so fo all you busy SCA heavies out there (midrealm specifically)... Would the SCA consider a jack adequate body/kidney protection...
for those not familiar, I refer to a padded jacket with an arrangement of small plates laced together inside the layers of the garment. Kind of a brig/lamellar hybrid.
And as a side question, has anyone had experience with one and what level of protection did you feel that you got??
Probably not. It doesn't sound like it meets the requirement for "rigid" material. If you put a solid plate back there, and made it look the same, you could pass. Of course, thinks may have changed since we were part of the middle.
I can't imagine why one would not pass. A jack is equivalent to a brigandine over a gambeson. Maybe if the plates are really small, less than an inch or so, but otherwise it should be legal. You would have a layer of overlapped steel (plastic) plates over quilted padding. Has to be as good as a weight belt over foam and that's legal over the kidneys.
Are the plates going to be overlapping? If so, it definitely should pass. If not, it might depend on the size of the plates. You might want to have a pair of large (say 8"x8") plates covering your kidneys. In any case, sounds great to me; I've always seen pictures of jacks, but not many people in the SCA make them.
Depends on the jack, IIRC the Elizabethan description I have somewhere calls for twentone (21)! layers of linen and 1 layer of horn plates "a thumbs joynt", on me that's about 1". All sewn together this should be as stiff as an oak planck.
In order to avoid any unecessary arguments, go with rigied protection over the kidneys and short ribs. I have recently put two plates in my scale byrnie to avoid the debate on wether my hardend leather is equivalent protection or not. Slainte, Fearghus
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