[William P]

Hi

im asking for something unusual from you guys

back at uni i had a copy of prevben kanniks book 'military uniforms of the world in colour' that details uniforms from the latwe 17th century up til the time of publishing.

one trooper that i find VERY unusual that was there was a trooper, a carabinier i believe, what was unusual was that he was armoured, not just in a breastplate but also armour lames going down his arms (colour of armour is black, he also had green/ yellow clothing, however his DISTINCTIVE armour is what gives him away, in addition to having a fur brimmed black hat, no tassel,

he was from a german speaking nation, however i cannot remember which i also believe he was from a war or nation that started with an S, and was definately pre napoleonic.. mid 118th century im gonna cavalry

i would like to ask if anyone who ones the book could flick through it and find the trooper in question... i had scans of the page but thew were lost and it's driving me MAD

any assistance in finding who these men were would be VERY much appreciated.

[Tommy Johansen]

Are these the men you are looking for? Bückeburg Carabiniers from the Schaumburg-Lippe Army during the Seven Years War


I can't provide you with any more information than what is found here:
http://www.kronoskaf.com/syw/index.php?title=...arabiniers

Hope this was helpful.

[William P]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

In the Buckeburg Carabiniers' case, the banded arm defences seem to be a revival rather than a survival since they don't bear that much resemblance to 17th-century upper arm defences (especially by being made out of leather rather than metal).. In any case, the unit was not a very significant one since it was too small to be really effective.

[William P]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

On the contrary, the question you probably should ask is why they were adopted in the first place. No other European cavalry at the era wore such arm defences so there was no immediate proof that they'd be effective. The troops certainly weren't going to be already accustomed to them since (once again) nobody wore similar defences at the time. And last but not least, the design of the arm scales doesn't look like any earlier type of medieval or Renaissance arm defences; the closest thing I can think of is the Roman manica, and I'm pretty sure the designer didn't have anything like the level of research we have today on the manica. So it's a pretty safe guess that the design was pulled out of somebody's posterior and didn't have the benefit of hundreds of years of trial and error in the details of its construction like Renaissance upper-arm defences did. For example, upper-arm lames like that in the Renaissance would have been attached to a pauldron (which in turn would have been pointed to an arming doublet or the cuirass) or to a gorget worn under the cuirass. There's no evidence for such load-bearing attachments and structures in this case so they probably had a less-than-optimal design that made them less comfortable and less effective than they could have been if the designer had closely studied surviving examples of medieval and Renaissance armour.

In short, it was a really bizarre experimental unit. I even read somewhere that they were originally armed with a combination sword-pistol, although whoever said it didn't give any citations to a primary source I could track down.