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Timo Nieminen
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 Posted: Wed 09 Jun, 2010 2:17 am Post subject: Example of riveted Japanese mail |
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Of relevance to the current discussion on Japanese mail:
Stone, Glossary ..., Figure 475.10 is kote with riveted European-style 4-in-1 mail.
"In addition to being efficient, all pole arms were quite nice to look at." - Cherney Berg, A hideous history of weapons, Collier 1963.
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David Rushworth
Location: Leeds, England Joined: 27 Jul 2010
Posts: 27
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| Posted: Mon 06 Sep, 2010 3:08 pm Post subject: |
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Bit of background for me, a reenactor of 35 years and a collector for 45 years. I have had an interest in mail and its varients for a long time, and living in Euro land have access to a wide variety of museums with original tat on display. I mention this cos I'm a newbie stepping into a fraught area. The original question was about relative merits of butted and rivited mail and its use.
In the Nydams Halle at Schloss Gotsdorfe, Schleswig they have on display the Migration Period arms and armour dumped in the Nydame Mose (bog), among the exhibits is a spear point that had been thrust through a BUTTED link mail shirt, and had links jammed on it. You can see a photo of this in the catalogue, Nydam und Thorsberg, Oferplatze der Eisenzeit, D-24837 Schleswig, I couldnt make out an ISBN number, sorry.
Butted mail was found in the foundations of a medieval house in London in the 1930s, and rings from butted mail turn up at C. Columbus's original settlement in the Carribean. Butted mail is also found used in India, and indeed throughout the Islamic world.
To be so widely used, geographicly and temporaly it must have offered reasonable protection, a good enough pay off for the resources used to produce it. I believe that it's production and use was governed by threat expected , production method available, and quality of metal , steel vs wrought iron perhaps.
I have shot arrows through all types of armour, but the range is all important, when they can reach you at a run in 20 seconds or less, you dump the bow, it is a stick with a piece of string on it, and you want your sword, in your hand,NOW.
Sorry to go on, but I thought I had a valid contributio to this thread.
Never ascribe to malice what is adequately explained as stupidity.
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Eric S
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| Posted: Wed 02 Mar, 2011 3:03 pm Post subject: Re: Example of riveted Japanese mail |
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| Timo Nieminen wrote: | Of relevance to the current discussion on Japanese mail:
Stone, Glossary ..., Figure 475.10 is kote with riveted European-style 4-in-1 mail. |
Unfortunately the picture in Stones book which is labeled as being riveted mail is not detailed enough to see the actual mail. After looking at hundreds (at least) detailed pictures online and searching images in every book I could get my hands on I finally found 1 picture of riveted mail being used in Japanese (samurai) armor. From: JAPANESE ARMS & ARMOR [Hardcover] INTRODUCTION BY ROBINSON, H RUSSELL 1969 P.58 http://www.amazon.com/JAPANESE-ARMOR-INTRODUC...amp;sr=8-1 The image is listed as being an Early 19th century breastplate from Museo Orientale Venice. There is no way of telling if this is European mail imported to Japan or the Japanese variety as described in this book: Sakakibara Kozan, The Manufacture of Armour and Helmets in Sixteenth Century Japan pp 83-85. I have asked one of the world foremost authorities on Japanese armor (Trevor Absolon) if he personally has seen any riveted Japanese armor among the thousands of pieces he has come into contact with and he said that there was only 1 that he had been aware of. So still some unanswered questions but now there is actual visual proof of some sort.
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John Ferra
Location: Arizona Joined: 22 Mar 2012
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| Posted: Thu 22 Mar, 2012 3:10 am Post subject: |
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| Bartek Strojek wrote: | Most of butted mails are almost completely useless, blunt spears and stuff can penetrate it, it would be total waste of material in "period".
As for material, I read, here (myArmoury) that wrought iron is actually very good material for mail, it absorbs punishment well with deformations and stuff, instead of breaking at some point of links. Mild steel doesn't fare so well.
Anyway, probably many people'll start heated discussion over it very soon.  |
I should hope the discussion isn't "heated" as to my way of thinking that would be more an argument than a discussion, & not very polite by most standards. Disagreements can certainly be civil, & I actually happen to disagree with you on this one. I watched a show a while back on the Discovery Channel, dealing with shark study. In any event, this one gentleman had painstakingly made a couple of full suits out of "butted" maille, & I know this because he was repairing a very small section by inserting new rings the way I do, with a pair of chain-nose pliers & bYy maneuvering the rings closed through the usual fashion of "twisting," that is, moving the ends alternately closer to & further away from his body position.
In any event, he wanted to prove that chain maille would protect a diver in shark-infested waters, in his case by hand feeding the sharks. He fed the sharks for a while, & then to really test his suit, he stuck his arm into the open mouth of the shark who, by this time, was expecting food. The shark bit down, thrashed about for a couple seconds before realizing that it wasn't "edible," whatever it was he'd bitten down on, & let go, swimming off slowly.
Now, I'm talking an average-sized adult Oceanic Black Tip shark, not a 2-Ton Great White. However, his suit held up perfectly under those conditions & he got off without so much as a bruise. Because he was making a whole suit of maille & needed to have both mobility & light-weight, he'd used tempered titanium to make his suits. This gave him the strength & the light weight he required so as not to be stuck on the bottom of the ocean, unable to swim at all due to the suit's weight.
Granted, an Oceanic Black Tip isn't going to deliver the punch of a large Tiger Shark or Great White; I'm not even sure how he'd have fared against a moderate Bull Shark or Ragged Tooth, but for what most people might encounter when diving near coral reefs, I think that he proved his suit worked well Inder those conditions. As for a large gentleman in full plate armour swinging a broadsword in battle might accomplish, I'm thinking very little overall. The force of a slashing strike would usually be distributed across a large area, so it would likely be repelled if an Oceanic Black Tip's rows of sharp teeth couldn't pierce the suit. Of course, if such a gentleman so dressed for battle were wielding a quality instrument, slashing may not be as effective as stabbing would. I'd be quite interested to see what a well-made & well-sharpened blade of the time could do to such a suit were a well-placed & powerful thrust applied to a very small are of the suit with great skill, like the skill of the Samurai. I'm concerned the suit wouldn't hold up under those specific set of circumstances.
An Oceanic Black Tip shark is no slouch, but the force of his bite is distributed across a great number of teeth, & even with the strength of that animal & his trashing about for a second or two isn't going to increase the force in a single spot on the armour the way a classically made Katana would, especially considering that these swords were kept with a very keen edge & a point specifically made for piercing armour. No, considering what I've seen classically made Japanese blades do, I'm doubtful that any contemporary armour would protect the wearer from a well placed strike with the tip of a true Katana. Such blades are the stuff of legend. Even by today's science, it isn't possible to achieve what traditional forgers could make, especially when each blade was made to an exacting standard & ground & polished to a very fine cutting edge, which included the extremely pointed tip of the blade.
Now, I do know of some classically trained sushi chefs, who use very expensive, hand-forged Japanese knives, who will still wear butted maille gloves when they're cutting sushi or shashimi. I'm sure they put as much faith in that glove as they do their blades, considering that such high-carbon steel needs to be cleaned constantly to protect against oxidation & is honed about every 10-15 minutes to maintain their edge. No one goes to that kind of trouble to keep a razor-sharp blade only to wear butted chain on their free hand when doing so would amount the same as wearing a Jersey cotton glove should the blade contact the gloved hand. No, I'm going to suppose that the butted chain glove will definitely protect the wearers hand, as most of those gloves are custom made for the wearer by a contemporary maille artisan, who, like me, uses rings woven together by hand from various materials, including titanium & stainless steel.
That's my two cents' worth, anyway. I'm sure other scenarios exist where I'm wrong on most counts, though I'm not wrong about the sharpness & durability of a traditional Japanese forged sword. For Samurai, the sword was his life, & failure in battle usually led to one's death by the rite of seppuku. Frankly, I wouldn't want to go into battle with an inferior weapon, & if I had to then kill myself with the smaller sword after my main weapon failed! I'd make damn sure that was equally as sharp as the sword that would be used to chop off my head after I had disemboweled myself.
I'll put well made maille made of jump-rings applied one at a time against just about anything that can be created with a machine. Call me old-fashioned in that regard.
"The sea has neither pity nor meaning" ---Antonin Chekhov
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Johan Gemvik
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| Posted: Thu 22 Mar, 2012 4:17 am Post subject: Re: Modern butted maille or historical rivited maille? |
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| Jojo Zerach wrote: | | Do you think butted maille made of modern mild steel or historical wrought iron rivited maille is stronger? |
As has been stated already, historical wrought iron riveted is stronger vs expanding and unlinking the rings from a thrust than even a high tempered butted link unless it's grossly oversized and heavy in a way the japanese don't seem to be.
Deflecting slashes from sharp edges would work equally with both.
A slash with a sharp blade can easily kill or disable so there's a point to both armour types existing and butted maille is much faster and probably far less costly to manufacture making it available to more combatants.
"The Dwarf sees farther than the Giant when he has the giant's shoulder to mount on" -Coleridge
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Thu 22 Mar, 2012 4:21 am Post subject: |
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Butted mail certainly offers decent protection against cuts. The problem is that the vast majority of threats would be impaling weapons - mainly spears and arrows. There is no logical reason for anyone on a historical battlefield to be wearing butted mail. The type of damage that it can resist is hardly ever a threat. Even a few layers of quilted cloth can resist a sword cut so why go to the weight and expense of butted mail?
Edit: the only reason that I can think of is flexibility. There isn't much that offers the same level of cut protection as butted mail without losing some flexibility. It is a good choice for butchers gloves or shark mail (but riveted or welded would still be better). Not so good on the battlefield though.
Last edited by Dan Howard on Thu 22 Mar, 2012 5:56 am; edited 2 times in total
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Johan Gemvik
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| Posted: Thu 22 Mar, 2012 4:34 am Post subject: |
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How about if you solder the ends together?
"The Dwarf sees farther than the Giant when he has the giant's shoulder to mount on" -Coleridge
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Thu 22 Mar, 2012 4:39 am Post subject: |
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Soldering won't do. You'd have to weld them.
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Johan Gemvik
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| Posted: Thu 22 Mar, 2012 6:13 am Post subject: |
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Depends, if it's flat overlapping rings soldering done right is actually stronger than a rivet. For end to end round rings I agree though, i'ts probably not enough.
"The Dwarf sees farther than the Giant when he has the giant's shoulder to mount on" -Coleridge
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Thu 22 Mar, 2012 1:55 pm Post subject: |
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Probably not. People constantly underestimate the strength of a properly peened rivet because of the examples coming out of India.
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John Ferra
Location: Arizona Joined: 22 Mar 2012
Posts: 3
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| Posted: Sat 24 Mar, 2012 11:37 am Post subject: |
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| Dan Howard wrote: | Butted mail certainly offers decent protection against cuts. The problem is that the vast majority of threats would be impaling weapons - mainly spears and arrows. There is no logical reason for anyone on a historical battlefield to be wearing butted mail. The type of damage that it can resist is hardly ever a threat. Even a few layers of quilted cloth can resist a sword cut so why go to the weight and expense of butted mail?
Edit: the only reason that I can think of is flexibility. There isn't much that offers the same level of cut protection as butted mail without losing some flexibility. It is a good choice for butchers gloves or shark mail (but riveted or welded would still be better). Not so good on the battlefield though. |
Honestly, as far as projectile weapons are concerned, little stopped the English Longbow, short of a solid, thick shield, & crossbows of the time were very effective at piercing even the strongest plate armour. It makes little sense to talk about any maille stopping projectile weapons. Maille was usually only worth much when protecting the areas plate armour left unprotectected (flex points like the neck, knees, & elbows), which was only relevant in close-quarters combat, combat that involved swords, battle axes, war hammers, & maces. Not much was going to stop an axe, a hammer, or a mace when either was wielded effectively. The cutting weapons were what a warrior needed protection against.
A popular tactic among the European & the Asian fighters was to incapacitate an opponent by slashing at the back of the knees or slicing through the neck & the dominant right arm, basically beheading your opponent while taking the sword arm with the same stroke, a very popular Smaurai tactic (we basically use the exact same technique for a plethora of joint lock-throws in Aikido, an art that O-Sensei developed based on classic Samurai technique, since the object of both practices is to dispatch your opponent (or many opponents) as quickly as possible). Most real sword battles lasted seconds, & a well-trained Samurai could dispatch several opponents attacking from various points at once, as my Sensei does in his Aikido exhibitions. It's truly incredible to think of what someone with one of the sharpest, most durable weapons ever made could have done at the height of Japanese Feudalism.
In any event, not even the Japanese bothered to develop armour that could protect against a projectile. The best defense he had was not to be at the point the arrow arrived when it came home. Samurai archers were revered for their deadly accuracy & ability to put several projectiles onto many targets in a very short period of time. I just wouldn't have wanted to face the best warriors with either the sword or the bow in Feudal Japan. Europeans, particularly the English Longbowman, preferred to use their far-reaching, fast projectiles as early artillery, a more mobile & accurate piece of battle tech than the various siege instruments they had, such as the trebuchet, which none could protect themselves from were they to find themselves in the direct path of the large stones & other objects they were known to put out with those deadly instruments. You may as well have been naked than to waste expensive armour when it came to projectiles launched from such heavy weapons.
Any way we look at it, I'm sure we could all find reasonable arguments for both butted & riveted maille. I only make butted because I make mostly jewelry, though I have done a glove for a chef--not an easy task by any means! It's a hood thing he's a friend & I don't usually pay for much of anything when dining at his place of employ. :-) In any event, the battle tactics of the day, both eastern & western, offered little chance for maille to protect someone by itself. It was commonly worn by the most wealthy in conjunction with some kind of plate armour. That's just the fact of the matter. If you were unlucky enough to go into battle with chain or leather armour only, you could only count on dying quickly if you weren't among the best longbowmen or swordsmen among your troops.
"The sea has neither pity nor meaning" ---Antonin Chekhov
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Sat 24 Mar, 2012 12:17 pm Post subject: |
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| John Ferra wrote: | | <snipped nonsense> |
You need to spend some time reading through these forums. This post has managed to trash decades of work that has been done trying to undo all of the myths about armour.
There is nothing to suggest that butted mail was ever worn on a European battlefield.
Riveted mail is perfectly capable of stopping arrows.
The whole point of Japanese armour for centuries was to resist arrows.
Body armour was first developed in the Bronze Age to stop arrows and has been doing so ever since.
It requires heavy bows, short ranges, and specialised arrowheads to even have a chance of compromising most types of armour.
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Timo Nieminen
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| Posted: Sat 24 Mar, 2012 2:39 pm Post subject: |
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| John Ferra wrote: |
Honestly, as far as projectile weapons are concerned, little stopped the English Longbow, short of a solid, thick shield, & crossbows of the time were very effective at piercing even the strongest plate armour. It makes little sense to talk about any maille stopping projectile weapons.
[...]
In any event, not even the Japanese bothered to develop armour that could protect against a projectile. |
Lots of accounts of Japanese armour stopping arrows in the traditional epics. A few accounts of arrows piercing armour. (Also some stories of arrows bypassing armour, such as through the topknot hole in the top of the helmet bowl.) Given that the Japanese made musket-proof armour, they also had arrow-proof armour.
For European armour, plenty of accounts of mail resisting arrows (and lances, and axes, and more).
For a longbow, about 2-3mm of iron or steel plate will do the trick. I'm not surprised to see that a lot of breastplates and helmets were of about this thickness. When guns that could pierce armour like this turned up on the battlefield, armour got thicker, to the point where it would resist such guns. As for crossbows, the strongest plate armour was often proofed with crossbows - that is, "proof" as in "test", where the armour was shot at with crossbows to test whether it could resist.
We also see arrow-resistant armour elsewhere, such as Korea, China, India, Persia, the Ottoman Empire, and Africa. Some of this was musket-resistant, and would have stopped arrows very effectively. Some of it could and did stop modern (i.e., 19th century) rifle bullets.
One thing to note is that the arrow/crossbow/musket resistant armour is often confined to the torso and/or head, while the limbs (and sometimes hips and shoulders) have lighter armour (sometimes capable of resisting arrows at long range, but likely to be vulnerable at short ranges). The torso armour is often 2-3 times thicker and heavier than needed to give good protection against cuts. This extra weight here means that limbs - which are major targets for cutting and striking weapons - are less protected, sometimes even minimally protected.
One good sign of the high level of protection one could have against arrows (and crossbow bolts) is the high regard for the armour-piercing capabilities of firearms - if arrows go through any and all armour, why bother with guns?
Anyway, you appear to have an interest in the Japanese end of these things. While the epic tales are somewhat fictionalised, there is plenty of realistic detail in them, very worth reading to see what people of the time thought of combat, armour, etc. From Tale of the Heike, one double illustration of the effectiveness of armour versus arrows:
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"Keep pushing your armor up. Don't let an arrow through. See that your neck-guard is low. Don't get shot in the face."
Naozane pulled out the arrows that were lodged in his own armor, tossed them aside ...
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"In addition to being efficient, all pole arms were quite nice to look at." - Cherney Berg, A hideous history of weapons, Collier 1963.
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John Ferra
Location: Arizona Joined: 22 Mar 2012
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| Posted: Sat 24 Mar, 2012 5:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Timo Nieminen wrote: | | John Ferra wrote: |
Honestly, as far as projectile weapons are concerned, little stopped the English Longbow, short of a solid, thick shield, & crossbows of the time were very effective at piercing even the strongest plate armour. It makes little sense to talk about any maille stopping projectile weapons.
[...]
In any event, not even the Japanese bothered to develop armour that could protect against a projectile. |
Lots of accounts of Japanese armour stopping arrows in the traditional epics. A few accounts of arrows piercing armour. (Also some stories of arrows bypassing armour, such as through the topknot hole in the top of the helmet bowl.) Given that the Japanese made musket-proof armour, they also had arrow-proof armour.
For European armour, plenty of accounts of mail resisting arrows (and lances, and axes, and more).
For a longbow, about 2-3mm of iron or steel plate will do the trick. I'm not surprised to see that a lot of breastplates and helmets were of about this thickness. When guns that could pierce armour like this turned up on the battlefield, armour got thicker, to the point where it would resist such guns. As for crossbows, the strongest plate armour was often proofed with crossbows - that is, "proof" as in "test", where the armour was shot at with crossbows to test whether it could resist.
We also see arrow-resistant armour elsewhere, such as Korea, China, India, Persia, the Ottoman Empire, and Africa. Some of this was musket-resistant, and would have stopped arrows very effectively. Some of it could and did stop modern (i.e., 19th century) rifle bullets.
One thing to note is that the arrow/crossbow/musket resistant armour is often confined to the torso and/or head, while the limbs (and sometimes hips and shoulders) have lighter armour (sometimes capable of resisting arrows at long range, but likely to be vulnerable at short ranges). The torso armour is often 2-3 times thicker and heavier than needed to give good protection against cuts. This extra weight here means that limbs - which are major targets for cutting and striking weapons - are less protected, sometimes even minimally protected.
One good sign of the high level of protection one could have against arrows (and crossbow bolts) is the high regard for the armour-piercing capabilities of firearms - if arrows go through any and all armour, why bother with guns?
Anyway, you appear to have an interest in the Japanese end of these things. While the epic tales are somewhat fictionalised, there is plenty of realistic detail in them, very worth reading to see what people of the time thought of combat, armour, etc. From Tale of the Heike, one double illustration of the effectiveness of armour versus arrows:
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"Keep pushing your armor up. Don't let an arrow through. See that your neck-guard is low. Don't get shot in the face."
Naozane pulled out the arrows that were lodged in his own armor, tossed them aside ...
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I see what you're saying. I can believe the Japanese made armor strong enough to resist projectiles. It's difficult to discern what is fictionalization & what is true. I know that the Japanese Samurai needed to move quickly. Ueshiba Sensei was 4'11" & he was known to toss grown men, all larger than him, across a room, 3 at a time. His art is based off of the Samurai movement, just using the body parts in place of the sword (think of the forearm as the long two-handed hilt of the traditional sword). If you have an elbow & shoulder joint locked up, it takes little effort to take that forearm down like a sword comes out of the top of the elbow & toss a person across a room! That's the movement I think of when I try balancing what the Japanese fighting style was like as compared to the epic tales. Samurai bowmen shot from horseback. They could hit a bullseye every time, but they would hit you at a full gallop from close range. It's hard to believe that they had armor that could not be penetrated by that kind of hit. If two bowmen came against each other, the one who released first could not only penetrate his opponent, but he would actually unseat his opponent with the strength of the arrow hit, like a medieval jouster. At least, that's the story you hear. Again, how much truth is in there? I've got to believe that some truth is on both sides, but I'm going to lean a little more to the offensive side than the defensive. However, I could also believe they could come up with a leather armor stiff & tough enough to withstand a glancing blow from a sword. However, I know there were plenty of lower level fighters that lost limbs, & eventually their heads, as the great Samurai could realistically fight off a dozen lesser fighters at once (I have actually had to learn this kata in Aikido--my Sensei demonstrated it with such speed & force that it was easy to see how an older, well-practiced Samurai warrior could execute these maneuvers & dispatch a seemingly overwhelming force).
With regard to the medieval plate armor, I'm going to be a little skeptical of what you're saying. A breast plate of 3" thickness would put up to 80 to 100 pounds of armor on a knight. Now, we know they had heavy armor because we know their war horses are what we use as draft horses today, the Shires & the Clydesdales. Their armor was indeed heavy. However, some of the weight born by their horse was in weaponry. Some of the knights were known to carry a spear, a war hammer, & a broadsword for the different phases of the battle. While the horse was plenty strong, the man would have to have been enormous & of incredible strength to wield these weapons with a massive set of armor. The weakness was obviously the limbs, but I don't know that the breast plates were THAT thick. :-)
Either way, historians far mor knowledgable than me still argue these very points. I've garnered what I can from the literature of the times (I was a lit major in grad school, so that's where I'm getting a lot of these stories from; my history studies only went so far as to earn an undergrad minor). It's so difficult to tell how effective the armor really was & how well the swords or spears or lances were at penetrating it. I do know for a fact that stories exist from both Feudal Europe as well as Feudal Japan of warriors slashing the tendons at the back of the knee so as to incapacitate their opponent & remove home from the battle. Afterall, if a guy can't walk, he's not a threat. I'd have to question how well any armor, plate, maille, or otherwise resisted such strokes from a well honed blade, whether a katana or a very sharp, double-edges broadsword.
I don't claim to know these answers, & we always have to remember that the history of battles are written by the victor. We rarely have any perspective from the losing side. For me, it's really hard to sort the fact from fiction, especially in some of the Japanese epic. From my knowledge as a practitioner of Aikido & having read as much of O-Sensei's writings as I can, I have to believe that the dedicated warrior, the heads of the great families, really were the great warriors legends paint them to be. From Ueshiba Sensei himself, who was born at the very end of Feudalism in Japan, he developed his art & style by long study & meditation on the great warriors of the past because there weren't any of these left by the late 1880s. He would have had no contemporary example. I have to believe he had more detailed texts than what I have translated into English to create Aikido, as powerful & as spiritual as it is. There is a great deal of Buddhism in Aikido, at least as Ueshiba Sensei taught it. He believed that KĪ was a very real force & that we coud teach ourselves & be taught by others how to harness that KĪ into a very powerful force for defense. Of course, that's another Buddhist aspect (& where we get some of the modern divisions within Aikido), that to be a great warrior is to prepare for peace as much as it is to prepare for war, maybe even more to prepare for peace. It seems a contradiction, but what I know of Samurai & of Aikido, as much as some may want to break it down into simple Physics & Anatomy, I have personally felt what it is like to be hurled more than 10-ft through the air! It's an amazing feeling to feel the power of your attack, as serious as it is, to be turned against you & into a force for the person you attack. One can break it down into the physics of the circular movement, catching your attacker at just the right moment & in just the right way as to turn that motion & intention into something tremendously powerful. The physics argument is easy to believe, but when you see the demonstrations of KĪ by the great practitioners of Aikido & the Chinese Monks. There are things that have been demonstrated that science has yet to explain.
I'm sorry to drone on & on, but these are things I've tried to understand for a long time. For instance, we know that there were ways that hides were cured & pressed together in layers that was rumored to act very much like today's Kevlar body armor, which we know can stop small arms & long-range, slower muzzle velocity arms. Now, the higher velocity, heavier rounds have been known to penetrate some of today's Kevlar, but is it so hard to imagine that with some knowledge of how to cure & manipulate hides into thick but light armor that they didn't have things that couldn't withstand even some of the rifled arms of the late 18th Century. We know how well the guns worked in the Revolutionary War, but that was against unarmored soldiers. What would have happened if either the British OR the Americans had the technology the Japanese are rumored to have had? It could have changed the war completely. However, it was the weaponry on the American side--as well as the way they fought the war in a guerilla style for the day--that won the war. In any event, as I said before, all I have to go from is my limited history education, which happened to be both Feudal Japan as well as the history of WWII at the upper-class level & my study of undergrad study--as well as my study of Literature in English at the graduate level to go from as far as both weaponry & armor is concerned. It's just too tough to figure out what happened & what didn't, especially when it comes to classical literature. Who really knows what happened in the Peloponesian War or if Troy really existed. Who knows some of this stuff that is reported whether it really happened. So there you have my two cents. 
"The sea has neither pity nor meaning" ---Antonin Chekhov
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Timo Nieminen
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| Posted: Sat 24 Mar, 2012 6:42 pm Post subject: |
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| John Ferra wrote: |
I see what you're saying. I can believe the Japanese made armor strong enough to resist projectiles. It's difficult to discern what is fictionalization & what is true. I know that the Japanese Samurai needed to move quickly.
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We know they made armour strong enough to resist musket shot. It's easier to make arrow-proof armour than musket-proof armour. As for weight, a Japanese (cavalry) armour might weigh 60lbs, not too different to European armour. (European knights needed to move quickly, too!) That lets you have enough iron/steel for a soundly arrow-proof torso and helmet.
'Tis true we don't always know when we can take the Japanese (and other) literature literally. But what we know from it is that piercing good body armour with arrows was regarded as a "heroic" feat. So, perhaps possible, but not likely for an average shot by an average archer at good armour. If the average arrow went through, then the image of samurai surviving, without any serious wounds, with many arrows lodged in their armour would quite incredible.
| John Ferra wrote: |
With regard to the medieval plate armor, I'm going to be a little skeptical of what you're saying. A breast plate of 3" thickness would put up to 80 to 100 pounds of armor on a knight.
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Who claims 3" breastplates? About 2-3mm was typical; that makes anything over 1/8" quite thick (before firearms became common; after that, one sees cavalry breastplates of 6mm or so often enough).
| John Ferra wrote: |
I do know for a fact that stories exist from both Feudal Europe as well as Feudal Japan of warriors slashing the tendons at the back of the knee so as to incapacitate their opponent & remove home from the battle. Afterall, if a guy can't walk, he's not a threat. I'd have to question how well any armor, plate, maille, or otherwise resisted such strokes from a well honed blade, whether a katana or a very sharp, double-edges broadsword.
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The back of the knee is often unprotected. Often the back of the thigh, and the buttocks, too (on cavalry armour). Palms of the hands. On many armours, much of the face. As a result, wounds don't mean that the armour was penetrated. (This makes it harder to use historical evidence to see how effective archery was, or how effective other weapons were, for piercing armour.)
But if you can't see how armour can be effective against blades, try it for yourself. Get/make some mail, get some 2mm mild steel, get some 1mm mild steel. Get a gambeson or jack, or make equivalent patches. Get a suitable backing - perhap soaked tatami on a stand, or clay. For testing cutting through mail, butted mail is sufficient.
Then hit it, with whatever weapons. It won't be a very scientific test, but it can still be very educational. (And the thread topic is well-demonstrated by thrusting into butted mail (whether sword thrust, spear, or arrow).)
| John Ferra wrote: |
We know how well the guns worked in the Revolutionary War, but that was against unarmored soldiers. What would have happened if either the British OR the Americans had the technology the Japanese are rumored to have had? |
Japanese technology? The Japanese anti-bullet (and best anti-arrow) technology was duplex armour, with a hardened steel face over a softer backing. No secret to Europeans, who had used such armour.
Body armour wasn't forgotten in the West; it was used in World War 1 and 2 (the best-known WW2 armour was Soviet, a chest protector and a groin protector hanging from it, designed to stop 9mm SMG rounds). Just that the thickness needed to stop modern firearms was too great for such armour to be light enough for general use - Ned Kelly's armour was over 40kg.
"In addition to being efficient, all pole arms were quite nice to look at." - Cherney Berg, A hideous history of weapons, Collier 1963.
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Sat 24 Mar, 2012 6:56 pm Post subject: |
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| John Ferra wrote: | | Samurai bowmen shot from horseback. They could hit a bullseye every time, but they would hit you at a full gallop from close range. It's hard to believe that they had armor that could not be penetrated by that kind of hit. |
Japanese lamellar was specifically designed to stop this kind of attack.
| Quote: | | If two bowmen came against each other, the one who released first could not only penetrate his opponent, but he would actually unseat his opponent with the strength of the arrow hit |
Physics dictates that if a bow was really capable of this then the very act of shooting it will fling the wielder backwards out of his own saddle.
| Quote: | | With regard to the medieval plate armor, I'm going to be a little skeptical of what you're saying. |
It is good to be skeptical. You should stop right here and learn about the subject rather than wasting time with empty speculation.
| Quote: | | A breast plate of 3" thickness would put up to 80 to 100 pounds of armor on a knight. |
You are confusing inches and millimeters. A 3-inch breastplate would weigh hundreds of pounds. It has been demonstrated that 3mm of poor quality munitions plate is more than capable of stopping heavy warbow arrows at point blank ranges. Even 2mm barely permits penetration and a lot of armour was made from better quality steel than this.
| Quote: | | Now, we know they had heavy armor because we know their war horses are what we use as draft horses today, the Shires & the Clydesdales. |
Again no. Draft horses didn't exist until the need for carriages arose in the 18th century when roads started to improve. Medieval warhorses would be more like a modern hunter or endurance horse. But even these had no trouble bearing a fully armoured knight into battle.
| Quote: | | Their armor was indeed heavy. However, some of the weight born by their horse was in weaponry. Some of the knights were known to carry a spear, a war hammer, & a broadsword for the different phases of the battle. While the horse was plenty strong, the man would have to have been enormous & of incredible strength to wield these weapons with a massive set of armor. The weakness was obviously the limbs, but I don't know that the breast plates were THAT thick. :-) |
The thickest breastplates that I've ever come across are around 8mm at the front. These were proofed against firearms at point blank.
| Quote: | | From my knowledge as a practitioner of Aikido & having read as much of O-Sensei's writings as I can, I have to believe that the dedicated warrior, the heads of the great families, really were the great warriors legends paint them to be. From Ueshiba Sensei himself, who was born at the very end of Feudalism in Japan, he developed his art & style by long study & meditation on the great warriors of the past because there weren't any of these left by the late 1880s |
The samurai you are thinking of were civilian administrators who fought duels with no armour at all. The katana is a poor weapon to use against an armoured opponent.
| Quote: | | Either way, historians far mor knowledgable than me still argue these very points. |
Actually many historians know even less than you, including university professors. Hoplology is a completely different field of study and is generally not taught at college.
Please use the search function and read some of the articles on this site before continuing.
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Kel Rekuta
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| Posted: Sun 25 Mar, 2012 11:21 pm Post subject: |
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A telling comment you might consider John is that Dr. Matthew Strickland purposefully begins presentations on the subject with "I prefer not to discuss armour penetration issues." If the author of an important book on military archery has this to say, perhaps its better that arm-chair historians consider why a professional researcher steers clear of the topic. Its a quagmire.
The evidence, in either case, is entire circumstantial. Quoting Dr. Williams' fascinating work is not proof. It is a series of data points. He concurred, publicly, at the very same conference that Dr Strickland also presented at. (Wallace ARS conference 2007)
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Eric S
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| Posted: Mon 26 Mar, 2012 2:42 am Post subject: |
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| Dan Howard wrote: |
The samurai you are thinking of were civilian administrators who fought duels with no armour at all. The katana is a poor weapon to use against an armoured opponent.
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Why would any samurai whether an administrator or not chose to fight without armor? While it is true that traditional armor was over time retired for use in emergencies, parades etc, other types of light weight portable folding "tatami'' armors and armored clothing became much more prominent in daily use. This type of "non traditional" armor was very easy to hide under clothing and the armor its self was often concealed inside clothing and was not even noticed by the casual observer. This type of armor came in many styles and shapes. Kikko, karuta and kusari armors were worn by high and low status samurai, remember that Japan was still a nation were every adult male samurai was armed while in public right up until the samurai class was dissolved in the 1870s. If you look carefully at period prints you will often see armor being worn under the street clothing of samurai. As "administrators" samurai were in charge of internal security, with each of the hundreds of feudal lords (Daimyo) having to provide security for their individual domains. Not being able to handle whatever security problems may have come up would have had serious consequences including being removed and replaced. The Tokugawa government had their own security forces as well and all of these retainers were armed and wore armor of some type.
In "Secrets of the samurai: a survey of the martial arts of feudal Japan By Oscar Ratti, Adele Westbrook http://books.google.com/books?id=Z9lmmkvQOpoC...mp;f=false
the necessity of the continuation of the use of armor in the 200+yr Edo period as being common and a necessity is throughly discussed>>>>
| Quote: | | "During the more than two hundred years of the Tokugawa period, however, the need for protecting the body in combat was never completely eliminated. The struggle for power which the great houses had undertaken on the battlefield gave way (under the enforced pacification of the Tokugawa) to all manner of civil strife, political intrigues, duels, (both individual and collective), assassinations, which in turn spawned a rich assortment of light armor such as the under garment of fine mail (kusari katabira) and other secret protective clothing worn under the ordinary clothing by the affiliated warrior, the samurai or the ronin. Armored sleeves derived from the traditional kote could be concealed under an overcoat, as could a light tight fitting corselet (do) to protect the back and neck, and an armored collar (nodo-wa) which covered the shoulders. Thus even in times of comparative peace, the use of armor continued to influence the various specializations of bujutsu and, in its new dimension gave a new impetus to the development of methods of close range combat such as kenjutsu and jujutsu, which had evolved from ancient methods of long range combat such as kyukutsu and yarijutsu, werein the full suit of armor or yoroi played such a significant role." |
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William P
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| Posted: Mon 26 Mar, 2012 6:07 am Post subject: |
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also i seem to notice alot of popular illustrations of ninja seen as wearing a sort of ;'fishnet clothing' could this actually be a misrepresentation of prints that are actuallyshowcasing kusari armour under the ninjas clothes?
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Johan Gemvik
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| Posted: Mon 26 Mar, 2012 6:45 am Post subject: |
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| William P wrote: | | also i seem to notice alot of popular illustrations of ninja seen as wearing a sort of ;'fishnet clothing' could this actually be a misrepresentation of prints that are actuallyshowcasing kusari armour under the ninjas clothes? |
Yes, probably.
"The Dwarf sees farther than the Giant when he has the giant's shoulder to mount on" -Coleridge
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