Armour for horses
Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2001 7:19 am
I'm posting this for a friend of mine. I don't know much about horse armour.
...........................................
I have looked around for an answer and not
been able to find it. I am in the process of making up a chamfron and
crinet for my war horse. The camfron is coming along nicely and the crinet
pieces themselves are very simple. The only problem I am having is the
assemble of said pieces. According to documentation I have found they were
assembled in early period use (14th century is when they start to be seen)
by leather strapping on the underside. Later in period they were assembled
with rivets, and paticularly sliding rivet construction.
My problem is I can't find any information on the leather strapping beneath
the crinet. I can find lots of pics of the riveted version and of course
could have come to that one based on the articulation of the knees and
elbows and what have you. The key thing is the pieces have to have
articulation to allow for the neck of hte horse to flex has he moves,
especialy between gait changes. The primary movement we are looking for
is up and down obviously - but the range is similar to our entire back. in
other words not a single point of movement, but many that have a limited
range of angle to move through. They can of course flex the neck side to
side, but well behaved war horses shouldn't do this except to bite someone
on command and the rider should manauver the oppoent to the front as much
as possible (just joking - but I am less concerned about the flexibility
side to side - the movement isn't needed for riding and the motion itself
would mean you need slinky style articulation ot make it work).
My first thought was that the leather would be perhaps 3 straps running the
length of the entire piece with a rivet or two in each piece. This however
would restrict movement at point pretty quickly in the one direction
(arched down) and cause the leather to have to buckle onto itself or some
such on the reverse (arched back/up).
My second thought is to have the leather slide through some sort of loop on
the back side and only be attached on the front and back pieces. This
allows for all the mobility required. However, the problem here would
likely be that the motion could cause the plates to slip to a point where
they are not covering or connecting any longer.
A third thought would be a some sort of combination of this with multiple
straps that runs from plate 1, through plate 2 and connect to plate 3. And
then again connecting to plate 2, through plate 3 and to plate 4. The
harness seems unduly complicated then though and I am not sure (can't
visualize) if it will work better then the above solutions or be worse then
either seperately.
Anyway, if you have any thoughts on this i would love to hear them.
Thanks
...........................................
I have looked around for an answer and not
been able to find it. I am in the process of making up a chamfron and
crinet for my war horse. The camfron is coming along nicely and the crinet
pieces themselves are very simple. The only problem I am having is the
assemble of said pieces. According to documentation I have found they were
assembled in early period use (14th century is when they start to be seen)
by leather strapping on the underside. Later in period they were assembled
with rivets, and paticularly sliding rivet construction.
My problem is I can't find any information on the leather strapping beneath
the crinet. I can find lots of pics of the riveted version and of course
could have come to that one based on the articulation of the knees and
elbows and what have you. The key thing is the pieces have to have
articulation to allow for the neck of hte horse to flex has he moves,
especialy between gait changes. The primary movement we are looking for
is up and down obviously - but the range is similar to our entire back. in
other words not a single point of movement, but many that have a limited
range of angle to move through. They can of course flex the neck side to
side, but well behaved war horses shouldn't do this except to bite someone
on command and the rider should manauver the oppoent to the front as much
as possible (just joking - but I am less concerned about the flexibility
side to side - the movement isn't needed for riding and the motion itself
would mean you need slinky style articulation ot make it work).
My first thought was that the leather would be perhaps 3 straps running the
length of the entire piece with a rivet or two in each piece. This however
would restrict movement at point pretty quickly in the one direction
(arched down) and cause the leather to have to buckle onto itself or some
such on the reverse (arched back/up).
My second thought is to have the leather slide through some sort of loop on
the back side and only be attached on the front and back pieces. This
allows for all the mobility required. However, the problem here would
likely be that the motion could cause the plates to slip to a point where
they are not covering or connecting any longer.
A third thought would be a some sort of combination of this with multiple
straps that runs from plate 1, through plate 2 and connect to plate 3. And
then again connecting to plate 2, through plate 3 and to plate 4. The
harness seems unduly complicated then though and I am not sure (can't
visualize) if it will work better then the above solutions or be worse then
either seperately.
Anyway, if you have any thoughts on this i would love to hear them.
Thanks