The Armour Archive

I've decided to abandon my coat of plates temporarily and see how fighting in chainmaille feels. Now, I don't like getting hit in the ribs as much as the next guy, so I've been thinking about ways to save my tender innerds while still giving the impression that I'm fighting in chainmaille alone. Here's what I came up with.

First, I'm going to expand the chest and back area of my current chainmaille shirt to 62" from 56" so I can accomodate padding and my leather breastplate. I'm going to make a hardened leather breastplate (suggestions on type/thickness?) that is low profile and will be easily hidden underneath my gambeson. My gambeson is a 1/2" thick moving blanket.

So I've got the hardened leather breastplate, gambeson and chainmaille. This should be sufficient, shouldn't it?

I planned on making some different arms too. Hardened leather rerebraces (is that the correct name for these things? I have trouble saying "rerebraces" sometimes) that I can slip on under my chainmaille half-sleeves. Hardened leather (or steel) vambraces and a wingless elbow cop. That just leaves the spaulders. I was thinking about having arming points on the shoulders to connect the spaulders, but I have no idea what they are or how they're made. I just thought about having some sort of thin strap or boot lace coming from the shoulder of the padded shirt, through the maille, and tying into the spaulders. Would that work?

How does fighting in chainmaille differ from fighting in full plate? I'm guessing that the weight is much more since my CoP weighs probably 10 pounds and this shirt should weigh about 40 when its done.

Any advice on construction of this thing or advice on fighting in it is appreciated.

------------------
I guess congratulations are in order. I've been on this addictive board so much that I've finally run out of things to put into my signature. Hoo-friggin-rah.
Salinas Swordsman
Darkmoor Armoury

WHen I wear mail, I wear a plastic(shut up, all of you) body piece under it, and a set of lacrosse shoulders. They be the ticket for your shoulders; they cover the point, and have padding on the upper chest, shoulder, and upper arm. I wear it under a tunic, so it doesn't show.

------------------
Owen
"Death is but a doorway-
Here, let me hold that for you"

Thanks for the tip Owen. I'd like to try to stray away from using something like that, but will do it if I can't find another viable option. It would look doubly cool if it looked like I was just wearing the shirt and you couldn't see my rerebraces, shoulder protection, or chest protection. Just some crazy guy out there in chainmaille

I would suggest sewing some pockets inside your gambeson at strategic points and slipping plastic plates into them. Very low profile and not seen at all since the plastic is sandwiched inside the gambeson.
As for fighting inmail, the biggest thing I think you`ll notice is a dramatic change in your center of gravity. You`ll almost tip over moving certain ways until you get used to it and compensate.
Good luck!
John

If you want a PC justification for putting a little plastic in pockets in your gambeson, concider the fact that whale bone was used in the end of the 13thc and probably at other times to. Now today you cannot get it and even if you did the PC police would hunt you down and say nasty things about you to every girl you meet . Plastic is close in weight and offers the same kind of protection. As long as you are covering it up, hay it's whale bone!

As for what to expect in the difference, this is only my experience and it was with a suit of 14 ga. stuff. I found the difference between it and my transitional armor to be that it hung on you. The plates in the transitional stuff seemed to hang away from the body and allow me to breath. The mail clung to my shoulders and chest makeing it harder to breath and was always pulling on my shoulders. The idea of the shoulder pads would have solved that problem to a large extent, but I did not think of it back then. I do plan on increasing the padding on the shoulders and adding something to stiffen them to help distribute the weight when I get mine in from India... It will also be a lot lighter than the old suit too.

------------------
Sir David deKunstenaar
Midrealm, House Erine Torr

You need to work the maille in slowly. Every time you fight try to wear it a little longer than the last time. After 3 months or so itll feel wierd when you dont have it on. For body/shoulder armour I wear a 28" center grip round shield and block with my head. It sucks when do catch a rib shot but your a big guy and the maille will take a little out of the shot.

Aelric

Aleric writes, "For body/shoulder armour I wear a 28" center grip round shield and block with my head. ...."

I would suggest you use the shield.

Arti

The biggest problem with maille is that most SCA participants using it wear a thin gambeson that is not stiff. As a result, there is very little to protect the wearer from blunt impact trauma. In your sport with even more dangerous weapons and a larger range of legal targets on the body and limbs, a proper gambeson is very important.

There are many debates over what constitutes a "proper" gambeson in terms of padding and many arguments over whether early forms of the gambeson may have had additional internal reinforcements. I have never seen conclusive research or extant samples that would tell us for certain. But from reading the crusaders and muslims accounts of early knights avoiding injury from blows and even occasionally arrows sticking out of the maille and gambeson, as well as other contemporary accounts, I believe gambesons were probably stiff and fairly thick.

As far as mail protecting well from crushing blows, lance and some arrow thrusts, if it did, we would not need plate.

I personally don't recommend fighting in full maille only. I would at a minimum suggest rigid steel over the throat, joints, groin and critical areas such as the solar plexus, spine and kidneys. If you want to preserve the look, Owen and others have successfully worn hidden reinforcing plates under maille to get the right period look without having to risk life and limb in combat.

I personally often use hardened or at least stiffened leather for protection under padded pieces or when I was jousting, under my maille skirt. Plastic would have worked better, but, plastic sucks and I really hate it, so I won't use it for personal reasons (I will know its there even if no one else does). But to be frank, for hidden plates under maille, if you can't afford or work steel, plastic works better than leather, allows you to work with thinner material than leather and does not rot out.

Fighting in maille is generally less restrictive than full plate as most recreationist suits of full plate are made out of thicker metal than that in period and simply don't articulate as well as pieces made by period masters. But Plate is a broad generalization, there were some pretty restrictive plate suits in period too (compared to maille). The biggest differences I have seen are that plate tends to restrict a lot of the overhead arm movements for SCA style blows (deep offsides, some wraps) and plate can also limit the movement of the upper torso. Maille's big disadvantage is that all the weight tends to pull down on your shoulders and belt instead of being distributed. It is also hard to get a generic maille shirt to fit in such a way that it is not either too loose and "slapping" around or too tight and therefore a pain to get on and to move in. For the upper legs maille is a much more comfortable and flexible solution than most cuisse/strap/belts I have worn.

The other reason to fight in plate is that you look so cool. The ladies rarely go for the guy in maille over plate.

[This message has been edited by Richard Blackmoore (edited 10-17-2001).]

Thanks for all the advice gents. I'm not too keen on using plastic in my armour, but I don't have to worry about the temptation since our group doesn't allow plastic armour (except groin protection).

I would not trust a 1/2" thick gambeson and maille as sufficient protection against an axehandle, so I'm definitely going to have some sort of auxiliary protection beyond that. One of the nice things about this is that I don't get hit in the body too often anyways. I think I've gotten hit maybe twice in the side in last year's tournament. I like the idea of having a simple hardened leather breastplate underneath the gambeson to keep my insides in, but I'm not sure what thickness of leather I'll have to use. I'll pose this question on the Armour board.

One of things I know I'll have to deal with is the weight, and putting some extra padding on my shoulders is a good idea. Another thing I've heard of doing is wearing a belt outside the shirt and letting the maille sag over the belt to take a little bit of the weight off my shoulders. Since this big bugger is going to be 40 pounds or so, I'm looking to do what I can to lessen the burden. It's all in the name of looking good though!

I know that the Spanish used to soak their padded stuff in brine to stiffen it up.
When fighting the natives of the new world the Spaniards often emerged looking like pincusions.
Now, this is from 16th c. and later accounts, and the archers weren't using bodkin points, although the copper kaskian points were rather nasty (in effect, a copper cone on the end of an arrow.)....

It would make sense that they started stiffening gambesons much earlier than that.

VvS

I use to fight rattan in a maille hauberk.. for protection under it I wore a gambeson and a very low profile coat of plates (16ga aluminum plates riveted to a backing made from old welding leathers, covered on the outside w/ sturdy cloth). it provided good protection but was a little heavy; and yes, my center of gravity seemed to be a lot higher

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Prince Of Darkmoor:
<B> I like the idea of having a simple hardened leather breastplate underneath the gambeson to keep my insides in, but I'm not sure what thickness of leather I'll have to use.

Another thing I've heard of doing is wearing a belt outside the shirt and letting the maille sag over the belt to take a little bit of the weight off my shoulders. </B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Just watch the leather over time, the hardened leather does soften up after awhile. I've also seen it crack if you make it too brittle.

I bag my shirt over the belt and it does help, but it does lay on my chest and make it harder to breath like Sir David said. Being asthmatic, this is not a good thing. I think I'll try the shoulder pads like Owen mentioned to see if that releaves some of the pressure..

Juliana

I wear a cotton gambeson, a heavy leather kidney belt and the mail over that, with a surcoat; seems to work well. Some extra protection in the shoulders of the surcoat. (Okay, it's ensolite.) The weight of the mail isn't a problem once you get used to it, but if you don't have freedom of movement in your arms, that's a bugger. "Blousing" the mail a little bit with your belt helps distribute the weight.

One advantage I've found to mail is that it lets in the breeze. Once your gambeson gets soaked with sweat -- or if you pour water down your front -- you can stay pretty comfortable.

------------------
"Come, winds! Blow, wrack! At least we'll die with harness on our back!"

Say Darkmoor, you might as them not not hit you too hard!
(ducking)

------------------
<><><> <><><> <><><>
Baldurstrand

First thing I thought when I read that post was ouch. Grill marks are no fun, especially on the ribs. Yes, wear the breatsplate of leather, and yes, wear shoulders..... a lot of weight rests on shoulders. chain is the halfway point for many future hardpoint-only fighters. I have used it with varying results, though for ventillation and freedom of movement (you said you had half-sleeves)
it's damn good.

------------------
-Gid
I.R.G.Y.F.

Keep the CoP. Wear it under the chain as the gambeson. You get the chain look with the Cop feel.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Prince Of Darkmoor:
<B>I was thinking about having arming points on the shoulders to connect the spaulders, but I have no idea what they are or how they're made. I just thought about having some sort of thin strap or boot lace coming from the shoulder of the padded shirt, through the maille, and tying into the spaulders. Would that work?
</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yep. That's how they work. You will need an armor maiden to lace it for you, because it will be impossible to reach it yourself.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by David deKunstenaar:
If you want a PC justification for putting a little plastic in pockets in your gambeson, concider the fact that whale bone was used in the end of the 13thc and probably at other times to.</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I like it! "Faux whalebone" sounds so much more respectable.



------------------
Miror Otium Negotium Multum Requirare

Depending on the time period you're going for, ailettes (shoulder boards) are a great addition to an all maille look, and let you add some heraldry. They can be permanently tied on to the maille at the shoulders, and presto - shoulder protection. Do you have chausses, too?

And, of course, your maille should weigh a lot less than it actually does (rivet, rivet ). A number of descriptions of period gambesons indicate that they were much thicker and stiffer than what we typically use (30 layers of cloth, or 3/4" horse hair stuffed tubes, etc)

As for protection, padding under a hardened leather will stop most blunt force. I think you'll be fine as long as the leather is sufficiently stiff and you have padding *under* it. Use 10-11 ounce leather at a minimum (13-14 is better).

An interesting byproduct of fighting in maille is that those deep leg wraps against you are almost completely absorbed in just moving the maille skirt. Oh, and you knees are going to get screwed up until you learn to move with the skirt and not make sudden directional changes.

My two bits,
Ulsted

Just carry around a morphine IV with you on the field. BE A MAN! Chicks dig guys with bruises.