Got a Real World Weapons or Armour Question? Mk X

[Deepbluediver]

All this talk about bows and bowstrings!

Why is dry-firing a bow so bad for it? I've read repeatedly that its not good for any bow, and a modern compound bow could be ruined in just a few shots that way. I'm curious as to what exactly goes on to make it so awful to let the bow operate without an arrow.

[Spiryt]

"Black powder Europe" lasts at least from the end of 14th century, while Medieval generally ends at the end of 15th, depending on area, although it's obviously very abstract boundary.

Sieges in stone castles last well into the end of 17th century, powder gives huge capabilities, but stone fortress is still fortress, especially with it's own guns.

Modern forts generally begun 'full scale' in 18th century, although obviously appropriate earth works started to develop as soon as cannons and co...

So it's very broad topic, but generally in 'transitional' period - in 'real life' it would be 16th and 17th century - would still see a lot of pretty 'medieval' sieges, only with cannon, mortars, tunnels to mine and blow up the walls, and so on.

I know that when gunpowder became widespread castles and knights and other "standard fare" of medeval europe declined.

That is, as often mentioned, widespread misinterpretation.

Knights 'declined' because of social, political etc. changes, are obviously always material for books and books...

They evolved, or whatever into other forms of aristocracy, and similar groups, while heavy shock cavalry (which anyway wasn't always perfectly synonymous with 'knight') lasted very long into gunpowder still, even though
in most cases lance wasn't main weapon anymore.

[Spiryt]

All this talk about bows and bowstrings!

Why is dry-firing a bow so bad for it? I've read repeatedly that its not good for any bow, and a modern compound bow could be ruined in just a few shots that way. I'm curious as to what exactly goes on to make it so awful to let the bow operate without an arrow.

You draw, a bow, it gathers certain amount of energy, and then you release it, but there's no arrow to receive this energy - so best part of energy is transfered into the movement of arms instead. Very quick and violent movement, of course. Pretty simple, really.

So it will be usually very ruinous for them indeed.

[fusilier]

I've got one question.

I know that when gunpowder became widespread castles and knights and other "standard fare" of medeval europe declined. What I'm wondering is what the interum period looked like. Were there castle sieges with both sides employing gunpowder weapons, how were the storming actions in these sieges different from the ones before gunpowder, at what point did castles fully become replaced by "modern" forts (think forts like Ft McHenry or Fort Point).

I'm trying to run a game that takes place in the transition era between medeval europe and "black powder" europe and I've got the PC's about to storm a Fort/Castle and I'm trying to make it as realistic as possible.

It's kind of a broad period. For a while there cannons seem to have given an advantage to the defense. Early bombards augmented other siege engines, gradually replacing them completely. The French "burgundian" carriage was considered revolutionary, but their impact is probably exagerrated. They did allow the guns to be emplaced more quickly.

The "trace italliene" was developed by about 1530, this is basically the design that Fort McHenry followed. In the interrum there was an "artillery fort". Basically castles became shorter with thicker walls. It was common to cut down the height of a tower and fill it with earth allowing heavy cannons to be placed on it. Old castles and forts could be upgraded, although often times they might be upgraded with temporary earthworks piled against the walls. Sometimes they filled the inside of the works with earth, both to provide a platform for artillery and to reinforce the walls. However, the pressure encouraged the walls to rupture outwards.

Stone cannonballs tended to break the walls into large chunks that could be difficult to storm. New forts and updated castles could be quite formidable, but plenty of old castles would still be around. Some new artillery forts, while not built to the trace italliene design, might have very thick walls, and possibly be countermined with vents. However, they were not cut for many cannons -- typically, the attacker had an advantage in artillery, and could take a very direct approach to the walls. This was usually the case from about 1500(?) to the late 1600s.

[fusilier]

A good example of a fort from the intermediate period is Fort de Salses, completed in 1503.

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

It was so well built that it impressed people over a hundred years after its completion, by which point its trace would have seemed very obsolete. Note the use of round towers on the fort -- this was popular with a lot of the early "artillery" forts. It created blind spots, however.

[Knaight]

It's kind of a broad period. For a while there cannons seem to have given an advantage to the defense. Early bombards augmented other siege engines, gradually replacing them completely. The French "burgundian" carriage was considered revolutionary, but their impact is probably exagerrated. They did allow the guns to be emplaced more quickly.

Cannons giving an advantage to the defense is somewhat regional. If you look at the emerging Ottoman Empire, which was using gunpowder fairly early you'll see a fairly large shift towards the attack. This is arguably part of the reason Constantinople fell when it did, and this advantage on the attack never really went away.

[fusilier]

I wanted to add a little more information taken from Michael Mallett's, Mercenaries and their Masters. The context is Italy in the first half of the 15th century:

The ponderous heavy guns could take weeks to get into position and prepare for action. Even then their rate of fire was exceptionally slow and their bombardment by no means accurate. They and their gunners had to be protected from counter-bombardment and enemy sortie. . . . It is strangely true that artillery contributed perhaps more to the defence of cities and fortresses than it did to their assault. Guns permanently mounted on the walls of a city could be supplied much more efficiently and used much more speedily and effectively than the guns of besiegers hauled up into temporary emplacements from many miles away. It was for these reasons that, as we shall see, the art of fortification changed relatively slowly in response to the new threat. What did happen quickly was that all the fortified places acquired massive collections of artillery with which to defend themselves.

He then gives several statistics:

Bologna had 35 pieces on its walls as early as 1381. Small papal fortresses like Soriano had 12 in 1449, and Ostia had 11, etc.

These wouldn't sound like "massive" amounts of artillery to someone from Vauban's era, but at the time were considered impressive.

However Mallett continues:

The slowness with which siege pieces were moved into position was balanced, however, by the speed with which a heavy gun, once ready to fire, could breach the medieval fortifications of most Italian cities and castles. Thus if a siege lasted more than a few weeks, the chances were that the besieged would then quickly be forced to sue for terms, as shortages of supplies and breaches in their walls made defence difficult.

So he appears to be stating two things:
1. That defensive artillery made it difficult to emplace besieging guns.
2. However, once those besieging guns were successfully in place, the advantage would swing to the besieger.

It should be noted that these are general observations, and individual situations would vary.

He then notes that at the siege of Zagarolo in 1439, the besiegers only expended 6 tons of powder, and at Rimini in 1469, 12 tons. Whereas the French and Venetians fired 20,000 cannonballs at Verona in 1516, and Henry VIII's army used 32 tons of powder a day(!) in siege operations in 1513 in Northern France.

More relevant quotes:

The crucial feature in the changes in fortifications produced by the use of gunpowder lay not in preparing walls which could withstand battery by artillery, but in using artillery to defend those walls, to hold the enemy at a distance and strike at his siegeworks. Hence it is on the bastion, the solid low tower, either round or angled, on which heavy guns could be mounted to fire outwards, that attention must be concentrated. . . .
. . .
The initial reactions of defenders to the threat of artillery were to thicken their walls and to scarp them so that the cannon shot would be deflected upwards. At the same time the cannon which soon appeared in the defences were used primarily to strengthen the crossfire from the towers and thus impede the assault. . . . Evidence of innovations of these limited types can be found going back into the fourteenth century, but at that time the pressure for change was not great enough nor the resources for dramatic rebuilding available to bring about major developments.
It was in the middle years of the fifteenth century that a number of fortresses were completely rebuilt according to new principles. The emphasis was on the small fortress rather than on extended city walls, . . . [He then rattles off a list of placenames and people] . . . All this was the work of the period between 1450 and 1494, and all the Italian states were spending heavily on fortifications.

Mallett's comments get pretty general, but he does have some other information about how sieges were conducted, and field fortifications, etc. I find sieges to be interesting, and the period you describe is a transitional one, which can make it more interesting, with many new things were being tried. It is also a period that tends to be glossed over (cannons appeared and castles gave way to the trace italienne). :-(

Somebody who appears to have written a fair amount about this time period is J. R. Hale, including some works that may be focused on this very topic, but his books don't seem to be easy to locate.

[Brother Oni]

You draw, a bow, it gathers certain amount of energy, and then you release it, but there's no arrow to receive this energy - so best part of energy is transfered into the movement of arms instead. Very quick and violent movement, of course. Pretty simple, really.

So it will be usually very ruinous for them indeed.

Wth compound bows in particular, because you don't have the arrow guiding where you should pull the string back to, the wires can leave their grooves on the gears, thus when you release the string, you end up with a catastrophic bow failure with wires flying all over the place.

There's a couple good videos on youtube demonstating common compound bow failures and why you shouldn't dry fire a bow.

[Incanur]

I know that when gunpowder became widespread castles and knights and other "standard fare" of medeval europe declined. What I'm wondering is what the interum period looked like.

As others have said, the transition was gradual and halting. I'm quite fond of the early sixteenth century myself. Francis I of France and the Chevalier Bayard exemplified the popular ideal of the knight in shining armor. While artillery had become militarily essential in this period - at least for the siege - handheld guns remained questionable. As late as 1548, Fourquevaux recommend the bow and crossbow over the arquebus, though he acknowledged the latter could penetrate any wearable armor at close range and with a proper charge. (I just read an account from later in the sixteenth century where a point-blank shot from an arquebus or musket completely pierced the target's armor but did him no harm. He promptly impaled his assailant with a halberd.) Fourquevaux cited a siege in which the best crossbowman killed more foes than the best five or six arquebusers. The fully armored knight who wielded the heavy lance remained potent on the battlefield until the end of the sixteenth century, though it became harder and harder to justify the expense of fielding such cavalry.

[Storm Bringer]

for a pop culture reference: the Assassins creed 2 trilolgy happens in this "transitionary" phase (the gamse timespan is very roughly 1470-1520), and while firearms are around, crossbows are more common. have a look at that for an idea of cool, intresting small scale combat form that era (and cuase it's a bloody awesome triolgy that fixed a lot of the problems with AC1).

[eulmanis12]

All this talk about bows and bowstrings!

Why is dry-firing a bow so bad for it? I've read repeatedly that its not good for any bow, and a modern compound bow could be ruined in just a few shots that way. I'm curious as to what exactly goes on to make it so awful to let the bow operate without an arrow.

Newton's third law states: "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction"

When a bow if fired with an arrow, the energy stored in the arms of the bow is transfered from potential energy in a spring(the bow arms), to kinetic energy in the arrow. If there is no arrow, the energy has nowhere to go and remains in the arms of the bow causing them to vibrate violently. In a wooden bow this is bad. In a composite bow this is worse. In a high end Carbon bow, this can easily lead to the entire bow disintegrating into a pile of dust (I have personally witnessed this happening, the dry fired bow disintegrated into a powdery substance leaving the user holding a bow handle with nothing attached to it.)

Do not dry fire a bow. Even if it does not outright destroy the bow it causes signifigantly more fatigue on the bow than firing a normal shot.

[fusilier]

Contravallation and Circumvallation

In the recent discussion of sieges I discovered a curious contradiction. These two terms often have their meaning reversed, and it's not clear to me which is correct.

In theory when an army was besieging a town or fortification, they would often set up these two lines. According to Christopher Duffy in Siege Warfare, they would first set up the lines of circumvallation, which, according to him, faced outwards! It protected the besieging army from an enemy field army, not from the besieged. To address any sorties being attempted by the besieged, the besiegers would then set up lines of contravallation (Duffy refers to them as countervallation). Contra meaning against, and therefore it was meant that these lines were "against" the walls.

A brief aside on the order in which these lines are constructed. At first it seemed odd to me that an army would set up outward facing defensive lines first, rather than inward facing ones. But at the time, (late medieval to renaissance), it looks like the besiegers typically greatly outnumbered the besieged, and they were more concerned about a large field army attacking them while they are preparing their siege works. Either line would serve to isolate the besieged from the outside.

Wikipedia gives the opposite definitions for these lines to wit: Circumvallation faces the besieged town/fortress, and Contravallation faces outward against the country side.

Several other websites make this argument too. I've been trying to track down what it was originally (at the very least, it means we can't actually rely upon the words without further clarification from the author/speaker).

I found an entry on google books, from a book called Extreme War, by Terrence Poulos: he claims that circumvallation is perhaps the most misused term, and supports the wikipedia definition of circumvallation and contravallation. He even provides a nifty graphic to help explain it. His argument seems to be based merely upon the root meanings of the words -- which is fairly weak, as they can easily be construed in either way (against the walls or against the countryside; around the castle, or around both the attacking army and the castle).

Poulos further claims that many historical and modern authors reverse the terms, and use them incorrectly, too many to point out, but he points out one person who "got it right": John Lynn, in his book The Wars of Louis XIV: 1664-1714. He then states that "the rest of you" (authors?) are on notice, and that the readers of his book "will be watching you."

Well it turns out that John Lynn's book is also available on google books, but only in snippet view. Nevertheless a snippet turns up this partial sentence:

with complete rings of entrenchments: one facing inward toward the besieged works, the lines of contravallation; and the other facing outward to protect the attackers from attack by a relief army, the lines of circumvallation.

That appears to be exactly the opposite of what Poulos claimed . . .

Military dictionaries and glossaries were popular during the 19th century, here's one from 1802:
http://books.google.com/books?id=pix...gbs_navlinks_s

The definition of Contravallation that they give conforms to Duffy (lines of Contravallation face the besieged).

Anyway, I was wondering if anybody had any other sources to cite? It almost seems like Poulos has threatened people into using his reversed definitions with a profound effect on the internet, but not on print works.

--EDIT--
An older dictionary (1723), also agreeing with Duffy:

http://books.google.com/books?id=VuY...gbs_navlinks_s

This website, seems to imply that perhaps "circumvallation" was a term that could be used for either line (English armies during the Civil War didn't seem to bother digging two lines):
http://www.17thcenturylifeandtimes.c...%20thomas.html

[Hades]

For what it's worth, the OED says:
Circumvallation:

• 1. The making of a rampart or entrenchment round a place, esp. in besieging.
• b.line of circumvallation: a line of earth-works consisting of a rampart and trench surrounding a besieged place or the camp of a besieging army. So wall of circumvallation, etc.
• 2. A rampart or entrenchment constructed round any place by way of investment or defence.

And has citations with both meanings (defenders and besiegers), the earliest mention in 1641. Most of the citations with the second meaning (besiegers setting up lines of circumvallation) appear to be later (1836, 1876), though some of the references, even the earliest (1641) are ambiguous without longer context than the quotation they give.

While for Contravallation it says:

• 1. A chain of redoubts and breastworks, either unconnected or united by a parapet, constructed by besiegers between their camp and the town, as a defence against sorties of the garrison.

And citations from 1678 onward with this meaning, though again a few of these citations are ambiguous, for instance: "1678, L. de Gaya's Art of War ii. 113 Circumvallation and Contravallation, is a Composition of Redoubts, little Forts, and Angles with Trenches, and Lines of Communication from one to another round a place that is beseiged."

I dunno if that's at all helpful or not, heh.

[Mike_G]

I always thought contravallation referred to walls set up opposing the enemy fortress. Because of, y'know "contra." So facing the besieged castle/city whatever.

Circumvallation I just read as encircling the enemy, so it could refer to walls facing either way.

[fusilier]

I always thought contravallation referred to walls set up opposing the enemy fortress. Because of, y'know "contra." So facing the besieged castle/city whatever.

Circumvallation I just read as encircling the enemy, so it could refer to walls facing either way.

This makes sense, and I think that some authors clearly used the term circumvallation to refer to either type.

@Hades: I think that is helpful as it is finding older references. I'm not sure if the terms in English are much older than the 17th century (although they obviously have latin roots of some sort). Also, it shows that from a fairly early period, contravallation and circumvallation were being lumped together as works surrounding a besieged place.

Thanks!

[Straybow]

Contravallation and Circumvallation

Wikipedia gives the opposite definitions for these lines to wit: Circumvallation faces the besieged town/fortress, and Contravallation faces outward against the country side.

I think that is a case of widespread misunderstanding that is technically wrong. Many people who collect paychecks twice each month call it "bimonthly" paychecks, when in fact they are semimonthly. They call meetings set twice per year "biannual" when they are actually semiannual. When people want to debate it I point out that the bicentennial wasn't celebrated two hundred times a year, it was celebrated two hundred years after the founding. All those terms are related to the period of time between events, not the number of events in the base unit of time.

Circumvallation, it is noted, applies to defenders as well as beseigers. Many times a city has a series of forts or redoubts around the outskirts that together are called a circumvallation. They surround it outside the walls, which often enclosed a much smaller area than the actual urban area. When cities removed their walls as too expensive to maintain and ineffectual against cannon and the fortifications were still called circumvallations.

[Hades]

@Hades: I think that is helpful as it is finding older references. I'm not sure if the terms in English are much older than the 17th century (although they obviously have latin roots of some sort). Also, it shows that from a fairly early period, contravallation and circumvallation were being lumped together as works surrounding a besieged place.

Thanks!

Not a problem, I always find it interesting to look up etymologies and whatnot in the OED. The oldest English reference the OED has to either of these words appears to be the 1641 reference to circumvallation, which is: "1641, Evelyn Diary: 3 Aug., At night we rode about the lines of circumvallation." This means that the diary is the oldest printed or manuscript use of the word known to the editors, so it is probable of course that it was in use before that, and that other references have been lost or remain unknown. The diary seems to be John Evelyn's Diary, which is linked from that wiki page.

As for etymologies:
For circumvallation, from the verb circumvallate: adapted from Latin circumvallātus past participle of circumvallāre, to surround with a rampart, from circum- + vallum (rampart).

And for contravallation: adaptation of French contrevallation, Italian contravvallazione, from Latin contra- + vallatiōn- entrenchment (from vallāre, to surround with a rampart, to entrench).

It might be interesting then to look into the early usage of the words in French, Italian, or Latin, but I don't have access to anything like that, I'm afraid - my Petit Robert unfortunately lacks both words.

[fusilier]

Circumvallation, it is noted, applies to defenders as well as beseigers. Many times a city has a series of forts or redoubts around the outskirts that together are called a circumvallation. They surround it outside the walls, which often enclosed a much smaller area than the actual urban area. When cities removed their walls as too expensive to maintain and ineffectual against cannon and the fortifications were still called circumvallations.

There's an old book from 1849/50 that is a first person narrative of the revolutions of 1848 in Italy, and ends with the siege of Rome and the fall of the "Roman Republic". I seem to remember the descriptions being that as the besieging French kept extending their line of "contravallation" the defenders kept extending their line of "circumvallation" -- but it's been some time since I've read that book.

[fusilier]

It might be interesting then to look into the early usage of the words in French, Italian, or Latin, but I don't have access to anything like that, I'm afraid - my Petit Robert unfortunately lacks both words.

I was thinking the same thing, but I also don't have the resources to study the terminology in other languages.

[No brains]

Do you know how modern armors are like a ceramic plate in a big pocket?

Were/ are there any examples of metal plate armor harnessed in a similar way? Part of the benefit of metal armor is its bling factor, so I doubt it.

I do know that brigandine and lamellar-

...

Well, well, well. I answered my own question by looking in wikipedia to confirm what I knew about brigandines. Even fairly large plates were held in cloth. Not quite as big as ceramic plates, though.

[Diamondeye]

Actually, indirect ship-to-ship fire was practised by the USN at least, though I'm unsure if it was ever used in action. Anyway, that's part of the reason why the US liked floatplanes so much and kept them in service until the early fifties.

It was theoretically possible, but during WWII, ay target that could have been hit by using a floatplane to adjust fire could also have been hit using radar fire control. In fact, most comparisons of WWII ships miss the point because they focus excessivley on armament size and armor thickness at the expense of fire control. Radar fire control was a major advantage.

I don't know if floatplane adjustment of fire was ever used in actual practice. The biggest problem with that would have been antiaircraft fire from the enemy. Also, it's much harder for an observer to adjust fire in ship-to-ship combat than for artillery on land because both the gun platform AND the target are moving, and there are few, if any, features to use to determine target location.

[Spiryt]

Do you know how modern armors are like a ceramic plate in a big pocket?

Were/ are there any examples of metal plate armor harnessed in a similar way? Part of the benefit of metal armor is its bling factor, so I doubt it.

I do know that brigandine and lamellar-

Well, very basic coats of plates, which would come to be ancestor of both white plate armor suits and brigandines, were basically something like this.... Although examples with plates actually pocketed between two layers of textile/leather would be probably pretty rare, usually just plates riveted to textile or leather backing

Spoiler

Show

[Storm Bringer]

Do you know how modern armors are like a ceramic plate in a big pocket?

Were/ are there any examples of metal plate armor harnessed in a similar way? Part of the benefit of metal armor is its bling factor, so I doubt it.

I do know that brigandine and lamellar-

...

Well, well, well. I answered my own question by looking in wikipedia to confirm what I knew about brigandines. Even fairly large plates were held in cloth. Not quite as big as ceramic plates, though.

It is said that such cloth fronted metal armours were the souce of "studded leather", that classic garment of DnD that has almost no historical basis. people looked at statues and paintings and such, saw that they were wearing what appeared to be a "soft" garment with little studs on it when they were clearly meant to be be dressed for war (wearing helmets, swords in hand, etc), and assumed that the studs must improve the protective value of the leather without questioning how. They get points for not assuming that the people in the past were dumb, as is so often the case ("oh, it was just a fashion to go into battle with steel armour on thier aems and thin leather on thier chests. it showed thier bravery!")

then agian, i am under the impressiont that leather armour was not very common either, with the padded Gambeson being the preferred l"ight" armour.

[Hazzardevil]

How close is the weights given for armour in the 3.5 players handbook to how they would likely have weighed in real life?

And also, why did nobody carry on using spear-guns and gun-axes during Napoleonic era warfare?

[Spiryt]

How close is the weights given for armour in the 3.5 players handbook to how they would likely have weighed in real life?

And also, why did nobody carry on using spear-guns and gun-axes during Napoleonic era warfare?

It's pretty tricky question, as those armor types are a wee bit weirdly constructed, and there would be huge variety in actual armors. But generally they're alright.

Aside from the fact that 'studded leather' probably didn't really exist, 'splint mail' and "banded mail' represent hell knows what.

As far as second question goes, I'm not sure I get it, but...

Carrying additional weapons/gear is always a fuss and a problem, especially with something as awkward and clumsy as spear and gun....

Operating/carrying both rifle/musket and spear efficiently wouldn't really be possible, so bayonet was useful and widely used way to make gun a spear substitute.

As far as axe goes, I suppose that some soldiers could carry it, but again, in case of melee clash, they were all drilled to make it bayonet fight.

[Mike_G]

And also, why did nobody carry on using spear-guns and gun-axes during Napoleonic era warfare?

Pretty much what Spiryt said. And it wasn't a case of "carrying on" using them. Nobody ever did for any length of time.

A bayonet is basically a "spear-gun," allowing the soldier to use his primary weapon for a projectile and melee weapon. "Axe guns" did exist as novelty weapons, but they'd be unnecessarily bulky as a musket-battleaxe, and would really be a worse melee weapon than a bayonet.

[rrgg]

Do you know how modern armors are like a ceramic plate in a big pocket?

Were/ are there any examples of metal plate armor harnessed in a similar way? Part of the benefit of metal armor is its bling factor, so I doubt it.

I do know that brigandine and lamellar-

...

Well, well, well. I answered my own question by looking in wikipedia to confirm what I knew about brigandines. Even fairly large plates were held in cloth. Not quite as big as ceramic plates, though.

I thought steel plates are still sometimes used as an alternative to ceramics in modern body armor. Much heavier but less likely to shatter.

[Beleriphon]

How close is the weights given for armour in the 3.5 players handbook to how they would likely have weighed in real life?

Yes and no. It depends on what you qualify as the particular armour in the PHB.

Splint mail seems to be some kind of lamellar, or an assumption and that splinted bracers and greaves could be made info something providing full body coverage. Wikipedia has a very brief article about the stuff.

Banded looks like its an extrapolation of lorica segmentata. There are some Japanese armours that look similar to the horizontal bands in D&D's banded armour. Not sure what western style armour would be similar though.

[Straybow]

Splint mail seems to be some kind of lamellar, or an assumption and that splinted bracers and greaves could be made info something providing full body coverage. Wikipedia has a very brief article about the stuff.

Banded looks like its an extrapolation of lorica segmentata. There are some Japanese armours that look similar to the horizontal bands in D&D's banded armour. Not sure what western style armour would be similar though.

I always considered the Japanese style armor to be splinted. It is considerably clumsier and heavier than the Roman style. The SRD has splint one point worse for max Dex, armor check, and spell failure with weight 10 lb heavier than the 35 lb banded.

[Beleriphon]

I always considered the Japanese style armor to be splinted. It is considerably clumsier and heavier than the Roman style. The SRD has splint one point worse for max Dex, armor check, and spell failure with weight 10 lb heavier than the 35 lb banded.

Ironically the Japanese armours for a long time did included splinted elements, on the shins and forearms. I'd imagine it has something to do with the fact that those parts of the body are completely inflexible.

So, splinted armour is real stuff, its just not that good for full body coverage if the historical record is to be believed.

Never mind.

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