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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kriegspiel" data-source="post: 68489" data-attributes="member: 1921">Re: Re: Plate Armor - It isn't really that heavy!Well if we're going to be nitpicky. The term "Chainmail" is itself an oxymoron.The term "mail" is derived from the Middle English "maile" which most likely came to England from France around the time of The Hundred Years War,  were it was derived from the Middle French word "Maille" meaning: a ring of mail, mesh, network, a coat of mail.The term is originally derived from the Latin word Macula, meaning: mesh or net; which in turn is derived from the Latin word for "spot or dot", the connection being that from a distance a net is visible as a cluster of spots (ie the knots). The term becomes "Maglia" in Italian before migrating to the aforementioned French "maille".The term "Chainmail" was first coined in the late 1700's, another example of the Victorian flair for redundancy. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Don't ever let John Clements ever hear you say that!  lolActually HACA (or whatever their new name is) is very meticulous about basing their techniques on period European fighting manuals (Talhoffer, De Libre etc). You won't see any eastern techniques being practices (although when it comes down to it, there are enough similarities that anyone learning eastern sword forms would probably recognize quite a bit).------------------------------------------------------------------------------------A couple of other points:On the issue of the availability of Plate:  It all depends on the timeframe (don't forget we're talking about a period that covers several hundred years). Early on, Plate was certainly the province of the wealthy while the majority of combatants were in Mail (or less). However towards the end of the Age of Plate there were periods were smiths had perfected the techniques to the point that the cost of Plate was considerably more affordable. This is when you would find Plate produced in large enough quantities to outfit a much larger number of troops."Marks of proof"--it was also common practice for an Armorer to only use a half-measure of powder when "testing" his Breastplate. Truth in advertising was as unlikely then as it is now.Regarding the ability to sleep in Armor:  A Knight in full harness who's been fighting for the better part of a day and expects more of the same on the 'morrow, would have absolutely no trouble sleeping in his Armor. It's no different than the modern combatant sleeping in the back of a Helicopter dealing with the roar of the engine & blades, the smell of vomit, the constant buffeting & rollercoaster ride, and the stress of knowing that a battle draws inexorably closer; at the same time burdened with a Helmet, Flak Jacket, a couple of hundred rounds of ammo, a 75-100lb Ruck and a personal weapon (that's not counting extra ammo for the SAW Gunner, mortar baseplates, extra barrels for the SAW or MMG etc). Given the right circumstances the human body can become accustomed to just about anything.  Finally on the comment about the medieval Knight being smaller and weaker than his serf counterparts: The landed gentry may not have dined on the perfect food combinations, but it was certainly orders of magnitude healthier than the single source subsistence diets the average serf was forced to make do with.Adult size is as much a product of diet as it is genetics. The Knight had a substantial advantage in this regard. He also spent much of his day in training in the arts of war, as physical an endeavour as that faced by the farmer plowing his fields. Yes, the average Knight was a commanding physical presence when compared to his landless contemporary, and outstrips the average "modern" in terms of strength & endurance.</blockquote>

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