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[Galloglaich]

Originally Posted by Galloglaich

On the subject of knights, here is a cool website on Greathelms, if you ever wanted to know anything about them.

75years - Great Helms

Bit more on Great Helms.

A lot of people probably wonder about these, without realizing how they were actually used. Their construction seems to emphasize protection at the expense of everything else, including the ability to see, move your head or breathe. Though they aren't nearly as restrictive as they seem of course, there is something to that. But there is a reason for it.

Great Helms or Heaumes were worn for the cavalry charge essentially, and taken off for hand to hand or close fighting. Even more surprising to most people, a second helmet was worn underneath the Heaume, usually a bascinet or a simpler skull cap like a Cervelliere, such as the ones these guys are wearing:



That is where the term helmet comes from, it means little helm. Common soldiers would often have no other protection, but knights also had the Great helm. It was not unusual in fact for a knight to hang his helm on a strap off of his back, like this guy:



Now there is a good reason for wearing two helmets. Number one is the added face protection of the Helm, needed when facing lance strikes, but number two is that a little extra metal between you and an opponent on another horse was a really good idea.

A sword swung by a man travels through the air around 20-30 mph. Swinging from a charging horse can effectively double that speed, and therefore the energy, of that cut. Even more dangerous against a helmet with a mace or an axe.

The impacts are so strong when striking from horseback that weapons intended for cavalry were designed specifically for retention (i.e. so they don't fly out of your hand). For example light maces used by cavalry had leather wrist-thongs. And did you ever wonder why sabers have a canted grip?



it's to help keep it in your hand when you hit something with it at 30 miles per hour.

Same for the hook like grips on "scimetars" like this Turkish killic


or this Russian Shashka



It's also the reason for their curved blades. Basically every curved blade in the world (except inwardly curved blades) was initially designed as a cavalry weapon specialized for draw-cuts. Including Tachis and Katanas.


The significance of all this is that hitting from horseback confers a lot of extra power. This should be factored into DnD in my opinion. Not just for lances, but any weapon used from a charging horse should probably do double damage, perhaps it could be linked to a feat like Ride By Attack.

The great helm went away when two things happened, first, movable visors began to be built into bascinets, leading for example ot the famous "pig-faced" bascinet,



as well as various other types of infantry helmets such as

armets,


sallets,


burgonettes etc.



This allowed for full face protection during a charge or while under missile fire, while retaining the vision of an open helmet for fighting hand to hand or for various other circumstances.

The second reason is that armor, which had up to this point been made of iron, began to be made of tempered steel. Tempered steel was in the real life what mythril is in DnD. Much stronger than regular iron for half the mass.

G.