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Ruel A. Macaraeg
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Timo Nieminen
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 Posted: Wed 20 Apr, 2011 1:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Eric S wrote: |
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This armour has clearly been constructed from two different carefully chosen and skilfully worked materials, such that even with a thickness of about 1mm the armour would provide the best possible level of protection for the wearer.
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http://www.royalarmouries.org/what-we-do/rese...ate-armour
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It's a pity there are no real details. Like age of the armour, where in the armour the piece that was analysed came from, what the hardnesses of the two sides are. Perhaps the 1mm given above is the thickness of the piece, but this isn't certain from the report. It's about what one would expect - thinner than that, and you won't be stopping arrows, and thicker than that, you're not getting the benefit of lightness from the composite construction that you should be getting.
I can't find anywhere where this has been published in any more detail. Alas, the RA doesn't even give any names of who is responsible, so it's not so easy to do a thorough search of the research literature.
But, anyway, this is a good example of composite armour that isn't aimed at stopping bullets.
"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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Eric S
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| Posted: Wed 20 Apr, 2011 4:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Timo Nieminen wrote: | .
But, anyway, this is a good example of composite armour that isn't aimed at stopping bullets. |
Timo, if you contact the Royal Armouries with your questions they will try to help you, I sent a question to them and they put me in contact with Ian Bottomley. I was told that the person who conducted the tests is no longer with the museum but they did tell me his name (I cant seem to find it now!).
As for this piece of armor, since it is plate armor it can reasonably assumed that it was produced after the advent of firearms in Japan when the armor makers switched from scale armor to plate armor. If the piece that is pictured is the actual item then were the plate was used on an armor is important. Of course the smaller armor plates that protect the neck, and thigh etc would not be expected to be bullet proof as the weight of thick heavier armor plates on these areas would be to much, but the fact that even a small plate was made in such a time and material consuming method says a lot for whoever made this armor. An interesting concept, an entire armor made from steel laminated plates.
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Eric S
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| Posted: Thu 21 Apr, 2011 8:16 am Post subject: |
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| Dan Howard wrote: | Bottomley mentions the problems with lamellar armour while on extended campaigns and suggests that this may be why later armours tend towards designs that don't need much lacing. He cites this passage from Sakakibara Kozan as support.
“When soaked with water the armour becomes very heavy and cannot be quickly dried; so that in summer it is oppressive and in winter liable to freeze. Moreover, no amount of washing will completely free the lacing from any mud or blood which may have penetrated it, and on long and distant campaigns it becomes evil-smelling and overrun by ants and lice, with consequent ill effects on the health of the wearer.” |
Something not mentioned in books very often or seen on most armors for sale is leather lacing. Silk was not the only lacing used on samurai armors, leather was also used. In later years when an armor was being restored or refurbished the leather lace would be substituted with the colored lace commonly seen on most armors today.
http://www.yamabushiantiques.com/BM%20Ni%20Mai%20Dou.htm
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Timo Nieminen
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| Posted: Thu 21 Apr, 2011 1:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Eric S wrote: | | Something not mentioned in books very often or seen on most armors for sale is leather lacing. Silk was not the only lacing used on samurai armors, leather was also used. In later years when an armor was being restored or refurbished the leather lace would be substituted with the colored lace commonly seen on most armors today. |
Traditionally deerskin lacing. Apparently there is one surviving example of armour laced with red-dyed deerskin.
"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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William P
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| Posted: Sun 15 Apr, 2012 4:10 am Post subject: |
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| Dan Howard wrote: | | Larry Bohnham wrote: | Seriously, though, the Samurai were more concerned with an honorable death in battle and I think their armor tends to reflect that outlook on life. It is really quite ingenious though and shows excellent engineering principles designed to take advantage of the fact that they did not have extensive amounts of iron available to make maiile or plate. The armor is light, very flexible and slanted more toward letting you survive long enough in battle to close with your opponent and get at 'em with a katana or naginata.
That said I think that most western medieval edged weapons including pole arms would have been very effective against Japanese laminar armour, if only because these weapons were designed to defeat all steel defenses. I hope to do some cross cultural testing or this sort later this year, time permitting, and I'll share the results. In the meantime, if you look at the back episode of the Spike series called "Deadliest Warrior" that featured the Samurai v. Viking, they took a whack at a period Japanese helmet and it stood up quite well, the laminar Mon (breast plate) however came off worse for the wear, which makes sense because the helmet is made of steel plate along western design principles. |
None of this is particularly true. If the Japanese were so hung up on an "honourable death" then they wouldn't have bothered with armour at all.
Their armour is no different from all of the other examples of lamellar all over the world except for some minor differences in lame shape and lacing.The Japanese had plenty of iron available and did make plate and mail armour - just not the fully-enclosed articulated suits that were exclusive to Western Europe.
It isn't all that light. Plenty of European suits were lighter. Lamellar by its very nature is heavier than plate.
A lot of Japanese lamellar was in fact rigid, not flexible. It depends on how the lames are laced together.
Any weapon would be effective against Japanese armour if you can bypass the armour and attack the gaps.
"Laminar" is another term for segmented plate. The Japanese used a "lamellar" construction.
Nothing in Deadliest Warrior is even close to historically accurate. It won't tell us anything useful about Japanese armour. |
i want to just note this phrase
Their armour is no different from all of the other examples of lamellar all over the world except for some minor differences in lame shape and lacing.
i can voch for that, lamellar used by the byzantine kataphracts (or whatever varient of the cataphract existed during the 11th C)
and the saracen mamluke 'khassaki' also employed lamellar shoulder armour, and the reconstruction images very much remind me of japanese sode.
in fact when one guy in mmy varangian group decided to test the mamluke lamellar he had recently made which was a leather lamellar breastplate and shoulder armour, my first thought, was that it looked very much like samurai armour.
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