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A point on wearing plate armor

Gregor

Lord of Altera
Plate armour

I have made this thread before, but I am making it more sophisticated and detailed.


What Naelwyn said about plate armour made me write this piece on how it is to wear plate. And /if/ your character should wear plate.



Plate armor and its weight

Yes, i said plate armor is lighter than popular fiction portrays. Around 40 pounds, when properly distributed, its almost no weight at all. It does not restrict you even closely what you would believe.
Assuming you mean a full suit of armor, including chainmail, it would probably weigh around 60 LBS. Soldiers nowadays have equipment weighing more than that full armour!

The longest i have worn a full suit of armour is 6 hours with little to no breaks. Sure it restricts you in some ways, but if it fits well, this movement impairment is minimal. I could walk for hours, maybe even run a mile before I'd fall over.

However. You are still encased in a full suit of armour, and you ARE less mobile than people without it. Not that people can dance around you easily, but you are not able to easily chase down people.

Armour was designed however, to not be too tiring. It was very ergonomically designed. its weight much like how modern hiking packs have waist straps to transfer the weight to your hips rather than your shoulders. That is why chain mail can feel heavier due to all the weight just hanging from your shoulders than the plate itself.

Here you have a video displaying its mobility!


Plate armour and its drawbacks

But Gregor, plate armour completely OP?

Yes, in combat it is really, really useful as you can resist many things. From sword blows to crossbow bolts.

The better the visor protects your face, the more likely it is to obstruct your view, which can be very dangerous. Plate armor would make it easier for your opponent to entangle you, but you are still wearing a lot of armour, and you ARE less mobile, not so much that you get danced around, but you cant chase people down who are not wearing it.

And, if you are in combat for long, it is still hot in that thing, and you might even overheat!

Plate armour, and its costs.

Gregor, this is still completely OP even with these drawbacks!

Yes, people wore it because it worked very well!

However, it is kind of like a tank. It is really expensive, and average joe isnt wearing it.

You just can't march over to your local blacksmith and order a set of armor sadly.
Local blacksmiths could /not/ produce plate armour, nor mail or swords for that matter.
(Mail making required drawing wire, and swords require high-carbon steel and heat treatment!)

Plate armour is very sophisticated equipment that required several things:
Lots of armor in large pieces
-High quality steel
-Lots of skilled labour A full plate harness can require dozens, if not hundreds of man hours!

So, really expensive.

You can also not put it on take it off by yourself, it had many pieces, including hinges, folds, clamps, buckles, etc etc. It often took a long time to assemble.

I will write more about it later q.q

If i missed anything or want an explanation on a point, please tell me!
 
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Gregor

Lord of Altera
Blunt weaponry and plate!


When you were to take a blow from a warhammer onto the chest, you would have a few things to worry about.





    • Does the weapon penetrate the armour and just kill you? Probably not. Hammers and maces aren't made for penetration, your armour is far more likely to buckle than it is to simply collapse in. Breastplates were also designed with curvature and grooves on it partly to look nice and partly to make landing a solid blow difficult. Landing a solid blow straight on to someone's breastplate without glancing off was surprisingly difficult.
    • Does your armour absorb the impact? Even if your breastplate buckles instead of collapsing you're taking a lot of force straight on to the chest. You might actually want your breastplate to collapse some and absorb the force of the blow as much as possible rather than just transmit the force to your ribcage. Better a broken breastplate than a few broken ribs. You would also be wearing several layers of padding beneath your breastplate (as much for comfort as protection) so that would help.
    • Is the force sufficient to damage you anyway? Just taking an impact of sufficient force can cause damage to you even if it doesn't obviously break your armour. This is most often observed when people test bullet proof vests and while a war hammer has nowhere near the force of a modern firearm it's still a concern to some extent. This force will hardly ever kill you at the relatively low impact we're talking about but it could cause serious bruising or possible crack a rib in a really bad situation. That kind if injury could make avoiding a follow up blow much more difficult, though.
 
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Gregor

Lord of Altera
So how do i defeat someone in plate?

Ill tell you, but I am unsure if your character would know this IC.

Look for weak spots in the armor, the helmet, eyes, throat, armpits, back of the knee.

How do you do this with a sword? Well, generally you do this by gripping the blade with one hand near the middle, and the other near the tip or hilt. "Half swording"

Armored combat however, usually turned into a wrestling contest. Its easier to work your tip or dagger into an opening if the other guy isnt moving much

Maces, hammers, spears, poleaxes were weapons that are /effective/ against armored opponents

So, how do i defeat someone using heavy armor as a unarmored man?


Be a much, much better wrestler than your opponent? You have the challenge of having to use armored techniques, while your opponent can use the full breadth of both armored and unarmored techniques.

Additionally, ganging up works well. If you and six of your friends pull someone off their horse, hold him down and work a dagger into his eye, there's not much he can do to escape. Even if he's on foot, if you and a number of friends can knock him down with spears and then pin him, he's also pretty screwed.
 
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Exclaimer

Lord of Altera
Another drawback: Plate armor is super loud. Really, obviously loud.

And you can't hear as well when wearing it, too, as the noise of the armor masks a lot of things.
 

Gregor

Lord of Altera
Another drawback: Plate armor is super loud. Really, obviously loud.

And you can't hear as well when wearing it, too, as the noise of the armor masks a lot of things.
I dont think people with plate try to sneak around :p, they are obviously prepared for a "fight"
 

DraconDarknight

Lord of Altera
DraconDarknight
DraconDarknight
Actually you are only partly right regarding the costs and steel quality.
While It was still hard to afford it wasn't as bad as people believe.

According tot he link down there a skilled laborer would have needed about 3 years of his wage to pay it off - and while the word skilled is included it is still a laborer's pay, thus not as much as people think it would be...

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/aams/hd_aams.htm#only_b
 
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Lannis

You've yeed your last haw
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-Lots of skilled labour A full plate harness can require dozens, if not hundreds of man hours!
@The Living Ghost
This. I wish very much to emphasize this. At the last Korog summoning, it took the better part of two hours for four adept+ smiths to RP out a single tower shield. This included cutting corners in the interest of haste. Kindly, kindly consider the effort that goes in to proper smithing work before giving yer character full plate in the backstory.
 

Tybalt

Lord of Altera
When it comes to weighing people down.

Have you ever jumped in water in all your clothes? I imagine it be a little worse than that.
 

Gaby

Lord of Altera
Another drawback: Plate armor is super loud. Really, obviously loud.

And you can't hear as well when wearing it, too, as the noise of the armor masks a lot of things.
WHEN I SAW THAT VIDEO ALL I HEARD WAS
"clackclackclackclackclack"
 

Gaby

Lord of Altera
WAIT DUDE YOU FORGOT ABOUT HOW TERRIFYING MACES WERE TO PLATE ARMOR

I mean, if we're talking about drawbacks, what bigger drawback would there be than "when you hit it with a metal club, it dents right through your skin and could kill you if you don't immediately take it off"

unless im completely wrong and maces werent that effective
 

Gregor

Lord of Altera
Blunt weaponry did little against plate armor, sometimes barely denting it

Hoever, the guy inside? He has a problem if he gets hit by a mace.

Knights IRL used maces a lot, swords not so much, and if they were, it was half swording.
 

DraconDarknight

Lord of Altera
DraconDarknight
DraconDarknight
It depends on if the armor was custom fit or mass produced, also depending on the era.

It also depends if someone is wearing /full/ plate or just parts.

And, still you needed men that outfitted you, and field repairs etc etc.
I never denied that(In fact it even stands in the link;) ), yet the point that it is less expensive than people think still stands ;).


As for blunt weapons:
As in mount and blade - more meant to knock people out than actually killing them.
The kill factor to it was most likely the shock wave.

Why don't you include a part to this for what weapons were effective against plate armor?
There weren't that many.

Crossbows
Pikes, Hellbards + Knight lances (the non-tournament version that is)
And bodkin arrows, though i doubt their actual efficiency.
Two Weapons

Really if you were up against a knight using their own horse-speed against them was your best option.
Two handed weapons were effective due to the sheer force you could get out of them. So yeah if it was a 2 handed war hammer not only the man inside the armor would have a problem.

Never forget that if you swing a weapon it 'gains weight'.
So for example if you swing around a 1 liter water bottle in self defense you can assume that the other one will probably get hit as if they were hit with someone weighting between 3 and 5 kg.

@Legion for more realistic math.
 
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Angryboy

Natus de Aurum; Natus ex bellum
I'm loving this thread so far, so informative!

When it comes to weighing people down.
Have you ever jumped in water in all your clothes? I imagine it be a little worse than that.
I imagine you would drown before you could get out of the water/get the suit off.

Barbarians'll still tear though that thing with their fancy smancy anti-armor weapons :p
Blunt weaponry!
Considering the fact that the Engems live in huts, wouldn't it be fair to assume their forge wouldn't be all that advanced? I know its a special forge and all, but still... Is there a thread on it?
I imagine the Engems would have very crude weaponry, really... nothing smancy.

And bodkin arrows, though i doubt their actual efficiency.
As far as I can tell, bodkin arrows weren't actually that effective, they'd just bounce off. Of course, any kind of arrow going through the unprotected joints/eye-slit would probably be fatal... but that would require some damn fine accuracy.

Never forget that if you swing a weapon it 'gains weight'.
So for example if you swing around a 1 liter water bottle in self defense you can assume that the other one will probably get hit as if they were hit with someone weighting between 3 and 5 kg.
That makes no sense. You don't gain weight from being moved... that would require moving closer to the speed of light, which is waaay out of our reach at this point.

Of course, spinning an object will give it force. A straight pole being spun from a central point must have different accelerations at different points in order to keep straight. The further out the section of the pole is, the greater its acceleration and hence momentum.
Imagine a person spinning while holding out a warhammer. Their hands will not be spinning that fast, but the head of the hammer will be, hence why it would do more damage than the hilt. I'm guessing this is what you were trying to refer to?

Overall great thread, I love it! *stalks*
 
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