>covering entire body except lower legs and jumping on a horse where your legs are easy to hit with a sword
What did they mean by this?
>covering entire body except lower legs and jumping on a horse where your legs are easy to hit with a sword
>covering entire body except lower legs and jumping on a horse where your legs are easy to hit with a sword
What did they mean by this?
Weight is the limiting factor of humans on the battlefield. If you can't carry more, you have to trade one kind for another, and in this case it meant less leg weight to gain a bulletproof breastplate.
greaves tended to be thin and rely on their shape to deflect weapons. this wouldn't help against gunshots in the 16 and 17th century and the rest of the armor had to become heavier to deal with them so it was easy to cut them to save some weight. heavy tassets were relied on instead
also in the ancient world cavalry often had 0 leg protection when they still wore regular armor on their chests and arms so for whatever reason the legs weren't seen as necessary to protect
The metabolic costs of lower limb armor (lower legs & forearms) are insane. Nothing will tire you out faster.
You want as much of your armor's weight to rest on your hips as possible, and then you want to be seated on a strong horse. (Even your helmet should be supported by your breastplate, which is structured to come to rest on your hips.) This way, you don't feel the weight of your armor. (Though it is still highly restrictive in terms of range of motion.)
t. knight.
These soldiers didn't walk in armors , they ride horses so it doesn't matter
Hoplites had greaves despite not even having horses
they often didnt as well,or only on the lead leg that wasnt covered as well by the hoplon
Because they're fighting in a line and it's the only bit not covered by the shield. Stabbing down at someone's feet is easier than aiming a blow at someone's leg rampaging around on a horde, I'm assuming those boots will have a decent amount of padding too.
>Cavalry jackboot
>The term originally denoted tall ‘winged’ leather cavalry boots, which were reinforced against sword blows by use of mail sewn into the lining of the leather.
>The term originates from the French word jaque meaning ‘coat of mail’.
>These boots were made very heavy by the mail reinforcement
Interedasting. Usual case of us not knowing for layman's on glance that there might be armor underneath something.
the tactics of the day meant that they rarely got into melee and if they did they'd be fucked leg armor or not. normally they'd be in a group and make a circle in front of a pike and shot formation and unload pistols into them from outside of the pikes range but inside the range of the rifles. A horse might survive a shit from a matchlock long enough for the guy to flee but if he was hit in the chest he'd be as dead as disco which is why they wore all that armor around vital(ish) areas. When formations became more shot and less pike heavy with the advances in musketery the very heavy pistol using cavalier faded away.
Imagine not charging directly into enemy and only carrying guns for lulz
It's a common misconception that cuirassiers solely relied on the caracole as it was a quite situational tactic.
The lance in that pic is too short. The Winged Hussars used absurdly long hollow lances, which gave them almost the same range as a pistol. The lances themselves were disposable.
maybe it's the shitty smaller one they used when fighting tatars and cossacks
It's shown from the front. At certain angle your dick looks 3 cm.
If so, the perspective was done a bit wrong on the lance, because it doesn't look like its being held at such an angle.
Just don't get close to infantry, thats why you carry a gun
Euro style grieves require individual fit (they are held on the leg just by very close fit). Those armors were batch made and stored in arsenals to issue later (hence name minution armour). These can't be tight fitted, they need be adjustmented by design. So they had designs feature to simplify armor and make it adjustable. Grieves were dropped and cuisses (thigh) made from overplaped plates (animated plates). Such design allows to stretch them to fit to specific thigh length.
Also primary danger for reiters would be lance , horseman sword and bullet for all these threats grieves are not very important.
>Those armors were batch made and stored in arsenals to issue later
Yes, as we can clearly see this is some real cheap-ass budget armour.
>they are held on the leg just by very close fit
Plus being attached to the knee guard, which is attached to the cuisse, which is pointed to you arming coat or belt.
>Some things are expensive
>Therefore nothing is cheap
>be on horseback
>on the reload our muskets are falling back to skirmish with their foot.
>cavalry to screen
>enemy foot closes. I and the lads sweep and whirl, our ponies kicking and biting while we swing and stab
>cheeky fucker gets around me and gives me a whack on the shin with a stubby, basket-hilted thing.
>fucking OW, m8
>I run him through and carry on.
>muskets reloaded, cavalry retreats to the flank
>likely lose the leg, but fuck it:
I'm on a horse.
I'm going to guess that the combat style of the time didn't involve a lot of hits at the legs. Infantry would mostly fight off cavalry with pikes, aimed high at the man or the horse. Cavalry obviously fought each other at equal height. Sure, if you come across a musketeer with his sidearm, at low speed, he might be able to go for the legs, but that's unlikely to happen. More likely it would be a ride-by, or a frontal charge in which the horse would already trample the foot soldier.
The boots are enough to defend against slashes. Actual metal foot armor would be too heavy, better to just protect the most important parts (head and chest) and the arms (since they're what holds the weapons).
This is armor from the 1600s. Specifically savoyard style or three quarters armor. In that time European battles weren't tiny medieval slugfest between tiny immobile armies on small shoving-match battlefields: 1600s battles were huge affairs involving 50,000 men pulling off maneuvers in a huge area.
Being lighter was the name of the game this time around. Hence European knights, cuirassiers, and armored cavalry at this time wore simplified, three-quarters armor, which was easy to put on, covered the important parts, but was immensely lighter than ye olde 1500s Full Plate Armor.
Worth noting that the "three-quarters" term is somewhat of a misnomer. The boots were armored, as anon here:
quoted from wiki. They just weren't "plate greave and solleret"-tier armored.
you mean heavier? cuz you know, muskets make armor useless if it is too thin?
>but was immensely lighter than ye olde 1500s Full Plate Armor.
It wasn't. It was actually heavier because made of much thicker (up to 4-6mm vs 1.0-2.0) steel. Guns really were The Big Problem for armor.
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/23200
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/22259
https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/71380
That armor is literally heavier than anything knights wore, because it needs to stop guns, while medieval armor just needs to stop arrows and swords
I am reading Egil's saga and in it they state that for a warrior armed with a shield, spear and sword it makes sense for them to tie their sword to their arm so that they don't need to draw it in the middle of battle
Can anyone explain what this means?
I assume they aren't having a sword dangling on their arm
Pistol-proof armor was heavier than traditional plate. It came at the cost of less coverage. Remember, don't buy armor unless you can see the bulletproof (picrel).