The Armour Archive

Dan Howard

I was wondering what the target was. Also I am leaning towards the circular domed shield because that is the shield the muslim warriors used. and it was used by the assyrians. and I dont have a better idea. so I am asking for better ideas. There were no muslim warriors during that time; Muhammad wo...

Dan Howard

Here is a decent summary of the problems with the KJV, written by an expert in theology and biblical studies. He even says that he believes that the Bible "is the Word of God, inerrant, inspired, and our final authority for faith and life." https://bible.org/article/why-i-do-not-think-king-james-bib...

Dan Howard

I believe that the KJV is the inspired inerrant word of the One true and living God. Which one? The original was published in 1611 and there have been three revisions of the KJV since then incorporating more than 100,000 changes. In other words Goliath was Six cubits and a span. Roughly 9'6" It is ...

Dan Howard

I find this discussion fascinating. You have one side using Archeology, and the other siting Biblical passages that he (and millions of others) belive to be verbatim accounts. Which makes no sense whatsoever. There are at least four versions of the bible that have been used for modern translations ...

Dan Howard

Depends on the link size. I've recently been using 5mm OD rings made of alternating butted and solid rings and it looks a hell of a lot better than anything from India. You have to physically hold it in your hands to tell that there are no rivets. Mail - Dan - banding 01a_s.JPG Even the PVC mail use...

Dan Howard

Customer reviews wouldn't be much help. The quality seems to be completely random regardless of which supplier the mail is sourced from and the overall quality seems to have dropped since you first introduced this process to Precitech. A customer might get one shirt that is ok but the next shirt fro...

Dan Howard

References? Certainly. I must admit to being enitirly ignorant of Hebrew (and greek). But I am well versed in the history of that time. 1 Samuel 17:38-39 , 1 chronicles 12:8, Jeremiah 51:20, 2 Samuel 23:8-10, 1 chronicles 8:40. When it say buckler AND shield (in the same passage no less) I am incli...

Dan Howard

The earliest double edged swords date to 3300BC. By the end of the Bronze Age there are dozens and dozens of different types. The Naue II seems to have been the most successful design. If you want a reference then get a hold of my book. It covers the latest research and is fully cited. http://www.pe...

Dan Howard

Why is a person a "bad Christian" if they don't believe that the bible is the literal word of god? If archaeology contradicts something in the bible, why is a person a "bad Christian" if they are inclined to believe the archaeology over the book?

Dan Howard

Personally, none. I've been relying on others that know a lot more about the subject than I. The things I usually work with either require vege tanned leather or rawhide.

The whole poiunt of metal is that, pound for pound, it provides more protection than any other material they had available.

Dan Howard

I don't have any training in Hebrew - I've just looked up lexicions but apparently the word "mail" in biblical translations really just means "armour". One word that is used is shiryan , which just means "armour". I think it is derived from the same source as the Arraphian sariam and Assyrian siriyâ...

Dan Howard

RandallMoffett wrote:I think Kon is dead on. If you have leather I doubt you will gain much strength to thickness and weight.

Yep. If you want cuirbouilli to give the same protection as steel, it needs to be a lot thicker and heavier than steel.

Dan Howard

Thanks Mart. That helps a lot.

Dan Howard

What was more common as a foundation for COPs; textile or leather?

Dan Howard

But there is a difference between being a re-enactor and being a SCA fighter. A SCA fighter obviously needs protection but it is almost impossible to use historically-accurate armour. Firstly, most of it would not pass modern safety standards and secondly, historical armour had to worry about spears...

Dan Howard

Re-enactiors should start with a good soft kit. They can always add armour later.

Dan Howard

Pray tell Mr Howard why The Literal interpretation of scripture makes no sense in this case? The bible clearly lays out every story refered to in the artical. The ox Goad, the jawbone. Consider David's Mighties. All of which preformed "rationally" impossible Acts. Killing 800 men in a field by your...

Dan Howard

http://www.gci.org/bible/hist/weapons Has some good info. It is relying on scholarship that is at least half a century out of date and it is layering on top of that a literal interpretation of the bible that makes no sense at all when considered rationally. There are snippets that give us useful in...

Dan Howard

There are no specifics and what we think we know is basically guesswork. All we have are ambiguous illustrations and some vague passages in the bible. Most fighters seem to have worn no armour at all apart from a helmet. Some warriors probably wore some kind of scale armour. Based on other cultures ...

Dan Howard

Icefalcon gets its supplies from the same Indian manuacturers as every other riveted mail seller. Just pick which style you want and shop around for the cheapest price.

Dan Howard

As for chainmail, it really doesn't provide much protection in the SCA, especially not in terms of how much it weighs. That's the big difference between real combat and SCA combat. Historical armour was mainly designed to stop points from weapons such as spears and arrows. Pound for pound, properly...

Dan Howard

There is no evidence for viking lamellar and no evidence for vikings wearing leather body armour of any kind (actually there is one guy in the sagas called "leather neck"). The one lamellar find at Birka has been shown to be Khazar armour. There is not even a justification for a Scandinavian persona...

Dan Howard

Plate is lighter than mail. In order for mail to provide similar protection to plate it needs to weigh more and, even then, someone wearing it is more susceptible to blunt trauma.

Dan Howard

There were technical issues that made plate armour more economical to produce: larger bloomeries, trip hammer mills, blast furnaces, etc. You skipped the most important part of my post. The question should be: why wasn't plate body armour worn more often by elite fighters during the so-called "age o...

Dan Howard

My point is that if a Norman knight wanted an iron cuirass at Hastings then there seems to have been no technical reason why he couldn't have had one. Plate body armour was apparently available to anyone who could afford it, yet even the elite seem to have preferred to wear mail. The technical issue...

Dan Howard

A decent book that covers military developments from the Stone Age right through to today is Soul of the Sword by Robert O'Connell. Though it concentrates more on weaponry than armour.

Dan Howard

The 14th century economy began to sustain bloomery hearths of sufficient size to again allow for the production of larger pieces of sheet metal, and as a result plate armour began to first augment, and then supplant maille. I'm not so sure about this any more. We have iron solid plate cuirasses dat...

Dan Howard

There is no real "progression" of arms and armour. They are just tools designed to perform specific functions. When that function is no longer needed on the battlefield, the design fades away until the need arises again. The same designs pop up again and again all over the world for thousands of yea...

Dan Howard

Yep. Don't bother reading anything else until you have fully absorbed everything in Blair's book. But, as Charles said, you need to be more specific or you will never be able to write anything but the barest summary. Blair's book is largely limited to western Europe from medieval to Renaissance peri...

Dan Howard

Giraldus Cambrensis wrote that the Danes who attacked Dublin Castle in 1171 were wearing either long mail loricas or laminis ferreis arte consutis.The latter could be scale or lamellar or even some kind of coat of plates. Personally I lean towards scale.

Dan Howard

In China the ones without the metal plates were not intended for battle. It was a fashion worn by courtiers to try and emulate the appearance of real armour without the burden of the plates. Could the Indian examples have served a similar purpose?

Dan Howard

RandallMoffett wrote:the pair in pair of plates is pair as in latin par, meaning something in a grouping that is alike or similar. There could be two or ten as long as they are equal or like each other. I tend to think it simply means garment of many plates.

The best modern English translation for "pair" would be "set".

Dan Howard

There are dozens of Corinthian variants and some of them look very similar to the barbuta.

Dan Howard

There are a handful of exceptions but, generally speaking, there is no such thing as helmet evolution. You see the same designs popping up again and again over thousands of years.

Dan Howard

I don't have a cite on hand but Edward I could vault over the back of his horse into his saddle in full armour.

I'd like to read your paper when it is done.

Re: Hebrew Warrior 900BC

Re: Hebrew Warrior 900BC

Re: Hebrew Warrior 900BC

Re: Hebrew Warrior 900BC

Re: QUestions Regarding SCA Chainmail

Re: QUestions Regarding SCA Chainmail

Re: Hebrew Warrior 900BC

Re: Hebrew Warrior 900BC

Re: Hebrew Warrior 900BC

Re: Hardened leather in a COP? 14th Century Lowland Scot

Re: Hebrew Warrior 900BC

Re: Hardened leather in a COP? 14th Century Lowland Scot

Re: Hardened leather in a COP? 14th Century Lowland Scot

Re: Hardened leather in a COP? 14th Century Lowland Scot

Re: critique armor

Re: critique armor

Re: Hebrew Warrior 900BC

Re: Hebrew Warrior 900BC

Re: Hebrew Warrior 900BC

Re: QUestions Regarding SCA Chainmail

Re: critique armor

Re: critique armor

Re: Research for development of Arms and Armor.

Re: Research for development of Arms and Armor.

Re: Research for development of Arms and Armor.

Re: Research for development of Arms and Armor.

Re: Research for development of Arms and Armor.

Re: Research for development of Arms and Armor.

Re: Research for development of Arms and Armor.

Re: I WTB a post viking era Dane 1157

Re: Need how-to ideas: Coat of 1000 nails.

Re: To wear a hauberk under plate or not, that is the questi

Re: ISO Evolution of the Helm Image

Re: ISO Evolution of the Helm Image

Re: ISO Examples of agile Men at Arms