Armour for horses

Vladimir · Post by **Vladimir** » 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

Sasuke · Post by **Sasuke** » Tue Dec 11, 2001 10:27 am

Here is a crinet I made:
http://www.oaksarmoury.com/crinet2.html
It is articulated on 3 leathers. Here are some pictures of the inside.
http://www.oaksarmoury.com/crinet.html
I guess I don't understand what the problem is you are having with the leather articulation. The length of the horse's neck doesn't change so there is no reason for the leathers to compress or buckle when going either up or down. Side to side there is some buckling but it is pretty minimal. Since like you said they keep their necks pretty much straight forward. With the leathers the crinet is very flexible.
Don't know if that helped any.
Sasuke

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www.oaksarmoury.com

AB Hammer · Post by **AB Hammer** » Tue Dec 11, 2001 11:10 am

Here's mine to look at
I run 2 leather straps under about 4in. apart.

http://www.creative-net.net/~armour/ich2.html

Good Luck
ABHAMMER

Mad Matt · Post by **Mad Matt** » Tue Dec 11, 2001 11:19 am

Well Sasuke for some reason this is the first time I went and looked at your site.

I'm definitly not your peer you're way better then me.

Anyway the three leathers will work just fine like that. The way Sasuke has shown em.

BTW Sasuke is that a horse or dog crinet? Seems long for a dog. But damn that's a nice design. I'm probably gonna yoink the pointyness layout for my puppy's armor. Makin me wanna get started on it even before he stops growing.

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The budding mid 14th century German Transitional guy.
Mad Matt's Armory

Sasuke · Post by **Sasuke** » Tue Dec 11, 2001 1:11 pm

That is for a horse. Dog is definitely way shorter.
Yeah, I did the pointyness thinking it would look kind of like a dragon's spines/frill running along the horse's neck. Turns out the customer doesn't like that and wants them to lay flat, so I need to come up with another design.
Sasuke

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www.oaksarmoury.com

Armourkris · Post by **Armourkris** » Tue Dec 11, 2001 1:26 pm

Well, ya know you could ship that now obsolete crinet to me, my dear old ma gots 3 horses, gave me permission to make armour for one of em, she's even trainn him to wear the stuff without freaking out.
wonder if i can convince her to trailer him to a war or some such, would look quite nice i;d imagin.

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What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word, As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee:

Robert Clark Carruth · Tue Dec 11, 2001 1:35 pm

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Sasuke:
Yeah, I did the pointyness thinking it would look kind of like a dragon's spines/frill running along the horse's neck. Turns out the customer doesn't like that and wants them to lay flat, so I need to come up with another design.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

He/she was probably scared of being thrown onto it, huh? But it does look really cool.

Robert

Krieger · Post by **Krieger** » Wed Dec 12, 2001 11:27 pm

The only one's I have seen have been articulated on the three leathers. Each plate on the way up covers the rivets on the previous plate. It's pretty straight forward and functional.

Check out the chanfron my boss made for his horsey in his spare time:

http://www.historicenterprises.com/haa/gallery.html