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Dan Howard
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 Posted: Mon 15 Sep, 2008 3:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Steven H wrote: | | I'm a bit surprised by this. I would think that scale would be preferable because it spreads the force out over a larger area. Though I assume there is a tradeoff that made mail the standard. My guess is that the tradeoff is cost and/or maintenance. That is mail is cheaper than scale armour and/or easier to take care of. |
Mail is far far more expensive to produce than scale. The amount of labour involved just to produce iron wire is significant and the weaving time is much higher than assembling scale armour. Scale is a poor cousin to mail. With the strange exception of China, scale only dominates in cultures that don't have a substantial iron working industry.
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M. Eversberg II
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| Posted: Mon 15 Sep, 2008 8:50 pm Post subject: |
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So why did maille win out over scale in Europe? I was under the thought that scale would be much more protective. Was the difference in weight considerable enough?
M.
This space for rent or lease.
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Steven H
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| Posted: Mon 15 Sep, 2008 9:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Dan Howard wrote: | | Steven H wrote: | | I'm a bit surprised by this. I would think that scale would be preferable because it spreads the force out over a larger area. Though I assume there is a tradeoff that made mail the standard. My guess is that the tradeoff is cost and/or maintenance. That is mail is cheaper than scale armour and/or easier to take care of. |
Mail is far far more expensive to produce than scale. The amount of labour involved just to produce iron wire is significant and the weaving time is much higher than assembling scale armour. Scale is a poor cousin to mail. With the strange exception of China, scale only dominates in cultures that don't have a substantial iron working industry. |
The implication being that scale requires less of an iron-working industry than mail. Can you elaborate on that as the reason is by no means obvious to me.
Thanks,
Steven
Kunstbruder - Boston area Historical Combat Study
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Ben C.
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| Posted: Mon 15 Sep, 2008 10:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Steven H wrote: | | Dan Howard wrote: | | Steven H wrote: | | I'm a bit surprised by this. I would think that scale would be preferable because it spreads the force out over a larger area. Though I assume there is a tradeoff that made mail the standard. My guess is that the tradeoff is cost and/or maintenance. That is mail is cheaper than scale armour and/or easier to take care of. |
Mail is far far more expensive to produce than scale. The amount of labour involved just to produce iron wire is significant and the weaving time is much higher than assembling scale armour. Scale is a poor cousin to mail. With the strange exception of China, scale only dominates in cultures that don't have a substantial iron working industry. |
The implication being that scale requires less of an iron-working industry than mail. Can you elaborate on that as the reason is by no means obvious to me.
Thanks,
Steven |
the is a oversimplification but when you break it down you really don't need a lot of equipment or technology to produce metal squares with holes in them. The production of metal wire alone has far greater requirements both in terms of equipment and labor time and then it only gets more complex when you take into account the weaving & riveting. Scale and lameller amour are by no means easy to produce but they can still be made in much simpler conditions.
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Ben C.
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| Posted: Mon 15 Sep, 2008 10:51 pm Post subject: |
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| M. Eversberg II wrote: | So why did maille win out over scale in Europe? I was under the thought that scale would be much more protective. Was the difference in weight considerable enough?
M. |
scale/lamellar seems to get left out a lot when it comes to armour testing but it does appear that the protective qualities are pretty much the same as mail. Both give excellent protection against cutting, slashing & piercing weapons (mail often seems to be heavily underrated in the later regard). Scale probably does offer better resistance to heavy impacts due to it's more rigid nature but the difference is probably not much when comparing mail layered with padded armour.
The real difference between the two armour types, and why mail was probably so popular, is the greater flexibility and coverage mail gives. Most of the scale vests (mostly Japanese, Chinese and Mongolian pieces) I've seen only cover the upper torso and leave the neck, shoulders, arms and groin exposed. The coverage can be increased either by longer vests and/or separate pieces but this comes at the cost of increased weight and decreased flexibility. Even then there are still fairly large gaps in the armour as can be seen in many of the more extensive samurai suits. Mail for the same weight covers these areas quite well without compromising flexibility too much which is likely why it was more popular among cultures that had the means and could afford it.
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Sean Manning
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| Posted: Tue 16 Sep, 2008 9:09 am Post subject: |
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| Dan Howard wrote: | | Steven H wrote: | | I'm a bit surprised by this. I would think that scale would be preferable because it spreads the force out over a larger area. Though I assume there is a tradeoff that made mail the standard. My guess is that the tradeoff is cost and/or maintenance. That is mail is cheaper than scale armour and/or easier to take care of. |
Mail is far far more expensive to produce than scale. The amount of labour involved just to produce iron wire is significant and the weaving time is much higher than assembling scale armour. Scale is a poor cousin to mail. With the strange exception of China, scale only dominates in cultures that don't have a substantial iron working industry. |
Ah! So that explains why scale was more popular in Central Asia! (Well, that and the fact that you could also make it out of hide for poorer horsemen).
My best guess (and feel free to poke holes in it) is that the influence of steppe fashions on Chinese warfare meant that those who could afford mail tended to go for scale. The Romans could afford to issue many infantry with mail shirts, and the medieval Chinese were even richer than the Romans, so it can't have been that Chinese soldiers couldn't afford mail!
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Rodolfo Martínez
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| Posted: Tue 16 Sep, 2008 4:26 pm Post subject: |
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Hello
I´m, by no means, an expert, but I think that we should take into account the type of foe mail friendly nations fought against, and wich type of extra protection they had, like the type of shield, i think that such things should be considered too.
¨Sólo me desenvainarás por honor y nunca me envainarás sin gloria¨
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Bram Verbeek
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| Posted: Wed 17 Sep, 2008 12:03 am Post subject: |
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Like the norman equipment versus Byzantine equipment? I think it is a dead end, round shields are used around europe, both with scale and mail, as well as teardrop and large kite shields.
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This is a standard topic