanks to their fine horses. They mercilessly harried the withdrawign Swedes and were on the verge of forcing several squadrons to surrender when they were struck by Swedish reserve cavalry led by Streiff. This attack once again drove the Poles back and the imperial cavalry had to save the day yet again. Remove the Imperial cavalry from the equation and the Poles would have lost big time.

The Swedish army met Polish and Lithuanian armies in the open frenquently.
At Wallhof 1626 the Lithuanian army was defeated by Gustavus losing all it's infantry when the hussars ran away as well as 3 cannon and 1000 sleds.
At Mewe 1626 the Polish army failed utterly to defeat the Swedish army on 3 occasions and in the end moved away thus raisign the siege and allowing Gustavus to relive the garrion of Mewe
At Wenden 1626 a Lithuanian force let by Samuel Pac was defeated by Gustav Horn
At Selbork 1626 a Lithuanian force was defeated by Jacob De La Gardie
At Drobbusch 1626 Gosiewskis Lithuanians were defeated after launching a surprise attack on the Swedish encampment.
At Dirschau 1627 the Polish cavalry attacks was defeated after a shortlive initial success on the 1st day, only the wounding of Gustavus on 2nd day saved the demoralised Poles from a serious defeat
At Gorzno 1629 Herman Wrangel smashed the Polish army led by Potocki, the Poles lost all their infantry and artillery.

The Swedes suffered their share of defeats as well, Kroppenhofen 1621, Listenhoffen 1626, Hammerstein 1627, Treiden 1627 and Honigfelde 1629 to name the significant ones.

[Ben P.]

Are you getting your stuff from Brezenski?

[Daniel Staberg]

[Ben P.]