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[Il Palazzo]

All praise the gorillion folded winged hussars. 

[Parsely]

Three people survived getting hit by a cannonball. Amazing. Do we have the numbers on how many people fucking died when hit by a cannonball?

[Kot]

Proably not much. Hussar casualties were always pretty low, there were proably more people who survived. I only mention those that we actually have written sources about.

All praise the gorillion folded winged hussars. 

If they only had katanas, Poland would have conquered whole world

[Parsely]

Of course! If everyone just wore armor they'd be completely safe from cannon fire! This explains why everyone wore armor and nobody used cannons in the American Revolution.

[Playergamer]

Very very few hussars died to cannon fire. Not due to armor, but because actually firing on them wasn't easy. They weren't deployed onto the battlefield until the moment a charge was needed, and, when they were preparing to charge, they were spread out enough that cannon fire could only kill a few of them. Sure, hussars were killed by cannons, but never enough to turn back a chsrge.

[mainiac]

All praise the gorillion folded winged hussars. 

Well dont you wonder why medieval Japan never bothered to try to conquer Poland?

[Parsely]

Very very few hussars died to cannon fire. Not due to armor, but because actually firing on them wasn't easy. They weren't deployed onto the battlefield until the moment a charge was needed, and, when they were preparing to charge, they were spread out enough that cannon fire could only kill a few of them. Sure, hussars were killed by cannons, but never enough to turn back a charge.

This I can agree with. It's the absurd notion that Hussars could not be killed even by cannons that I won't accept.

[Kot]

I never said they couldn't, by the Emperor, even I am not that dense, I just said that there were historical cases of Hussar armour surviving cannon shots which are usually quite bigger and pack more punch than regular musket rounds. Those were rare cases (and treated as miracles, no less, I mentioned that one of guys sent his armour to some monastery as an artifact of sorts) and even if their armour protected them against cannonballs on regular basis, you still have to take the stopping power into account, getting hit by one is going to take you out of your saddle for sure.
My point was that armour fares much better against early blackpowder guns than it's commonly believed, and that the armour was in some cases so good that it actually could  save your life (not your ability to fight in that battle) from a fucking cannon.

[mainiac]

My point was that armour fares much better against early blackpowder guns than it's commonly believed, and that the armour was in some cases so good that it actually could  save your life (not your ability to fight in that battle) from a fucking cannon.

...in a marginal case.  A pocket bible could save your life from a 155 mm shell in a marginal case (that one bit of shrapnel headed for your heart).  Doesn't mean pocket bibles are protection from 155 mm shells.

[MarcAFK]

What would happen if Brussels invaded londonstan to drag it back into the union by the scruff of its neck like the naughty ragamuffin that it is? Armchair generaling begin nao!

[mainiac]

Greeted as liberators!

[Kot]

Your pocket bible wouldn't save you from direct hit from 155mm shell.
Your Hussar armour could save you from a direct hit from a cannon.

The fact it happened rarely doesn't mean it's complete protection but it's some protection and sometimes works wonders.

EDIT: And actually, if you made an armour covering your whole body out of pocket bibles, you would actually have some protection from 155mm shell shrapnel (which is why your argument is kinda wrong, it would only be the same thing if I claimed that the fact that Hussar armour sometimes stopped cannonballs also meant it made the user protected from being hit at the same speed by a whole cannon or something), considering the bible would be reasonably thick.

[mainiac]

By direct hit you mean not a glancing blow?  You mean a projectile travelling at speed?

[Kot]

Yes. One of these (the first one, with the guy sending the armour to monastery afterwards) is specifically reported to be a direct hit to the chestplate without the ball bouncing on it's way or anything. The Hussar in question was not on the horse at the time, but that's not exactly relevant. The gun was said to be a Culverin, though what it actually was remains questionable to me, because apparently in western terminology this is what Culverin looks like, and this is what Culverin by Polish terms is like. My idea on how personal armour could save someone from ~100-150mm cannonball is as good as yours, though.
The second case was a glancing blow in which case his chest wasn't hurt but his arm got torn to pieces.
In the third case it was also direct hit, though it's not stated if the cannonball hit the ground before but one of wintesses later reported that he could put his whole hand in the dent, which makes me question how the recieving guy survived (I guess loads of padding).

[mainiac]

Was the first guy lifted off his feet and flown through the air by the impact?