On Arms and Armor

[trentonian7]

I need some input as to my world's weapons and specifically, armor.

As a general rule I dislike suits of plate armor; plate is not nearly as cumbersome as many writers claim and I find it boring. It severely limits the weapons I am able to present in my story. Throughout history, armor has been designed to meet the dangers of weapons used in the field and the weapons of the day has evolved to meet these protections. With the invention of the sword came the invention of scale armor and mail, armor effective for the deflection of a cutting attack. With the innovation and spread of the crossbow, what had once been a shirt of mail and the occasional piece of plate became the full suit of armor, armor that renders it's wearer invulnerable to a number of weapons and attacks, limiting his opponents to piercing and crushing blows.

For this reason, I have decided to postpone the invention of the handheld crossbow and thus justify the lack of plate so commonly seen in fantasy. I favor lamellar, scale, and mail armor, though also single pieces like the cuirass and metal greaves or gauntlets.

On my main continent, the three western kingdoms favor axes, spears, and long swords. The majority of their armies are conscripted and as such often have only minimal arms and training. They do, however, have a warrior class similar to the knight. They wear mail and leather or steel gauntlets, greaves, and cuirass. They are primarily heavy cavalry, armed with long swords and pikes.

The western kingdoms, former colonies of the city states across the gulf, differ in their warfare, taking after their founders. They lack an elite warrior class, instead keeping a small standing army who's focus is on the spear and shield.

Seem okay?

 

[X Equestris]

Crossbows were around for a quite a while before plate armor came to the fore. You could have them exist alongside mail armor quite easily.

Otherwise it looks perfectly fine.

 

[TheokinsJ]

The invention of crossbows didn't hail the way for plate armour, as trentonian7 mentioned, I don't think the crossbow was the 'game-changer' that caused plate armour to become popular, my own belief is that the quality of steel and the availability of steel became better.
The big reason as to 'why' a certain type of armour is used, is down to the availability of certain materials. Mail, although time consuming to make, provides relatively good protection and good manoeuvrability, but it also doesn't require a huge amount of good-quality steel or skill to create.
Plate armour on the other hand, requires a very skilful blacksmith, and a lot of good-quality metal.

It was around about the late 10th- early 11th centuries that good-quality steel became much more readily available throughout Western Europe.

As for the weapons; spears and axes and long-swords all fit in pretty well with that time period and those types of armour.

 

[Vandor]

Full plate that most people think of was definitley cumbersome and heavy, especially older alloys. Armor and weapons are huge for how the culture approaches battles and tactics and even their own history and morals. Big examples are French knights, English longbowmen, Greek phalanx, and Roman legions.

As stated, plate and sword involved a huge amount of steel when compared to a ring jerkin and a spear, so cost is always a factor. Knights had whole communities to support themselves and maintain their own weapons and armor and those of their soldiers. The entire social structure of medieval Europe was devoted to maintaining the ranks of knights their nobles idealized.

English longbowmen came from the common ranks, as the nobility thought the bow was a peasant's weapon for hunting. Hence why there was a ready supply of well trained, experienced archers available. And it was the longbowmen that put an end to the knight is plate at Tours and Potiers. Crossbows could still punch through plate, and all it took was one hit to even disable the knight.

Both Greeks and Romans hired out legions of cavalry from neighboring regions, having specialized in their infantry formations. There is the thought that Greeks may have disdained the bow as a coward's weapon, perfering tests of direct confrontation.

In the end, its a constant fight. Armor gets better, so you find new weapons. Weapons render certain armor obsolete, so you find another approach. With the advent of readily available gunpowder, armor begins to decline altogether.

So look at your nations. What do they value? What do their morals and beliefs allow? Are they honor before trickery? Do they win at all costs? Do they fight from afar or get in your face? Do they hunt or farm? Roman legions were from an agrarian society, not hunter gatherers or peasants augmenting their harvest. Are they descended from another society known for a particular tactic? What resources do they have available? Heavy horse? Faster, smaller horses? No horses? Iron, copper, or flint? And terrain. You can't lead a cavalry charge in the jungle.

Things to think about if you want to make some of your nations stand out. ie, the Greek city states were spear and shield fighters, but Sparta was militarized and Corinth had a significant advantage in naval encounters. Alexander had horse from Macedon but adopted elephants after they were used against him.

So yes, your setup makes sense, and good for you for abandoning the standard mideival European approach to fantasy tech.

 

[trentonian7]

Full plate that most people think of was definitley cumbersome and heavy, especially older alloys. Armor and weapons are huge for how the culture approaches battles and tactics and even their own history and morals. Big examples are French knights, English longbowmen, Greek phalanx, and Roman legions.

As stated, plate and sword involved a huge amount of steel when compared to a ring jerkin and a spear, so cost is always a factor. Knights had whole communities to support themselves and maintain their own weapons and armor and those of their soldiers. The entire social structure of medieval Europe was devoted to maintaining the ranks of knights their nobles idealized.

English longbowmen came from the common ranks, as the nobility thought the bow was a peasant's weapon for hunting. Hence why there was a ready supply of well trained, experienced archers available. And it was the longbowmen that put an end to the knight is plate at Tours and Potiers. Crossbows could still punch through plate, and all it took was one hit to even disable the knight.

Both Greeks and Romans hired out legions of cavalry from neighboring regions, having specialized in their infantry formations. There is the thought that Greeks may have disdained the bow as a coward's weapon, perfering tests of direct confrontation.

In the end, its a constant fight. Armor gets better, so you find new weapons. Weapons render certain armor obsolete, so you find another approach. With the advent of readily available gunpowder, armor begins to decline altogether.

So look at your nations. What do they value? What do their morals and beliefs allow? Are they honor before trickery? Do they win at all costs? Do they fight from afar or get in your face? Do they hunt or farm? Roman legions were from an agrarian society, not hunter gatherers or peasants augmenting their harvest. Are they descended from another society known for a particular tactic? What resources do they have available? Heavy horse? Faster, smaller horses? No horses? Iron, copper, or flint? And terrain. You can't lead a cavalry charge in the jungle.

Things to think about if you want to make some of your nations stand out. ie, the Greek city states were spear and shield fighters, but Sparta was militarized and Corinth had a significant advantage in naval encounters. Alexander had horse from Macedon but adopted elephants after they were used against him.

So yes, your setup makes sense, and good for you for abandoning the standard mideival European approach to fantasy tech.

Actually, I've done research and plate armor does not seem to be very cumbersome at all. It is fairly heavy, but the weight is not overwhelming. You are still able to move with surprising amounts of agility.

My western states are a culture distinctive from the eastern colonies, however, the colonies have begun to assimilate the western culture more and more with every decade.

In war, the colonies are probably the most ruthless, however, the western states excel at ambush. They are just as comfortable fighting in the woods and hills as on the open field and, having been established kingdoms for centuries, hold some of the strongest fortresses on the peninsula.

While the colonies do maintain a small auxiliary force of cavalry and archery, their strength is their spear and their ships.

My world, however, is a magical one. Magic, while rare, is plentiful enough that most kingdoms have a small number of mages serving in their armies. The powers of these mages vary and the introduction of magic to a battlefield can yield very interesting results.

 

[The Greythrone]

My world, however, is a magical one. Magic, while rare, is plentiful enough that most kingdoms have a small number of mages serving in their armies. The powers of these mages vary and the introduction of magic to a battlefield can yield very interesting results.

Be sure you think through all the ramifications of adding mages to a battlefield. Depending on the amount of power, the ability of your mages to affect huge portions of the battlefield requires a general to modify their tactics to incorporate the mages.

Do your mages single each other out for dueling? or just rampage through the field of war? are there units who are specifically designed to support a wizard? or perhaps specifically to remove enemy magic-users as efficiently as possible.

Adding known magic to a battlefield, will require these things, just because of the additional theatre of war that has been created (kind of like Airplanes really affected the world wars) but can also make for some very memorable battles!

 

[trentonian7]

Do your mages single each other out for dueling? or just rampage through the field of war? are there units who are specifically designed to support a wizard? or perhaps specifically to remove enemy magic-users as efficiently as possible.

Adding known magic to a battlefield, will require these things, just because of the additional theatre of war that has been created (kind of like Airplanes really affected the world wars) but can also make for some very memorable battles!

Oo thank you very much for these questions, I haven't begun to think too much about it just yet, but these are very good questions from which to start.

 

[Vandor]

Don't know if you've read any of the Wheel of Time, but there's several occasions that employ a wide range of magic users and battlefield tactics; final book's battle scenes display numerous genius applications. Among them are simulated artilery, portal maps, and teleporting cannons. Just ook for chapters with Mat. Really makes you think creatively and well beyond 'lets thow fireballs at the cavalry'.

 

[Guy]

Weapons design didn't drive the development of plate armor, armor making technology did. There were solid pieces of bronze armor in the Bronze Age because working large pieces of bronze was fairly easy compared to working large pieces of iron. Iron helmets were usually made from several pieces riveted together. Same with the first iron breastplates. As blacksmiths got better, they figured out how to work large single pieces of iron and plate armor began to truly develop.

As stated, plate and sword involved a huge amount of steel when compared to a ring jerkin and a spear, so cost is always a factor. Knights had whole communities to support themselves and maintain their own weapons and armor and those of their soldiers.

Knights and men at arms had to pay out of pocket for their equipment. That's one reason not just anyone could do it, and knights and nobles often spent their lives in debt.

And it was the longbowmen that put an end to the knight is plate at Tours and Potiers. Crossbows could still punch through plate, and all it took was one hit to even disable the knight.

It wasn't archers so much as common infantry in general, starting in the fourteenth century, and various forces over the next centuries that led to the rise of standing armies. Arrows and bolts going through plate was a very, very iffy thing, depending on a number of factors.

 

[Vandor]

Yes, they had to purchase their own weapons and armor, and equip their own men. The whole feudal system gave the knights the resources to maintain those forces.

I'm not talking about arrows acting like .50 bullets, just having heavy tips, fired in a volley, and enough finding their mark and being able to pierce plate. Combine that with the rising popularity of mercenary companies that were the forerunners of standing armies after the Hundred Years' War, and you have the decline of the heavy cavalry European armies.

 

[X Equestris]

Yes, they had to purchase their own weapons and armor, and equip their own men. The whole feudal system gave the knights the resources to maintain those forces.

I'm not talking about arrows acting like .50 bullets, just having heavy tips, fired in a volley, and enough finding their mark and being able to pierce plate. Combine that with the rising popularity of mercenary companies that were the forerunners of standing armies after the Hundred Years' War, and you have the decline of the heavy cavalry European armies.

At Agincourt, where both sides had plate armor for their knights, the longbowman shot the horses out from under the knights. Their arrows couldn't really pierce full plate worn by the French knights. The armor worn by men at arms and regular foot soldiers, on the other hand, was far inferior, and could be pierced.

It was disciplined infantry that decreased the relevancy of knights. Things like Swiss pike formations, Scottish schiltrons, etc. Even then, knights in full plate were used well into the 1500s. After that, advances in firearms technology made full bullet resistant suits of steel impractical.

 

[Russ]

The role of the longbow in the eventual decline of heavily armoured knights tends to be a bit overstated for many reasons.

On a number of occasions post Agincourt and Poitiers, heavily armoured knights charged quite successfully en masse. Such as at say Patay, which the English don't talk that much about but was kind of important.

It was always kind of a tug of war, but X Eq above is about as close as a generalization can get. Firearms really brought that kind of deployment to an end.

The ability of a longbow to pierce properly built plate is long debated, but since they were often really used at a distance, which means they were fired more or less in volleys as indirect fire weapons there is little to convince us they penetrated well made plate very often.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

My understanding is that the longbow ended the days of the knight, but for different reasons. A crossbow is much slower to load than a longbow, and though it may fire heavier bolts which might or might not penetrate the plate depending on thickness and quality a longbow arrow with a metal tip has much the same penetrating power. But it also has range. So with longbows - also easier to make and equip troops with on the battlefield - you have more arrows flying across the field and crossing longer distances. And everyone's vulnerable to them unless and until you go to full suits of armour. Those with just breast and back plates could still be shot in the arms, legs and heads, and mail would not protect against a longbow arrow. Wasn't there a famous English king killed by looking up when arrows were descending and getting shot in the eye?

So full armour it was. But full suits cost gold and are heavy and cubersome, thus immediately making knights slow. The French even had to breed a new breed of horses - the percheron(?) - just to carry knights about because they weighed so much. So your new knight is suddenly massively out of pocket making numbers thinner on the ground to begin with. He's slower in battle too, and probably won't have the same density of men at arms around him by the time he crosses the field and gets into the melee. On horse back in full armour he's vulnerable to the rather simple tactic of simply pulling him off his horse, and despite all these noble laws about commoners never being able to kill a noble knight, that probably wouldn't have been a lot of protection in the heat of combat. And once a knights down - well he's stuffed. Think turtle lying on its back.

So the longbows fairly much ruined the field of battle for the glorious knight, even if it can't penetrate his armour. And then along came the firearm.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Gurkhal]

Hi,

My understanding is that the longbow ended the days of the knight, but for different reasons. A crossbow is much slower to load than a longbow, and though it may fire heavier bolts which might or might not penetrate the plate depending on thickness and quality a longbow arrow with a metal tip has much the same penetrating power. But it also has range. So with longbows - also easier to make and equip troops with on the battlefield - you have more arrows flying across the field and crossing longer distances. And everyone's vulnerable to them unless and until you go to full suits of armour. Those with just breast and back plates could still be shot in the arms, legs and heads, and mail would not protect against a longbow arrow. Wasn't there a famous English king killed by looking up when arrows were descending and getting shot in the eye?

So full armour it was. But full suits cost gold and are heavy and cubersome, thus immediately making knights slow. The French even had to breed a new breed of horses - the percheron(?) - just to carry knights about because they weighed so much. So your new knight is suddenly massively out of pocket making numbers thinner on the ground to begin with. He's slower in battle too, and probably won't have the same density of men at arms around him by the time he crosses the field and gets into the melee. On horse back in full armour he's vulnerable to the rather simple tactic of simply pulling him off his horse, and despite all these noble laws about commoners never being able to kill a noble knight, that probably wouldn't have been a lot of protection in the heat of combat. And once a knights down - well he's stuffed. Think turtle lying on its back.

So the longbows fairly much ruined the field of battle for the glorious knight, even if it can't penetrate his armour. And then along came the firearm.

Cheers, Greg.

Forgive my potential ignorance but this makes not sense at all to me that longbows would have ended the age of knights.

For one thing the English were decisively defeated in the Hundred Years' War and lost pretty much all of its Continental possessions as well as gav up all ambitions for major Continental expansions, and English armies with large numbers of longbows were on several occasions defeated by French armies with lots of either knights or heavily armored horse in them. Thus would in effect mean that most armies never face the English longbow and in fact I can't think of a single army with knights as a major force in it that fought the English with exception of the French. So longbows would have had fairly little effect on the major developments of Europe as far as I can see, as the great war between longbows vs knights ended in victory for the knights, or at the least cavalry.

Now if longbows had been adopted widly across Europe we could be talking but it seems to me that it never was outside of the England and Wales.

To the general topic I find that disciplined infantry makes for a much more convincing answer given that it was used and encounted in many places across Europe with success against the cavalry of the gentry; Scots, Flemish and Swiss all showed cavalry was beatable by foot soldiers.

 

[Guy]

Forgive my potential ignorance but this makes not sense at all to me that longbows would have ended the age of knights.

For one thing the English were decisively defeated in the Hundred Years' War and lost pretty much all of its Continental possessions as well as gav up all ambitions for major Continental expansions, and English armies with large numbers of longbows were on several occasions defeated by French armies with lots of either knights or heavily armored horse in them. Thus would in effect mean that most armies never face the English longbow and in fact I can't think of a single army with knights as a major force in it that fought the English with exception of the French. So longbows would have had fairly little effect on the major developments of Europe as far as I can see, as the great war between longbows vs knights ended in victory for the knights, or at the least cavalry.

Now if longbows had been adopted widly across Europe we could be talking but it seems to me that it never was outside of the England and Wales.

To the general topic I find that disciplined infantry makes for a much more convincing answer given that it was used and encounted in many places across Europe with success against the cavalry of the gentry; Scots, Flemish and Swiss all showed cavalry was beatable by foot soldiers.

This. Historians are largely in agreement, especially with that last paragraph. And, as has been stated many times, plate armor wasn't as heavy and cumbersome as many people think. No, it wasn't as light and easy as jeans and a tee shirt, either, but soldiers today go into battle carrying more weight than knights did. Knights were professional fighters. Their entire lives were oriented around war. If we who are not professional fighters know wearing heavy armor is a bad idea, they certainly would have. They were perfectly aware of the need for mobility. They had to be able to run, jump, climb, etc. all while wearing armor. Plate armor started getting heavy as armorers tried to contend with guns. They actually did make some armor that could withstand musket fire, and yes, that armor was heavy and cumbersome, so plate armor fell out of use because it could no longer fulfill its function.

And as I stated earlier, plate armor wasn't developed in response to arrows or crossbow bolts. It developed as soon as armorers figured out how to work large single pieces of iron.

 

[psychotick]

Hi Gurkhal,

Forgive mine in turn. But wasn't the longbow decisive in many of the battles of the hundred years war against men in armour? Sluys, Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt. Yes later on armour and tactics both improved and in particular the heavily armoured cavalry learned to rush lines of archers early on to try and limit the damage they could do. But in turn archers starte shooting horses out from under the knights, forcing them to walk the battlefield. Even in armour that must have been a horrifying walk and when they finally reached the enemy they were vulnerable to infantry in the melee as they hadn't been on horseback. Also not all men in armour were fully kitted out in suits of armour - even by the latter part of the fourteenth century it wasn't affordable.

As to your contention that the fact that most continental armies never faced the English or Welsh longbow and therefore never had to deal with it, that didn't change the fact that they knew about the weapon. I'm sorry but you don't simply upgrade your armour to full plate etc simply because your smiths have worked out how to do it. That doesn't make sense. It costs gold. It weighs you down. So why do it unless there's a nee? You do it because the technologies available AND you see a threat. And don't forget most of Europe would have been hearing horror stories about this new terror weapon by the first half of the hundred years war. Knights taken down in their hundreds! Massive defeats! That's why there was a drive to improve the armour technology in the first place.

So yeah, the longbow has essentially changed the course of battle and warfare and begun the downfall of the knight / heavily armoured cavalry. And it didn't even have to penetrate the newer better steel plate to do it.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Gurkhal]

Hi Gurkhal,

Forgive mine in turn. But wasn't the longbow decisive in many of the battles of the hundred years war against men in armour? Sluys, Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt. Yes later on armour and tactics both improved and in particular the heavily armoured cavalry learned to rush lines of archers early on to try and limit the damage they could do. But in turn archers starte shooting horses out from under the knights, forcing them to walk the battlefield. Even in armour that must have been a horrifying walk and when they finally reached the enemy they were vulnerable to infantry in the melee as they hadn't been on horseback. Also not all men in armour were fully kitted out in suits of armour - even by the latter part of the fourteenth century it wasn't affordable.

As to your contention that the fact that most continental armies never faced the English or Welsh longbow and therefore never had to deal with it, that didn't change the fact that they knew about the weapon. I'm sorry but you don't simply upgrade your armour to full plate etc simply because your smiths have worked out how to do it. That doesn't make sense. It costs gold. It weighs you down. So why do it unless there's a nee? You do it because the technologies available AND you see a threat. And don't forget most of Europe would have been hearing horror stories about this new terror weapon by the first half of the hundred years war. Knights taken down in their hundreds! Massive defeats! That's why there was a drive to improve the armour technology in the first place.

So yeah, the longbow has essentially changed the course of battle and warfare and begun the downfall of the knight / heavily armoured cavalry. And it didn't even have to penetrate the newer better steel plate to do it.

Cheers, Greg.

Hi there!

I'm sorry but what you write still sounds incredible and wrong, while there are other explinations readily available to us.

The longbow was decidedly decisive in many early and midwar battles of the Hundred Year's War. However you make it sound like the longbowmen keps moving the knights down which isn't true. After the French learned the tricks of dealing with the longbow, the tables were reversed and the war concluded "shortly" thereafter. And if it would be true that the knights turns to foot it remains a fact that the knights butchered the longbowmen.

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

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

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

As to your next point, the very same thing that you claim for longbows had also been acomplished by pikes, crossbows and discipline on the Continent at the same time with the same effect. I see no reason to think that longbows would thus have created this development when there were Continental examples to dread for the Continental nobility. In fact I'd wager that the crossbow had a larger effect of ending the age of knights than longbows did.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Golden_Spurs#Forces

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

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

And finally I do not agree with the idea that longbows ended the age of knights, due to its limited use to the British Islands. What ended the age of knights was the rise of the disciplined infantry in general. Longbowmen were however a part of this general development of infantry becoming powerful enough to hold back cavalry, but longbowmen remained a part of a great phenomenon.

 

[Guy]

I'm sorry but you don't simply upgrade your armour to full plate etc simply because your smiths have worked out how to do it. That doesn't make sense. It costs gold. It weighs you down. So why do it unless there's a nee? You do it because the technologies available AND you see a threat. And don't forget most of Europe would have been hearing horror stories about this new terror weapon by the first half of the hundred years war. Knights taken down in their hundreds! Massive defeats! That's why there was a drive to improve the armour technology in the first place.

We could sure use body armor that could stand up to RPGs, but we don't have it. Why? Despite the need, the technology simply doesn't exist. It doesn't matter how badly you need something if no one has the ability to make it. The need for better armor was always there. Plate armor existed in the Bronze Age, but it disappeared with the advent of iron armor. Large pieces of bronze were relatively easier to work. Large pieces of iron, not so much. Knights used pieces of iron to reinforce their mail by the 12th century, a piece over the chest or several pieces riveted together, and there were coats of plates. This was well before the longbow established its reputation. There was a drive to improve armor because there were plenty of weapons besides bows that could compromise it. By the mid 14th century they developed the ability to make full suits of plate armor.
It might not make much sense to you, but historians are in agreement with Gurkhal's argument. Matthew Strickland and Clifford Rogers are two I can think of off the top of my head.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Well since you mentioned Clifford Rogers you might want to read this: The English longbow as a killing machine.

http://militaryrevolution.s3.amazonaws.com/Primary sources/Longbow.pdf

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Guy]

I don't think anyone said archers weren't a force to be reckoned with. We're saying - and Rogers agrees - that they were a significant aspect of the rise of infantry, and it was the rise of infantry in general that had a bigger impact than archers alone. Foot soldiers on continental Europe defeated knights without the use or longbows. The Swiss were famous for it, yet they relied on halberds and pikes rather than bows and arrows. Some of the best plate armor was developed in Italy and Germany by people who didn't have to contend with English archers. According to both Strickland and archaeological evidence, plate was being developed before the longbow became such a major presence on the battlefield, and nowhere in there did Rogers say longbows resulted in the development of plate armor. It affected armor design, as did other weapons, but it was not solely responsible for the advent of plate. The need for better protection from all weapons plus technological advances resulted in full plate body armor.