Three things you might be shocked to know about Armor
Ok part II of the armor essay, this should be the more fun part, dealing with mail and plate armor.
The word is Mail not "Chainmail"...
..but call it whatever you like. Current belief is that it dates back as far as about 500 BC, and it was apparently invented by the Celts. The earliest known samples are from Celtic graves in Romania from the 4th Century BC. The Romans adopted it shortly after Rome was sacked by the Celts in 387 BC and it became the principle armor of the Roman Legion (equipping almost every front-line Legionnaire) from around the 3rd century BC until well into the 2nd Century AD, i.e. during the peak of Roman power. Mail armor was also likely a very important part of the rise of military power in Western Europe in the medieval period.
The most shocking thing you might not know about Armor in general and Mail in particular is the same reason the Romans so quickly adopted it and went to massive expense to equip all their legions with it: it worked. When we see armor portrayed in movies it never works. It is pretty much just the ineffective uniform of the bad guy. It never provides any protection unless it's magic. But of course, our ancestors who made and wore this in spite of the cost and weight, didn't have any magic to protect them, no mythril and adamantine, only iron and steel. Did they just wear it for decoration?
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baadNmz_NnU"]YouTube - Scared Stormtroopers[/ame]
What is the point of wearing all that armor when a teddy bear with a moldy log can kill you with one blow?
In movies, a bad guy can be dispatched by a gentle draw cut across the stomach by his heroic opponent. In RPGs and Computer Games it's not much better. Pretty much any weapon can defeat armor, it's mostly a minor inconvenience (or a small incremental protection).
This seems to originate from our general modern contempt for the technology and wisdom of our ancestors, but more specifically in the gaming community due to the early attempts of re-enactors to re-create 'Chainmail' in the SCA and at Ren Faires. They came up with a technique called 'butted' mail.
While this is suitible for halloween costumes and arguably, for SCA combat or Ren Faires, it is not historical and provides relatively poor protection against real weapons.
Butted Mail is made from simple crimping the pieces of wire together. It's not very strong. In fact some butted mail lacks the strength to even hold itself together under it's own weight, and is usually made from heavier links just so that it won't develop holes and a 'moth-eaten' appearance spontaneously.
Real historical Mail armor was riveted or welded, meaning each link is riveted with a tiny little rivet, or welded together. This obviously required a much more painstaking process to make. Something the Romans could mass-produce thanks to all the Slave labor they had. Celts and other barbarians had much lower ratios of armored fighters, like one out of every hundred or even worse.
This stuff is hard to make but it is really amazingly effective protection
Riveted mail works very well. Indeed, the Royal Armory at Leeds conducted numerous tests with high tech equipment and came to the conclusion that mail armor was virtually impossible to penetrate by medieval hand-weapons.
I have seen many tests myself, from my experience, Mail is basically invulnerable to sword cuts, even axe cuts, though a large two-handed pole-arm like a halberd can penetrate it. Very high energy missile weapons such as longbows can punch through but only at very short range (inside 20 feet or so), as could the very heavy crossbows of the type which appeared in the 15th century, and the early firearms such as the arquebus, all of which contributed to the eventual development of plate armor in the 14th century.
But why listen to me go on about it when thanks to youtube and the internet, I can show you some of the experiments which have been done and you can judge for yourself.
First look at this kid. He may have a screw loose, and kind of looks a little crazy, but he's not as reckless as you might think to try this experiment:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au9tSDueIko"]YouTube - Test kolczugi na nóż kuchenny[/ame]
don't know what this guy is saying, but the video speaks for itself.
Here is a more serious test conducted by John Clements of the Association for Renaissance Martial Arts (the ARMA), one of the early pioneers of the HEMA movement.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdSCXJf7kDc"]YouTube - Mail armour cutting test[/ame]
Notice as he easily cuts a tatami mat (used for testing samurai swords) with his messer before attempting to cut the mail. I got to handle this same sample of mail he is cutting here, and witnessed several people try unsuccessfully to penetrate it with knives, swords and axes. This was an exceptionally strong piece of tempered steel Mail, but this strength was not unusual in the Renaissance.
As I said, even against powerful bows using armor piercing (bodkin) arrows at very short range, mail armor protects the wearer.
Test Maill versus Arrows.
Byzantine Princess Ana Comnena described the horror and amazement of the Turks at witnessing Crusaders continuing to advance with arrows sticking in their armor like this.
In fact after decades of testing, modern armor makers finally came to the conclusion that Mail was the only effective way to protect against knives and it is being incorporated into the highest quality modern stab-proof vests for the police in the UK and US prison guards.
Ballistic vest - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Plate Armor
The most shocking thing you might not know about plate harness (or full body armor), aside from the fact that it works, is that it came quite late. In fact the articulated 'knight in shining armor' type we know so well from movies and RPGs, actually appeared considerably
after the invention of firearms.
Simpler forms of plate armor go very far back though. The earliest form of plate armor is the helmet. Helmets are arguably the single most ubiquitous form of protective kit other than the shield, and were made even before the advent of metal armor. For example the greeks during the time of Agamemnon (Myceneans) made helmets out of boars teeth
I don't know how well the boars tooth helmets worked, but helmets made of iron were very good protection, as you can see in this video
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h0e0NSwYNg&feature=related[/ame]
They could be scary too, like this 16th century Totenkopf helmet
This would fit right into a death-knight or anti-paladin villain in a DnD campaign
Articulated plate armor was very effective, even against high energy missiles like Longbows,
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3997HZuWjk&feature=related"]YouTube - Longbow vs Plate Armour[/ame]
but it was also extremely expensive.
Contrary to popualr mythology, it was usually well fitted and did not restrict combat movement.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm11yAXeegg"]YouTube - Armour Aerobics[/ame]
Nor did you require a hoist to get into the saddle, nor did you need help getting up after falling off your horse as you can see clearly here
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMuNXWFPewg&NR=1"]YouTube - Down from horseback with armour[/ame]
Plate armor survived after the era of the cannon, in the form of the cuirass or breastplate, and of course the steel helmet which never did go away. The term 'bullet proof' comes from armor makers going back to the 1500s who would shoot their armor plates and mark the dents as 'proof' that they were bullet proof.
The tradition lives on to today.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1K2DZ7NUoM"]YouTube - Test shooting[/ame]
In conclusion
So does any of this matter to your DnD game? Maybe not, but it can't hurt to see the reality of armor, if you ever get to the point where the fantasy version simply isn't making sense for you in your game, you can always go back to the source and start with an historical grounding. Because it does make all those funny weapons and tactics that were used in ancient times actually make sense and 'balance' when you put them all together as they really were.
And who knows you might even find historical combat is even more interesting and dramatic than the kind you do in WoW.
G.
