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Ruel A. Macaraeg
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Sander Alsters
Location: Netherlands Joined: 03 Jun 2009
Posts: 54
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 Posted: Sun 08 May, 2011 11:43 pm Post subject: Armor |
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Wow, how is such cotton armour made? It could resist heavy weapons. I know a though thick gambeson could do the trick, they are made of stiffened linnen. But seeing the aztec warrior s depicted, they seem like pretty agile pyjama wearing warriors to me. :-P no offence, just curious. What I always wondered, what are their helmets made of?
Does someone know something of their battle tactics? To me they dont seem the type of troops that march at ya in close ranks. More stealthy, sneaky, im here...haha and now im here tactics.
Regards!
Sander
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Karl Randall
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| Posted: Mon 09 May, 2011 8:04 am Post subject: |
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Ruel!
How have you been?
As popular as ever with the ladies, I see. I'd watch out for Henry though, those protruding cod pieces can be quite the rival to your otherwise impeccable charms!
I will (hopefully) be doing a bit of supplementary research on my paper armor thesis on the effectiveness of brine-soaking for quilted and laminated paper armor, and will include quilted cotton armor as a comparison. Whether or not the Aztec's actually soaked their armor in brine of course is a debate that will no doubt continue for some time, but I hope to show the *effectiveness* of brine-soaked versus non-brine soaked samples as a comparison.
Best,
Karl
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Karl Randall
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| Posted: Mon 09 May, 2011 8:09 am Post subject: |
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Ah, obsidian knives in combat...
Well the primary drawback is their fragility, but the overall lack of reach (particularly compared to a two-handed "sword" inset with obsidian flakes along both edges) wouldn't help much either.
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Ruel A. Macaraeg
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| Posted: Tue 10 May, 2011 6:59 am Post subject: |
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Hey Karl -- nice to see you here!
*By odd coincidence, just last week I came across a secondary source making reference to Aztec helmets, describing them as "made of wood or paper" [my emphasis]. I just added the passage to my notes, Life of the Aztecs in Ancient Mexico 1987, s.v. "Costume":
http://www.forensicfashion.com/1487AztecWarrior.html
I wish it had given a source for this statement; all other discussions of Aztec helmets describe them as wooden.
* Other knight-types historically have used knives and daggers for close-range fighting to stab between joints in armor, so it's not unreasonable to think Aztec knights might have had their own. But with affirmative evidence we should err on the side of skepticism.
* PS: I think it's my masks the girls like, not me. Out of costume, I can't get the time of day... 
Sander,
By all accounts the Aztec army in the 15th century was a large and highly organized force with tactical differentiation, which engaged in regular battles and sieges with troop numbers in the thousands. The knights of the kind I'm trying to reconstruct with my costume would have been the heavy infantry, supported by skirmishers, light infantry, and missle troops. You might want to consult Hassig (1998) for a book length study, or Pohl ill. Hook (2001) Aztec Warrior and
Pohl ill. McBride (1991) for quick overviews.
References:
http://www.forensicfashion.com/ReferencesInPrintEnglishH.html
http://www.forensicfashion.com/ReferencesInPrintEnglishL.html
http://www.forensicfashion.com/ReferencesInPrintEnglishP.html
http://ForensicFashion.com/CostumeStudies.html
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Johan Gemvik
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| Posted: Tue 10 May, 2011 7:21 am Post subject: |
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More posing with Conquestador vs Aztec warrior please!
-I love it! 
"The Dwarf sees farther than the Giant when he has the giant's shoulder to mount on" -Coleridge
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Karl Randall
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| Posted: Tue 10 May, 2011 3:53 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for the heads up on the paper reference!
If need be, I can contact the author or his publisher and try and get an answer firsthand.
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Sander Alsters
Location: Netherlands Joined: 03 Jun 2009
Posts: 54
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| Posted: Tue 10 May, 2011 10:52 pm Post subject: Awesome! |
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Thanx Ruel, I honestly had no idea! Even sieges! That surely indicates a culture with a militairy systhem that knows what they were doing. I must admit my knowledge of south America is very limited. How did Spain with limited supplys and troops won their territory for themselves?
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Johan Gemvik
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| Posted: Wed 11 May, 2011 3:57 pm Post subject: Re: Awesome! |
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| Sander Alsters wrote: | | Thanx Ruel, I honestly had no idea! Even sieges! That surely indicates a culture with a militairy systhem that knows what they were doing. I must admit my knowledge of south America is very limited. How did Spain with limited supplys and troops won their territory for themselves? |
By steel, gunpowder and trickery of course.
Elite Spanish Sword & Buclkermen in half armour able to fend off obsidian blades with ease while their weapons were shredding Aztec armour with equal ease, firearms, cannon, halberdiers in square formations, shock trained heavy horse and lots of political guile. Don't forget being even more ruthless and bloodthirsty than the Aztecs, which probably was a first for them and a bit unexpected. And a healthy dose of luck as well as the support of other indian nations.
If the Aztecs had been on the Spanish from the beginning at the landing or soon after then no, I don't think they'd have any real chance of winning. But they had time to seek out allies, to even brute force some nations to support them and then choose their ground for battle to suit their own combined arms tactics. Most likley the larger battles were mostly fought between Aztec warriors and other indian warriors very much indentical to them in equipment and training, but with the support of unfamiliar and very effective spanish troops and artillery, especially if left unchecked on the battlefield horse and cannon against lightly armoured troops can be truly devastating as seen in the much later napoleonic wars.
This said, I'm sure that there were instances when sword & bucklermen fell in combat to aztec warriors, that champoins and legends were born and killed on both sides as much as in any war thoughout history.
"The Dwarf sees farther than the Giant when he has the giant's shoulder to mount on" -Coleridge
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Randall Moffett
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| Posted: Wed 11 May, 2011 6:24 pm Post subject: |
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Something to keep in mind that gunpowder was very limited on many of the expeditions during the fist half of the 16th century. . The bulk of the missile troops were crossbowmen. I often think the physical effect gets overdone. Much of it initially was likely psychological.
RPM
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Ruel A. Macaraeg
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Johan Gemvik
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| Posted: Thu 12 May, 2011 11:32 pm Post subject: |
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| Randall Moffett wrote: | Something to keep in mind that gunpowder was very limited on many of the expeditions during the fist half of the 16th century. . The bulk of the missile troops were crossbowmen. I often think the physical effect gets overdone. Much of it initially was likely psychological.
RPM |
Certainly the effect of early "Boom sticks" are mostly psychological, while a crossbow does the job or reducing enemies just as well or better. Still they did bring enough gunpowder to show off a few broadsides of the ship cannons at the landing, and also used it to subdue some of the more stubborn "allies". I don't think they'd have felt they could ever bring enough gunpowder on this invasion to their liking, but it seems they had more than just a handful and did use firearms to good effect on occasion, be it psychological or otherwise.
"The Dwarf sees farther than the Giant when he has the giant's shoulder to mount on" -Coleridge
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Randall Moffett
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| Posted: Sat 14 May, 2011 6:15 am Post subject: |
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Ruel,
A very good point. I was reading an account by some one who had been on Cortez's second expedition and the editor has some estimates of how sickness brought by the Europeans really devastated the indigenous populations. He even included some clues that the Spanish could see these illnesses at work.
The text I use for my World History class states that the Aztec Empire may have had as many as 25 million people and by the third quarter of the 16th century had as few as 2 million people(Peter Stearns, World History in Brief). Cohen believes the population was about 20 million and dropped to 1.6 million (Cohn, Mark. Health and Rise of Civilization. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989). Of course there are people who argue that the death toll is much lower but it seems a large number of scholars agree that the Aztec population suffered some 60-90% within the first sixty or seventy years of Spanish interaction.
Johan,
We actually know more or less how much powder Cortez has a much of his inventories for men and equipment survive. He might not have had just a handful but these soldiers must have been very sparing in the use of gunpowder for the small quantities they had on hand. Even with corned powder you need a fairly high powder to ball weight ratio for cannons. In my notes I have some 30 crossbowmen and 12 arquebusiers for his last expedition, though this is of 530 soldiers and may simply be to reinforce other previous forces he had left in New Spain.
RPM
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Ruel A. Macaraeg
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This is a standard topic