[Lafayette C Curtis]

Not long ago I was involved in a casual discussion about wearing plate armour with modern clothes. I argued that later models of Japanese armour (16th century and later) would be most suitable for this since the pieces are largely affixed to each other rather than to an arming garment underneath. In this manner the armour could be worn with a larger variety of undergarments, including modern clothes (perhaps with jackets to add a little bit of padding for comfort), although there's a tradeoff in that the weight distribution wouldn't be as efficient as a late-medieval European armour with points to a close-fitting undergarment and as a result the weight of the armour that could be comfortably worn would also have been lower than in a historically accurate European plate armour setup.

However, some time afterwards I remembered that some munitions-grade harnesses from the early 16th century appear to have been made without points; instead, the arms are hung from a gorget/collar that also lies under and bears the strain from the cuirass's shoulder-straps (although if the cuirass was properly shaped, much of its weight would still lie upon the hips anyway). Now that makes me wonder about the construction of fuller suits of plate armour from the 16th and 17th centuries. I suspect full harnesses from these periods would still have required extensive pointing around the arms and legs, especially as the weight of the armour itself increased in response to firearms, but what about three-quarter half-armours? From the outside it would seem that these varieties could have done just fine without pointing to an undergarment, but of course any points would have been on the inside and invisible to an observer with a strictly external perspective.

So, any ideas on this? I'm also interested in hearing thoughts about wearing armour with modern clothes, although perhaps I should start a new thread for that one.

[Jojo Zerach]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

Are there any pictures and illustrations of the internal details in these later armours, then? While I'm quite familiar with what they look like from the outside, I'm not quite sure about how the major components attach to each other in the absence of points connecting them to the arming garments.