Thickness of 15th century Italian armour

Josh W · Post by **Josh W** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 4:58 pm

I remember reading a post by Jeff Hedgecock from a few years back that mentioned breastplate thicknesses in 15th century Italian armour, possibly the 'Avant' Harness in particular. Searching this site isn't turning up that conversation, though.

Does anyone else remember what he said? Does anyone else have any figures for the thicknesses of these things?

RalphS · Post by **RalphS** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 5:05 pm

I think it's in Williams' The Knight and the Blast Furnace, but my copy is unfortunately 800 km away from where I am now...

In any case, the thickness most likely varies over the piece, very rough guess: 3 mm at the thickest, tapering off to 0.5 mm at the thinnest.

RandallMoffett · Post by **RandallMoffett** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 5:13 am

Josh,

Unfortunatley as far as published works there are few that list thicknesses. Some kindly give weights but that is it (Wallace Collection for example). What specifically are you looking for? I may have some useful info. You could PM me if you like as well. Williams does give a few thicknesses in the knight and the blast furnace but not a complete suit though and has a comparison of breastplates in the appdc. on 1500 on.
RPM

Josh W · Post by **Josh W** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 6:05 am

Specifically, I'm looking for what a could have sworn was a thread on the Archive in which Jeff Hedgecock related having personally examined the Avant suit, and mentioned some thickness figures for the breastplate. I've done everything I can with the search function here, and have had no luck. Maybe it was on Firestryker...

Failing that, I'd love absolutely any figures for the thicknesses of 15th century Italian breastplates, upper and lower breastplates together.

brunoG · Post by **brunoG** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 9:45 am

Once I found an english webpage carryng a detailed analisis of an italian suit in an english museum, it was an advanced analisis.

Composition of the metal and thickness of every part of the armor.

Alas I lost my HD recently, however I'm sure that this page does indeed exist somewhere in the wild web

Make a search.

Cliff Rogers · Post by **Cliff Rogers** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 10:56 am

There is a little data on thickness in the appendix "the Target" in Hardy's _Longbow_

Cliff

wcallen · Post by **wcallen** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 11:45 am

I don't have any real numbers lying around. Closest I ever came to the Avant harness was looking through the case and playing with the repro the tower started a very long time ago. They had an upper breast/back and gauntlet (as I remember). They were working from very detailed measurements/pictures they took from the harness. If memory serves from 20 years ago, I felt like it was in the 13g range (thicker than 14 certainly). The weights on the harness would make it feel thinner, but the harness is pretty small. Shorter makes light easy.

On the other hand, I have a c. 1500 breast:

http://www.allenantiques.com/A-66.html

Wander over and measure it all you want.

It is relatively light. I could take a measurement if you want it.

Wade

Thomas Powers · Post by **Thomas Powers** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 12:40 pm

Wade; could you take several measurements---say across the width and height and post them?

Until rolled sheet came along the thickness could differ due to the material production process as well as the armour production process...

Never understood why folks think there is *1* thickness to a piece of armour...

Thomas

wcallen · Post by **wcallen** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 1:43 pm

Thickness can vary a lot. Sometimes it is intentional (really nice breastplates are thicker in the middle and pretty thin along the sides) and sometimes it is just lumpy on the inside and smooth on the outside. As I remember, this one is pretty even - but we will see tonight. I still have Jame's cool deep micrometer....

Wade

ed. corrected owner of micrometer. I got from Tom, but it is actually Jame's.

Josh W · Post by **Josh W** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 4:13 pm

Thank you very much, Wade; you totally rock. I am deeply interested in what Tom's (where is he these days? I miss his presence on here...) micrometer shows. Where can I get one of those?

Wander over and measure it all you want.

I may take you up on that the next time I'm on the East Coast. I haven't been by since you got that piece.

I do have Hardy's appendix handy, but IIRC, he has data on only one breastplate in that appendix.

I could just swear that I remember Jeff H saying something like the thickness through the center of the Avant breast, including the plackart, being some very high number, like 3.5mm or something. I would also have sworn it was on this very forum, but I've dug through many, many of his old posts and had no luck...

wcallen · Post by **wcallen** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 9:05 pm

First. These measurements are probably a bit unreliable. The micrometer has
an 11" throat, so it can flex more than one might hope. Waiving it around with a breastplate in one hand and it in the other is also less than precise.

As long as that is understood, here are some ideas of the thicknesses measured.

The micrometer is calibrated in thousandths of an inch. No metric here.

Next qualification. The metal is not amazingly consistent in thickness. Within an inch it can vary about .01" - basically the difference between 16g and 18g can just be variation.

Sides - .028-.052 - mostly in the .030-.040 range.
Upper area between arm & neck (right side) - .035-.050.Mostly around .040
Same thing (left side) - .059 - .075 (in other words it ain't the same)
At the lance rest holes - .040 - .052.
At the top crease area - .070 - .080 (mostly .080)
At the center near crease - .080 - .11 (12 gauge)
Center near the waist - mostly .040 - .050
Height of upper roll at the center - .66
Max height of right arm roll - .84
Max height of left arm roll - .71

Some random measurements so that you can understand the scale of the piece:
Width of neck hole - 8 1/2 in.
Height of arm hole - 9 in.
Arm hole to waist- 4 1/2 in.
Center from top of roll to waist - 12 3/4 in.
Waist flare - 3/4 in.

Obviously, this doesn't match well with modern sheet steels. If I were to round to modern measurements I would say that there is a 6" wide area in the middle that is a little thinner than 12g. It tapers off to 18g at the edges, even thinner right at the edge. I wouldn't make anything of one side thicker than the other because it seems to vary randomly at different spots. The left side is actually thinner than the right side, but the upper neck area is thicker on the left than the right. Left and right are from the point of view of the person wearing the armour. That enough fun to try to recreate?

Wade

Josh W · Post by **Josh W** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 8:29 am

Thank you very much for going to the trouble to provide that for us, Wade.

Sasuke · Post by **Sasuke** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 8:56 am

That is great! Thanks Wade.

Chris

wcallen · Post by **wcallen** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 1:32 pm

No problem.

It is the kind of thing I need to do for more of the items in the collection. I think it would be nice to have this information available for more pieces.

It is sort of a pain to measure and write by yourself. If someone wants to stop by and help measure (play with armour)........

Wade

RalphS · Post by **RalphS** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 2:56 pm

wcallen wrote:That enough fun to try to recreate?

Cool, thanks!!! Pretty close to what I figured from an educated guess (in fact, only 0.2 mm / 0.008" off).

Once you can get past the idea of store-bought steel rolled to spec thickness, it makes a lot of sense to make an armour this way, and it's actually less work than trying to make it uniformly thick.

per lillelund jensen · Sun Nov 19, 2006 4:38 pm

Hi Josh

I belive i have mentionet it to you in an erlier post about weight of 15th.c italian cuirasses. They have a weight that is close to 15kg at the end of the century and slightly less around the middel of the 15th.c. The famous italian harness in Bern historical museum has a weight of 13,635 kg and its dated around 1455. I has an opportunity to examine it this atumn in Bern, and given its small size and heavy weight i belive the breastplate to be as thick as 3mm at the thickest and around 1,5-1,7mm at the thinnest. The backplate might have been as thin as 1,0-1,5mm.

One thing that surpriced me was the weight and thickness of the small sidetassets. much heavyer than i imagined and they felt about 1,6-1,8mm thick in the center and paper thin along the edges.

Cheers
Per Lillelund