Tue's medieval WEAPON page 3

Ok this 3. and last page it dedicated to the fantasy confusion about armor....actually its not that bad...I only found one really bad mistake...

Banded mail..... Its a type of armor only found in drawings like in this picture... It has never been found! The few trys to reconstruct one has failed to produce a satisfactury armor. As the drawing shows its a lot of rings with a row of scales in between.....and that type of armor is NOT very flexible.. Or, in other words.... it does not exsist, AD&D has included a imaginary armor in their inventory ! Well we just might accept it if they say that it's cos of its an imaginary game.

Then there is another odd thing....its the use of the word mail. It is used to described wowen armor like chain armor...which is wowen rings.

Scale armor is not a mail, because its material (its scales) is just fastenet to a jeather shirt...it is not wowen...the scales are appendices to the leather shirt. Actually there are 5 main types of armor: plate, mail, scale, brigandine and jazerant. You cannot just mix these types and then get a Plate mail!(it could exsist, but it's still like making a word like smoketurner!) Or (as described before,) scale mail either.

Brigandine armor qvote: 'a armor of plates of iron or steel. Brigandine is plates of iron or steel overlapping upwards and riveted to a canvas garnment usually covered with silk or velvet'.

The plates where often inside the cloth.. so it does not resemble any of he other types of armor.

Jazerant is a special scale and chain-like armor used in asia. Its made of scales put together with small rings.....so in a way this is a 'scale mail', but because such a defenition would be to mix two other main groups it has gotten a whole new name! So as a rule use only mail to descripe chain armors eg. chain mail. I found a subtype armor called a ringed armor its a bit like brigandine but has chain not plates ringed on to it, and has the chain on the outside of the shirt.

Wanna go back? ok click here to go to Weapons or here to go to smashing weapons......Or here if u read it all!