The Armour Archive

Dan Howard

All of Nicolle's European books should be ignored. His Middle Eastern ones are a little better.

Dan Howard

I've had a few people tell me that the work is terse and concise. I think that comes from my experience writing for the gaming industry. In those books, word count is very tight and you learn to make every word count. If you don't, half your work gets cut during editing. In this case I went signific...

Dan Howard

There is nothing apart from the couple of lines that are in my book. The actual dig won't be published for years.

Dan Howard

The only remotely relevant dig was the one at Patras and that hasn't been published. I say "remotely" because it dates to the end of the Bronze Age, not the Classical or Hellenistic periods. AFAIK there are no extant examples of Greek armour made of leather or linen dating to those time periods. The...

Dan Howard

The original site may have an update whether there has been a published paper from that dig. There was no dig. The original article was a promotion for a book written by Aldrete about his experiments with glued linen armour. http://www.uwgb.edu/aldreteg/Linothorax.html http://www.amazon.com/Reconst...

Dan Howard

Myron, take a look around at about of the threads here and at the Roman army talk board. The major consensus is that ahh between fabric armor was quilted. Yes the debate is still hotly contested but there is currently more evidence basis to support the quilted theory then glued. To be specific, we ...

Dan Howard

Ernst wrote:Thom Richardson and Randall Storey both provide documentation for "aketons of plate" or "aketoners" in mid-14th century England. Richardson believes these are aketons with additional sleeves of riveted plates.

Why not something like an armoured surcoat?

Dan Howard

Thanks Randall. I'm glad you liked it. There were plenty of times that I wanted to use the word "bollocks" when discussing previous work on the subject but managed to restrain myself :) Phil Sidnel from Pen and Sword approached me and asked if I wanted to write something for them. They let me choose...

Dan Howard

Sounds about right. With leather sleeves it would have been over 20 lbs.

Dan Howard

Very nice. What does it weigh?

Dan Howard

I'd prefer to compare it to the cost of a day's labour.

Dan Howard

Osprey is supposed to be the "go-to" series for an introduction to a military subject. The problem is that they are completely useless for a beginner. You need to have a solid understanding of the subject before you can tell which of the books are any good. Add to that their complete lack of referen...

Dan Howard

So the black lead for stoves 100 years ago wasn't called lead---Guess I had better sand it off the antique can! I saw dozens of references to plumbago in "Sources for the History of the Science of Steel" when they were referring to graphite in the 1700's, e.g: "It is no longer pure charcoal, but it...

Dan Howard

Graphite never "used" to be called lead. It is called lead today because, originally, the cores of pencils were actually made from lead.

Dan Howard

Some Ospreys are pretty good. Most are crap. They are useless to a beginner because you have to know something about the subject to work out which ones are worth reading. Their lack of references makes them no good for research purposes. All you can really use most of them for is the photos of extan...

Dan Howard

Second Tom's recommendation. Start with Claude Blair. Read it cover to cover before even touching another book. If you want a coffee table book after that, then Edge and Paddock is probably the best. This might help too. I intended it to be an overview of mail armour. There are plenty of cites and r...

Dan Howard

DIvers Arts mentioning blackening copper by smearing it with linseed oil and heating it over coals, repeat as necessary---sound like anything folks have done lately? Jeffrey Hildebrandt's recent reproduction of the Bidford-on-Avon Anglo-Saxon shield boss. The steel was "heated to a dull red and dip...

Dan Howard

Diglach Mac Cein wrote:Ah. I was talking from the OP.

But you were trying to use historical examples to justify your choice. Historical armour and SCA armour serve different purposes. You shouldn't expect them to look or function the same.

Dan Howard

I have no problem at all with it being used for SCA combat. It looks neat. I was approaching the subject from a historical perspective.

Dan Howard

Hasn't Barry Molloy already done this?

Dan Howard

Try stabbing it with a spear. Most leather seggies can be compromised with a sharp pencil. If you use leather that is thick enough to actually work as armour, it can't work as a segmentata.

Dan Howard

Russ Mitchell wrote:And these obviously couldn't exist because the leather's too thick? Come on, man. You're so far out into No True Scotsman that even the Scotsmen are blushing.

Segmented leather armour looks nothing like segmented metal armour. It requires a completely different method of assembly.

Dan Howard

Jawshan was initially used to denote lamellar and later it referred to mail-and-plates armours, both of which are irrelevant to this discussion. Nicolle used the same term to describe a couple of segmented leather cuirasses, which I'm guessing are the ones you are thinking of. Neither of them look a...

Dan Howard

To be honest, I don't know. I looked into the subject long enough to determine that the "naked celt warrior" idea was probably a myth that was founded on dodgy translations and haven't thought about it since.

Dan Howard

There is no point comparing leather segmented armour with Roman metal versions. You can't make segmentata from leather and still have it function as armour. The few segmented leather examples we have look nothing like Roman armour. If the Irish made leather segmented armour, which is unlikely, then ...

Dan Howard

Of course your hands will be sore. You get sore doing any exercise that your muscles aren't used to. Leave it for a couple of days and do it again. Then again. But I wouldn't do it all day every day either - it is a recipe for RSI. I generally do a few hours in the evenings in front of TV.

Dan Howard

FWIW the Latin words we translate as "naked" rarely mean "without clothes". Some passages mean "unarmoured" and others mean "no shirt".

Dan Howard

"Pair of plates" and "coat of plates" is the same thing. At the time, "pair" did not mean "two"; it meant a set of similar items. "Coat of plates" is a modern term; it was not used at all historically.

Dan Howard

An ox takes 3-4 years to reach full growth. A yearling ox is immature and its hide is still pretty thin - even around the neck.

Dan Howard

FWIW the Romans never made segmented armour from leather. There isn't a shred of evidence to support it and reconstructions suggest that it can't work. If you make it like the metal segmentatas then you have to use leather that is way too thin to function as armour, and if you use leather that is th...

Dan Howard

Sounds like a dodgy translation. The cathcriss is only one layer made from "the best part of seven ox-hides of yearlings". The hide of a yearling is a lot smaller than a full grown ox and the "best part" of each of these is a lot smaller again.

Dan Howard

That's cool and very crafty, but I will take my nice looking leather lorica (yep, leather lorica, I said it) over refrigerator panel and coat hanger armor. One could just as easily disdain that you are using scrap metal for armor rather than purposefully shaped and forged steel. So how can you tell...

Dan Howard

Artistic license accounts for more than we usually give it credit on all iconographical evidence. They just aren't photographs and no amount of wishful thinking will make it otherwise.

Dan Howard

Correction. I've had to buy metal washers from Seastrom.

Dan Howard

Hardly. There is free metal everywhere. I haven't paid a cent for any of the metal I've used in 20-odd years. Old computer cases, recycled fencing wire, coat hangers, junked panels from cars, fridges, washing machines etc. I once made a scale corselet using the metal lames from some trashed transfor...

Re: Osprey Publishing books: why the hate?

Re: Bronze Age Military Equipment by Dan Howard

Re: Linothorax armour?

Re: Linothorax armour?

Re: Linothorax armour?

Re: Linothorax armour?

Re: Gambeson Armor with Plates

Re: Bronze Age Military Equipment by Dan Howard

Re: We has buffcoat

Re: We has buffcoat

Re: The price of arms and armour in the Viking age

Re: Osprey Publishing books: why the hate?

Re: Blackening steel with an authentic process?

Re: Blackening steel with an authentic process?

Re: Arms & Armour Research Help

Re: Arms & Armour Research Help

Re: Blackening steel with an authentic process?

Re: There is too much leather armour in the SCA.

Re: There is too much leather armour in the SCA.

Re: Some folks might be interested in this (bronze weapons)

Re: There is too much leather armour in the SCA.

Re: There is too much leather armour in the SCA.

Re: There is too much leather armour in the SCA.

Re: Celtic/Gaelic armor??

Re: There is too much leather armour in the SCA.

Re: There is too much leather armour in the SCA.

Re: Celtic/Gaelic armor??

Re: 1390s effigies: what's under the jupon?

Re: There is too much leather armour in the SCA.

Re: There is too much leather armour in the SCA.

Re: There is too much leather armour in the SCA.

Re: There is too much leather armour in the SCA.

Re: 1390s effigies: what's under the jupon?

Re: There is too much leather armour in the SCA.

Re: There is too much leather armour in the SCA.