Got a Real-World Weapon, Armor or Tactics Question? Mk. XXII

[Tiktakkat]

I wasn't talking about swords, personally, the whole "strike without even damaging helmet" point I'm making is about is cushioned and blunt trauma. My experience is full contact martial arts (karate, kung fu, Muay Thai, others), especially when wearing a headguard and other "protectives", being stunned or knocked out is a real possibility. There's countless videos of Muay Thai knockouts from kicks, knees and elbows (and even some KOs from body shots). Hitting certain spots with enough force, or better yet rotational force can put someone out without even delivering a lot of energy in the strike.

I didn't watch the videos (I rarely do with videos linked on fora), but if they'd been kitted out in full-contact pads and been kicking, punching and grappling each other, the injury rates would have been very different from what you're reporting here.

My experience is contact martial arts as well, though on the point fighting end of the spectrum. Though I have been knocked out, and knocked someone out, plus a few other injuries.

I was thinking about "standard" martial arts/full-contact helmets awhile back after watching a video from Matt Thiesen/Scholagladiatoria on "medieval" helmets.

Simply, they are not made the same.
I don't mean the difference between metal and foam or padded leather.

"Real" helmets are "shells" that have space before contacting the padding and the head to absorb and dissipate the impact energy.
Martial arts helmets don't. They fit tight around the head, and while they "cushion" impacts, they pretty much transfer all the impact energy straight through.

As such, comparing injury rates between the two is really going to be comparing apples to oranges. Although they are both called helmets/headgear, they are functionally completely unrelated.


It should also be noted that the primary use of martial arts hand and foot gear is to protect the person striking, NOT protect the person being struck.
They reduce friction burns and lighten the effects of hitting with the wrong bone or impacting a bone.
They do nothing to reduce the impact power.
That applies to boxing gloves too. The reason they were invented was because people shattered their hands in bare knuckle matches. While wonderfully bloody, it also meant they couldn't keep fighting. With gloves, their hands remained functional, and they could keep punching each others faces in.
(One of the things that always amused was the "tough guys" who wanted to get "uppity" and start a "fight" during a match. They thought they were hockey players, and the first thing they did was strip their gloves off. I'm not the biggest or the baddest, but if you can't hurt me punching with foam dipped pads on, you absolutely cannot hurt me without them on. But hey, thanks for telling me you don't know how to punch!)

So again, comparing the effect of someone with full contact gloves knocking someone out with a punch to someone with a weapon knocking someone out through armor is just not going to work.

[Lemmy]

But nobody ever used the reenactments to say you can't kill a guy in armor. Just that you can't kill him by hitting him on his helm with a sword, because they hit each other on the helms with swords all day and don't die. People upthread were arguing you could kill a man and not dent his helmet. Which is all that G was trying to debate. I'm sure we agree that battles had a higher body count than reenactments.

*sigh*

Look... I'll explain this one more time and then drop it: G made a point that swords can't cut through helmet... To support his claim, he said that if that was the case, people would be dying constantly in Battle of Nations. Here... You can see his post:

If that was really the case, you would think people would be dying constantly while playing this game, and getting knocked out every time they played. But it seems quite rare

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkteEFI-PBs

Because of this, while I agreed with him that's unlikely for swords to cut through metal helmets, I chose to address this particular point, saying that it's not such a good indication since people in this game are not trying to actually kill each other, which means there are rules and etiquette and a bunch of other factors that would stop people from dying in BoN, so "swords are not good at cutting or bludgeoning helmets" is probably not the main factor, or at least, not the only one (if there were no helmets around, I'm sure the game would have rules against hitting people in the head, after all).

To put it shortly: I agreed with G's general point, but felt it'd be more honest to point out what I see as a flaw in his argument, even though I agree with said argument. That's all.

[Pauly]

Rondel daggers themselves were used specifically for pushing through gaps in plate. Trying to pierce plate is a fools errand. Even warhammer were designed with the pointy end for burstring through chain mail, with the hammer head for transferring concussive force *through* plate (or to crush joints.)



Great post.

An interesting modern theory I have seen about warhammers is that the blunt end was more for deforming plates, to stop the articulation from working. Meaning you can put an opponents arm or leg out of action without actually having to cause an injury.
The pointy end isn't long enough to cause an injury through plate and mail and gambeson even if you achieved a perfect hit and full penetration.

[Incanur]

Honestly, after watching some HMB/bohurt-style polearm duels, I'm convinced it's difficult to use blows from a bladed staff weapon to kayo an experienced fighter through a 2+mm helmet with good padding. I suspect polearms with sharp edges do somewhat better, but probably not enough to totally change the dynamic. This is entirely consistent with The Trewe Encounter's account of Flodden Field 1513, of armored Scottish soldiers remaining standing as four or five bills struck one of them at once.

HMB polearm duels are bizarre because they're only allowed to use one historical technique for armored combat with a polearm, the mighty blow. They can't grapple to speak of, they can't thrust, and their weapons don't have points anyway. Since the blades lack edges, they can block and parry with exposed wood. (Those hafts look beaten to hell toward the end of events.) It's probably a decent approximation of historical tournament fighting, though some of that was more dangerous.

Historically, many helmets weren't 2+mm and didn't have the same padding as HMB helmets do.

Oh, and as best as I could tell with an Italian dictionary handy, Cesare d'Evoli really did write, as Sydney Anglo claimed, that both plate and mail armor failed against commonly used weapons: arquebus, pistol, pike, lance, hammer (martelli), lancegay (zagaglie), staff weapon, bow, and crossbow. Notably, he didn't include any sort of sword in this list. Armor that failed against such weapons was likely of poor metal and/or fairly thin. D'Evoli also expressed a preference for armor of soft (molle) temper as to better resist firearms (and possibly do worse against pointed weapons like the pike). I'm not sure what to make of that; Anglo interpreted it as tempered in a way to avoid excessive brittleness. According to Alan Williams, they weren't really hardening and tempering armor in Italy in d'Evoli's period anyway, so I'm not sure what's going on.

So yeah, more evidence for the notion that 16th-century armor ranged from "lol don't bother attacking it unless you've got a miniature cannon (aka musket)" to "can't even stop an arrow."

[Lemmy]

I can't find it right now, but there's a video from Scholagladiatoria where Matt says one of the difficulties of training with poleaxes is that even with full plate armor they can hurt and bruise the students and that they had to change the wood used in his polearms for a more flexible one because even ash wood was still rigid enough to hurt fighters in protective gear.

[Mike_G]

I can't find it right now, but there's a video from Scholagladiatoria where Matt says one of the difficulties of training with poleaxes is that even with full plate armor they can hurt and bruise the students and that they had to change the wood used in his polearms for a more flexible one because even ash wood was still rigid enough to hurt fighters in protective gear.

Which makes sense, because poleaxes were designed to fight men in armor.

[Galloglaich]

So yeah, more evidence for the notion that 16th-century armor ranged from "lol don't bother attacking it unless you've got a miniature cannon (aka musket)" to "can't even stop an arrow."

Without a doubt there was some very cheap armor around. In Gdansk in 1454 there are cuirasses listed for as low as 5 kreuzer and coat of plates for 12, whereas a side of bacon is 40 kreuzer and a sword is 20 kreuzer in the same market. Another 'cuirass with pauldrons' for 39 kreuzer and a half armor 'of proof' for 90 kreuzer.

A mason could make 26 Kreuzer per week at this same time, a mercenary halberdier 180 kreuzer and a lancer 600. That is of course if they were actually paid. Neither the cheap coat of plates nor the 5 kreuzer cuirass would pass militia inspection for a citizen in Gdansk. Even a half citizen like a journeyman had to have a 'good' harness though they don't say what that means exactly (like of proof or anything). Some urban militias specifically required gauntlets for the lowest rank of infantry (billmen) even though gauntlets, from what I gather, were expensive.

So I doubt that much of the cheap armor was in use except in second tier troops. Of course I admit, this is a guess. All we can do is make educated guesses.

G

[Incanur]

I'm still not quite sure what to make of Cesare d'Evoli's manual. From Sydney Anglo's description and the sections I've been able to decipher, lots of it is similar to earlier Italian and French manuals and to Spanish and English manuals from 5-10 years later: pikes and guns matter the most (not universal but a common opinion), bows and crossbows are a joke compared with guns (also not universal but common), shields are good against pikes, swords shouldn't be too long, it's good for lances to be sturdy, lots of detailed tactical and equipment guidelines, etc. But d'Evoli had a lower opinion of armor than anybody else I've read from the 16th century. (He did still want considerable armor for pikers and heavy cavalry, and helmets and mail sleeves for arquebusiers.)

[Martin Greywolf]

Let's say this once and clearly, so that we can discuss thing at a better level: primary protection you get against blunt force from PROPER medieval helmets is not the padding under it. Primary protection is liner (you can easily google what it is and how it was made) and the fact that the thing clocks in at 2 kilos+ and is almost impossible to cut through - almost, but not quite. Box/MMA/kickbox style knockouts just don't happen with a helmet like that on.

From what we see from modern tests and period accounts, cutting through the helmet is a thing that did happen, very rarely. It's a bit like sniper taking out opponent by seeing the light glint off of his scope - it happens, but you really don't want to rely on it as your go-to technique. I also suspect that a lot of those helmet penetrations may have occured on horseback, when two horsemen were charging each other after their lances were broken.

As for mighty blows of pollaxes, it may or may not daze you enough, it may or may not knock you over. It was certainly a fairly common technique to use. Thrusts and grappling were far more common, though, and that would suggest that mighty blow was used when you thought your opponent is more susceptible to it for some reason - like an already damaged helmet, long fight, being thin but tall, you not being able to reach him for one reason or another etc etc.

[Tobtor]

You don't actually know that without testing them.

They clearly tried (in Germany at least) not to have many inclusions, etc. And yes we can know that steel with inclusions is both more brittle and less hard... It is not a trade-off like it is with iron/steel or the tempering process in swords (does it bend or break).

This is because Milan started specializing in parade armor for nobles, as I mentioned the last time we had this argument. Augsburg became the main center for battlefield armor.

Yes, we discussed this before. I mentioned it above: it appear also the non ornamented armour was made like that. And beside with the amount of armours spit out by Milan it cannot have been all for nobles (but also burghers and mercenaries who wanted to look cool).

But perhaps here there is actually a trade off, going into Incanurs post about some historical sources wanting soft armours - I could see that as a way of having the armour act as a buffer, rather than a shell against weapons (guns) wich penetration effect lies not in a sharp or pointed thing but very high velocity. But anyway it will make it more prone to be penetrated with pointy things (arrows, pikes etc).

Heat treating predates that by at least 50 years in South Germany. And lets not forget, plate armor itself wasn't around all that long, it's a fairly short window.

I was referring to a post giving 1450-1600 as a timetable for tempered Italian armours, and pointed out that at least from 1510 they didn't really do that.

The reason I did not object at the other year (1450) is that, yes they where definately experimenting with heat treatment before that (going back bay a 100 years). But that was the year stated by several people in this thread and in various articles (some have 1430, other 1480 etc) for when they became just somewhat stable in their output.

I think what you are missing here is that armor isn't meant to be as hard as swords, it actually doesn't perform as well if it's too hard. What you want in armor is toughness and resiliency, that is why they were tempering it.

?

I am not quite sure I get that point. They definitely tempered it to become thougher (yes, true they didn't want to over temper it!). They also got quite successfully in some cases (especially for parts of the armour). I am noting that they did not do so reliably.

Besides modern replica armours are typically not as bittle as medieval ones AND is tougher.

Note also that the tip of the sword sometimes have 2 or 3 times the VPH of the armour (though not the best armours).

For that matter, most parts of swords aren't meant to be as hard as for example tool steel or drill bits. Swords are harder than armor but need to be more springy and flexible than tool steels etc.

Yes. But the thing is that it is the quality of the steel they used that made the armours brittle!

But I think you are missing something, I am not an expert, but guys like Peter Johnsson point out that this is an intentional design feature - like the soft wrought iron spine on a katana. Only the edge of the blade needs to be hard.

Yes and no. The katana have that design feature BECAUSE they couldn't make good steel (which isn't as bittle). And thus they needed to counteract this. It is the same with roman, celtic, viking age, early and late medieval swords: they have a lot of slag, various inclusions etc, that make the steel brittle. To counteract this they can do various things, including using iron to (which is NOT springy!). Thus by combining the brittle steel with the soft iron they sort of simulate the "springynes" of good steel. But the cost is lower hardness for the overall thing. As I said it dosnt hurt the sword all that much, as the point (and to some degree edges) can be hard, while the core keeps it from breaking. But for armour you in theory need every part to equally springy and hard which is not achievable by the chosen solution.

In your comparison of old vs. new steel here you are comparing apples to oranges, IMO. The tests that have been done on the antique armor shows it performed very well.

Please give a link. I have only seen tests on replicas using modern(ish) steels.

I think what they are intended to penetrate, depends precisely on which type of sword or estoc (or panzerbrecher?) you are referring to. You have a lot of swords kind of in between as well. Swords with stiffened and narrowed points good for thrusting, like many of the Oakeshott type XVI and XVII, XVIIIa and XVIIIb

Many of these still have sharp edges and still do cut, but not always as well as other types. Paper scissors rock, this is kind of an attempt to have two of the three traits.

I said as much. I noted that it didn't mean a complete loss of cutting ability, just that it reduced it (which would counteract it against soft armours and un armoured parts)

Tobtor, Forgive me for giving that impression - I was trying to be careful in what I said, I didn't say YOU were believing in movies / LARPS, I was saying that movies, LARPS, video games, DnD, SCA etc. still influence our culture generally, and this is part of the reason why there is still so much out there justifying it.

I think you are really reaching to rationalize what you already believe.

I will take it as a failure of the English language then. You (meaning English speakers in general) should really find a way of separating you (singular), you (plural), and you (as a general statement).

Skulls with cutting blows to the head seem pretty rare

Not all that rare, no. The problem is rather that it is somewhat diffiicult to A) establishe that they wore a helmet, and B) what kind of weapon delt the damage (was it a sword or a halberd like matters for our discussion)

"we don't see helmets that look like they have been cleaved through very often either, and I question the notion of crappy armor."

We have very few preserved helmets from battle situations. Secondly we have very few where we know their later treatment (deliberate damage in the past, damage during recovery where spades cut into old rusty finds as they were recovered etc).

Note again I am not talking about full cleaving the helm in two (that would indeed be noteworthy/legendary). More along the line of cavalry riding down wavering or routing infantry and with downward "tip-cuts" cut into the helmets. Due to the size of historical helmets compared to historical skulls, we can see that while they likely had some padding, they did definitely not have 30 layers of linen below the helmet or whatnot. Thus cutting just a few inches into the helmet will give cuts to the skull

From a horseback you get two advantaes to power: 1. speed from the horse, and 2. you can get a better weight out of the sword (it still is not a hammer I know, but it gets more like a hammer when it goes down).

It also started earlier in Germany, I believe Alan Williams points that out.

Started, yes. Not 'perfected'. He notes that the earlier periods had a very large range in quality, and that it became 'more standard' in the later part. Which is why I accepted others use of the year 1450.


Incanur

Air-cooled armor isn't tempered, at least not by how Alan Williams uses the term. Air-cooled armor can't have uneven tempering.

From wikiepedia:

Tempering is a process of heat treating, which is used to increase the toughness of iron-based alloys. Tempering is usually performed after hardening, to reduce some of the excess hardness, and is done by heating the metal to some temperature below the critical point for a certain period of time, then allowing it to cool in still air.

Tempering is the heating process, not the quenching proses... It is true that it is sometimes used a bit interchangeable, but it is wrong.

The idea is that by heating the steel at above a certain level it changes the properties of the steel. Thus if the armour is heat-treated differently in different places, it is unevenly tempered. It is used to control the hardness contra toughness, but also (importently for this discussion) to release internal stress.

If heated too much it looses hardness and became tougher, but there is a some levels where it become britle:

"tempering in the range of 260 and 340 °C (500 and 644 °F) causes a decrease in ductility and an increase in brittleness, and is referred to as the "tempered martensite embrittlement" (TME) range. Except in the case of blacksmithing, this range is usually avoided."

The problem with pieces of armour is that you need to reach the same temperature all over the armour, otherwise it will become hard and somewhat tough in some places, but too tough and not hard enough in others, while in between these twoo it actuall becomes too brittle (not very tough but not very hard either).

It can be used in weapon-smithing, but it is undesirable in armour smithing.

Williams's mild steel has a carbon content of 0.1-0.15%. Many definitions go as low as 0.05% or as high as 0.3%, so yeah, there's variation.

Again the hardness and thoughness is not only reliant on the amount of carbon content, as seen in the sword example before. The light grey/purble graph (the elfberth compiled sword) had a carbon content at the tip at 0,8 but it was still markedly less hard than the 6150 modern steel with a carbon content below 0,5. So its not just about carbon content (it enters into it for sure), but also the treatment of the metal.

Also note that the HMB page you linked write that the mild steel is not likely to survive more than a single season, this is with blunt blades.

Normally we would say high carbon-steel is better, but only if this is tempered correctly reaching the correct temperature for which is needed, and if the carbonization (process have been done correctly.

The problem is also all the impurities (slag, inclusions, unevenly carborized) and internal stress in medieval armours, which increases brittleness without increasing hardness.

[Incanur]

I'm not sure what you're trying to say about tempering. According to Alan Williams and Wikipedia, tempering was done to increase toughness after hardening through heating and quenching or whatever. Air-cooled steel, at least historically, didn't have to be tempered because it wasn't hardened in the first place (according to Williams).

The 1450-1600 date range I used was for Western/Central Europe, not for Italy. As mentioned, Greenwich was producing hardened armor until around 1600 (maybe a little later).

[Max_Killjoy]

Without a doubt there was some very cheap armor around. In Gdansk in 1454 there are cuirasses listed for as low as 5 kreuzer and coat of plates for 12, whereas a side of bacon is 40 kreuzer and a sword is 20 kreuzer in the same market. Another 'cuirass with pauldrons' for 39 kreuzer and a half armor 'of proof' for 90 kreuzer.

A mason could make 26 Kreuzer per week at this same time, a mercenary halberdier 180 kreuzer and a lancer 600. That is of course if they were actually paid. Neither the cheap coat of plates nor the 5 kreuzer cuirass would pass militia inspection for a citizen in Gdansk. Even a half citizen like a journeyman had to have a 'good' harness though they don't say what that means exactly (like of proof or anything). Some urban militias specifically required gauntlets for the lowest rank of infantry (billmen) even though gauntlets, from what I gather, were expensive.

So I doubt that much of the cheap armor was in use except in second tier troops. Of course I admit, this is a guess. All we can do is make educated guesses.

G

Was a side of bacon a luxury item... or do these figures call into question the oft-repeated notion that sword and armor were "for the wealthy" or "cost the average person a vast chunk off their annual income"?

[Carl]

@Tobtor: given the descriptions provided by other users what's being referred to here as tempering is actually properly called annealing, (thank you for getting me to go check on this, it's been a decade since i last had to seriously use this and i'm rusty it seems).

[Galloglaich]

We are veering deep into metallurgy here, and let me stipulate this is way beyond my level of understanding let alone expertise. But I'll try to identify a couple of points where we are diverging with hopefully more light than heat.

1. If I understand guys like Peter Johnsson correctly, they seem to be saying now that the wrought iron that you find in swords, incidentally not just iron-poor Japan but in iron-rich Central Europe, is an intentional design feature. The cores of a lot of Late medieval swords seem to be wrought iron. It's not just the old forge welded and pattern welded ones from the migration era or the old La Tene culture etc. I could be wrong in this, but that is what I have been given to understand.
2. Yes slag is bad, always bad, but there are other factors in the metallurgy of iron and steel artifacts which effect their utility for different tasks, including as armor
3. Tempering usually though not always involves quenching. In the medieval period from what I gather they typically tempered by color - as it heats it turns brown, purple, blue - blue is the right color for swords according to some manuals, and then you quench it to 'set' it at that specific stage. We know now that this makes certain chemical changes in the iron-carbon compound we call steel, specifically shifting ferrite into martensite. The speed and specific area of the quench is an important part of the tempering process and how much of each of the various iron compounds you get. My understanding is that the quench 'freezes' the martensite structure in a specific (desirable) high-carbon state which correlates with springiness (very important especially for swords but armor too) and 'toughness'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martensite

from the wiki:

"Martensite is formed in carbon steels by the rapid cooling (quenching) of austenite form of iron at such a high rate that carbon atoms do not have time to diffuse out of the crystal structure in large enough quantities to form cementite (Fe3C). As a result, the face-centered cubic austenite transforms to a highly strained body-centered tetragonal form called martensite that is supersaturated with carbon"

When you just quench especially high carbon you get more cementite, which is what is in cast iron, and is too brittle for swords or armor.

If you air-cool it 'normalizes' the iron and you don't get the same amount of martensite (or springiness) but you do get less brittle structure. I think that is what Incannur referred to and what the Italians, or at least specifically, the Milanese started doing a lot of around 1510.


Also my understanding from Williams and other sources on armor production history is that

Spring-steel (tempered) armor started becoming a notable and desired export feature of Augsburg, Nuremberg and other South German armor production centers by the late 14th Century, 1390's. It starts showing up in inventories as a product distributed by the South German "Grand Ravensburg brotherhood" around 1396. At this point it is expensive but the price starts going down rapidly and volume going up, steadily, throughout the early 1400's. By the 1420's the undecorated armor is basically affordable for burghers and wealthier peasant, let alone knights - the expensive stuff is the gilded and etched armor.

The reason I often cite 1450 as the beginning of the best armor is that armor gets thicker by then. Gothic harness in 1400 tends to be thinner, around 2mm max thickness, by 1450 you have better shaped (with some very sophisticated 'ballistic' shapes which we sometimes see centuries later in armored vehicles), thicker (maybe an average of around 3mm in the thickest parts) and also some things like fluting which add structural strength, and just overall extremely sophisticated ergonomics / shape making it both easier to wear and more protective. But it's already pretty good and much more protective than any other armor in the world (IMO) by around 1400. The increased thickness I believe is a direct response to firearms becoming much more widespread on the open battlefield after 1420.

The guild structures in places like Augsburg were set up in very sophisticated subcontracting networks for armor design (as well as sword design incidentally) with numerous specialists involved in each stage of the process. They had big watermill powered forges and trip hammers where they churned out the basic metal, they people who did the design work (and made nice sketches of it much of which we can see from the Thun sketchbook) had specialists making all the various types of pieces, and specialists who did the heat treatments, as well as people who did the decoration and tailoring and many other specialties I can't remember.

Augsburg differs I believe from Milan in this sense because most of the workshops in Milan were family / corporation based as opposed to guild based, at least by the 15th Century (not certain about that) whereas in Augsburg they were also family based but as part of this guild system which politically dominated Augsburg through most of the 15th Century and into the early 16th. The guild government being undermined by Emperor Charles V during the Wars of Religion probably had something to do with the decline of mass-produced high quality armor (as many of the most prominent armorers went to work for the Princes and many of them moved to Innsbrook)


We have a really interesting insight into the armor production in Augsburg incidentally due to the existence of the Thun sketchbook (or sometimes "Thunn workbook"). The various craft guilds were joined together in these social guilds (sodalities or confraternities), kind of like masonic clubs or what we call "Social Aid and Pleasure clubs" here in New Orleans (and as here, often closely associated with Carnival), and sometimes oddly grouped crafts would be in the same guild. Apparently in Augsburg the armorers and the painters were in the same social guild and some painters took work a bunch of work design sketches from the armorers and painted them into this beautiful book which was left to us today. Maybe the painters did some of the gold leaf, etching and other decoration on a lot of the armor.

I'll include some of the lovely images from the book in the hope that this way people here will like me even if they don't agree! A common scheme on my part ;) These date from about 1475, you can see the extreme sophistication of the armor. They are also making numerous types of armor for everything from jousting to export to England, Italy, or France (with different specific regional styles).












Most of these are not super easy to find in high res online but if you search a bit you can find dozens more, all very interesting if you like this kind of thing.

Some of this armor is still around, much of it was made by the Helmschmied family in Augsburg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmschmied

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenz_Helmschmied


G

[Galloglaich]

Was a side of bacon a luxury item... or do these figures call into question the oft-repeated notion that sword and armor were "for the wealthy" or "cost the average person a vast chunk off their annual income"?

The latter. bacon wasn't super cheap but not luxury. A side of bacon is a lot of bacon, like today you would buy 1 lb of bacon not a whole side of it, normally, but if you were in a medieval household that might be part of the food budget for a month.

Common citizens of most towns were required to own armor, and not the cheapest armor - as I was pointing out. Swords were so cheap in the 15th Century that basically anyone could afford one (at least a cheap one)

I think the point of confusion is that earlier in the medieval period, like Carolingian or Migration era times, anything made of metal was much more expensive.

One of the big problems of medieval history is that they tend to conflate 1000 years of time, like if you were talking about Boston today and bringing up Cotton Mather.

By the Late medieval period (roughly say 1300 - 1520) things like swords were affordable to most people, due largely to water-wheel powered mechanization that made production much more efficient. Almost like factories today.

G

[Galloglaich]

@Tobtor: given the descriptions provided by other users what's being referred to here as tempering is actually properly called annealing, (thank you for getting me to go check on this, it's been a decade since i last had to seriously use this and i'm rusty it seems).

Annealing is different, it mostly just softens the metal. Like if you are beating something into shape with a hammer, it gradually gets harder, so you anneal it with a torch to soften it back up.

G

[Carl]

Ok Galloglaich we've got some serious problems here because it's not clear to me now what they were doing to the armour anymore. You need to specify the exact process being used here, amount of heat, and how it's cooled afetrwards.

Heat treatment falls realistically into two categories. Hardening processes and Softening processes.

Hardening process which make the material harder, but more brittle. Generally umbrellaed under the term quenching.

And softening processes which make it tougher but softer. Generally umbrellaed under Tempering and/or Annealing.


Both involve heating the material in question, how much depends on how much you want to harden or soften it. Then cooling it at a specific rate. Generally for low carbon steels anything faster than air hardens. For medium and up you need to be even slower than air to avoid hardening.

As an aside slag is an issue because it changes the heat treatment effects by changing the temperature properties of the material, (you can see this with how carbon content changes how air cooling works in even modern high purity steels). Depending on how the type of slag affects the material you could see some parts hardening, other undergoing a full annealing, and yet others just tempering, (to use these in purely technical rather than umbrella definitions).

[Incanur]

As far the mysteries of plate armor go, Pedro Monte's manual is impressive resource that unfortunately few of us can understand. (I wish the Spanish manuscript were available online, but haven't been able to find it.) Monte apparently wrote in great detail about armor, right at the time when some of the best armor was being produced in Innsbruck and so on, circa 1500. According to Sydney Anglo, Monte favored lightness and mobility in plate harnesses. The circa-1510 Ausburg harness (Wallace A22) of hardened steel that Williams describes, with its 1.3mm (or 1.5mm, Williams lists it inconsistently) breastplate, 1mm backplate, 1.5mm helmet skull, may have been sort of light harness Monte encourage. (On the other hand, it might have been too light for him.)

In any case, that harness would have provided impressive protection with relative ease and comfort. It's listed as currently weighing 19.56kg (43.12lbs), which seems to include the 19th-century restorations that could be a bit heavier than the originals. Depending on the amount of mail and arming clothes worn underneath, the total armor probably weight right around 50lbs. On the other hand, assuming the measurements are correct, it wouldn't necessarily have been totally impervious to attack. By Williams's figures, it would take 150-160 J from an arrow to penetrate 1.5mm of hardened steel, assuming a perpendicular hit. A close-range or medium-range shot from a powerful crossbow or a close-range shot from 150+lb yew bow with a heavy arrow might be able to manage that. (Padding would add something like 20-30 J to the require energy to penetrate, making it nearly impossible for the yew bow but maybe still possible for a heavy crossbow, if the stars aligned. And an extremely strong thrust from a pike or such weapon could conceivably do it.) I'm surprised it's not lighter, given how thin it apparently is.

A direct strike from a heavy lance might well penetrate if delivered with skill and strength, though Monte wrote that people customarily wore placates (over-breastplates). According to Anglo, Monte suggested possibly leaving off the placate because one can avoid the first strike of lance and gain the opponent's back.

Through this kind of logic, we can see that the desire for a light harness encouraged some period warriors to accept less protection. Lighter harnesses like this one look to have been designed for excellent protection against most weapons but not strict invulnerability. I suspect later harnesses became so proof against the lance in part because of increasing concern about gunpowder weapons. This was especially true in François de la Noue's time, when cavalry wore breastplate proof against the pistol and perhaps arquebus. It's a lot harder to avoid a pistol shot than it is to avoid a lance, so techniques like the one Monte protect weren't as applicable in the late-16th-century context. (The technique of gaining the opponent's back doesn't seem suit to charging in formation either.)

[Max_Killjoy]

As an aside... I love this thread.

[Vinyadan]

As far the mysteries of plate armor go, Pedro Monte's manual is impressive resource that unfortunately few of us can understand. (I wish the Spanish manuscript were available online, but haven't been able to find it.)

Are you sure that there was a Spanish version? I don't know about this particular work, but a lot of texts were written in Latin well into the XVIII century in various parts of Europe. A Latin print version in available here: http://archive.thulb.uni-jena.de/his...lDiv=log000003

Looking a bit into it, Pedro Monte seems to be the Spanish version of Pietro Monte, who could have been Spanish or Italian and lived in Milan, where he was friends with Leonardo.

Addendum: the Spanish and Italian manuscripts actually are versions of a part of the De Dignoscendis hominibus, which is a different work and the only one of his that was printed during his lifetime. The Collectanea was collected from his works by a second person.

An interesting book:


On googlebooks: https://books.google.de/books?id=un2...page&q&f=false

It doesn't contain the books, I think, but talks about what they contain.

[Galloglaich]

Ok Galloglaich we've got some serious problems here because it's not clear to me now what they were doing to the armour anymore. You need to specify the exact process being used here, amount of heat, and how it's cooled afetrwards.

Heat treatment falls realistically into two categories. Hardening processes and Softening processes.

Hardening process which make the material harder, but more brittle. Generally umbrellaed under the term quenching.

And softening processes which make it tougher but softer. Generally umbrellaed under Tempering and/or Annealing.


Both involve heating the material in question, how much depends on how much you want to harden or soften it. Then cooling it at a specific rate. Generally for low carbon steels anything faster than air hardens. For medium and up you need to be even slower than air to avoid hardening.

Like I said, I'm not an expert on physics or metallurgy. But I have actually done this process making crude knives with my friends, and I've seen the material go through this process. So you tell me.

We made 4 knives out of railroad spikes with a forge we made out of a brake drum and a hair dryer, following techniques I'd read about from the medieval context.

1. Verified sufficient carbon content of some of the railroad spikes using the spark test (some spike were wrought iron, some medium carbon steel)
2. Heated up to straw yellow, beat the knife into shape for 2 or 3 minutes until it turns red, then reheat and repeat. (this took a loooooong time since we didn't have a trip hammer - I think like 1000 iterations)
3. Sharpen knife with file. Knife was sharp and hard but very stiff.
4. Heat and quench in warm oil once more after sharpening.
5. Reheat slowly up to 700 f until it turned blue. I think this took about an hour.
6. Quenched again in warm oil.
7. Knife became springy.

Now from what I read, quenching during that particular phase of the reheating process 'freezes' the carbon diffusion and a particular stage and gives you more of the martensite which makes the metal behave like a spring. It also makes it tougher. I think it was actually a bit less hard than before we tempered it but still very hard.

But the springiness characteristic I think is important there. Again, I'm no blacksmith, but it's what I understand the process to be and I have witnessed it myself.

G

[Incanur]

The Wiktenauer page I linked links to the page describing the the Spanish manuscript (no scans available). Exercitiorum Atque Artis Militaris Collectanea was published 1509. At least one scholar has been working on an English translation, but I don't know if that's actually going to get published.

Edit: don't know

[Galloglaich]

From the wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temper...)#Carbon_steel


Steel can be softened to a very malleable state through annealing, or it can be hardened to a state nearly as rigid and brittle as glass by quenching. However, in its hardened state, steel is usually far too brittle, lacking the structural integrity to be useful for most applications. Tempering is a method used to decrease the hardness, thereby increasing the ductility of the quenched steel, to impart some springiness and malleability to the metal. This allows the metal to bend before breaking. Depending on how much temper is imparted to the steel, it may bend elastically (the steel returns to its original shape once the load is removed), or it may bend plastically (the steel does not return to its original shape, resulting in permanent deformation), before fracturing.

This seems to match my understanding that annealing softens, but tempering (i.e. typically reheating and then quenching) makes it springy (depending on how you do the tempering and if you have sufficient carbon content)

I know for a fact, that most swords really need to be essentially sharp springs to work right. I was under the impression that it was similar with the Late medieval armor but I could be wrong.

G

[Galloglaich]

The Wiktenauer page I linked links to the page describing the the Spanish manuscript (no scans available). Exercitiorum Atque Artis Militaris Collectanea was published 1509. At least one scholar has been working on an English translation, but I know if that's actually going to get published.

I know the people who run the wiktenauer, if you want I can find out for you what the status is. I know some of the Spanish manuscripts are being worked on by a group in DC and I know those guys too. If it's one of those then it's a work in progress.

G

[Knaight]

The latter. bacon wasn't super cheap but not luxury. A side of bacon is a lot of bacon, like today you would buy 1 lb of bacon not a whole side of it, normally, but if you were in a medieval household that might be part of the food budget for a month.

Common citizens of most towns were required to own armor, and not the cheapest armor - as I was pointing out. Swords were so cheap in the 15th Century that basically anyone could afford one (at least a cheap one)

I think the point of confusion is that earlier in the medieval period, like Carolingian or Migration era times, anything made of metal was much more expensive.

One of the big problems of medieval history is that they tend to conflate 1000 years of time, like if you were talking about Boston today and bringing up Cotton Mather.

There's also the matter of how much space there is. People can point out that swords and armor genuinely were expensive in 500 CE scandinavia where they were largely dependent on bog iron. That doesn't mean they were nearly as expensive even in 500 CE in, say, the Byzantine empire.

[Max_Killjoy]

The latter. bacon wasn't super cheap but not luxury. A side of bacon is a lot of bacon, like today you would buy 1 lb of bacon not a whole side of it, normally, but if you were in a medieval household that might be part of the food budget for a month.

Common citizens of most towns were required to own armor, and not the cheapest armor - as I was pointing out. Swords were so cheap in the 15th Century that basically anyone could afford one (at least a cheap one)

I think the point of confusion is that earlier in the medieval period, like Carolingian or Migration era times, anything made of metal was much more expensive.

One of the big problems of medieval history is that they tend to conflate 1000 years of time, like if you were talking about Boston today and bringing up Cotton Mather.

By the Late medieval period (roughly say 1300 - 1520) things like swords were affordable to most people, due largely to water-wheel powered mechanization that made production much more efficient. Almost like factories today.

G

There's also the matter of how much space there is. People can point out that swords and armor genuinely were expensive in 500 CE scandinavia where they were largely dependent on bog iron. That doesn't mean they were nearly as expensive even in 500 CE in, say, the Byzantine empire.

Thank you. Confirmations on my thoughts and more good thoughts to bring to the table the next time I have this discussion with certain persons offline.

[Carl]

@Galloglaich: The problem is "springyness" isn't a property from a material science PoV. Assuming you mean what i think you mean, (that the material is able to flex without permanent deformation under both sustained and sock loas), thats a factor of ductility, (how much the material deforms under load), Toughness, (technically it's about energy absorption during deformation without fracturing, but simply put can be considered a measure of it's resistance to shattering under sharp shocks), and if the forces are high enough, it's Yield strength, (the amount of force required to produce permanent deformation). Annealing only reduces the latter when taken to extreme's, such as a full anneal. Conversely hardening process involve decreasing those values, but as the naming implies, also increase hardness, and depending on material specifics and exact state of it prior to treatment, also potentially increase the ultimate and yield strengths.

Having read your account of using the process i think i know whats going on and why i was getting thrown for a loop. My own materials science classes dealt strictly with modern uses. Generally at least, (i'm sure specialised exceptions exist that my general course didn't cover), heating somthing then cooling it in oil hardens it, not softens. In fact for high carbon steels that can't be cooled in water oil is the preferred medium for hardening processes. Hence my considerable confusion.

Where i slipped up is in forgetting that modern processes almost never work a material to anything like the degree required to induce hardness so extreme heating and then cooling in oil would soften the material. But the amount of working you describe probably would do that. Still heating and then cooling in oil still leaves you with a material thats going to be on the harder, lower toughness, end of the possibilities scale.

[Galloglaich]

@Galloglaich: The problem is "springyness" isn't a property from a material science PoV. Assuming you mean what i think you mean, (that the material is able to flex without permanent deformation under both sustained and sock loas), thats a factor of ductility, (how much the material deforms under load), Toughness, (technically it's about energy absorption during deformation without fracturing, but simply put can be considered a measure of it's resistance to shattering under sharp shocks), and if the forces are high enough, it's Yield strength, (the amount of force required to produce permanent deformation). Annealing only reduces the latter when taken to extreme's, such as a full anneal. Conversely hardening process involve decreasing those values, but as the naming implies, also increase hardness, and depending on material specifics and exact state of it prior to treatment, also potentially increase the ultimate and yield strengths.

Having read your account of using the process i think i know whats going on and why i was getting thrown for a loop. My own materials science classes dealt strictly with modern uses. Generally at least, (i'm sure specialised exceptions exist that my general course didn't cover), heating somthing then cooling it in oil hardens it, not softens. In fact for high carbon steels that can't be cooled in water oil is the preferred medium for hardening processes. Hence my considerable confusion.

Where i slipped up is in forgetting that modern processes almost never work a material to anything like the degree required to induce hardness so extreme heating and then cooling in oil would soften the material. But the amount of working you describe probably would do that. Still heating and then cooling in oil still leaves you with a material thats going to be on the harder, lower toughness, end of the possibilities scale.

I was referring to the 'elasticity' property it mentions in the Wikipedia article on tempering. I believe this is still widely used for example to make springs and basically every kind of ferrous metal object that has to behave like a spring. In other words, quoting from the wiki:

Depending on how much temper is imparted to the steel, it may bend elastically (the steel returns to its original shape once the load is removed),

So yes of course it's hard, but it's not hard like a drill bit. It's hard like a sword, and it's "springy" (has the property of elasticity so that it returns to it's original shape when the load is removed)

I have actually seen 1000 year old swords bent nearly 90 degrees and return to true (on video), so this is obviously a property that has been long sought after in making swords.

G

[Carl]

That's properly called ductility :). Wiki article for you. The Yield strength value then determine how much deformation can occur before it becomes permanent. And the Ultimate strength determines how much further it can go before somthing snaps.

[Galloglaich]

That's properly called ductility :). Wiki article for you. The Yield strength value then determine how much deformation can occur before it becomes permanent. And the Ultimate strength determines how much further it can go before somthing snaps.

I don't think ductility and elasticity are the same thing but I am tired of debating it and it's not my field so I yield to you on this subject.

G