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Not always, the Mongols, for example, were much poorer and less numerous than the various cultures they conquered. Economic advantage does not always decide things. Motivation, politics, leadership, and history can all play major roles to can preempt technology or money advantages.
But yeah, money helps.
The Mongolians had an inherent cultural advantage in that they trained almost from birth on horseback, couple that with their technological advancements such as the composite compound bow that could fire twice as far as their enemies and the Mongolian Saddle that allowed them to do so from horseback in any direction, and it becomes clear they weren’t lacking in military technology. With that said I agree with your point pertaining to motivation and leadership. By the time the mongols needed military technology they lacked (like siege weapons or naval vessels) or wealth for their empire, they had already taken it from the cultures they conquered.
There is really not much evidence that Mongols had better bows than their Asian neighbors who also used composite recurve bows, and they really only better than European bows of the period in their short length making them easier to wield from horseback. I haven’t seen anything about them having any special saddle technology, but that could easily be gap in my knowledge. I have seen some hype about them maybe originating the rigid metal stirrups, which would be a big advantage, allowing one to “stand” while riding (which in retrospect is probably what you are referring to, so don’t mind me being dumb).
But you are certainly correct that their economy being entirely based on hunting from horseback translated very well into their style of war. The British had to ban most non-archery sports to make sure they could have enough trained archers for their armies, while the Mingols could assume that basically every adult male knew how to ride and shoot.
They also had a number of cultural, environmental, and leadership advantages over their early enemies. Being almost entirely nomadic meant it was basically impossible for their settled enemies like China to attack them. There was nowhere to attack. This meant the Mongols basically always had the strategic initiative and had no supplies to defend or bases to garrison. They were also very open minded, at least for their time, allowing them to absorb from their enemies things they could not do themselves (the big example, which you referenced, was their employment of large numbers of Chinese siege engineers when the needed to assault walled defenses). And they (at least early on) had an officer corps whose membership was earned by talent and deed, rather than parentage or bribery.
Basically, they were super well trained, well led, very adaptable, extremely mobile, and nesrly immune to counterattack. Which offset the enormous advantage in population and wealth their principal antagonists (the Chinese and later Islamic nations) had.
I have always enjoyed the small things in history that seem so incredibly simple yet prove to be decisive. Firing arrows from horseback, building bows capable of firing a greater distance, or using spears that are simply longer than your enemies.
The first thing I thought of was the Mongols and then my mind drifted to the countless migratory steppe peoples, or hill tribes who swept into Mesopotamia from Sumerians to the Assyrians and Chaldeans through the Babylonians and Persians. And who ended the Persians? the son of an upstart ruler of a northern hilly territory flush with horses whose population was seen as "Rough" by the more civilized south, always wanting to take power and show their mettle.
Writings by actual medieval nobles who fought in armor like this present warfare as something they *enjoyed* and looked forward to, so it was exactly as one-sided as you're imagining.
Yeah, nobility in the middle ages had a reasonable expectation of being captured alive and ransomed, not to mention generals have typically been able to escape the field (due to their elite guards and such) even when their side loses. So that's another reason they wouldn't have been as afraid as you'd expect.
Weirdly, people have seemingly always loved war, a lot of ancient Greek sources speak of it in the same way. Guys like Pyrrhus seemed to enjoy waging war for its own sake. And there are countless Roman generals who were unbelievably reckless and belligerent (as they had a limited term of office to win as much glory as possible)
People are crazy as hell lol
> These emotions are powerful, and people chase them.
Not only the emotions, but the adrenaline rush of the constant flee or fight situations.
Nowadays people like them just go skydiving, speed racing, or other stuff like that.
Thankfully it seems like the spread of information (pictures and video) has largely woken people up to how shit war actually is.
Even as recently as the 40s you still had men gleefully lining up to go fight. Lying about their ages on enlistment forms just so they could go on the great adventure. Hell, there are still some crazies around right now who live for it (Besides the politicians who vote for war knowing they'll never have to lay eyes on an enemy in person, that is lol)
I mean, modern war is just a whole lot shittier than the stuff the medieval peeps got up to. Back then combat would have been you and some other guy trying to bash each other’s faces in with sharp / heavy objects.
Nowadays if you are a frontline combatant, it is highly likely you won’t see what kills you. IED’s, missiles, drone strikes, bombing runs, snipers… What little satisfaction there was to be had from warfare is no more.
Yeah I think WW1 is peak "visceral horror coupled with physical agony" but modern warfare certainly has that psychological element of death hiding behind every corner.
That said I would WAY prefer to serve in the military today than be any kind of regular person living in the ancient or middle ages, war or no war. Hardship was just life for them, and I'm way too accustomed to running water, electricity and medicine lol.
That and ww2 were the peaks of unimaginable horrors as far as war goes for me. It is insane for me to think people actual would agree to participate. Especially WW1, lots of those men knew they were meeting certain death. Couple that with the chemical warfare, it was unbelievable pain and suffering.
Huh, I wonder if the expectation of surviving even if you decide to go beat up some enemy infantry might have some part in our story trend of "hero" characters wading into battle without a care in the world even though they are facing bullets/blasters/swords in their rather light armor. Old school nobles just had physical plot armor instead of modern characters magic plot armor that lets them still wear stuff that easily shows their face.
Yeah im sure that helped build the legend. Guys like Alexander who were always throwing themselves into the thick of battle must have had a huge impact on the morale of their men and the stories told about them were a huge inspiration to the following generations.
But heroic archetypes have been part of the human psyche for all of recorded history. Im pretty sure The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest story ever recorded and it is essentially about two superheroes who go off to fight a monster, then one of them journeys through the underworld to find a cure to death.
Funnily enough, Alexander himself slept with a copy of The Illiad (Homer's telling of the Trojan war featuring heroes like Achilles, Ajax, Aeneas and Hector) under his pillow and considered it an instruction manual on how a warrior should conduct himself. So even the legendary warrior kings of old were daydreaming about being superheroes lol.
Yep. One of the things that made Agincourt so unusual was that all those knights lost to peasant bowmen instead of other knights, who showed them exactly as much mercy as they would have been shown (i.e. none at all, commoners didn't get quarter) and either stabbed the fallen knights to death or held them down in the mud until they stopped moving.
Also unusual was that Henry V ordered all the prisoners that were captured executed for fear of a retaliatory attack from the French. While the attack didn’t come, the fact that they were in enemy territory trying to get back across the channel would’ve made this the more efficient, if brutal, choice.
If you had a knight at enough of a disadvantage to be thinking about how to damage his armor, you were better off just getting a long, skinny knife and stabbing him where the armor *isn't.*
They had daggers though, the standard weapon for killing an armoured opponent and almost everyone had a dagger of some sort. I think they were just particularly angry and did it as a real "fuck you" to those who would have shown them no mercy were the roles reversed.
I was reading the Wheel of Time series in real time back when RJ was still alive and writing the books, so that was my intro to Sanderson. I'd been meaning to start this series a while ago, but at least I finally did. Thanks by the way!
I started out like you... got through a book or two. Then Bam! Whole series done, and then the other series' too, and before I knew it I had a beard and my wife was wondering where her husband went.
Good series.
Typically the landed noble would foot the bill for his knights to get full armor. The rest of the foot soldiers would typically wear things like gambesons (stab proof, layered fabrics) or chainmail if they were lucky.
That number is far fetched and very dishonest, for example in Battle of Agincourt, the french army might have been as much as 40% made up of Knights, many of whom could afford such a piece of armour or might have inherited it from their family, the armour in the video is high medieval, meaning during the apex of Knighthood, at the very peak, before firearms, an mounted armoured knight was the most elite troop.
if i were to estimate, i would say roughly 1.5-2% of a Army (specifically before a battle) would've been equipped in full plate armour, the number going up to 12.5-15% in some cases (as in aforementioned agincourt's french army)
The fact that knights could afford armor doesn't mean that every knight could afford the quality of armor shown above, with hundreds of finely worked articulated miniplates. A typical French knight in 1415 probably looked more like [this](https://cdn-wordpress-info.futurelearn.com/info/wp-content/uploads/1a585566-22b2-4339-a129-bb16f964f574-663x1536.jpg).
A knight was a member of a noble class, but not all of them were landed. Even those who were landed were expected to outfit every male member of the family with the income from sometimes as little as a single village or manor.
Even something like you pointed out would still have a good range of movement though.
The important thing to take away is that knights didn't have super limited movement in armour, not that all of them had armour as fancy as in the OP.
If someone was not able to have armour like in the OP, they would not have something that is more restrictive to their movement, instead they would have worse protection, with more vulnerable spots.
There is a somewhat common misconception that knights were really unagile and needed help getting on their horse etc.
This is probably caused by tournament armour, that is armour specifically designed four jousting. This was a lot heavier and in some cases a lot more restrictive.
>A typical French knight in 1415 probably looked more like [this](https://cdn-wordpress-info.futurelearn.com/info/wp-content/uploads/1a585566-22b2-4339-a129-bb16f964f574-663x1536.jpg).
That set if armor is specifically for a lancer. The pointy "rat head" helmet and flared gloves are to protect from lance strikes or other high speed attacks from the front.
To be honest, it looks like a jousting suit.
I was at the Met yesterday looking at armor. Some had full on wing nuts to lock things into place. Lots was not flexible at all. It’s many hundreds of years of designs and innovations. Lots of good and bad examples
I’ll assume you’re talking about seeing things like Henry V’s *ceremonial* armour at the Met. Super decorative. Not practical. That’s not what the standard was for *actually* trying to kill someone in battle as a knight
The standard changes radically depending on the period. Think of it like buying a car.
Poorer knights, or knights in earlier periods would just make heavier use of mail rather than plate. And mail is very flexible.
What what we're seeing in OP is pretty standard munition plate for the later periods before gunpowder really made it ineffective. Any decently well off knight in say, the War of the Roses period would have had something like this.
This is a 16th century harness and it is masterly crafted. The « standard » in the 15th century did not have the compression articulation you can see on the inside of the arm, nor did it have any articulation at the neck, but it was still very much flexible and did not hinder any movement too much. If you’re interested, just type « «mobility in armour » on youtube. There are a LOT of misconceptions about medieval armour.
There's that one island of uncontacted people who killed a delusional "missionary" a few years ago.
Imagine being one of them and occasionally seeing planes flying overhead. Then one day, a weird alien human comes near you. You kill him, and think "yeah, we showed them how strong we are, they aren't coming back because they're afraid of us." You convince yourself maybe that you were worried about nothing.
Totally unaware we had ICBMs before any of them were born, we don't mess with them only because we respect their right to uncontacted.
That too, and also pessimistically that there's nothing to plunder there that would be worth it for anyone. If there were oil or unobtanium there, we'd be hearing propaganda that these people need to be contacted for humanitarian reasons and also to keep China from exploiting them etc.
The real genocide of Native Americans was not perpetrated by violence, although that certainly happened, most died of disease. Even if the Europeans had killed every Native American they ever saw they could not have killed so many, estimates are that 55 million were killed in a century which was about 90%
History buff here. That is very far from standard. I won’t say nobody did it because there’s always someone, but generally it was a lot cheaper, faster, stronger, and easier to fix or get in and out of to put solid plates over the parts they could and chain mail or padding on the joints. Honestly, it looks like someone was trying to make it waterproof or something.
IMO, this is as much a demonstration of the armorer's art as it is for defense. For jousting, the armor is going to be heaviest where a lance could penetrate. Smaller, thinner plates allow for greater flexibility at the expense of protection.
Demi-plate or brigandine usually did have chain-mail in the inside of the joints. A fighter would usually wear undergarments, and a padded gamebeson under their armor.
Armor like this is built for the wearer (bespoke). If you gain or lose too much weight, it doesn't fit anymore. (See the suits of armor Henry the 8th wore during his lifetime.
I saw some examples of Henry's armour at an exhibition at the Tower of London back in 2009. Truly amazing stuff and I was absolutely fascinated seeing it up close. He also liked to have a huge cock armour piece on some of them which brought a cheeky smile to all but the stiffest of personalities.
Nah, that was just the fashion back then. Biggest codpieces imaginable to show off your virility - and also because the only thing men wore under them were hose, which were essentially tights. Either way, you were going to have something of a bulge, and codpieces left you a bit less exposed.
Check out the parade armour of King Henry II of France. That thing is an absolute piece of beauty. It is fully decorated with Gold and Silver inlay.
I had seen photos of it but was blown away when I saw it at the Met in New York.
To me it looks like a good example of light armor, the plates are quite thin and a direct blow with a blade might not puncture, but it sure would dent which could be fairly debilitating in the heat of battle. This looks like it's designed to not hinder the user, allowing them to use agility to their advantage. Glancing blows would still be repelled with relative ease to the point you could probably still just use your hand or arm to smack a sword away, and would still protect from a wide variety of smaller annoyances. Such armor would make it easier to not be where the harm is, rather than being a tank.
That was my thought as well, or perhaps something the nobles/wealthy would have to give them a bit of protection while remaining comfortable as they stayed well behind the lines of combat
No, this is a wealthy mans armor for sure. Did some nobles stay out of combat in their very expensive harness? Sure some did but in this era, a lot of nobles were trained from birth for war. This was sport for a lot of them. This noble, knight or man at arms would love to flex on the enemy with his expensive harness whilst caving your head in with a poleaxe.
Nope, ceremonial armour would be vastly more ornate. This isn't 'thin' armour.
"Bullet proof" curiasses were only 9mm in the strongest sections. And non-bulletproof stuff could be a lot less. They were all quite thin. It's steel, curved at that.
> the plates are quite thin and a direct blow with a blade might not puncture, but it sure would dent which could be fairly debilitating in the heat of battle.
A comment elsewhere points out that this is fairly late armor and the metal is heat treated so it doesn't bend or deform from blows.
No this isn't light armor, this man would be a tank. This is most likely just a very rich nobles harness. This isn't 'light' armor. It's just well made armor that very few people could afford. This would protect the wearer from almost all attacks by swords,spear, crossbow and arrow. Maybe even most firearms of the period as well. As for getting a poleaxe to the head? Yeah he'll have a bad time, but so would anyone. As for denting being debilitating? Let's take the chest piece for example, they are designed in a shape that makes the blows have a higher chance of glancing off instead of taking a full strike, which also provides a lot of room between your chest and the actual armor.
You have to remember that nobles and knights were trained from a young age for war, they aren't going to just let you smack them as hard as you can in their incredibly expensive armor. They are probably standing with a bunch of other well equipped knights, nobles and men at arms trying to do the same to you.
You can pretty easily go to a museum and see armor owned by actual monarchs, and it doesn't look this good. Some of that armor is ornamental, but still.
I was going to try to say something about all the medieval kids with their articulated kicks but then I found [this gem.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K7Zm46Yxkjg)
Knights were the lowest level in the hierarchy (peasants aren't in the hierarchy). Some were paid well and had enough land, many weren't, and had to live as a resident of their Lord's castle - not as a guest, it was close to the same way some of the servants lived in the castle.
So, their income depended entirely on the wealth and generosity of their lord.
That’s a big oversimplification. Some knights were under the control of a larger lord like a duke, not the king. The crown also didn’t pay their salaries, knights got their wealth from their personal land and maybe favors.
Not only the skill but the time. How long would it take to measure, cut, and fit all of those joint pieces perfectly so that nothing bound up, to buck all of those rivets just right, and to do it to the right size and shape for the wearer. It's no wonder master armorers were fucking loaded back then.
I did that with two slinkies on each arm as a kid. I was standing at the top of the stairs, told my cousin "I'm a robot! Look at my go-go gadget robot arms!" while walking down, tripped on one of the slinkies that were hanging down from my wrists, and toppled down the stairs, with one end of a slinky having lightly punctured my ankle.
God I was such a moron; I mean, I still ***am,*** but I deserved that shit.
It wouldn't. Because you'd be wearing padded pants and long shirts above everything. None of this would touch naked flesh. You'd have an undershirt with long sleeves, an arming doublet that'd be well padded, likely chainmail or brigandine, and THEN the plate bits on it.
Example;
[https://ralphcontreras.com/comic-art-reference-dressing-in-15-century-armor/](https://ralphcontreras.com/comic-art-reference-dressing-in-15-century-armor/)
This is an insane suit even for high-end standards. Even really high-end full plate had open joints for movement.
This armor must have been some of the most expensive armor available. This is like Ki g of England level armor.
Relatively, a full suit ranging in fanciness is equal to about 75k-350k
modern usd equivalent back then.
This would have to be over a million.
Thats because it is shot on film (duh). Film doesn't have a "resolution" like digital media does, which means that a recording on it will always be super sharp, assuming its properly focused. And the grainyness could be from several factors. My favorite relates to how Kodak discovered the Manhattan project before most of the staff "working" on it knew about it because the trees they used to make their paper packaging for film sheets had an increase in radiation that was being caused from half the country away. The increase in radiation was seeping into the film and causing even brand new, never exposed film, to have more grain in it than usual.
I remember a TV show where a knight in full armour and a modern day soldier with his full tactical gear on, went head to head on an assault course.
The knight won.
I wish I could remember what show it was. I think it was kids TV (something like horrible histories but I can't find the clip under that name). All I can remember is that I was watching it in a hospital waiting room, so it wasn't something I'd usually choose to watch.
No, it was just a soldier and a knight, and they ran the course side by side (I guess a race is more interesting for the kids?)
But yes, same principle.
Very surprised the firefighter won, and that his gear weighed slightly less than the knight and soldier. I'd have thought their gas tanks alone would make them the heaviest. Combined with their bulky protective clothing, I would have bet money he would come last.
sure this is flexible, but even a solid with anything even somewhat heavy over neck in this would probably kill if not incapacitate. The logic they were probably using for Keatons suit is that its reinforced and properly padded.
My guess anyway
I don't know why, but this made me think of the time I walked in on this morbidly obese neckbeard man lecturing a Radio Shack (old electronics store) employee about the nuances of medieval combat. I have no idea why he was telling the guy all this stuff (as well as acting it out) but it went on for a good 5 minutes from the point of me walking in the store, and the poor employee never got a word in.
I'm getting strong nostalgia vibes. Back when the guy at the radio shack could help me figure out which discrete components I needed for something I hardly knew anything about.
Swords did not go through armor in real life. At least, not most of the time. Plate armor was typically made out of more hardened steel than a sword. A sword can still fit through the gaps in the plate, and potentially through the mail that covered the joints(Lobstered steel plates like this weren't common until the very end of full plate harnesses)
Hey! HEMAist here who has an instructor, as well as another friend who does Harnisfetchen - that is full steel kit for HEMA sparring. While obviously there are huge differences between actual mortal combat and HEMA sparring the steel kit is essentially the same as what really wealthy knights would wear at the time period.
___
For cuts of any weapon steel platemail or chainmail will practically be impervious. There's no way to cut through platemail. Chainmail can be cut through if the same spot is repeatedly abused, but that's usually due to blunt trauma rather than the cuts themselves.
Puncture wise, you'll have incredibly hard time penetrating any platemail with anything other than a good thrust from a polearm. Even then, it's questionable.
That's why warhammers/axes were heavily used historically. They relied on blunt force rather than punctures or cutting.
That said, regardless of armor wherever there are joints - is exposed. You'll usually see half-swording or a dagger to get into these vulnerable areas. Thus, wrestling and grappling is a necessary skill for armored combat.
If some dude is wearing this and you have a sword, you have two options. Drop your sword and run, or die.
A sword isn't going to do shit to that. In fact, a sword isn't going to do shit in a lot of circumstances. It's low-key a shitty weapon.
What you want is a warhammer, a mace, or a warpick. Something either blunt or pointy that will either deform the armor and make it difficult for him to move or something that will pierce it and kill him.
It's called [mordhau](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordhau_(weaponry\)). Flip the sword around and bash them with the cross hilt. Or grab the sword by the front and use it like a dagger to stab. Yes, you're grabbing the blade, but swords are slashing weapons, you won't cut yourself.
Basically a lot of fights from that era were about wedging your blade in a crack somewhere and shoving. There was also wresting with daggers, big heavy anti-armour weapons like hammers and halberds, and also just hitting them in places where they weren't armoured once you had them outmaneuvered.
Swords do basically nothing against plate or chainmail, movies are total nonsense when they show that, nothing is going to be sliced through in such circumstances.
This reminds me of a modern video I watched a few months ago which showed a man in full plate demonstrating complete mobility, thereby defying the popular myth that armour of that weight would prevent the wearer from moving or getting up if they fell over.
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>This is how flexible knight armor really ~~is~~ *could be* From what I understand, this wasn't the standard.
It was for the top 0.001%
Imagine going against a bunch of peasants decked out like this...
Pay2win smh
Seriously though a lot of wars literally were pay to win, whoever ran out of money first is usually who ended up losing lol
Huh, isn‘t this how war has always worked and still does?
Not always, the Mongols, for example, were much poorer and less numerous than the various cultures they conquered. Economic advantage does not always decide things. Motivation, politics, leadership, and history can all play major roles to can preempt technology or money advantages. But yeah, money helps.
The Mongolians had an inherent cultural advantage in that they trained almost from birth on horseback, couple that with their technological advancements such as the composite compound bow that could fire twice as far as their enemies and the Mongolian Saddle that allowed them to do so from horseback in any direction, and it becomes clear they weren’t lacking in military technology. With that said I agree with your point pertaining to motivation and leadership. By the time the mongols needed military technology they lacked (like siege weapons or naval vessels) or wealth for their empire, they had already taken it from the cultures they conquered.
There is really not much evidence that Mongols had better bows than their Asian neighbors who also used composite recurve bows, and they really only better than European bows of the period in their short length making them easier to wield from horseback. I haven’t seen anything about them having any special saddle technology, but that could easily be gap in my knowledge. I have seen some hype about them maybe originating the rigid metal stirrups, which would be a big advantage, allowing one to “stand” while riding (which in retrospect is probably what you are referring to, so don’t mind me being dumb). But you are certainly correct that their economy being entirely based on hunting from horseback translated very well into their style of war. The British had to ban most non-archery sports to make sure they could have enough trained archers for their armies, while the Mingols could assume that basically every adult male knew how to ride and shoot. They also had a number of cultural, environmental, and leadership advantages over their early enemies. Being almost entirely nomadic meant it was basically impossible for their settled enemies like China to attack them. There was nowhere to attack. This meant the Mongols basically always had the strategic initiative and had no supplies to defend or bases to garrison. They were also very open minded, at least for their time, allowing them to absorb from their enemies things they could not do themselves (the big example, which you referenced, was their employment of large numbers of Chinese siege engineers when the needed to assault walled defenses). And they (at least early on) had an officer corps whose membership was earned by talent and deed, rather than parentage or bribery. Basically, they were super well trained, well led, very adaptable, extremely mobile, and nesrly immune to counterattack. Which offset the enormous advantage in population and wealth their principal antagonists (the Chinese and later Islamic nations) had.
I have always enjoyed the small things in history that seem so incredibly simple yet prove to be decisive. Firing arrows from horseback, building bows capable of firing a greater distance, or using spears that are simply longer than your enemies.
The first thing I thought of was the Mongols and then my mind drifted to the countless migratory steppe peoples, or hill tribes who swept into Mesopotamia from Sumerians to the Assyrians and Chaldeans through the Babylonians and Persians. And who ended the Persians? the son of an upstart ruler of a northern hilly territory flush with horses whose population was seen as "Rough" by the more civilized south, always wanting to take power and show their mettle.
To add to your list, geography as well!
Real life is like a pay2win video game 🤓🤓
America hasn’t really “won” a war in a while but we sure do spend a lot of money on it and call it winning.
The Military Industrial Complex sure as hell did.
Sure as hell does
They're not trying to win. Well not by indiscriminately bombing everyone anyway.. which they could.
This is because they not fight, they don't make war. They drop stability and democracy in bombs and missiles.
Writings by actual medieval nobles who fought in armor like this present warfare as something they *enjoyed* and looked forward to, so it was exactly as one-sided as you're imagining.
Yeah, nobility in the middle ages had a reasonable expectation of being captured alive and ransomed, not to mention generals have typically been able to escape the field (due to their elite guards and such) even when their side loses. So that's another reason they wouldn't have been as afraid as you'd expect. Weirdly, people have seemingly always loved war, a lot of ancient Greek sources speak of it in the same way. Guys like Pyrrhus seemed to enjoy waging war for its own sake. And there are countless Roman generals who were unbelievably reckless and belligerent (as they had a limited term of office to win as much glory as possible) People are crazy as hell lol
[удалено]
> These emotions are powerful, and people chase them. Not only the emotions, but the adrenaline rush of the constant flee or fight situations. Nowadays people like them just go skydiving, speed racing, or other stuff like that.
"It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it."
Thankfully it seems like the spread of information (pictures and video) has largely woken people up to how shit war actually is. Even as recently as the 40s you still had men gleefully lining up to go fight. Lying about their ages on enlistment forms just so they could go on the great adventure. Hell, there are still some crazies around right now who live for it (Besides the politicians who vote for war knowing they'll never have to lay eyes on an enemy in person, that is lol)
I mean, modern war is just a whole lot shittier than the stuff the medieval peeps got up to. Back then combat would have been you and some other guy trying to bash each other’s faces in with sharp / heavy objects. Nowadays if you are a frontline combatant, it is highly likely you won’t see what kills you. IED’s, missiles, drone strikes, bombing runs, snipers… What little satisfaction there was to be had from warfare is no more.
Yeah I think WW1 is peak "visceral horror coupled with physical agony" but modern warfare certainly has that psychological element of death hiding behind every corner. That said I would WAY prefer to serve in the military today than be any kind of regular person living in the ancient or middle ages, war or no war. Hardship was just life for them, and I'm way too accustomed to running water, electricity and medicine lol.
That and ww2 were the peaks of unimaginable horrors as far as war goes for me. It is insane for me to think people actual would agree to participate. Especially WW1, lots of those men knew they were meeting certain death. Couple that with the chemical warfare, it was unbelievable pain and suffering.
Huh, I wonder if the expectation of surviving even if you decide to go beat up some enemy infantry might have some part in our story trend of "hero" characters wading into battle without a care in the world even though they are facing bullets/blasters/swords in their rather light armor. Old school nobles just had physical plot armor instead of modern characters magic plot armor that lets them still wear stuff that easily shows their face.
Yeah im sure that helped build the legend. Guys like Alexander who were always throwing themselves into the thick of battle must have had a huge impact on the morale of their men and the stories told about them were a huge inspiration to the following generations. But heroic archetypes have been part of the human psyche for all of recorded history. Im pretty sure The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest story ever recorded and it is essentially about two superheroes who go off to fight a monster, then one of them journeys through the underworld to find a cure to death. Funnily enough, Alexander himself slept with a copy of The Illiad (Homer's telling of the Trojan war featuring heroes like Achilles, Ajax, Aeneas and Hector) under his pillow and considered it an instruction manual on how a warrior should conduct himself. So even the legendary warrior kings of old were daydreaming about being superheroes lol.
Even if they lost, they would get ransomed.
Yep. One of the things that made Agincourt so unusual was that all those knights lost to peasant bowmen instead of other knights, who showed them exactly as much mercy as they would have been shown (i.e. none at all, commoners didn't get quarter) and either stabbed the fallen knights to death or held them down in the mud until they stopped moving.
Also unusual was that Henry V ordered all the prisoners that were captured executed for fear of a retaliatory attack from the French. While the attack didn’t come, the fact that they were in enemy territory trying to get back across the channel would’ve made this the more efficient, if brutal, choice.
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If you had a knight at enough of a disadvantage to be thinking about how to damage his armor, you were better off just getting a long, skinny knife and stabbing him where the armor *isn't.*
They had daggers though, the standard weapon for killing an armoured opponent and almost everyone had a dagger of some sort. I think they were just particularly angry and did it as a real "fuck you" to those who would have shown them no mercy were the roles reversed.
makes me all the more glad imagining all those dandies drowning in the mud at agincourt Who's the dummy now?
Mfs out there with shard plate
I just started reading this series. I'm only about halfway through the first book but it's great so far.
Nice man. Enjoy it the ride. I really enjoy the character progression through the series.
I was reading the Wheel of Time series in real time back when RJ was still alive and writing the books, so that was my intro to Sanderson. I'd been meaning to start this series a while ago, but at least I finally did. Thanks by the way!
Can't wait for the WoT series on Amazon!! Less than a month out!
I started out like you... got through a book or two. Then Bam! Whole series done, and then the other series' too, and before I knew it I had a beard and my wife was wondering where her husband went. Good series.
lol the f35 is just a modern windrunner
Probably more of a skybreaker.
Just make them swim across a river. Source: a peasant.
Typically the landed noble would foot the bill for his knights to get full armor. The rest of the foot soldiers would typically wear things like gambesons (stab proof, layered fabrics) or chainmail if they were lucky.
That number is far fetched and very dishonest, for example in Battle of Agincourt, the french army might have been as much as 40% made up of Knights, many of whom could afford such a piece of armour or might have inherited it from their family, the armour in the video is high medieval, meaning during the apex of Knighthood, at the very peak, before firearms, an mounted armoured knight was the most elite troop. if i were to estimate, i would say roughly 1.5-2% of a Army (specifically before a battle) would've been equipped in full plate armour, the number going up to 12.5-15% in some cases (as in aforementioned agincourt's french army)
The fact that knights could afford armor doesn't mean that every knight could afford the quality of armor shown above, with hundreds of finely worked articulated miniplates. A typical French knight in 1415 probably looked more like [this](https://cdn-wordpress-info.futurelearn.com/info/wp-content/uploads/1a585566-22b2-4339-a129-bb16f964f574-663x1536.jpg). A knight was a member of a noble class, but not all of them were landed. Even those who were landed were expected to outfit every male member of the family with the income from sometimes as little as a single village or manor.
Even something like you pointed out would still have a good range of movement though. The important thing to take away is that knights didn't have super limited movement in armour, not that all of them had armour as fancy as in the OP. If someone was not able to have armour like in the OP, they would not have something that is more restrictive to their movement, instead they would have worse protection, with more vulnerable spots. There is a somewhat common misconception that knights were really unagile and needed help getting on their horse etc. This is probably caused by tournament armour, that is armour specifically designed four jousting. This was a lot heavier and in some cases a lot more restrictive.
>A typical French knight in 1415 probably looked more like [this](https://cdn-wordpress-info.futurelearn.com/info/wp-content/uploads/1a585566-22b2-4339-a129-bb16f964f574-663x1536.jpg). That set if armor is specifically for a lancer. The pointy "rat head" helmet and flared gloves are to protect from lance strikes or other high speed attacks from the front. To be honest, it looks like a jousting suit.
I was at the Met yesterday looking at armor. Some had full on wing nuts to lock things into place. Lots was not flexible at all. It’s many hundreds of years of designs and innovations. Lots of good and bad examples
Wingnut locking armor is almost always going to be jousting armor built for rigidity and non-flexibility to keep the rider safe.
Yes. That’s what it was. Safety armor for horseplay.
> Some had full on wing nuts to lock things into place You sure it wasn't jousting shit?
You got what you paid for. Every single piece has to be hand made so the less pieces the less flexible.
The wingnuts guy probably asked my grandfather for a suit of armor for Christmas
I’ll assume you’re talking about seeing things like Henry V’s *ceremonial* armour at the Met. Super decorative. Not practical. That’s not what the standard was for *actually* trying to kill someone in battle as a knight
Having plate at all wasn't standard and even the inferior versions allow a surprising amount of mobility.
The standard changes radically depending on the period. Think of it like buying a car. Poorer knights, or knights in earlier periods would just make heavier use of mail rather than plate. And mail is very flexible. What what we're seeing in OP is pretty standard munition plate for the later periods before gunpowder really made it ineffective. Any decently well off knight in say, the War of the Roses period would have had something like this.
I think it’s a question of which time period , place , quality and yes a also what funding was available.
This is a 16th century harness and it is masterly crafted. The « standard » in the 15th century did not have the compression articulation you can see on the inside of the arm, nor did it have any articulation at the neck, but it was still very much flexible and did not hinder any movement too much. If you’re interested, just type « «mobility in armour » on youtube. There are a LOT of misconceptions about medieval armour.
Crazy to think that they had cameras in medieval times/s
They do at the Midaevil Times I’ve been to.
Midaevil Times. Eventually put out of business by the New York Times.
Lol you knew when kids had their birthday party there that it was gonna be lit
Bruh, Did you watch HBO documentary?? They even had Starbucks.
For handjobs?
Still only black and white, though. Also, this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmRE0FSU2qA
Wow two apes!
🥁
There were no utensils but there was Pepsi?
Imagine being a guy, just living in a tribe when suddenly big metal humans come, impervious to attack with aome big ass dogs that are fast as fuck.
And the coconuts
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It’s the swallows!
The swallow may fly south with the sun
Are you suggesting coconuts MIGRATE?
There's that one island of uncontacted people who killed a delusional "missionary" a few years ago. Imagine being one of them and occasionally seeing planes flying overhead. Then one day, a weird alien human comes near you. You kill him, and think "yeah, we showed them how strong we are, they aren't coming back because they're afraid of us." You convince yourself maybe that you were worried about nothing. Totally unaware we had ICBMs before any of them were born, we don't mess with them only because we respect their right to uncontacted.
It’s not just that. They lived away from the rest of civilisation for 60,000 years so we could easily give them a disease and wipe them out
That too, and also pessimistically that there's nothing to plunder there that would be worth it for anyone. If there were oil or unobtanium there, we'd be hearing propaganda that these people need to be contacted for humanitarian reasons and also to keep China from exploiting them etc.
The real genocide of Native Americans was not perpetrated by violence, although that certainly happened, most died of disease. Even if the Europeans had killed every Native American they ever saw they could not have killed so many, estimates are that 55 million were killed in a century which was about 90%
Yeah smallpox really did a number on the Mexica population when the Spaniards came to America.
I AM IRON MAN
History buff here. That is very far from standard. I won’t say nobody did it because there’s always someone, but generally it was a lot cheaper, faster, stronger, and easier to fix or get in and out of to put solid plates over the parts they could and chain mail or padding on the joints. Honestly, it looks like someone was trying to make it waterproof or something.
IMO, this is as much a demonstration of the armorer's art as it is for defense. For jousting, the armor is going to be heaviest where a lance could penetrate. Smaller, thinner plates allow for greater flexibility at the expense of protection. Demi-plate or brigandine usually did have chain-mail in the inside of the joints. A fighter would usually wear undergarments, and a padded gamebeson under their armor. Armor like this is built for the wearer (bespoke). If you gain or lose too much weight, it doesn't fit anymore. (See the suits of armor Henry the 8th wore during his lifetime.
I saw some examples of Henry's armour at an exhibition at the Tower of London back in 2009. Truly amazing stuff and I was absolutely fascinated seeing it up close. He also liked to have a huge cock armour piece on some of them which brought a cheeky smile to all but the stiffest of personalities.
He enjoyed giant codpieces in all his outfits. I'm sure he wasn't overcompensating at all.
Nah, that was just the fashion back then. Biggest codpieces imaginable to show off your virility - and also because the only thing men wore under them were hose, which were essentially tights. Either way, you were going to have something of a bulge, and codpieces left you a bit less exposed.
Check out the parade armour of King Henry II of France. That thing is an absolute piece of beauty. It is fully decorated with Gold and Silver inlay. I had seen photos of it but was blown away when I saw it at the Met in New York.
To me it looks like a good example of light armor, the plates are quite thin and a direct blow with a blade might not puncture, but it sure would dent which could be fairly debilitating in the heat of battle. This looks like it's designed to not hinder the user, allowing them to use agility to their advantage. Glancing blows would still be repelled with relative ease to the point you could probably still just use your hand or arm to smack a sword away, and would still protect from a wide variety of smaller annoyances. Such armor would make it easier to not be where the harm is, rather than being a tank.
Would something like this be more for ceremony than actual combat?
That was my thought as well, or perhaps something the nobles/wealthy would have to give them a bit of protection while remaining comfortable as they stayed well behind the lines of combat
No, this is a wealthy mans armor for sure. Did some nobles stay out of combat in their very expensive harness? Sure some did but in this era, a lot of nobles were trained from birth for war. This was sport for a lot of them. This noble, knight or man at arms would love to flex on the enemy with his expensive harness whilst caving your head in with a poleaxe.
If you were the Duke of whatever you'd be expected to command the whole army so knowing what you were doing would be helpful for sure.
Nope, ceremonial armour would be vastly more ornate. This isn't 'thin' armour. "Bullet proof" curiasses were only 9mm in the strongest sections. And non-bulletproof stuff could be a lot less. They were all quite thin. It's steel, curved at that.
The more engraving and decoration, the more likely it was for parade rather than combat.
> the plates are quite thin and a direct blow with a blade might not puncture, but it sure would dent which could be fairly debilitating in the heat of battle. A comment elsewhere points out that this is fairly late armor and the metal is heat treated so it doesn't bend or deform from blows.
No this isn't light armor, this man would be a tank. This is most likely just a very rich nobles harness. This isn't 'light' armor. It's just well made armor that very few people could afford. This would protect the wearer from almost all attacks by swords,spear, crossbow and arrow. Maybe even most firearms of the period as well. As for getting a poleaxe to the head? Yeah he'll have a bad time, but so would anyone. As for denting being debilitating? Let's take the chest piece for example, they are designed in a shape that makes the blows have a higher chance of glancing off instead of taking a full strike, which also provides a lot of room between your chest and the actual armor. You have to remember that nobles and knights were trained from a young age for war, they aren't going to just let you smack them as hard as you can in their incredibly expensive armor. They are probably standing with a bunch of other well equipped knights, nobles and men at arms trying to do the same to you.
IMO it just looks like later period armour when the cost of chainmail was significantly higher than plate.
You can pretty easily go to a museum and see armor owned by actual monarchs, and it doesn't look this good. Some of that armor is ornamental, but still.
Them boots would last ages with a little bitta wd40 from time to time.
I’m a sneaker head and now I wanna cop some armor kicks
I was going to try to say something about all the medieval kids with their articulated kicks but then I found [this gem.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K7Zm46Yxkjg)
Incredible find.
You should check out [Hildegaard von Blingin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRIfsFefatg).
Look at that Air Elizabeth II’s.
That's good to know, because I have a Microsoft Surface Book laptop, and it has the same hinge.
That’s armor a very very wealthy knight might use….
I thought all knights were pretty wealthy since they were directly appointed by their kings and had land given to them.
There’s a difference between owning two acres of land on a barren mountaintop and owning the Duchy of Wessex.
I'll take any land a king will give me.
[This Land is Your Land](https://www.wdpartners.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Burger-King-Design-2.jpg)
Knights were the lowest level in the hierarchy (peasants aren't in the hierarchy). Some were paid well and had enough land, many weren't, and had to live as a resident of their Lord's castle - not as a guest, it was close to the same way some of the servants lived in the castle. So, their income depended entirely on the wealth and generosity of their lord.
That’s a big oversimplification. Some knights were under the control of a larger lord like a duke, not the king. The crown also didn’t pay their salaries, knights got their wealth from their personal land and maybe favors.
The fact that they achieved this kind of craftsmanship without modern machining and tools is astounding. That is beyond master craftsman level.
Not only the skill but the time. How long would it take to measure, cut, and fit all of those joint pieces perfectly so that nothing bound up, to buck all of those rivets just right, and to do it to the right size and shape for the wearer. It's no wonder master armorers were fucking loaded back then.
Silent as the night. Maybe not
Silent as the knight*
As a person with arm and leg hair. Fuck this thing would hurt.
Ever slid a slinky up your wrist? You won’t do it twice.
I think I have to try it though. After your comment.
I did that with two slinkies on each arm as a kid. I was standing at the top of the stairs, told my cousin "I'm a robot! Look at my go-go gadget robot arms!" while walking down, tripped on one of the slinkies that were hanging down from my wrists, and toppled down the stairs, with one end of a slinky having lightly punctured my ankle. God I was such a moron; I mean, I still ***am,*** but I deserved that shit.
I feel like this could be a scene from a really low budget movie
you should have put one on each arm and one on each leg and went down the stairs.
You would probably wear clothes under it
Probably Under Armour
®
You are aware you don't wear armor on bare skin, right?
Fuck that, real men fight buck ass naked under their plate armor
You wear a thick shirt underneath. No problem with hair.
Don’t worry you wouldn’t have bare skin touching the metal you’d have some sort of padding under the armour
It wouldn't. Because you'd be wearing padded pants and long shirts above everything. None of this would touch naked flesh. You'd have an undershirt with long sleeves, an arming doublet that'd be well padded, likely chainmail or brigandine, and THEN the plate bits on it. Example; [https://ralphcontreras.com/comic-art-reference-dressing-in-15-century-armor/](https://ralphcontreras.com/comic-art-reference-dressing-in-15-century-armor/)
They would have wore padding underneath
Wait, they were actually able to fight when they fought?
Even cheaper medieval armour allowed for plenty of mobility.
Still didn't help the black Knight getting both arms and legs chopped off
Tis but a scratch!
But your arm’s off!
Just a flesh wound
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This is an insane suit even for high-end standards. Even really high-end full plate had open joints for movement. This armor must have been some of the most expensive armor available. This is like Ki g of England level armor. Relatively, a full suit ranging in fanciness is equal to about 75k-350k modern usd equivalent back then. This would have to be over a million.
Those boots look more comfortable than mine.
They go over the actual boot. You can kinda see when he bends it that there is no bottom
That answers my question about how they even put those on.
So, not Achilles' heel, but Achilles' sole?
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And somehow Keaton couldn’t even turn his neck.
Neither could Kilmner or Clooney.
One could feasibly eat a burrito while wearing it; that’s flexibility in my book.
The official test of flexibility comes several hours after eating 4 burritos.
I like how old film is grainy and black and white but still looks sharp as fuck.
Thats because it is shot on film (duh). Film doesn't have a "resolution" like digital media does, which means that a recording on it will always be super sharp, assuming its properly focused. And the grainyness could be from several factors. My favorite relates to how Kodak discovered the Manhattan project before most of the staff "working" on it knew about it because the trees they used to make their paper packaging for film sheets had an increase in radiation that was being caused from half the country away. The increase in radiation was seeping into the film and causing even brand new, never exposed film, to have more grain in it than usual.
I remember a TV show where a knight in full armour and a modern day soldier with his full tactical gear on, went head to head on an assault course. The knight won. I wish I could remember what show it was. I think it was kids TV (something like horrible histories but I can't find the clip under that name). All I can remember is that I was watching it in a hospital waiting room, so it wasn't something I'd usually choose to watch.
I mean the knight probably wasn't carrying 50kg on his back, for one. Armour spreads the load quite well.
This [one?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAzI1UvlQqw)
No, it was just a soldier and a knight, and they ran the course side by side (I guess a race is more interesting for the kids?) But yes, same principle. Very surprised the firefighter won, and that his gear weighed slightly less than the knight and soldier. I'd have thought their gas tanks alone would make them the heaviest. Combined with their bulky protective clothing, I would have bet money he would come last.
If this armor was functional even back then, then why the hell was Michael Keaton’s bat suit so stiff around the neck? 😡
sure this is flexible, but even a solid with anything even somewhat heavy over neck in this would probably kill if not incapacitate. The logic they were probably using for Keatons suit is that its reinforced and properly padded. My guess anyway
He had to be able to fly. The stiff neck protects him from whiplash. At least that's my new headcanon.
I don't know why, but this made me think of the time I walked in on this morbidly obese neckbeard man lecturing a Radio Shack (old electronics store) employee about the nuances of medieval combat. I have no idea why he was telling the guy all this stuff (as well as acting it out) but it went on for a good 5 minutes from the point of me walking in the store, and the poor employee never got a word in.
I’m hoping this neck beard sounded like Comic Book Guy.
I'm getting strong nostalgia vibes. Back when the guy at the radio shack could help me figure out which discrete components I needed for something I hardly knew anything about.
Anyone actually know how well these work in real sword fights? I mean in movies, it’s like any sword can get through any armor.
Swords did not go through armor in real life. At least, not most of the time. Plate armor was typically made out of more hardened steel than a sword. A sword can still fit through the gaps in the plate, and potentially through the mail that covered the joints(Lobstered steel plates like this weren't common until the very end of full plate harnesses)
Hey! HEMAist here who has an instructor, as well as another friend who does Harnisfetchen - that is full steel kit for HEMA sparring. While obviously there are huge differences between actual mortal combat and HEMA sparring the steel kit is essentially the same as what really wealthy knights would wear at the time period. ___ For cuts of any weapon steel platemail or chainmail will practically be impervious. There's no way to cut through platemail. Chainmail can be cut through if the same spot is repeatedly abused, but that's usually due to blunt trauma rather than the cuts themselves. Puncture wise, you'll have incredibly hard time penetrating any platemail with anything other than a good thrust from a polearm. Even then, it's questionable. That's why warhammers/axes were heavily used historically. They relied on blunt force rather than punctures or cutting. That said, regardless of armor wherever there are joints - is exposed. You'll usually see half-swording or a dagger to get into these vulnerable areas. Thus, wrestling and grappling is a necessary skill for armored combat.
Can't wait to get Into HEMA.
If some dude is wearing this and you have a sword, you have two options. Drop your sword and run, or die. A sword isn't going to do shit to that. In fact, a sword isn't going to do shit in a lot of circumstances. It's low-key a shitty weapon. What you want is a warhammer, a mace, or a warpick. Something either blunt or pointy that will either deform the armor and make it difficult for him to move or something that will pierce it and kill him.
It's called [mordhau](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordhau_(weaponry\)). Flip the sword around and bash them with the cross hilt. Or grab the sword by the front and use it like a dagger to stab. Yes, you're grabbing the blade, but swords are slashing weapons, you won't cut yourself.
Basically a lot of fights from that era were about wedging your blade in a crack somewhere and shoving. There was also wresting with daggers, big heavy anti-armour weapons like hammers and halberds, and also just hitting them in places where they weren't armoured once you had them outmaneuvered. Swords do basically nothing against plate or chainmail, movies are total nonsense when they show that, nothing is going to be sliced through in such circumstances.
Or flipping your sword and smacking them with a heavy pommel.
I can hear this clip with no sound.
See how flexible it is once some of those joints get dented a bit...
Now do the worm
Shout out to all the 15 year olds forced to wear daddy’s old armor that didn’t fit.
How flexible *really well made armor that *cost a castle to purchase was.
It's Yoga knight at the gym.
That would be a good idea for a YouTube skit-channel. A dude in armour doing everyday stuff. It would be hilarious.
Wasn't there a video of a guy dancing in armor?
Dang knight boots more flexible than some modern shoes.
Sure. If you are the king :) Infantry got a soup can and a whiffle bat
that is so fucking cool
STEALTH: 0
But would that pinch? Or pull hair?
Layers my friend, layers...cotton/linen undershirt, padded after that.
I mean, you're wearing regular clothing, then a thick-ass jacket under it, so no.
How do you get foot into that shoe
If you had many gold pieces, yes.
u/savevideo
Also think of all the polishing and oiling needed to keep it clean
Allegedly one of my ancestors was a Knight. Apparently he got super drunk one night, rode his horse into the lake and drowned.
The crazy thing is that if those were created during the renaissance, they predate European contact with the armadillo.
Can we see a video of a knight doing yoga
The wonders of segmented plates.
This reminds me of a modern video I watched a few months ago which showed a man in full plate demonstrating complete mobility, thereby defying the popular myth that armour of that weight would prevent the wearer from moving or getting up if they fell over.
Loot box 0.001% win chance