The use of body armour in battle ?

McArmalite

Seen this picture of Ned Kelly's suit of armour on another forum. Quiet impressive, notice the bullet indents. Got me thinking, anyone got useful information on body armour down the years ? I remeber watching Deadliest Warrior on Bravo and they featuered a Spartan. Interesting how the Spartans incorporated their bronze sheilds as an attacking weapon. Their was also one with a Samurai and if I remember the Samurai did not carry a sheild into battle ? I though it very unusual as they had just about every other weapon. Anyone got worthwhile information on armour throughout the ages ?

Here's Ned Kelly. A ' terrorist ' in his day, but probably the most admired historical person in Australian these days.

pablomakaveli

The first armoured cavalry were not the medieval knights of europe but the cataphracts from Parthia who caused severe problems for the Roman armies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataphract

donaghs

There was some use of metal body armour in WWI. The Germans used it most extensively, but it never really caught on I think due to the financial costs and the annoying weight, versus the minimial protection it offered.

http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/great-war-on-land/weapons-equipment-uniform/879-body-armour.html

Fratton Fred

I haven't been to the tower of London for years, but the armour exhibition there is very good.

Here are a few good photos, including one I liked at number 5. I asked a beefeater if Henry VIII was just showing off, but he simply said that even knights have to pee!!

http://www.hrp.org.uk/TowerofLondon/stories/palacehighlights/HenryVIIIDressedtoKill/Armingtheman.aspx

McArmalite

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I haven't been to the tower of London for years, but the armour exhibition there is very good.

Here are a few good photos, including one I liked at number 5. I asked a beefeater if Henry VIII was just showing off, but he simply said that even knights have to pee!!

http://www.hrp.org.uk/TowerofLondon/stories/palacehighlights/HenryVIIIDressedtoKill/Armingtheman.aspx

I've been to the Tower of London ( though I'm sure many wish they had beheaded me there ) and it's quite good. Not trying to say I'm a well traveled man or something, but Prague Castle also has a very good if indeed not better display of uniforms/body armour down the ages. If your a history or military head it's worth a visit.

IIMII

Been there too (The tower of London). Worth a visit from a general perspective, sad place from an Irish perspective.

Agricola

Visited the Roma bath at York during the summer. They had reconstructions of a centurions helmet, segmentata armour, and scutum shield ready to try on. Incredible weight to carry into battle. The helmet alone felt life an anvil on the head!

Manic Moran

donaghs wrote: »

There was some use of metal body armour in WWI. The Germans used it most extensively, but it never really caught on I think due to the financial costs and the annoying weight, versus the minimial protection it offered.

The ceramic and kevlar stuff we have now is uselessly/excessively heavy, I am not surprised that the metal shielding would have met with limited popularity.

NTM

johnny_doyle

donaghs wrote: »

There was some use of metal body armour in WWI. The Germans used it most extensively, but it never really caught on I think due to the financial costs and the annoying weight, versus the minimial protection it offered.

http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/great-war-on-land/weapons-equipment-uniform/879-body-armour.html

whilst not strictly body armour, the introduction of steel helmets was the possibly the biggest leap during WW1 re protection for the ordinary soldier. The French introduced some strange metal skull caps in 1915 before going for the Adrian helmets. The British introduced the Brodie style helmet in 1916 - with much opposition from some senior officers who thought the men would go "soft". I had always thought the German pickelhaube(?) helmets were metal but apparently they were leather; the coal scuttle style helmet being the first steel helmet introduced by the Germans.

I'd love to know what inspired Ned Kelly to adopt his suit.

McArmalite

Agricola wrote: »

Visited the Roma bath at York during the summer. They had reconstructions of a centurions helmet, segmentata armour, and scutum shield ready to try on. Incredible weight to carry into battle. The helmet alone felt life an anvil on the head!

Interesting. I remember watching on one of the Discovery channells military historian Mike Loades discussing medival body armour. As part of an experiment they got a pretty fit well built guy who played rugby and worked out in the gym a few times a week and dressed him up in a full suit of armour. Armed with wooden swords, he in the full suit of armour took on a different person for a minute. There was five people who he had to take on in turn for a minute.

Thing is, after about 2 minutes he was starting to gas out - and this guy was a fit strong man. He lasted until the 5 minutes was up, but if he had to fight for his life he probably would have been dead after by about the third person as he was getting totally out of breath and energy and sluggish. Mike Loades found this very surprising and it would seem to contradict how we preceived how knights fought in the middle ages. He seemed to think that perhaps they followed the Roman legions method where by legionaires rotated the front legionaire about say every 2 minutes when to the sound of a trumpet or loud whistle, the tired legionaire went to the back of the que until he eventually found himself at the front line again for his next 2 minutes of battle or whatever.

Fratton Fred

I remember watching something about the development of the arrow head and how they spealt the end of armour. The arrow technologists kept changing the shape and composition of the arrow head and a shot fired from a longbow could quite easily pierce a suit of armour or chaimail. Whilst they changed the design and material of armour, they just developed new armour piercing arrow and crossbow heads until armour became obsolete.

ruadhri44

Believe it or not the earliest Japanese warriors did use large rectangular shields as far back as the 3rd century. However why the shield became obsolete in Japanese warrior, is to do with the introduction of the horse in Japanese warfare.

The first warriors known as samurai fought on horseback. A large sheild would have been a hinderance on a horse. Apart from the sword samurai also were famous for their bows and arrows which they used to great effect on horseback. For the use of a bow and arrows, two hands are needed. For these reasons the sheild became obsolete in Japanese warfare by the 8th century.

tac foley

What really caused the death of metallic armour was the introduction and ready use of the hand-held firearm by the common soldier. The methods employed by infantry in the 30 years war was one of the three ranks of musketeers, in turn loading and firing, wheeling about and being replaced by those ready to fire and so on...

Although many sets of armour had signs of being proofed against a pistol shot - the dent was usually signed by the armour-maker - by the time that the 65-80 calibre matchlock came onto the scene in the late 1500's the day of full body armour was more or less over.

tac

ruadhri44

tac foley wrote: »

What really caused the death of metallic armour was the introduction and ready use of the hand-held firearm by the common soldier. The methods employed by infantry in the 30 years war was one of the three ranks of musketeers, in turn loading and firing, wheeling about and being replaced by those ready to fire and so on...

Although many sets of armour had signs of being proofed against a pistol shot - the dent was usually signed by the armour-maker - by the time that the 65-80 calibre matchlock came onto the scene in the late 1500's the day of full body armour was more or less over.

tac

Yes but armies got considerably larger also which made decking out every man in armour very expensive.

snafuk35

Manic Moran wrote: »

The ceramic and kevlar stuff we have now is uselessly/excessively heavy, I am not surprised that the metal shielding would have met with limited popularity.

NTM

What are you talking about?:rolleyes:
Compare the statistics for combat deaths in World War 2 and Korea with combat deaths in Vietnam and later in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The improvements in armour have certainly saved lives.
Few GI's in World War 2 wore armour.
In the Korean War armour was more common.
In Vietnam most troops wore flak jackets with metal plates.
Ceramic and kevlar replaced them in the 21st century.
The overwhelming majority deaths in combat suffered by American forces in the 21st century are due to roadside bombs - in many of these bombings the dead were decapitated and had their limbs torn off but their torsoes were more or less intact. A much smaller percentage have been killed by small arms fire due to body armour.
Some of the newest most advanced armour can stop a standard 7.62mm bullet fired by an AK-47 rifle at point blank range with little or no effect to the wearer.

RDM_83 again

http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/stories/scientists-knights-in-armor-expend-more-energy-than-those-wi


This study (using treadmills and re-inactors) showed that moving in full armour used more energy than the equivalent weight in a backpack.

I do wonder though how much difference the extensive training would have made, I'm not sure if this happened but if squires and pages trained with armour or weights they may have developed from a youngish age to compensate for it.