The Armour Archive

Dan Howard

The links still don't fail at the rivet. The wire itself determines how strong the mail is.

Dan Howard

Assuming the analysis is correct and the Earth was exposed to a higher level of gamma rays than normal during the time in question - would anyone alive at the time have even noticed? "This kind of burst lasts for literally two seconds at most, so it’s entirely possible no one would’ve seen it. And i...

Dan Howard

Russ Mitchell wrote:Dan is correct -- one should not, however, generalize that to tanged arrowheads from Asia, which were "shouldered" in order to prevent this occurring.

Thanks for the correction. I should have said, "it happens when simple tanged heads are used."

Dan Howard

Notice that few of the links have failed at the rivet. A properly riveted mail link should be as strong as a solid ring. The riveted join is generally not the weak part of a link.

Dan Howard

It was the shafts that split and penetrated the mail, not the heads. It happens when tanged heads are used instead of sockets.

Dan Howard

If it is just a repeat of the show then it won't help. The relevant section has been cut during editing and won't be aired.

Dan Howard

Looks like the Nova episode Making of the Pharaoh's Charriot airs on Feb 6. This is the show Mike Loades was using the items in this thread. And the segment showing him shooting the scale armour has apparently been cut. It is on the PBS website but not available to anyone outside the US. http://vid...

Dan Howard

Apparently that video is unavailable to anyone outside the US and that segment was cut from the episode that is going to be aired. So nobody outside the US is ever going to see this.

Here is the original thread.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=151546

Dan Howard

There are cases when arrows penetrate armour. The issue is that it was not really how archery in war works. If archers had to rely on defeating armour that way they would have been far less effective to ineffective. I would agree with this. There is no doubt that the warbow was effective in battle ...

Dan Howard

Infantry armour didn't have to reach its peak to stop arrows. Even a heavy English warbow could be stopped by a jack layered over a haubergeon. One or the other by itself was sufficient against lighter bows.

Dan Howard

Ernst wrote:and penetrating through mail to a depth of six or seven inches when Soto raised himself in the saddle to strike a blow, semi-exposing his ass.

Where in that passage is the depth of the arrow wound mentioned?

Dan Howard

It is fake armour. Brigandines were highly fashionable. They did the same thing in Asian courts - wearing clothing that looked like brigandines without the metal plates. They provide no more protection than an unadorned garment unless a fluke shot directly hits one of the rivet heads. I've been call...

Dan Howard

You can get exactly the same weapons protection with quilting plus the benefit of it being "in period". It is harder to make though - it is difficult to push needles through that many layers of linen - and it takes a lot longer than using glue.

Dan Howard

What frustrates me is that they had all those resources available with which to study the subject and they wasted them messing around with glue. What could we have learned if those same resources were devoted to quilted textile armour?

Dan Howard

We have surviving examples and documentary evidence of layered textile armours from various cultures all around the world over a period of about three thousand years. There isn't a single example from anywhere in which the layers have been glued together. In every instance the layers are quilted tog...

Dan Howard

Sounds dodgy. The only real way to conclude that is for there to be some surviving examples to make a comparison with the Roman examples. There aren't any surviving Roman examples. Do we have any extant Norman clubs? If not then the only other acceptable evidence would be a Norman document somewhere...

Dan Howard

Interesting discussion. Did William and Odo wield clubs at Hastings as shown on the Bayeux Tapestry or were they depicted with these to symbolically denote their rank? If they really used clubs then was it because of the weapon's effectiveness in battle (as opposed to, say, a mace or axe) or was it ...

Dan Howard

Dan, would this be like a canvas weight linen, or the thinner stuff that is more like regular cloth? Just regular cloth. According to Hulitt, Tut's armour had a backing consisting of six layers of linen (64 threads per inch) plus an inner layer of fine leather (probably goat skin). I tried to copy ...

Dan Howard

Trying to forge weld links on an anvil doesn't work because it sucks out the heat too quickly. IIRC it was Steve Sheldon who suggested using tongs to press the lapped join together while holding the link in the furnace. I didn't say that the Indian mail looks like ring tabs. I said it REMINDS me of ...

Dan Howard

Butted mail is way too cheap on ebay to bother making it yourself to sell. I use butted mail when I want to quickly knock together something new I want to experiment with. Trying to sell butted mail is like your grandma spending a hundred hours knitting a sweater only to be lucky to sell it for $20 ...

Dan Howard

If you need strength then even the Indian riveted mail is stronger than butted mail. But IMO butted mail actually looks more authentic from a distance than Indian mail. The Indian mail reminds me of soda can ring tabs. Even on TV it looks terrible. Seastrom is the cheapest I have found for solid lin...

Dan Howard

Linen was used traditionally. It is strong, it breathes, and it wicks away sweat. If you want it to be stronger then add more layers. Tut's armour, for example, had six layers of linen (64 threads per inch)

Dan Howard

I don't think I have posted about this here before but my book on the subject covers all of this.
http://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Bronze-A ... nt/p/3272/

Dan Howard

The third construction is complete fantasy. They misappropriated some shield bosses.

http://z8.invisionfree.com/Bronze_Age_C ... topic=1787

They should have realised this since they used the same bosses on their reconstructed shields.

Dan Howard

There is no evidence of segmentation of the chest on Bronze Age armour at all. The Dendra panoply only does it on the legs. The Thebes plates are probably the same. All of them are straight plates, not angled.

Dan Howard

The first one is my favourite (they just needed larger pauldrons). I don't agree with the chevron segmentation of the bottom two but at least they used bronze and not leather. The middle reconstruction is wrong all over the place. http://z8.invisionfree.com/Bronze_Age_Center/index.php?showtopic=1787...

Dan Howard

The Romans used the term plumata to refer to regular scale armour where each scale had a medial rib down the centre. When assembled these scales have the appearance of feathers - hence the term ( pluma = "feather"). It was Robinson who erroneously used the term to refer to scale attached to mail. A ...

Dan Howard

Was it a deformity? I thought it was just a mild skeletal abnormality. No worse than those you see in modern athletes.

Dan Howard

At the time "brigandine" and "corrazina" seem to be used to refer to the same types of armour. Is there a modern distinction.

Dan Howard

Too many discussions. I don't remember the "layered in three" expression. It makes sense.

Dan Howard

At the time when someone said that something was done "three times" or "thrice-made", it was just an expression for saying that it was well done or well made. IMO "thrice-woven" or "thrice-wrought" mail is just a hauberk that was particularly finely made. The second most likely possibility is that t...

Dan Howard

The armour is very cool but it doesn't look like anything I've ever seen from that period.

Dan Howard

You won't find anything that looks like historical links. The riveted links today look like soda can ring tabs. If you want them to look like the museum examples you'll have to make the links yourself.

Dan Howard

Solid flat rings have been in use since at least the Roman period. It is the riveted rings that change from round-section to flat-section later on.

Dan Howard

The translation of the word "mail" is likely wrong (or uses the Victorian definition). This translation of Ammianius specifically says that they wore scale. "All parts of their bodies were covered with thick scales, so fitted that the stiff-joints conformed with those of their limbs; … arrows that f...

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