What's Better armor?

Vader4.0

Banned
Which armor in the Middle Ages was the best in weight, protection,usefulness,flexibility, how long to fix/repair?
 
This was a pre-industrial era, so there weren't strict standards, as such. And it wasn't uncommon even for knights to not be able to afford a full suit of armor as you tend to picture it, which complicates matters further. More detail than that, I'll leave to a specialist, but I think I can say that "usefulness" would vary depending on circumstances and one's individual role as a soldier. That might dictate lighter or heavier armor.
 

Vader4.0

Banned
This was a pre-industrial era, so there weren't strict standards, as such. And it wasn't uncommon even for knights to not be able to afford a full suit of armor as you tend to picture it, which complicates matters further. More detail than that, I'll leave to a specialist, but I think I can say that "usefulness" would vary depending on circumstances and one's individual role as a soldier. That might dictate lighter or heavier armor.
any images of armor you have as possible best?
 
Best armour for protection, weight distribution, flexibility and mobility is classic full plate armour. There's nothing that comes close.

220px-Italian_-_Sallet_-_Walters_51580.jpg


It started appearing during the 15th century, gradually becoming better and better and protecting more and more of the body. The only problem was that it was prohibitively expensive, had to be smithed for the individual wearing it, and that repair and refit required a forge and a very skilled craftsman. It provided such good protection that the shield disappeared, no longer needed. One-handed weapons also started disappearing (with the exception of axes, maces and battle-picks) and the sword was even more relegated to a secondary weapon rarely used on the battlefield. The armour was shaped to deflect all strikes and have them glance off.

During the 16th and 17th century, the plate became thicker in order to protect from pistol shots - the breastplate would often be thick enough to protect from musket shots and the rest of the armour thick enough to protect from pistol shots and melee weapons.
 
In terms of cost effectiveness, definitely brigandine. Full plate is far more expensive but is only somewhat better. By the 15th century when full plate was invented the handgonne was already present. Early firearms and wealthy landlords who could afford plate were probably important factors why brigandine didn't remain dominate longer.
 
I'd go with Gambeson padded cloth. The maximum protection version third of the price of the cheapest metal armor (and much cheaper than full plate). A cheaper and thinner is usually worn underneath metal amours to provide padding (the metal stops blades and weapons but not the kinetic force so the cloth tries to absorb some of it... not all), but those specifically made for stand-alone are on average 12.5% thicker (it depends on the craftsman).

What can it protect against?

Longbows shots from beyond 10 meters. Yeah, longbow shots except at point blank can't even penetrate special cloth, much less full plate armor. At long range it's more likely to knock you off your horse (possibly fatal), go into the eye hole (fatal), into an armor joint hole (often incapacitating thanks to blood loss), than go through the full plate (it might make a nice dent if the angle isn't shallow... does shooting 70 shots in the same spot make the dent deep enough for a hole?). As I said, even Gambeson can protect against those arrows, look it on YouTube.

If you get within 10 meters of an archer, you probably have the edge as he isn't trained to use his melee weapon, unless you're in Japan since samurai know how to use lots of weapons.

Contemporary crossbow shots at almost any range, for the same reason. Yes, one could make a crossbow with a more powerful shot, but there must be some drawback at some limit because there is an upper limit to what was historically made.

Battle axe blades. Note that it only provides partial cushion to the force, so it turns the axe attack into an effective blunt trauma.

Sword slashes. Gambeson laughs at slashing attempts.

Pistol shots at non-right angles. Yeah, pistol shots don't do much to properly better plate mail either. With a pistol, you can only take on chainmail, scalemale, wrought-iron type armour, and the poor noble who took on a shoddy reject (they used to actually shoot bullets at early renaissance plate mail to prove the bullet proof ability of finely crafted armor, the rejects might be good against arrows) Don't want to get hit with a musket ball with any of these armor though.

All of these attacks are likely to penetrate the first layer and make a nice hole... leaving the other layers and your skin intact.

What does it not protect against? It's poor against maces (keeps the mace away from the skin, but the force goes though). Like most armor, it can't provide much protection against blunt trauma, although it's actually better than briganidinel worm without cloth underneath for that. Most armor can't really get rid of the force, only the blade. Gambeson is not good at all against any for of stabbing. Which means it's slightly better than useless against sword stabs, spears, lance charges, etc (if you're lucky the stab is slowed down from bone shattering to flesh tearing speeds).

An arrow is a stabbing motion so one might wonder why it's worse than a spear. My guess is that the arrow is lighter. If someone was going to hit you with a punch or a pistol bullet, the damage it takes depends on if it penetrates. Against skin, the pistol penetrates due to force apply to a smaller area so it hurts more. If you are wearing a flak jacket, pistol shots are too weka to go through. Both the punch and the pistol bullet would apply their force to the flak jacket, which transmits the force to you. However, the punch has more mass and if you multiply by the speeds, there is more momentum in a punch. Therefore, when the skin isn't penetrated, the punch hurts more due to the greater momentum. I'm guessing that the spear penetrates gambeson because the man behind the thrust can keep applying the force while the arrow is on its own, hence why it has to be a point blank shot to go through gambeson.

Wait, almost everyone could stab with a spear or sword. Yes, this is true.

But slashing is easier with a sword than stabbing for most two-handed swords and some one-handed ones. So you deny their easier attack that could land on you more easily.

This is still inferior to most metal armor except weight. But I mistakenly thought the OP said "protection,usefulness,flexibility, how long to fix/repair, and cost efectivness" and not

weight, protection,usefulness,flexibility, how long to fix/repair?

So... hey gambeson plus a kite shield is much cheaper than most medieval metal armor alone and marginally lighter than that armor alone. Gambeson plus a buckler might make the comparison look even better, although still inferior to brigadine and platemail. It's why gambeson plus shield was really common before practical muskets, and still somewhat common in the "guns are useful but we still need melee fighters because no one invented the bayonet yet" time.
 
Gambesons are notably cheaper but pretty rare as standalone protection (in fact the people most enamoured with padded armour as primary protection was the Eastern Roman Empire, with their ubiquitous kavadia. It also had a head start in textile production over Western/Northern Europe). Even most Eurasian quilted armours (huyag, teghilay) were worn together with mail shirts or brigandine or flat steel plates. Nor are they really that cheap before the massive explosion in textile production in Europe, which was followed almost immediately after by mass-produced munitions plate anyway.

I think we're all thinking a bit late in the "middle" ages. Before cheap steel and cheap textiles become available, a warrior's best most cost-effective protection is a strong enough shield. Shield, helmet (incidentally helmets raised out of a single steel sheet are strong enough to resist firearms too, including modern side-arms), and thick street clothing seem really common. If you keep formation and don't expose yourself too much that seems enough.

If cost is no object, nothing better than a harness of plate, of course.

In regards repair/maintenance: maille is the easiest to repair. All you need is quality iron wire, pliers, and an awl. It is also easy to maintain. It doesn't have any integral cloth liner (unlike brigandines/jacks/lamellars), so getting wet won't rot it. If it gets rusty, you throw it into a bucket with sand and vinegar and shake it. If it gets really really rusty in patches, you get wire, pliers and an awl.

You need to patch kavadia and gambesons with very specially made cloth and the patch is always going to be a weak point. But at least it's repairable.

As for plate, yeah, you can un-dent it, but if it's properly wrecked (by a bullet, say) you can't really repair it. It loses integrity. You can at best take it to a workshop where they'll cut it into smaller pieces to make jacks-of-plate or brigandines and recoup the cost.
 
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Vader4.0

Banned
Gambesons are notably cheaper but pretty rare as standalone protection (in fact the people most enamoured with padded armour as primary protection was the Eastern Roman Empire, with their ubiquitous kavadia. It also had a head start in textile production over Western/Northern Europe). Even most Eurasian quilted armours (huyag, teghilay) were worn together with mail shirts or brigandine or flat steel plates. Nor are they really that cheap before the massive explosion in textile production in Europe, which was followed almost immediately after by mass-produced munitions plate anyway.

I think we're all thinking a bit late in the "middle" ages. Before cheap steel and cheap textiles become available, a warrior's best most cost-effective protection is a strong enough shield. Shield, helmet (incidentally helmets raised out of a single steel sheet are strong enough to resist firearms too, including modern side-arms), and thick street clothing seem really common. If you keep formation and don't expose yourself too much that seems enough.

If cost is no object, nothing better than a harness of plate, of course.

In regards repair/maintenance: maille is the easiest to repair. All you need is quality iron wire, pliers, and an awl. It is also easy to maintain. It doesn't have any integral cloth liner (unlike brigandines/jacks/lamellars), so getting wet won't rot it. If it gets rusty, you throw it into a bucket with sand and vinegar and shake it. If it gets really really rusty in patches, you get wire, pliers and an awl.

You need to patch kavadia and gambesons with very specially made cloth and the patch is always going to be a weak point. But at least it's repairable.

As for plate, yeah, you can un-dent it, but if it's properly wrecked (by a bullet, say) you can't really repair it. It loses integrity. You can at best take it to a workshop where they'll cut it into smaller pieces to make jacks-of-plate or brigandines and recoup the cost.
Any images of armor in post?
 
Any images of armor in post?

What specifically? Period textile armours haven't made it, but there are artistic impressions and reconstructions.

Teghilay (Russian, 15th-17th c.):

Contemporary-to-use book illustration:

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https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Boevye_kholopi_1556_Gerbersteyn.jpg?uselang=ru

Technical drawing (based on 19th c. book, re-coloured)

tegilyai.jpg


Modern painting (a poor gentry horseman or a battle serf being attacked by a Lisowcyk):

646048_original.jpg


Reconstruction (combined with a mirror plate)

d7ee5dc17900.jpg


Reconstruction - a similar, presumably Lithuanian, gambeson (combined with maille)

post-6280-1259746427.jpg


Other things I mentioned:

Degel Huyag (Mongol Teghilay, 14th c.)

MongolCavalrymen.jpg


Qing-era "Huyag", the brigandine versions would look exactly the same but with metal insets

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Куяк#/media/File:Qing_cream_satin_armor_HKMCD.JPG

Jack of plates (main defense is provided by iron or steel insets)

Jack_of_plate%2C_English_or_Scottish%2C_c1590%2C_Royal_Armoury%2C_Leeds.JPG


Kavadion (reconstruction)

formation.jpg
 
Professional soldiers would likely have all had some form of armour. Peasant levies some may have but not many. What they did have will likely have been scavenged from the dead.

The most common metal armour would probably be the Brigandine or Jack of plates. Full plate armour was hideously expensive, mail was less so but heavier and offered less protection against projectile weapons and blunt force. The Brigandine offered a balance of protection and freedom of movement but being made of small pieces of steel sewn into a cloth jacket was relatively inexpensive.
 
How many soldiers on average wore this armour in a standard European army of the 15th and 16th century?

Well, this is a horseman's harness with a 15th c. barbute. I would expect that most mounted men-at-arms would wear something like that. Light cavalry might have leather boots instead of sabatons and open-faced helmets, but otherwise be very similar. Footmen could be wearing very little armour, but generally had half-plate at least in the front ranks.

How many of each of those were on the field differed wildly.

Here's Pavia, by a contemporary:

Joachim_Patinir_009.jpg


(armoured cavalry makes up about 20-25% of the total forces on both sides)

Fornovo (note for contrast the very light Venetian stratioti horsemen)

Battle_of_Fornoue_6_July_1495.jpg


Again, 25% in heavy cavalry.

Marignano:

Marignano.jpg


About 10% cavalry.

Ravenna:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/Battle_of_Ravenna_(1512).JPG

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battl...e:The_Two_Armies_at_the_Battle_of_Ravenna.jpg

Only 800 gendarmes and 1500 heavy horse on the Imperial side, in a battle of nearly 40,000 combatants and gunners.

There aren't period illustrations I can easily find, but Seminara had about 10% heavy troops, Flodden had most of the Scottish nobility, presumably in harness, walking in front of the pikemen, Towton had almost all the nobility and professional men at arms in the entire country fighting on the field, making well over half the total forces of about 50,000 on both sides; at Patay, all the Frenchmen were cavalry, total 1500. At Verneul, about 4,000 men on the French side were heavily armoured though only the Italian horse had the tempered plate armour (about 1000 out of 14,000); I mean, there's lots of battles and no "typical" army, really. I'd say about 20% would be a safe guess on average, the rest being armed with other versions of armour. Armies were small and relatively professional.
 
There's also a fair few youtube videos describing the merits of armour and their evolution.
Kinda wish for stuff on lamellar tho. There's tons of content on mail, plate, gambeson, even plated mail and brigandine, but none of the mainstream or thorough ones have really talked about lamallar that I've seen.
 
at Patay, all the Frenchmen were cavalry, total 1500.

The French army at Patay numbered about 8000; for some reason there's been an attempt to handwave away the other 6500 troops present, as well as claiming that the English numbered 7000, though the actual figure can't have been more than 2500 at most. Even had the other French troops never struck a blow they still must be counted because the English were only retreating because they were outnumbered: had there really been only 1500 French then the English would have given battle and most likely have won. See Burne's The Agincourt War.
 
The French army at Patay numbered about 8000; for some reason there's been an attempt to handwave away the other 6500 troops present, as well as claiming that the English numbered 7000, though the actual figure can't have been more than 2500 at most. Even had the other French troops never struck a blow they still must be counted because the English were only retreating because they were outnumbered: had there really been only 1500 French then the English would have given battle and most likely have won. See Burne's The Agincourt War.

What is he basing this revision on anyway? Also what is it with the secondary source fetish on this site? This isn't Wikipedia and we are all perfectly capable of reading source material and doing our own analysis. In any case I think the narrative goes was that the archers didn't entrench and got smashed just like they got smashed in every other battle they didn't entrench or were otherwise forced into rhe open. That's just too regular an outcome to be discounted.

But yes possibly 1500 of 8000 men were in full harness instead of 100%.
 
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