The armour thread

How many of you feel me on this? I went to the Met in NYC last summer and caught their arms/armor exhibit. I was surprised how evil and sinister most of the armor looked in person. The weapons in turn, the actual instruments of killing, looked far less oppressive and evil, but more... I can't find the right word. Glorious gives the wrong connotation. Valorous? Hopeful? It was a strange thing. It's also interesting, how seeing armor in person, they look a lot more like some industrial piece of practical metalwork. Even some of the really embossed stuff. The pictures just don't convey it.
 
Hygro said:
How many of you feel me on this? I went to the Met in NYC last summer and caught their arms/armor exhibit. I was surprised how evil and sinister most of the armor looked in person. The weapons in turn, the actual instruments of killing, looked far less oppressive and evil, but more... I can't find the right word. Glorious gives the wrong connotation. Valorous? Hopeful? It was a strange thing. It's also interesting, how seeing armor in person, they look a lot more like some industrial piece of practical metalwork. Even some of the really embossed stuff. The pictures just don't convey it.
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Maybe it's because weapons are often shown as useful tools in the hands of heroes, while full armor suits can have a dehumanizing effect on their wearers, who transform into metallic, faceless killing machines. Contemporary authors especially noted this about cataphracts and a similar super-heavy cavalry type, the clibanarius:

Spoiler :
"His soldiers feared most the men in full armour (kataphraktou) . . ."
-Plutarch, Moralia, 203 (Lucullus, 2), on the Armenian cataphracts at Tigranocerta

"When Antoninus (sic) . . . made trial of the Parthians in combat, after he had seen their men clad in full armour (catafractis) he lapsed so completely into fear that on his own he sent the King a letter promoting peace."
-Nazarius, Paneg., 24.6, on Lucius Verus' Parthian campaign, AD 165 (he named the wrong emperor)

"What a spectacle that is said to have been, how dreadful to behold, how terrible, horses and men alike enclosed in a covering of iron."
-Nazarius, Paneg., 22.4, on Maxentius's clibanarii at the Battle of Turin

"...cavalry so invulnerably equipped as to lend them a terrible aspect..."
-Libanius, Oration XVIII, 18.37, on the cavalry of Constantius

"...they all sat their horses like statues (andriantas)... An iron helmet covering the face itself gives the appearance of a shiny and glittering statue (andriantos)..."
-Julian, Oration I, 37C-D, on Constantius's clibanarii again

"...all masked, furnished with protecting breastplates and girt with iron belts, so that you might have supposed them statues (simulacra) polished by the hand of Praxiteles, not men."
-Ammianus, 16.10.8, on Constantius's escort detail into Rome

"...the limbs within give life to the armour's pliant scales so artfully conjoined, and strike terror into the beholder. 'Tis as though iron statues (simulacra) moved and men lived cast from the same metal... each stands alone, a pleasure yet a dread to behold, beautiful yet terrible..."
Claudian, In Rufinum II, on the clibanarii of Rufinus

All from here, along with a discussion on the distinction between cataphracts/catafractarii and clibanarii.


At least, full helmets can be dehumanizing because they cover the face. This is one of the reasons heroes in movies and art rarely wear helmets, along with the need to recognize the hero.

In fact, pretty much all fully enclosing helmets seem to have that kind of dehumanizing, intimidating effect:

The great helm (worn by the men on the left)
Spoiler :


The Germans and others loved silly helmet crests, but more on that later:
Spoiler :


More helmets later.
 
I'm learning so much about armor that I didn't know before. The whole World War One thing is amazingly interesting.

Please, continue this awesome thread!
 
^I would have thought that the above would more likely be Japanese, given that those warriors who wore that armor seemed to have been more interested in maintaining a thin figure above all else :D
 
Joecoolyo said:
I'm learning so much about armor that I didn't know before. The whole World War One thing is amazingly interesting.

Please, continue this awesome thread!
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Yes, sir!:D You should definitely read the online book I linked if you're interested in WWI armor. I never knew there were so many designs from so many countries used by so many soldiers during the war. Obviously, it was always a small percentage, but still!
ReindeerThistle said:
I told you, Phrossack! Armour is not the new Poland.
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Phew!

Here is some Chinese armor, period unknown.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure that's made for display and not historical, unfortunately. Still looks coo, though.
Cutlass said:
Relevant linky
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There is literally nothing wrong with that article. And that blackened armor is just...:drool: I WANT ONE NAOW

I'll get around to another proper post some time later this weekend or maybe this week.
 
Phrossack said:
I'm pretty sure that's made for display and not historical, unfortunately. Still looks coo, though.
Click to expand...

It does seem based on historical designs, htough.

I used to think some of the armor they used in Chinese history movies looked like fantasy stuff from Tolkien. Then I looked up actual historical Chinese armor and realized the error of my ways. I mean yes the movie stuff was still not that accurate but it was based on truth contrary to my expectations.
 
I feel bad for not having read him. But not really.
 
I've been lazy and busy.:p I'll try to add something this week if I have the time, but I'm not sure what era or type of armor to cover. Any suggestions or requests?

But that's a nice pic; I'm guessing it's of Maxentius's clibanarii charging headlong into Constantine's prepared, disciplined, tightly-bunched infantry. Which is almost always suicide for cavalry to do. Or was it Maximian? Or Maximinus? Or Maximus? And then there were Constantine, Constantius, Constans, and other Constan- people at this time. It was a chaotic period of Roman history; leaders struggled to remember the names of friends and foes, and that probably caused the civil wars as much as anything else

I do love the clibanarii's armor, though. Really reinforces the impressions I got from all those contemporary authors who constantly compared cataphracts and clibanarii to iron men or moving metal statues. Even their faces are clad in metal. They don't look human. They look better than that.
 
naw man maxentius couldn't have had cavalry; he only controlled italy and everybody knows that the western empire forgot how to ride horses in the later empire

that's why the gothic and hunnic heavy horse overwhelmed the romans at adrianople hur dur
 
Dachs said:
naw man maxentius couldn't have had cavalry; he only controlled italy and everybody knows that the western empire forgot how to ride horses in the later empire

that's why the gothic and hunnic heavy horse overwhelmed the romans at adrianople hur dur
Click to expand...

Don't forget that the invention of the stirrups revolutionized warfare and enabled cavalry to actually ride and use weapons for the first time EVARRR, thereby making infantry obsolete for the next thousand years when the longbow and pike made cavalry permanently useless everywhere
 
People mocking historical misunderstandings is almost as annoying as the misunderstandings themselves :p
 
Your counter-revolutionary bourgeois attitudes cause Glorious Chairman to revolve with increasing velocity, imperialist scum!:p

Serious question, how effective were heavy greatcoats (like the stereotypical Russian ones) at stopping shrapnel?
 
Dachs said:
naw man maxentius couldn't have had cavalry; he only controlled italy and everybody knows that the western empire forgot how to ride horses in the later empire

that's why the gothic and hunnic heavy horse overwhelmed the romans at adrianople hur dur
Click to expand...

Lol only Eastern army was Adrianople. No Roman armies would be transfarable. Roman cavalry would mainly be Illyrian or German believe.

Adrianople is heavily overexaggered. I had nothing to do with horsemenship or better tactics.

Non-Roman cataphracts got mauled many times. For example Lucullus Armenian campaign, Bassus and Cassius in Syria, Aurelian Paulmayre campaigns.

The Huns(who did not use shock tactics) were able to outmatnuver heavier Sarmatian cavalry. The Arab Mobile Guard mauled both Roman and Persian Cataphracts.
 
Phrossack said:
Don't forget that the invention of the stirrups revolutionized warfare and enabled cavalry to actually ride and use weapons for the first time EVARRR, thereby making infantry obsolete for the next thousand years when the longbow and pike made cavalry permanently useless everywhere
Click to expand...

Stirrups didn't make infantry obsolete....money did.

Stirrups don't provide shock charge, they just make a more mobile platform, better for prolonged melee and shooting.
 
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