[Sam T.]

If an arrow struck a shirt of mail or a suit of lamellae, which one is more likely to be penetrated? Alan williams said that mail requires around 120J for an arrow to penetrate. He didn't give the numbers for scale or lamellae. So I would guess that lamellae would be harder to penetrate.

I think that you don't understand my stance here. I do agree that mail is superior to lamellae and scale, but that's because of it's lightness, flexibility and coverage. Not it's sheer resistance to weapons.

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Chris M.]

on infastructure
a flat rock, hammer, tongs and an under draft camp fire is not much of an infastructure but its all you need to make a peice of steel or iron into a flat scale along with a nail to put a hole or 2 into it to tie it onto a leather backing.
being a knifemaker i have seen 10yr olds take on much more complicated smithing projects with about the same equipment.
being that the mongolians didnt use scale i have a hard time figuring out why archeologists are pulling out partial peices of scale armor and barding on the open dig in north east mongolia over the last year. it wont win a beuty contest but it just might have been serviceable.

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Jean Thibodeau]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

Another couple of general comments on this interesting thread...

Re: Shields as primary 'armor' protection
I think there may be some validity to this when it comes to missile weapons, particularly for larger shields. But for hand combat, I think this is a questionable way of thinking about it. I've been doing various forms of stick-fighting for 25 years and WMA for about 8. I've seen some of the best WMA fencers in the country doing full-contact, full-speed sparring with every type of hand weapon you can imagine. I've also seen plenty of Arnis / Escrima, Kendo, Kung Fu, Karate, and various other types of practitioners have at it as well.

My experience of fencing is that a shield is just another type of weapon, it has certain advantages and certain disadvantages in combat. It doesn't really change your chance of getting hit very much. The bottom line is that it's very easy to be hit in hand to hand combat, shield or no shield. I know of one very, very skilled and experienced WMA fencer who stated that even against an amatuer he often got hit as frequently as one out of ten bouts. This jibes well with my own experience. Even assuming you are a master and your opponent is a neophyte (with good speed and reflexes), if you could get through, say 12 bouts without sustaining one hit, you are extremely lucky .. if the odds were more even, let say you were only twice as skilled, I would put the ratio closer to something like 1 in 3.

When I say a bout I'm talking about a WMA sparring contest as they are normally done; to the first hit. A real fight would probably require an average of 2 or 3 cuts or thrusts to actually kill or sufficiently injure your opponent that they were no longer a threat. That would half or third the number of bouts you were likely to survive without being hit. Say 4-6 bouts in an absolutely ideal situation, 1-3 in a more realistic scenario. If you add armor and a helmet (on your opponent) into the equation, this becomes even more difficult.

Now how many individual fights would a guy get into in a typical battle? Maybe none if he were way in the back, probably more than a half-dozen if he were on the front line. Plus in a battle you are going to have to worry about other people joining the fight, blindsiding you or ganging up. If you are going to see combat I would say your chances of getting through say a half- hour of intense fighting without being hit once are close to nil.

Thus one thing which fencing taught me, is to grasp the incredible importance of body armor in 'the day'. Your shield isn't going to save you the way a hauberk or even a corslet or vest of some kind and a helmet. I think Shields are just in another category, more of a defensive weapon than armor protection. Body armor made the difference between being cannon fodder and being a professional warrior who could survive to fight again and learn from experience.

Bows, Mail and the first crusade

I know this is a very emotional issue for some people (I don't really understand why) but after reading a lot of the primary Byzantine, European, and moslem sources, I think it's clear that it was quite rare for arrows to penetrate the armor of the 'Frankish' soldiers, particularly the Knights. It seemed to be an accepted fact that even the foot soldiers were essentially invulnerable to bows, whereas the arabs were decidedly not invulnerable to the heavy crossbows of the European marksmen.

And yet we know the Turks and the Arabs were often effective in battle. I personally think that it's a combination of their skill and rate of fire with the bows (even if 80% of the arrows are being stopped, you shoot enough of them you are going to start killing enemies) but more importantly, the vulnerability of the horses. I don't think full barding was all that common in those days. Mail barding is pretty rare anyway and would be very heavy. Padded gambeson like coverings were probably more common but I don't think anyone other than the wealthier knights could afford barding and then there would be the additional issue of heat and thirst for the horses. And I'm not sure if padded armor by itself is really going to save them from multiple arrow hits

Certainly we know they lost a lot of horses in the first Crusade especially.

Finally, even when an arrow didn't penetrate Mail sufficiently to kill or maim, I bet the points were causing little wounds, which were uncomfortable and potentially life-threatening in terms of infection.

Jean

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Richard Fay]

[Richard Fay]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Richard Fay]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Jean Thibodeau]

Subtle distinction but I tend to also like the idea that the shield was a defensive weapon that was actively used and not just there to take a hit.

Armour is for when you make a mistake, are taken by surprise by by an attack you don't see coming or are overwhelmed by more than one threat at the same time. Armour also means that what would have been annoying wounds are completely ineffective, serious incapacitating wounds become minor damage and things that would have crippled you for life or killed you may be recoverable from i.e. you can forget about all the small stuff and prioritize defending from full power blows.

Oh, I tend to think of forearm armour and gauntlets as also having some defensive weapon use: Active defence like the shield as a strongly armoured forearm might be able to parry a blow in a way similar to a shield.

Maybe a little less than with a shield but similar in principle. ( Just a thought. )

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Dan Howard]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Dan Howard]

There is not much I'm afraid. Charles Ffoulkes has a little in his book, though he hasn't translated any of his citations so you need an Old French and a Latin lexicon.

[Richard Fay]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

Ah. Well. Shields as armor--or weapons.

Actually, one of the things that could lead to a dead end in such debates is the perspective that the shield could only be used in one way. In a relatively open formation--especially possible when the men have good armor--the shield would probably have been used like in single combat with much punching, bashing, and maneuvering. But a shieldwall operated on a different premise. I agree completely that a defensive shieldwall was not as effective as some modern people think. Shieldwalls, however, were also used in an offensive manner in a collective rush, thereby becoming a group weapon rather than an individual weapon. The Greek hoplites were one example, and the more aggressive Anglo-Saxon commanders another.

So, the shield was not all that effective as passive armor, but as an active weapon--both offensive and defensive--it worked fairly well. We just have to keep in mind that there were at least two possible methods of using the shield offensively, the first being the collective rush of the shieldwall and the second being individual "fencing" akin to WMA single combat in the front rank of a fighting formation.

It might haeve been one of the primary forms of passive protection against missiles, but in hand-to-hand fighting I believe it protected the user largely by hurting or routing his enemies outright, much like other weapons--regardless of whether it was wielded in individual swordsmanship or a collective shield rush.

[Jean Henri Chandler]