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Scientists Study Impact of Wearing Medieval Armor
FoolishOwl writes "Scientists at the University of Leeds tested the effects of wearing heavy medieval armor by monitoring volunteers, who were experienced medieval reenactors, as they walked and ran on treadmills, while wearing accurate replicas of 15th century armor. While the suits of armor weighed between 30 and 50 kg, comparable to the weight of gear carried by modern soldiers, volunteers who carried equivalent amounts of weight in backpacks had an easier time with the weight. Volunteers in armor burned more energy and had difficulty breathing. The scientists speculate that much of the additional effort was due to weight of armor on the legs — leg armor was one of the first things dropped in the shift towards lighter armor in the 16th century. While it has long been assumed that heavy medieval armor limited mobility, and that this contributed to the outcome of battles, such as the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, this was the first study to quantify the impact of wearing heavy armor."
While it has long been assumed that heavy medieval armor limited mobility, and that this contributed to the outcome of battles, such as the Battle of Agincourt in 1415
Nonsense. It's well established that being French contributes to the outcome of battles, such as the Battle of Agincourt. The effects of armor is minor in comparison.
There's a reason why good-quality backpacks have a strap that wraps around the waist - the pelvis is capable of comfortably supporting a large amount of weight, and that is why the weight of backpacks is best supported there. Medieval armour supports it all over the body, causing body-wide muscle fatigue. From the article: "We were interested to find out why that was - and one of the main reasons is that if you wear a suit of armour, a lot of the weight is carried on the legs - about 7-8kg of it."
ne miles on a treadmill are you effing joking".
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdfx7l4z5cQ
Who knew scientist suffered from too much game of thrones.
who were experienced medieval reenactors
What does this have to do with anything?
didn't seem to help the Black Knight much.
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
I've worked with "experienced medieval reenactors" and most of them actually BELIEVE they are living in medieval times.
I though that knights rode horses. I doubt that they did very much jogging.
No sooner do I get over one, then you put a better one right next to me. Bastards.
Scientists study the impact of wearing a wizard hat while yelling "Lightning Bolt! Lightning Bolt!"
Japanese samurai armor looks much more comfortable, with the joints being unhindered and the armor plating hanging loose, while still offering a comparable degree of protection. Then Roman and Greek armor look increasingly comfortable while protecting less, but that must have been vital given the climes of those locales.
Disclaimer; the SCA does medievalISH combat with rules and equipment for safety; it's not authentic medieval fight styles, and there are other groups (like WMA) that focus on things like 15th century German fechtbuchs and who have more authority to speak on authentically historical modes and styles of combat.
That said, the SCA does swordfighting at full speed and often with full power (depending on the area), and there are some strong similarities with historical combat. The sticks used (for safety reasons) are roughly the same weight as the historical swords, and there's a strong social pressure to wear armour that is both save and as authentic as possible. Thus, there's a couple things I can comment on from personal experience. First, metal armour on limbs *noticeably* slows down shots. We accept plastic plates as long as they're covered ("best effort to look good" is the standard), so people will fight with plastic covered in canvas or leather, and there is a well-known tradeoff in the SCA between "looking good" in shiny metal armour and having the best possible speed.
I just finished building a fairly close replica of 14th century coat-of-plates armour. I had been using (poorly disguised) plastic before, and the difference when wearing 25 pounds of overlapping plates is quite noticeable. I look much better, of course, but I also work harder, sweat more, and need to take more breaks. The weight's all on my shoulders, so it's not wearing my legs out, but there's a noticeable weight when I'm moving. I recently got metal gauntlets, and they're noticeable as well; the hands move slower when there's a pound or two of metal on them. I hate to reference anime, but you know how Goku wears the heavy arm and leg weights in Dragonball Z? There's some truth to that; even the fat SCA fighters have bulkier shoulders and larger arms. (actually wearing weights around all day will just screw up your joints, by the way; it's the holding-heavy-things-out-from-your-body that does it)
There's a reason armour was attached where it was in the middle ages; suspending legs from a belt takes at least some of the weight off the legs when moving.
No OS on the planet can protect itself from a user with the admin password. - Yvan256
Now, let's test the impact of backpacks versus suits of armor on surviving a barrage of arrows.
And this is the initial research that will lead to the development of powered armour, which will be vital in our eventual war against China.
...they just need more points in Athletics.
I will bend like a reed in the wind.
Speaking as an ex-"reenactor" (Society for Creative Anachronism, http://www.sca.org/ I can offer the following firsthand observations:
1. The quality of fitting to the individual is probably the single most important factor in how burdensome a given suit of armor is, from the point of view of the ability to move quickly. Leggings are by far the hardest to fit correctly; they also tend to shift around the most in response to movement, so a good fitting can become a bad fitting very quickly.
2. In melee combat, the legs are hit far more often than any target other than the head. Leg armor may be encumbering, but when it comes to hand to hand combat you can't do without it.
3. When faced with archers, an unshielded fighter takes it in the arms and torso more than anywhere else.
4. Breathing difficulties are usually caused by poor ventilation in a closed-face helm, or a side effect of heat. Which brings us to:
5. Overheating is what is going to exhaust you. You're wearing not just armor, but heavy padding as well. The number one factor an SCA medic sees at a large battle is overwhelmingly heat exhaustion/heatstroke/dehydration.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
In theory, at least, the weight and unwieldy nature of the armor may have mattered less to the nobles who were most likely to wear it, simply because they rode into battle on horseback. As such, they didn't need to support themselves the whole time. The problem of the leg armor in particular largely disappears when on horseback (assuming of course that the horse itself can manage the weight).
If and when they fell off their horse, or said horse was put down, *then* they could be in trouble. But my understanding is that foot soldiers were usually more interested in capturing nobles and holding them for ransom, rather than killing them outright. It was probably far more important that they be able to weather the rain of arrows and the attacks of other horse-bound noblemen.
Doubtful that full suits of armor were issued to the infantry. For one thing, they were extremely expensive.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
No I meant the Napoleonic Wars where France had the whole world on the run for almost 20 years.
"Napoleon was born in Corsica to parents of noble Genoese ancestry", so he was actually Italian not French. :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon
Corsica was ruled by Genoa (part of Italy) for 400 or so years, had a 20-something year rebellion, 15 or so years of independence and was then conquered by France shortly before Napoleon was born. Its constitution was written in Italian and Italian was the dominant language long after Napoleon's death.
Before commencer à la flamme please note the ":-)". Yes, Napoleon was born in French territory and was therefore a French citizen.
What's interesting is that modern sports combat based on western martial arts -- meaning sword and shield, full metal armor, but using modern materials -- has shifted over to using things like 6061-T6 aluminum to keep things light. Also Underarmor sweat wicking clothing (seriously). For instance, the SCA, which is interested in individuals or groups meeting in competitive combat rather than a specific battle from a particular time or place. A good deal of effort is put into finding lightweight armor that still protects your bones.
Now comes the twist: It's actually thicker and more durable, because nobody likes to hammer out their armor each week after (or during) fighter practice. So it actually lasts much much longer under a barrage of blows, but is still roughly the same weight. Apparently it's a reasonable weight to fight in, and what you can now take out with modern materials, people are adding back for durability.
Check out http://www.zoombang.com/ for really out there modern armor designed for medieval non-edged combat.
obSemiOffTopic: Deep bruises are just part of the sport -- my wife is very careful to point out early in doctor visits that she's involved in full contact martial arts. Especially as she's 5 foot and petite and I'm 6'3" and huge; we already had one nurse freak out and send me out to have a talk with her about reporting domestic violence. She now carries photos on her phone of herself in armor, holding her helm and grinning happily, just to fend off people who get the wrong idea.
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
I thought this was going to be about the socio- and psychological impacts.
I somehow doubt that you can make a representative study of how knights in the Middle Age (you know, the ones whose almost only duty / job was to fight for his lord and who trained during his life for that) by using some modern people, who might be fit but will need a serious training to get used to it. Not to mention all of the know-how about using the armour lost during the centuries.
As a sidenote, the simplest explanation to the fact that the first armor to be eliminated was the armor of the legs may be just that there are no vital organs in the leg, so an injury there is less likely to be lethal.
Why can't
Scientists Study Impact of Wearing Medieval Armor
And, this being slashdor, I expected to see a story about global warming and the effect that armor had on it.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
"It's like bringing a longbow to a sword fight!"
The entire premise of the war was a lie, and you got your ass handed to you as a result. Man up and admit it for once.
Incurable virginity.
Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
Slashdor is right between Gondor and Mordor...
you can not just take, random geeks. even ones that "quote" play at mock combat. and test them, and compare that to a medieval warrior Knight. Form almost, all of these warriors it was a full time job, meaning they where in shape for it. otherwise, they would have died in combat....
how about 1792-1815 ....
yeah im waiting ?
ah, i also forgot how it was the french navy, french volunteers and a french general that not only bolstered the ranks of the revolutionaries back in 1774 in america, but also that particular french general was the general who, with his quick action, ended all english hopes on the continent in the last battle.
These guys could have saved a lot of trouble and expense by just asking Bill & Ted:
Heavy Metal
The medieval blokes wearing the bespoke armor fared much better than the poor bastards wearing that cheap outsourced shit from War-mour Mart.
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
Have you ever been to one of the large SCA get-togethers? It makes a college dorm look like a nunnery by comparison.
Slashdor the Barbarian?
Sworn enemy of Canon the Destroyer?
Ah. I always wondered how the English won at Bannockburn, and why the Duchy of Burgundy extends from Belgium all the way down to Italy.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
One does not just walk in Armor.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
....back then?
A friend is a history professor and he has a story (apocryphal?) about a history professor who had an exact-size copy made of some 13th century king's armor from his teens (Richard the Lionhearted?), and the armor was a good fit on a modern football linebacker.
Anyway, the idea is that the elite soldiers -- from nobility, raised to fight from a young age, the best possible diet for the era (high in protein) -- were in outstanding physical condition and very, very strong. The armor the football player put on was for a teenager, so the thinking is the adult sized armor was even larger and the actual adult who filled it was bigger than a football player (who are all really huge).
My friend has told me this story more than once, I need to pin him down on facts. But it's an interesting story.
I'm pretty sure that the motivation for this experiment was to settle a long-standing argument about D&D encumbrance rules.
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
While it has long been assumed that heavy medieval armor limited mobility, and that this contributed to the outcome of battles, such as the Battle of Agincourt in 1415
Nonsense. It's well established that being French contributes to the outcome of battles, such as the Battle of Agincourt. The effects of armor is minor in comparison.
Actually, the English won at Agincourt (despite being outnumbered) because they had longbows. The battle signals the end of the era of the mounted knight and the rise of the infantry revolution, one of a few fundamental shifts in warfare. (Basic Training [Romans]; Infantry [Longbows shoot through armor]; Gunpowder [major infrastructure required], Modern [Machine Gun, Mechanized Warfare, WMDs]). It also made nationalism more important--you needed the loyalty of the people with the longbows, not just of the people wealthy enough to own armor.
Agincourt is also the battle Shakespeare wrote his "Band of Brothers" bit for--in a play which Data performed on the holodeck for Captain Picard. (The scene where the King is going hidden among his subjects.)
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
'The US wasn't scared of France then.' no they where too busy repainting the White house to care.
Interestingly, US Schools teach that the British torched the White House, but they usually omit that it was done in retaliation for the U.S.'s burning the houses of Parliament in Canada--which is why the Canadian capital was moved to Ottawa.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
I believe that the knights were required to buy their own armor. And if you could afford that, you could probably afford a horse too.
Generally, but there were many times they did not have horses. For example, during one of the crusades it is estimated that tens of thousands of horses left Europe and effectively none made it back alive. The knights who survived, if they kept their armor, walked in it.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
It is a known fact that plate armour and leathers were only worn when in hand-to-hand combat, and chainmail was worn to stop arrows or bolts.
They didn't wear their armour durring the long walk, but maybe their L-Padded. Remember how I a spell "armour" properly, so assume I'm English. The reason the French lost was they were ...French. They probably pulled their own carts of pre-slaughtered beef-cuts on the way to the battlefield, rather than have the cow be alive pulling the armoured men to the battlefield and only kill the cow when they're hungrily done with combat.
Besides the Battle of Agincourt, which proved that armored knights on horseback was no match for large formation of well-train longbow archers, I think another battle nearly 100 years later--the Battle of Cerignola in southern Italy--proved that full-body armor of the time was useless against the then-new gunpowder firearm, the harquebus gun.
Modern medieval armor wearers cant get laid.
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
I never would have thought wearing around 110 pounds of pot metal and swinging a 10 pound metal sword like your life depended on it would cause fatigue. Fascinating, no really!
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
So the weight on the legs didn't matter.
Not even close to the first study. And not much of a study, either.
The Discovery channel ran a 2-hour documentary as a 2-part series called "Medieval Tournament: Making of a Knight" nearly a decade ago. It did a much better job of re-creating the period environment, and they determined that most of the stories about armor are bullshit.
This BBC treadmill "study" is horribly flawed and amounts to jack shit. For starters:
The breast and back plates of the medieval armour also affected breathing: instead of being able to take long, deep breaths while they worked up a sweat, the volunteers were forced to take frequent, shallow breaths, and this too used up more energy.
.
What this tells us, is that the armor does not fit them properly.
The BBC just used whatever gear these guys were using for their re-enactments. They call them 'exact replicas' and that's a problem, because the originals they were based on were made for somebody else entirely. I'm ignoring all the other problems with using a replica instead of using a battle-ready period accurate piece.
The DC's series had an actual Master Smith hand-forge each of them their own battle-ready, museum-quality replica. And this guy is used by the world's top museums to create display armor which is 100% true to the time period, as opposed to being a visual copy of one that was found or preserved.
The result was that their armor fit properly, so they had no trouble climbing on/off horses, jumping, running, and even sprinting in full plate mail across broken ground.
So the BBC's study really only gives us two potential conclusions: That running in someone else's armor sucks, and that it's not easy to run on a hard, flat surface when wearing armor which is designed for running across semi-soft and broken ground.
In Vietnam, when none of our infrastructure on U.S. soil was levelled into the dirt by bombs & no vietnamese soldiers were present on U.S. soil occupying OUR cities?
That's the part that constantly kicks my ass whenever I hear people say THAT utter bullshit... and I mean that.
(I say that, because if that's "losing a war/being defeated", especially when the other side took that kind of a beating? I'll take being "defeated" any day of the week, vs. being "the winner", anytime...!)
* It TRULY "boggles my mind" to hear anyone say "the U.S. was defeated in Vietnam", because of THAT alone!
APK
P.S.=> For example, I've NEVER seen anyone say that in say, a boxing match, the guy with no cuts/blood running down his face "lost", especially when the other guy was SO badly beaten he's bleeding &/or knocked out!
... apk
The saying is "If you can't get laid at Pennsic, you can't get laid." (Pennsic is an annual gathering of SCA members from all around the world).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
They, like the U.S., withdrew due to 2 things:
---
1.) Unpopularity with those funding it, taxpayers
2.) Economics
---
* HOWEVER, I don't see any cities occupied OR DESTROYED in either the U.S.A. or U.S.S.R. (in either conflict)... but, I sure saw & know of that happening in Vietnam &/or Afghanistan, for sure.
Plus - once you beat the hell out of a guy, unless you want to KILL them? What's the point?? Either nation could have used NUKES & did that, easily... but, they did not. Didn't HAVE to...
APK
P.S.=> Now - I don't know about you, but, everytime I have seen a fight or been in one myself (unfortuantely)?
Well... The guy with his head pummeled & bleeding on the ground knocked out, is the guy who lost...
( & neither the US nor the USSR (whatever they call themselves now) are "that guy", in either case)...
So, all this b.s. of "The U.S. 'lost vietnam'" or "The U.S.S.R. 'lost in Afghanistan'"?
Complete crap...
... apk
I think someone like Richard the Lionheart was probably the excepion to the rule. If you look at most suits of armour in museums they look quite small by modern standards.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
It's a well-known fact that modern people are on average taller and bigger than those who lived in the medieval times.
Don't cure cancer or anything, investigate shit that happened 300 years ago.
Is anyone else confused by the !armor tag applied to this article?