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I think it's important to interject in here that, theorycrafting aside, historically the people wearing plate armor pretty much dropped shields as their armor got better.
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Jan 5, 2014 00:04
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the JJ posted:I think it's important to interject in here that, theorycrafting aside, historically the people wearing plate armor pretty much dropped shields as their armor got better. Yeah we believe it. The discussion is whether or not an armored arm is somehow equally as effective as a shield at deflecting/absorbing blows. I'd say not.
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Jan 5, 2014 00:19
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Baldbeard posted:Yeah we believe it. The discussion is whether or not an armored arm is somehow equally as effective as a shield at deflecting/absorbing blows. I'd say not. Well, I think the point at which you're slapping away at a hammer things have gone wrong already.
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Jan 5, 2014 00:31
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The thing about shields is that they don't last. To my understanding, throughout the middle ages most shields were made of thin (talking maybe nine millimetres thin) laminate of wood, glue and rawhide. It's pretty great for stopping arrows and javelins, but a big Dane axe blows a shield apart and even normal hand weapons give them a beating. Accounts of viking holmgang duels (like Cormac's saga, chapter 10) state that both duelists should bring with them three shields. The shield grows more obsolete as equipment develops. Armor grows better at shielding the wearer from arrows and cuts, and weapons like maces, hammers and poleaxes are introduced. In other words, the need for a particularly large shield diminishes while weapons capable of completely wrecking a shield grow more prevalent. Since the guy with the longest weapon often gets to hit first, it's no wonder that soldiers did away with shields and opted for the bigger stick instead. Here's a neat document. It looks like it's from History Channel, but it seems sensible enough.
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Jan 5, 2014 00:49
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On armorchat, how long did it take to manufacture various types of armor anyway?
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Jan 5, 2014 01:16
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Kind if an odd question and not sure if you could help be but I'll try. Where would I find more information or videos on things like medieval towns and castles? I'm really interested in architecture of the period and town life and videos or images of layouts, blueprints and how life was would be fantastic.
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Jan 5, 2014 03:55
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About armour manufacturing; was there any part during the high/late middle ages with industrial scale armour making, kinda like the old Roman slave factories?
GyverMac fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Jan 5, 2014 |
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Jan 5, 2014 16:42
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So I always hear about the various knightly orders(Templars, Hospitallers) associated with the Middle Eastern Crusades. My question is did the Islamic side have any equivalent kind of organizations?
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Jan 5, 2014 17:39
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For some reason I cannot multi-quote at all.the JJ posted:I think it's important to interject in here that, theorycrafting aside, historically the people wearing plate armor pretty much dropped shields as their armor got better. Delays since I have a 3000 word essay on women’s suffrage to write this week (1200 words in). Around this time the guys not wearing plate armour were also dropping shields a lot of the time. Duke Albrecht’s levy around the 1400s (I think 1420, I don't have my source handy) equips troops with pikes, crossbows, handguns or flails, ‘body armour of iron or jerkin’, a helmet, gauntlets, sword or knife – but doesn’t mention shields at all and the main weapons would be difficult to use with shields. They might have only had a jerkin (probably gambeson), helmet and gauntlets, but still not be using shields. Shield/armour and deflecting/absorbing blows in general: JJ has done a good job of summarising my thoughts on the matter. Having a hand free to grapple with might help a lot if you want to avoid taking a full-force blow. Veekie and armour manufacture times: Mail: Unchained - http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_mail.php - gives some rough figures. At Iserlohn in the 15th century, a mail haubergeon cost 4.6 gulden while plate armour only cost 4.3 gulden.112 Kassa's archives (Hungary 1633) record a mail shirt costing six times that of a "double breastplate." These records also indicate the huge difference in labour involved. The mail required 2 months to be completed while the breastplate, only 2 days. The source he uses was Knight and the Blast Furnace by Alan Williams (page 910). Disappointing Pie and castles/towns/general stuff: This would probably take a little more research than I can take the time for at the moment. It depends on what you look for, but Dan Howard made a book called Compact Castles – it is actually intended as an RPG supplement, but it is a collection of smaller historical castles with floor plans. However, it is nowhere near as detailed as I would like. I can show you Harlech Castle’s floor plan, again nowhere near detailed enough for my taste but it might be interesting to you - http://medievalcastles.stormthecastle.com/harlech-castle-floor-plan.htm - it should point you in at least some of the directions you want to go. Others will need to say more about towns. What I recommend to everyone is the Great Courses, D. Armstrong, the Medieval World. I don’t have the information from it with me, but it covers a LOT of the details of regular life. For instance, medieval buildings in towns would often have the upper floors be larger than the lower floors, creating an overhang that meant the upper floors of neigbouring buildings might almost touching. GyverMac and industrial scale armour production: Since the population had declined had declined after the Black Death, making the cost of labour go up, I would hesitate to compare it to the Roman slave factories. What I can say is that both Augsburg and Milan were major armour producers, with well-established workshops for making quality armours that were widely exported. They had a well-developed infrastructure for that sort of things. NarcoPolo and Muslim equivalents of knightly orders: Not that I know of, though arguably the Mamluks and the later Janissary corps of the Ottoman Empire could be described as loosely similar. There would never be an exact counterpart since the military orders of the Catholic church were in theory designed for a very specific purpose (care of pilgrims), but the Mamluks and Janissaries were technically slave-soldiers. Later on, the military orders were independent powers with their own states (such as the Hospitallers in Rhodes and Malta or the Teutonic Order in Prussia). In short, yes there were elite bodies of Muslim soldiers, but they were too different to be equivalents to the military orders. Railtus fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Jan 5, 2014 |
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Jan 5, 2014 20:57
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Railtus posted:Veekie and armour manufacture times: Hum, that's pretty fast, so a full set of plate would take a week or so to commission? How about common weapons?
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Jan 5, 2014 22:21
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NarcoPolo posted:So I always hear about the various knightly orders(Templars, Hospitallers) associated with the Middle Eastern Crusades. My question is did the Islamic side have any equivalent kind of organizations? Knightly orders were, in part, monastic organizations and monasticism never really caught on in the Islamic world, so you won't find an exact mirror image to Templars. The closest analogue would be the ribats. These fortresses (or more accurately walled compounds) would be built alongside trade & pilgrimage routes and on the frontiers of the Dar al-Islam. They had a religious character as they would house ghazis and other volunteered holy warriors and later they often had Sufi lodges as well. But it's impossible to speak of a single organization like the Templars. We can also speak of futuwwa organizations. These were social clubs where young urban men came together and followed elaborate (religiously inspired) ethical rules and hierarchies and usually paying respects to a particular Sufi pir or order. They were sometimes militant, served as the police force and protected their towns during sieges and whatnot. But again, these were far from trained soldiers, much less an elite cavalry force; they were more like citizen militias or armed gangs at worst. However, the Abbasid Caliph an-Nasir tried to give these societies a greater standing and turn them into a potent fighting force, with him personally leading one futuwwa society and initiating other Muslim rulers to it. His efforts were not successful in the long term.
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Jan 6, 2014 01:05
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fspades posted:Knightly orders were, in part, monastic organizations and monasticism never really caught on in the Islamic world, so you won't find an exact mirror image to Templars. The closest analogue would be the ribats. These fortresses (or more accurately walled compounds) would be built alongside trade & pilgrimage routes and on the frontiers of the Dar al-Islam. They had a religious character as they would house ghazis and other volunteered holy warriors and later they often had Sufi lodges as well. But it's impossible to speak of a single organization like the Templars. I remember that Ibn Battuta told about being escorted by a fraternal brotherhood while travelling through dangerous lands at one point. Must have been those futuwwa fellows. He said they kept an eye out for pilgrims and the like, although unlike knightly orders they were supported by private charity, not by grants of land or income.
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Jan 6, 2014 03:20
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A certain class of Sufi brotherhood could definitely fit a very similar model to the knightly orders. I mean, others would be all whirling dervishes or crazy night meditations or... well let's just say that Sufi orders could vary quite greatly. Something like the Senussi order in Libya is a bit, well, later than your medieval knight, what with this guy using guns and all, but it fits a lot of bench marks. Fraternal order, land grants, more or less autonomous function outside of 'normal' state control, focal point of military leadership in the war between righteous and the invading infidel. I'm pretty sure there are similar orders doing similar things on more restrained scales in other places. Comedy answer: the Assassins.
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Jan 6, 2014 04:40
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The shield thing happened in the ancient world too. As pikes became dominant the shield was reduced and eventually eliminated, until the Romans brought it back by phasing out pikes. You have to remember that armor isn't the main thing changing as shields go away, the whole "meta" of army tactics was changing as well. In the 15th century two knights going at it with swords is like <1% of what happens on a battlefield. There's longbows and arquebuses and cannons going on and a revolution in infantry tactics just around the corner.
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Jan 6, 2014 04:59
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veekie posted:Hum, that's pretty fast, so a full set of plate would take a week or so to commission? How about common weapons? I think the full suit would take a bit longer, because the other parts are more complicated - the waist, the limbs, the gauntlets and so on is where the articulations and moving parts are. That probably takes a bit longer, especially if tailor made. On the other hand, a reasonably full munitions armour in under a week sounds very feasible. With weapons I have not got any handy sources, though someone else who did a lot of studying on the subject once suggested around a week for a longsword (presuming late medieval, with access to homogenous steel, and not including making the suitable steel). I think it would take longer for pattern-welded or folded steel swords, since those are more labour intensive.
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Jan 6, 2014 05:28
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ookuwagata posted:I was also thinking that even if the metal didn't crush the flesh underneath, if the blow lands on a joint and deforms it, the joint may stick. If this happens to your elbow or shoulder, your ability to defend and attack would be compromised. If this happens to your leg or pelvis, your mobility goes. If both, you're basically sitting in a shiny custom fitted coffin. This is a valid tactic, and cited often historically. Generally armorers tended to make 'soft' transitions to combat the damage-binding around the major joints like shoulders and hips, with little direct plate coverage and usually a combination of overlapping transitional plate strips and maille. Getting back to the shield for a second, as was mentioned previously the improved ability to turn blows into glancing hits without the encumbrance of a shield, on top of the fact that plate armor was especially good at handling glancing hits, gave rise to the decline of the shield. Additionally, shields can be an extreme liability in many types of combat (for example, a shield is big and easy to grab, and is also strapped to someone's arm, making adverse control of the shield debilitating for the user. While this was not as much of a problem in earlier times in big shield/pike phalanxes since you couldn't usually get close enough to grab them, the more modern battlefield involved a number of maneuvers outside of thick formations, and hand to hand fighting was more common. Thus, plate protected arguably as well, allowed for much greater mobility and agility, and was a lot harder to take advantage of than a shield. You could also defeat the enemies plate far easier with a 2 handed weapon or multiple one handed weapons than you could with a shield).
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Jan 6, 2014 21:32
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:
To me, this is a distinction without a difference, so I don't really care how you phrase it.
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Jan 7, 2014 00:10
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So I've been wondering about the combatants in the Reconquista- I keep reading references that (Christian) Spanish men-at-arms were equipped and trained "differently" or than their peers in France or England for example- but I can't find much written about how. My understanding is that Moorish armies were typically more lightly armored and trained to fight with greater mobility than a typical European army- were the Christian Spaniards equipped to match them?
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Jan 10, 2014 23:08
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I've often read and heard that the nobility/knightly classes during the 12th and early 13th centuries in England viewed kettle helms as "cowardly" or "low class" and preferred the nasal helm (before great helm/mail/secret combinations ruled), despite the superior protection of a kettle helm against arrows. Is there any reason for this line of thinking? How is a kettle helm cowardly but a full harness of mail is not?
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Jan 12, 2014 00:55
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Does anyone have some recommendations for good books/documentaries about the black death?
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Jan 12, 2014 04:51
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IShallRiseAgain posted:Does anyone have some recommendations for good books/documentaries about the black death? I got John Kelly's "The Great Mortality" in my own bookcase and it's pretty good. It goes a bit in depth in how it probably began, cultural phenomena during the Black Death and other assorted weirdness that took place.
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Jan 12, 2014 06:26
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Kemper Boyd posted:I got John Kelly's "The Great Mortality" in my own bookcase and it's pretty good. It goes a bit in depth in how it probably began, cultural phenomena during the Black Death and other assorted weirdness that took place. Ooh, that sounds exactly what I was looking for. I'll have to check it out.
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Jan 12, 2014 07:01
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I enjoyed King Death by Colin Platt.
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Jan 12, 2014 07:10
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VoodooChild1968 posted:I've often read and heard that the nobility/knightly classes during the 12th and early 13th centuries in England viewed kettle helms as "cowardly" or "low class" and preferred the nasal helm (before great helm/mail/secret combinations ruled), despite the superior protection of a kettle helm against arrows. Is there any reason for this line of thinking? How is a kettle helm cowardly but a full harness of mail is not? From where have you heard this? England in the 12th and through most of the 13th century was very firmly under a Frankish cultural umbrella, and it is implicitly contradicted by the illuminator of the Morgan Bible's frequent choice of kettle hats as horseman's apparel. Whether it's meant to depict knights or sergeants is perhaps up for debate, but there is certainly no association of cowardice with it. Consider this example:  Another interesting example is the artist's depiction of Goliath:  Now, the illuminator went some way to make Goliath impressive. He has steel plate greaves, an inlaid sword, and, in a previous image, a page. In addition to the more obvious textual context, and Goliath being a literal giant, such clues to denote prowess and wealth are not what one would expect to be associated a piece of equipment for cowards or commoners. The choice of a kettle hat ratherhas a secondary practical reasoning behind it, I think. The illuminator needs to show Goliath being struck in the forehead, which a great helm would obscure. Thus the open kettle hat. VoteTedJameson posted:So I've been wondering about the combatants in the Reconquista- I keep reading references that (Christian) Spanish men-at-arms were equipped and trained "differently" or than their peers in France or England for example- but I can't find much written about how. My understanding is that Moorish armies were typically more lightly armored and trained to fight with greater mobility than a typical European army- were the Christian Spaniards equipped to match them? I haven't heard this about men-at-arms, and reading about the deeds and lives of Iberian knights (in this context Spain is interchangeable with Christian Iberia) or those who went on crusade there gives me no suggestion of distinct training. Certainly Dom Duarte's Bem Cavalgar, is presented and treated as a guide for knights across Europe. The Spanish did use Berber-style light cavalry (jinetes), and may have had lighter equipment in some way (different fabric composition, perhaps) than Germans from the same period, but their men-at-arms, their milites, seemed to fight in the same way as the rest of Europe. I'm not immensely familiar with Spanish crusading activity, however, so perhaps someone more familiar with that side of the Reconquista can provide further information. Rodrigo Diaz fucked around with this message at 05:55 on Jan 13, 2014 |
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Jan 13, 2014 05:46
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VoteTedJameson posted:So I've been wondering about the combatants in the Reconquista- I keep reading references that (Christian) Spanish men-at-arms were equipped and trained "differently" or than their peers in France or England for example- but I can't find much written about how. My understanding is that Moorish armies were typically more lightly armored and trained to fight with greater mobility than a typical European army- were the Christian Spaniards equipped to match them? I had somewhat wondered about this, and I have no direct sources addressing the subject, but I do have some sources that I do not entirely trust that might give a loosely similar impression indirectly. Aztecs & Conquistadors by John Pole and Charles M Robinson III suggests that Spanish knights were more dependent on their role of lance, sword and shield on horseback than knights of other areas and that their methods of war were very influenced by the Reconquista. Frankly it does it in a way I am doubtful of; it suggests knights required only basic training in those areas and nothing else, which has proven to be very unreliable in other contexts. However, it would give the impression that Spanish knights were still more cavalry-oriented when the rest of Europe was using dismounted knights more extensively. Also, the Conquistadores seemed to rely quite a bit on their cavalry, indicating that their wealthy troops were more equipped for fighting on horseback than on foot. This might be construed as fighting with greater mobility at a time when the role of cavalry for the rest of Europe had declined considerably. Overall, though, there is no indication of specialist training. Generally speaking Moorish armies are not my area of knowledge. In fact, I would love any resources on Moorish equipment that could be provided (or anybody in medieval North & West Africa). VoodooChild1968 posted:I've often read and heard that the nobility/knightly classes during the 12th and early 13th centuries in England viewed kettle helms as "cowardly" or "low class" and preferred the nasal helm (before great helm/mail/secret combinations ruled), despite the superior protection of a kettle helm against arrows. Is there any reason for this line of thinking? How is a kettle helm cowardly but a full harness of mail is not? I have never come across anyone finding kettle hats cowardly before, and when I looked it up the closest I found was an unsupported suggestion by Medieval Fightclub - I could see it being some of the more snooty noblemen associating it with the poor, assuming it was more accessible to or popular with infantry than other helms, but the cowardly idea is completely news to me. I had always thoughts knights in general used it extensively during the 12th and 13th centuries (though this impression is not from England specifically). I would actually highly doubt the idea. As for the logic, I’d say don’t expect it to make any sense. Generally, cowardly = no longer unfair in my favour. I knew someone who hated knives, called them evil, thinking they were well within their rights to corner someone much smaller than them and beat them up with little to no provocation, using irons and other household weapons… yet was shocked at the idea that such a cornered person might draw a kitchen knife rather than take the beating. The closest I could come to an explanation for regarding kettle hats as cowardly is that a few nobles might be upset that poorer foot soldiers had effective head protection and the horseman had to work harder than he used to, but I really don’t think there’s a consistent logic to it.
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Jan 16, 2014 02:53
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In regards to Zweihanders, I've read that they were made as a counter to the pike formations at the time. Wich makes sense, since a big sword with a long reach is perfect for chopping apart pikes. But where the Zweihanders actually effective beyond that? Did they train the zweihander wielders to act in coordination ala the pike and halberd formations? Or was the zweihander training mostly focused on invdivdual skills?
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Jan 19, 2014 19:19
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GyverMac posted:In regards to Zweihanders, I've read that they were made as a counter to the pike formations at the time. Wich makes sense, since a big sword with a long reach is perfect for chopping apart pikes. But where the Zweihanders actually effective beyond that? Did they train the zweihander wielders to act in coordination ala the pike and halberd formations? Or was the zweihander training mostly focused on invdivdual skills? Somebody can probably answer this in much more detail, but if I remember correctly the guys wielding the Zweihänders would actually be kept close to the center of the square, possibly as a guard for the ensign. I figure they'd be kept there more as a kind of tactical reserve to exploit any openings that presented themselves or if two squares got stuck into each other very tightly.
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Jan 19, 2014 20:05
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I couldn't imagine chopping off the heads of pikes to be that easy even with a two handed sword. A sufficiently thick piece of hardwood is hard enough to chop through with a single swipe of an axe, a tool used first and foremost for chopping wood. Let alone a damned pike suspended in the air with nothing to leverage against.
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Jan 19, 2014 21:51
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Sounds a lot more feasible to shove the pike aside and then go for the dude holding it instead.
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Jan 19, 2014 21:54
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Extremely broad question: how sharp were top quality swords?
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Jan 19, 2014 22:02
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bewbies posted:Extremely broad question: how sharp were top quality swords? As sharp a they needed to be. Because I'm on a phone I'm not going to be able to find the exact post easily, but swordsmith Peter Johnsson had mentioned that he has handled historical examples whose edges were "paper-cutting sharp", and there are depictions of men slicing flesh and (in at least one instance) hair which, at least pro forma shows serious sharpness. I've also seen a skull hit by a sword blow where the edges of the wound were very flat and clean, and the terminus of the cut itself showed a very narrow profile.
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Jan 19, 2014 22:15
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Perestroika posted:Somebody can probably answer this in much more detail, but if I remember correctly the guys wielding the Zweihänders would actually be kept close to the center of the square, possibly as a guard for the ensign. I figure they'd be kept there more as a kind of tactical reserve to exploit any openings that presented themselves or if two squares got stuck into each other very tightly. The contention that they functioned as anti-halberd or anti-pike assault units is from a nineteenth century book and is not supported by period evidence. Instead, they surrounded the company flag and their role, while definitely military, may also have been partly ritualistic--the swords are similar to German execution swords, and we know that early modern German notions of justice and honor were really involved and quasi-religious/magical. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 23:32
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On sword sharpness, didn't it vary wildly by sword type? Like, I thought large 2 handed swords and long swords were actually barely sharp at all, enough so to where you could grab them by the blade and swing them around as a mace. Edit: Maybe I'm thinking exclusively of the bastard sword? Baldbeard fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Jan 19, 2014 |
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Jan 19, 2014 23:44
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Frostwerks posted:I couldn't imagine chopping off the heads of pikes to be that easy even with a two handed sword. A sufficiently thick piece of hardwood is hard enough to chop through with a single swipe of an axe, a tool used first and foremost for chopping wood. Let alone a damned pike suspended in the air with nothing to leverage against.
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Jan 19, 2014 23:51
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I don't believe their use was very much different than a 2 handed axe, both weapons were used fairly interchangeably by gallowglass. As for being anti-pike? Gallowglass couldn't break a pike formation at the Battle of Monasternenagh in 1579 (they frontally charged and got slaughtered about 3 times), and by the end of the century O'Neill was re-equipping his gallowglass as pikemen anyway.
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Jan 19, 2014 23:51
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GyverMac posted:In regards to Zweihanders, I've read that they were made as a counter to the pike formations at the time. Wich makes sense, since a big sword with a long reach is perfect for chopping apart pikes. But where the Zweihanders actually effective beyond that? Did they train the zweihander wielders to act in coordination ala the pike and halberd formations? Or was the zweihander training mostly focused on invdivdual skills? I do know that the doppelsoldners got double pay, so it had to be useful in some capacity (though I have also heard of doppelsoldners using halberds instead). I read once on a re-enactment forum that the parrying hooks further up on some greatswords were great for binding pikes - the idea is that instead of hacking at the pikes directly you would rush in and bind several at once with the second guard. Actually chopping through the pikes would be difficult, but to knock them aside or bind is more feasible. On the other hand, the hooks were only maybe 4-8 inches away from the guard, so I’m not sure how much that would help. A few ARMA articles also tell me that zweihander type swords had troubles inside the formation as well, this one - http://www.thearma.org/essays/2HGS.html - says some Swiss confederation members actually banned them. Baldbeard posted:On sword sharpness, didn't it vary wildly by sword type? Like, I thought large 2 handed swords and long swords were actually barely sharp at all, enough so to where you could grab them by the blade and swing them around as a mace. Type in the sense of Oakeshott Typology is certainly a factor, but longswords and bastard swords were usually very much sharp blades. For instance, here - http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_spotxviii.php - indicates that Type XVIII and its subtypes were extremely popular in the 1400s, when plate armour was at its height, and yet very suitable for cutting and slicing techniques. The earlier Type XVII might match the description of barely sharp at all, but a friend of mine got the Albion Sempach and found it to be just fine for cutting and slicing. You can use the mordhau (the mace-like technique) with a sharp sword. It might be a bit more risky, but reduced sharpness is not required. Fiore Dei Liberi's specialist anti-armour sword he describes specifically for those kinds of techniques is acknowledged as being sharp for the entire length, save for a small unsharpened handspan, so I doubt knights would deliberately keep a non-specialist sword not-very-sharp.
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Jan 20, 2014 01:42
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On swords against pikes. Wouldn't it be relatively easy to just knock the pike aside, once you're past the point? The basic physics of a long pole remains consistent after all. You'd have pretty poor leverage along it's length compared to someone who's near the point. As for sharpness, is there ever a reason to keep the operating edge and point at less than maximum sharpness?
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Jan 20, 2014 08:34
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veekie posted:On swords against pikes. Wouldn't it be relatively easy to just knock the pike aside, once you're past the point? The basic physics of a long pole remains consistent after all. You'd have pretty poor leverage along it's length compared to someone who's near the point. The point (aha) of a pike formation is that, once you knock away one pikeshaft, the ones right next to and behind it are going to be coming right at your face.
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Jan 20, 2014 08:45
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veekie posted:As for sharpness, is there ever a reason to keep the operating edge and point at less than maximum sharpness? It's difficult to keep an edge perfectly sharp all the time, and trying to do so can allow it to become frail. Blades need to be sharp, but also strong. Remember that they are often going to be catching on metal, wood and bone.
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Jan 20, 2014 09:58
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Makes sense. Forgot about sharpening wearing down the blade.the JJ posted:The point (aha) of a pike formation is that, once you knock away one pikeshaft, the ones right next to and behind it are going to be coming right at your face. Indeed, gotta have the pikes occupied elsewhere or it'd be a very pointy day.
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Jan 20, 2014 10:58
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