Ask me anything about historical arms and armor.

[BreweryYardRat]

Because I'm bored and I need to focus on something other than the fact that my stomach hates me.

[AllegroRondo]

1. Whats the difference between a glaive and a bardiche?

[BreweryYardRat]

11. While both are relatively simple polearms...

...the glaive is essentially a short (about 18") blade on the end of a pole, while the bardiche is a good-sized but not exceptional axe head mounted on a pole.

Would you like me to provide pics?

[Kutjara]

2. Just how much quietus can a bare bodkin make? m/t

[BreweryYardRat]

13. Depends where you place the shot. N/T

[taterguy]

3. Which historical conflict would you like to fight in?

[BreweryYardRat]

16. Hmm...

Are we talking just individual battles here, or full-on wars/campaigns?

[taterguy]

19. Either

[BreweryYardRat]

24. All right...

For battles, I'd have to say Hastings.

For campaigns...I'd go with Alexander the Great's sweep through the Near East and on to the borders of India.

[Tyler Durden]

4. If you pee in your armor, how fast does it rust?

[seemunkee]

5. Have you been to the Higgins Armory Museum?

[BreweryYardRat]

14. I'd like to, but not yet. N/T

[Deep13]

34. I've been there a lot, but not lately.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

6. Which would be your weapon of choice - samurai sword or war hammer?

[BreweryYardRat]

9. Depends on the styles of both and who I'd be fighting.

Sword: Washikazi (shorter) or katana (longer)?

War hammer: Knight's (shorter) or footman's (longer)?

Who am I fighting? Unarmored peasants, moderately protected men-at-arms, or heavily armored knights?

As a general rule, I'd go with a footman's warhammer, but that's not hard-and-fast.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

18. Katana and Knight's

Let's go with moderately armored.

[BreweryYardRat]

22. Then I'd go with a knight's warhammer.

Katanas aren't very good at the thrusts that are the best way to get through mail (a hard cut might do the job, but it's a gamble, and it'd just glance off a helmet or breastplate), so I'd sacrifice reach for punch.

Since I went with the warhammer, do I get a shield?

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

33. Hell no, you cheater!

:D

[Maddy McCall]

7. What was the first RMA?

How did it affect the making or war?

:hi:

[BreweryYardRat]

15. What's an RMA?

I've never heard the term before, yet it sounds vaguely familiar.

[Maddy McCall]

17. Revolution in Military Affairs.

[skygazer]

8. Why do they call it a codpiece?

Do they keep fish in there?

[BreweryYardRat]

21. No, one of the medieval/Renaissance words for 'crotch' was 'cod.'

Got a serious question? ;)

[skygazer]

23. Actually that was a serious question

I knew fish had nothing to do with it but did always wonder where the "cod" in it came from. :hi:

[Blue-Jay]

10. Why is it called a "bastard sword"?

[Evoman]

12. Bastard: Half way between One handed sword, and two handed sword.

Since its neither, and both, they call it a bastard.

[Solon]

20. Also known as a hand and a half sword...

because it could be used as either.

[XemaSab]

25. So the people of central Asia prior to the Mongol invasion:

what kind of arms and armor did they have?

What kind of arms and armor did the Mongols have? :shrug:

[BreweryYardRat]

29. Lemme do some research on that one.

Western gear is more my specialty, but you've piqued my curiousity.

Here's what I can tell you off the top of my head:

Scale and lamellar armor has always been popular in Asia, and the jazeraint (mail shirt with punched plates in the center in place of links) may well have briefly spread to the upper classes of Central Asian nobility, although it wasn't developed until very shortly before the Mongol conquest erupted.

Mongols: Composite bows and enduring steppe ponies were their best weapons-being able to hit your enemy from further away with more force is a serious factor, and having a horse that tires slower than your enemy's is vital as well (being able to ride circles around someone, etc...) Mongol upper-class warriors probably would have had scale or lamellar armor (lower classess probably making do with boiled leather or nothing). I've heard that after they conquered China, the Mongols adopted silk shirts under their armor to help reduce arrow injuries (something in the way silk twists when an arrow hits), but they'd wear them until the shirts rotted off.

If I recall correctly, Mongol heavy horsemen had lances.

[XemaSab]

30. Suweet!

Thanks for the info. :hi:

[Lisa]

32. and in the meantime ...

While Seawolf is opening up those scrolls, you might enjoy this site, run by a friend of mine in New York. There is some stuff about the steppe peoples prior to 1000 AD.

http://www.redkaganate.org/tribelist/

[Xipe Totec]

26. Name this weapon

And say what century it is from.

No fair peeking!

[BreweryYardRat]

28. Aztec (or generally, Meso-American) macaqhuitl/war club.

Probably late 15th-early 16th century for that specific piece. Lord knows how long the design was around for before the Spanish showed up.

[Xipe Totec]

37. Very good!

I'll have to try harder, if I want to stump you!

:thumbsup:

[Lisa]

27. Were there ever all-organic (wood, bone, etc.) pugio hilts?

(Those are Roman military daggers, for the uninitiated.)

In Bishop and Coulston's book, there were hints that there had been organic hilt remains located (as well as the familiar T-shaped type made from metal sheeting). I could speculate that these were just scaled-down versions of the wood, bone, or ivory spatha and gladius hilts, but I don't have anything to back this up.

I was hoping they might get around to elaborating on this in the new edition last year, but no such luck. Have you heard anything more specific?

(some pics of various pugio blades)
http://www.romancoins.info/MilitaryEquipment-pugio.html


Also -- I finally found someone in Ontario who could make me a pattern-welded spatha or gladius (he usually does Viking swords but is keen to try something earlier). It would have to be a late Roman sword because from what I've heard, that's when the pattern-welded examples were being made. I can't really afford one of the bigger blades, but a "semispatha" would be within reach. Any ideas on the dimensions?
In this set of examples, #3 is definitely quite short, but it could just be a snapped-off spatha that someone decided to make do with. #5, on the other hand, seems to have been much more deliberately constructed. I still don't know if it really IS a semispatha, though.

[Ptah]

31. How many combatants would depend on each blacksmith, or

did they make their own?

[BreweryYardRat]

35. As a rough guess, I'd say ten men.

Making weapons and quality armor (mail in Western Europe and mail, scale, or lamellar in Eastern Europe and the Middle East) is a long, expensive process. It might have gone up to twenty during the last century or two armor was used (when mail shirts had fallen out of favor and the techniques for making plate had become common, much-practiced knowledge), but that's just idle speculation.

And most soldiers/warriors could probably do minor field repairs (for example, pull and replace damaged links in a mail shirt), but not make their own.

[Deep13]

36. Did Spartans really fight in leather Speedos like in 300...

...or did they wear upper body armor?

[SteppingRazor]

38. I think I can field this one

Ordinarily, Spartans fought as would any Greek hoplite, with a helmet, shield, spear, breastplate, shinguards, etc. (see the picture of the 4th century BC hoplite here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoplite, at the bottom of the page. This hoplite is approximately contemporaneous with the battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC).

However, the Spartans at Thermopylae may well have been nearly naked while fighting. According to contemporary sources, the Persians observed the Greeks, directly before the battle, performing exercises while nude. The Persians took this as a sign of effete weakness, not knowing that, to the Spartans, these naked calisthenics were a preparation for death in battle. In other words, knowing that the battle was suicide, the Spartans made preparations to die, such preparations included nudity, and, if the Persians came at them soon afterward, the Spartans may very well have fought as you see them in the movie.

Of course, that's half speculation, and the state of undress of the Spartans is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to that movie's historical inconsistencies (although, that said, it was a pretty sweet film! I loved Tombstone, too, and it was just as asinine, from a historical perspective.)

[Lisa]

39. it would certainly make for some, ahem, interesting modern-day re-enactments

I'm sure Seawolf will have more up-to-date info than I've got, but I thought you might like this in the meantime. This site has some instructions for making a linothorax (the type of body armour which would have been available back around 490 BC, though not everyone would have had one, due to cost, or the perception that it was braver to go without). The hoplon (shield), though, would have been a must.

http://www.larp.com/hoplite/index.html

If the costume designers for the movie were using surviving paintings (on vases, etc.) as a guide, if anything the actors would have appeared overdressed ... some of those sources show the warriors wearing only helmets and sword baldrics. I suppose that might have been artistic license, but some historians feel that it wasn't uncommon for people who probably were wealthy or respected enough to have been able to get armour to fight without it (if not completely nude) -- I'll have to look at "Greece and Rome at War" again to see about this.



As Matthew Amt says, "If you thought finding good information for Roman equipment was difficult, let alone sources for accurate reproductions, you ain't seen nothin' yet. The ancient Greeks seem to have gone out of their way to make every item of armor or weaponry difficult to reproduce, and modern archeologists seem to have hidden away vast quantities of artifacts just to keep reenactors from finding out how the darn things were made." (He knows what he's talking about -- he's even mentioned in the new edition of Bishop and Coulston's Roman Military Equipment. Matthew's saved me in the past, from dropping good money on questionable reproductions ... I almost bought a Del Tin falcata with the all-brass hilt this month, but luckily I thought of checking his site first.)

I always wonder about how much we "know" of ancient cultures is just gossip from later commentators. I'm definitely not an authority on classical Greece, but from what I have heard, even back in those days, the Spartans had a reputation for being so stubborn that they would insist on doing things the hard way. A few centuries after the Persian Wars, there was a joke going around (I forget which historical source cited it) that a Spartan was offered a plate of sea urchins, and instead of cracking them open the way you were supposed to, he crunched down on them, spines and all. When someone laughed at him, he just grunted and said that he didn't like them much, but would finish them off anyway!