Do you confirm the affirmative of this site?: http://www.ageofarmour.com/composite.html

I have moved this topic to the off-topic forum from the Historic Arms Talk forum. Please note the description for the historic arms talk forum: "Discussions of reproduction and authentic historical arms and armour from various cultures and time periods"

There isn't much discussion in the first post and I'm not sure what is being asked so off-topic is probably best.

"the overall best mix of protection, mobility, weight and practicality for combat."

Really? Maybe for the owner, but not for me. The intermixture of style looks rather awkward to my eyes. And, on a slightly different note, on an armor that complete I'm rather surprised to find that it doesn't include an arret.

The point is that the effectiveness of armor depends not only on its physical and mechanical qualities, but on personal taste. I, for one, prefer to have just a cuirass and a helmet with light arm defenses (or just cuirass, helmet, and a pair of very thick gloves)--when acting as a heavy cavalryman. When going light or on foot, I'd just ditch the armor completely and rely on the snooping and sneaking skills I learned from my Boy Scout days.

Looks pretty nice to me, actually. I'd take one! :cool:

Cheers!

Gordon

Well, that being said, I've never been a fan of white armor. I would have blacked it or put a jupon on top of it in order to satisfy my sense of aesthetics. ;P

Well, I'd hate the gold accents. Damned hard to maintain, they are. But I won't mind the blue.

was the blue and gold regards to scouts????

Sneaking on a battle field.... annoying little peasants with their bloody knives... :D


I like the suit although I like milanese mid 15th more or 1480's gothic.

RPM

Randall;

Actually, I was thinking of this:

[ Linked Image ]

Might be a bit "busy", though... :D

Cheers!

Gordon

Gordon,

busy is a good word for it. I like it though!

RPM

I've looked at that armor now (yesterday the connection sort of got cut off) and...well, it is quite a "busy" one. Way too busy for me, certainly!

What if several armour styles are only separated by a few degrees from being the best for countering a particular threat? Having only a single "best of" tactical advantage supporting your effort does not guarantee a succsessful result.

Well, I've never tried a 16h-century full harness, but I've tried on a replica plate-and-mail harness of an early 15th-century model sized for somebody of about my height (which was a surprise since I'm just 5'3 and was even shorter back then), albeit a little heavier and more muscular. Tightening a few straps gave a reasonably good fit and I wasn't surprised to find the armor very easy to move in. That's when I hadn't had any training to fight in armor at all. With all its obvious advantages, though, I still say it's not the kind of armor I would have preferred. I'm a light cavalryman by temperament, given to sneaking and snooping and even disguising myself, so I would have naturally preferred something lighter. A cuirass under a jupon or a loose coat and a small iron cap under a hat would have been more my style if we restrict ourselves to late Medieval or early Renaissance armor.

Mind that I wasn't talking about obsolete armor and the like. I said a given person might prefer something other than the most complete or the most flexible kind of armor available even if he/she could afford it, because he/she preferred a different kind of mix between protection and flexibility. This is important since major, open battles--where a fighter would naturally seek as much protection as he/she could reasonably wear--made up only a small fraction of a person's lifetime, or even of a person's military experience. There would have been plenty of other occasions (i.e. marches, raids, scouting expeditions) where a less protective set of armor might have been preerable. We also have plenty of historical evidence that paranoid noblemen wore cuirasses and iron caps under their civilian clothing when walking in dangerous places or attending negotiations that might get hairy--not to mention poleyns, which could easily be explained away as (particularly expensive) civilian riding gear!

So, anybody who's trying to convince me of the merits of a full plate harness is preaching to the choir. But anybody trying to persuade me to prefer one has only an infinitesimal chance to succeed.

You're in accord with this?: the maximilian armour came after the gothic armour, so the maximilian was better; the peascod armour came after the maximilian, so the peascod was better.

And I'm curious about if this composite armour that I show in the beginning of this topic is actually a peascod armour