GAAAAAAAAAH, so many misconceptions!
quote:
Originally posted by Torak:
<STRONG>Because if we named every item in the (or ANY) game by it's original and historical names, it'd look like a foreign language dictionary with graphics.</STRONG>
Whats wrong with that? Would you rather have to read "Masterwork Bronze Metal High Boots" Instead of "Masterwork Bronze Sabatons"? Names for armour components are like ASCII. Once you know the capital D is a dragon you never forget. Using the proper name would allow us to maintain realism and cut down on the room we need to display these long names.
And I don't see why foreign language is such a problem seeing as 98% of all DF players had to look up Tetrahedrite on wikipedia.
quote:
Originally posted by Earthquake Damage:
<STRONG>What the hell is studded leather armor? I've always envisioned leather armor with little metal rivets in it that, while decorative, doesn't exactly make for better armor.</STRONG>
If the rivets are "little" and rounded then they are probably used to hold something onto the inside of the armour and thus, brigandine.
Real studded leather armour uses much larger studs, generally a pyramid in shape. They make for better armour because weapon blows will deflect off the studs and hit with just a little less force. When your armour is made of leather, every bit counts. Its like wacking the sidewalk with a sledgehammer, its not going to have the same impact if you hit a traffic cone first.
---
From now on can we simply stop using the terms chainmail and platemail? Both are simply products of DnD nerds who were too lazy to use the full words and assumed that tacking "mail" only a word made it a type of armour. It doesn't.
Chainmail is actually called "mail" or "maille if you want to get fancy. The reason it was so good as armour was because it made the user nearly impossible to cut. It did not protect at all against crushing damage and a good sword blow could still break bones. However this is exactly what they wanted. Even a small cut could get infected and the healing tech of the time did not yet understand how bacteria worked. Broken bones on the other hand could be dealt with using a good degree of skill.
Maille armour is extremely cumbersome. All of its weight hangs off the highest point, which for a full suit is usually the shoulders and waist. Thats constant weight. A full shirt of mail links including sleeves can easily top 60 pounds. Add pants and it weight even more than that.
Eagle, I don't know what you are making your mail shirt out of but I would hazard a guess at european 4in1 using 16 gauge wire. Thats the standard nowadays for constume and SCA armour. Whatever your vest ends up weighing, its going to be a lot less cumbersome than what they used way back when. Your rings will be butted, whereas the old ones were welded or riveted. The wire you get will be round in cross section where the old wire was thicker and D shaped. High temper spring steel is nothing like what they used back then. The closest we can get to now is mild steel, which is heavier, weaker and rusts like you wouldn't believe.
Anyway.
Plate armour is armour composed of interlocking plates strapped all over the body, period end. No matter what you wear with it, it always remains plate armour. Its use came about when armour requirements went up. Specifically when missile weapons got good enough to threaten the highest quality mail armour.
Plate armour is almost invulnerable to missiles. I know you have all seen movies where the arrow goes right through but in reality that doesn't happen with bows and the lesser crossbows. Using a typical broadhead you can punch through a flat steel plate using a good longbow with ease. But the key word there was "flat". Good plate armour is curved and if your smart you will avoid having doohickies like spikes that stop and catch the points of weapons.
Armour piercing arrowheads are another matter. There are various types, but the "iconic" example would be the needle bodkin. You can find a couple pictures here and there on the internet. These were much better at penetrating plate armour and go through maille like butter. But they still require direct hits in order to be effective. Knights in the field were very rarely killed before the horses they rode on.
There are common myths about an arrow going right through a plate armoured knight and retaining enough force to kill his horse. Another populat variation is an arrow pinning both legs of the knight to his saddle. If were talking about longbows this is impossible. The only thing at the time with that kind of power was the steel limbed Arbalest. The draw weights on such "siege" crossbows topped out at more than 500lbs. In comparison the strongest english longbows are estimated to be at the 180lb range.
---
Okay history lesson over. The fact is that chainmail and platemail are words of convenience and should be swapped with the real thing. HOWEVER! We can not do so until the armour system has been expanded to include things like full plate armour and all the components therein. Until then, Cuirasse, meaning a breastplate + back plate, is the most accurate name to replace plate mail. Chainmail is best named as "maille" seeing as DF is somewhat medieval in nature.
happy?
Author
Topic: No such thing as plate mail (Read 6514 times)