Comments by "Titanium Rain" (@ChucksSEADnDEAD) on "Women in Armour - What Did Their Armours Look Like?" video.

+Citrakite Being able to carry a baby is pretty irrelevant to the task. Modern military forces have backpacks that place the weight at the hips when properly worn as taking that weight in the shoulders would fuck up the back really quick. We carry that much weight because we came up with backpacks that allowed it.
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+CliventheTraveller there's a reason armor was worn and that was because you couldn't just thrust through it. You'd either thrust at the articulation gaps by half-swording or using pommel strikes. A mace strike on a domed structure would have most of it's force absorbed, which would mean less ability to "bite". The ability to bite into armor isn't even important considering a mace or pommel strike could cause damage by deforming the armor itself rather than puncturing it. +CidGuerreiro1234 It's not a void. Actually the straighter a plate is the easier it is to bend. In non-pressurized cans for food there are "wavy" ridges that serve to reinforce the can (pressurized cans like soda cans are smooth because the faces are all kept in traction). By your logic these waves are a weak point but truth is that those cans would crush easily in transport if they weren't "ribbed".
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+Gerben van Straaten The difference between surface areas of the average man and woman is only 0.3m^2. That's weight savings anyone would welcome but really nothing to write home about. The problem is, a woman is weaker than a man the same size , a smaller woman will be much weaker. Proportionally, she's lifting the same weight a small man would be lifting, except she's weaker than that small man. When we pit men against each other in "fair" competitive fights we make them weight-in in weight classes that are only a few pounds apart. A few kilograms of mass are enough to tip the scales in favour of the larger man. You're seriously implying that a small woman would do that great in a battlefield before guns were invented?
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Citrakite "Well designed" armor can't make up for the fact that it sits on shoulders. Rucksacks have shoulder straps to act as an anchor point, but the weight is meant to be distributed to the hip area. That's why most military and civilian rucksacks have hip pads that wrap around the torso.
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Citrakite Mail is easily cinched with a belt, what exactly is the method for plate armor, considering that's the subject of the discussion? There's also the fact that there's a "right" way to pack a rucksack in a way that puts it's center of gravity as close to the lower back/hip area as possible, and the top of the rucksack has the lighter items such as waterproof tarps and sleeping bags. Steel is steel. You can't put the least dense items on the top and the heavier ones at the hips. In the majority of NATO nations, as far as I know the doctrine is to drop the rucksacks when under fire. In case your unit is the attacking one, rucksacks are left at a RV point and not taken into an assault. That's why the webbing a soldier carries into the field should normally carry items necessary for 24h survival without the pack. You don't drop armor before a fight. >"the big travel pack of 50kg+ everyone bitches about padding or not" And that fucker is designed to be carried in a more efficient manner. Modern soldiers, specially light infantry that relies less of vehicles, carry more weight than previously because it wasn't possible to carry that much weight back in the Roman times. In fact, gear gets lighter but packs roughly stay the same. Why? Because as gear gets lighter that means soldiers can carry more. >"Sorry but it's not unrealistic or unreasonable that a woman could and would wear plate armor" You're correct. However, wearing it and fighting in it are very different things. >"Hema and other SCA events would seem to agree woman with a sword can kill a man with a sword same style, same training." As impressive it is, HEMA is a controlled and mostly "fair" environment. A fight to the death between a man and a woman wearing plate, with both of them fatigued from fighting will be far from a fair fight. Have you seen the video of the man vs woman in the military fighting with those padded staffs? The man just runs through the woman.
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Citrakite >"Fact remains plate armor is spread across the body to start with unlike a pack." Sure, you're not lifting the legs portion with your torso, but everything above the waist is being carried by the spine. The pack is designed to sit at the optimal spot and there's a proper way to wear them so that your spine doesn't crumple under the weight. It's better to have weight on the hips than spread over the torso. >"Combat pack (who weight is equal to armor weight) is not dropped" Assault packs are much smaller than rucksacks. Their carry capability is inferior and so is the attachment to the body. In vehicle-supported infantry and in modern "war on terror" settings things like assault packs are important but they're less relevant for foots soldiers with limited vehicle support in a state of total war, who need rucksacks to sustain themselves with food and shelter. You have to understand that a lot of modern developments were made to respond to conflicts which are not total war. >"Romans actually carry about the same load." What weights more, a kilo of steel or a kilo of feathers? >"it'd be lot more fair they you give credit for." Except real life isn't a videogame where you lose a stamina bar. Much worse things happen during real combat. A male and female knight who took a pounding before meeting each other in the battlefield have not sustained the same damage. >"Who ever fucks up first dies, male or female" That's the "technically" correct approach, but just like in a lot of fighting sports the technical counter-striker can be overwhelmed. A man delivering blows on a woman in a way that makes it impossible to take advantage of mistakes will never "fuck up". >"given we tend to naturally underestimate women i say it's unfair to the male and he;'s going to be shanked" That's actually ridiculous. You're telling me that in a world where women are a real threat in the battlefield, they'll still be underestimated? So there's actual theory and empirical evidence in the technique of sword wielding but knights would ignore the advantages of knowledge based tactics as soon as gender is introduced? A male knight would have gone through training with female knights as good as him and still not believe in their capabilities? And how would the enemy immediately identify the gender? Unless the enemy was of enough stature to be knowledgeable about every knight on the enemy side, he wouldn't know. >"Then it's skill speed and probably a bit of luck on who wins" And who's heavier. That's why we have weight classes in fighting sports. For an equal playing field the average woman knight would have to be the same size as the average men. It's hardly a victory for women when only the strongest and most athletic women are able to keep up with the average male knight with comparable training.
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Citrakite I appreciate you adding that info, it only took like 3 comments until you posted something I could verify for myself about plate armor. >"Combat load is still the same between armored fighter and modern one so point remains." >"Neither, they're the same mass, 1kg." The point is that a modern soldier is carrying more by both weight and volume. Things get lighter and smaller at the same time. Instead of soldiers carrying less weight and smaller loads, they carry big burdens and the same weight. For example, military rations had to be packed in metallic cans until the 1980's. Today they're packed in retort pouches which act like flexible, lightweight cans. >"you said they were both fatigued already. Nothing about damage done" I'll admit that I am having trouble expressing myself because these are concepts I have internalized without ever studying them formally. During a fight you can sustain blows that do not wound you but induce fatigue. For example, if we're in a boxing match you may have better cardio than me, but if I punch your diaphragm repeatedly you become tired. Try to wear armor and let someone hit you with a mallet. >"Now we're debating performance and endurance not actual ability or feasibility." I respectfully disagree on a lot of things mentioned right now, but I agree that we've strayed from what the original argument was about.
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CoffeeStained I'm going to bring an argument from your camp, which is the fact that armor isn't worn over a naked body. A hard hit would need either to pierce the armor or deform it to the point of caving in, otherwise the blow would still be spread over a large area.
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CoffeeStained No, it would be spread through the whole plate. You know, a strike can't really rip through matter at a molecular level, so unless the plate is pierced or dented the whole plate transmits the shock to whatever padding is underneath and then to the torso. >"the sternum is a relatively weak spot, and needs MORE protection." Then wouldn't logic dictate that during forging the armorer could leave that part thicker? I mean, that's the kind of thing that is controlled during manufacturing. >"cups in the breastplate added no benefit while adding considerable work to manufacture" Well, but that's not the point. The point is that this meme that "boob plate would be lethal to the wearer" is fucking bullshit. The first time I actually saw it people were saying that if you trip and fell the armor would pierce into the heart. Overly dramatic nonsense.
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CoffeeStained Wavy cans are not pressurized. Cans that are pressurized, like soda cans, don't need the reinforcement because the pressure itself strengthens the can. It's easier to dent a can from the side because if you try to dent from the top you're trying to counter the whole height of the can - when denting from the side there's only the thickness of the can to resist the force. Same principle as I-beams, you apply force to the tops and bottoms because the height of the web supports the load. From the sides, the web is too thin. Nevertheless a wavy side is harder to dent than a straight side, not just due to the structure itself but also due to work hardening (not applicable to hot forging). >"is in the prime location to damage the sternum by folding in on itself when hit" The same strike would dent or pierce a normal plate. Getting a plate to fold on itself requires a ton of force. >"It's riskier for this crease to hit the sternum than a flat plate to dent slightly inward." Yeah, a slight dent on a flat plate isn't equivalent to a crease to fold on itself, we're talking about a lot more force in the latter. Not to mention that the buckling and strapping itself would carry some of the loading, as the armor would pull itself apart on the ends by virtue of collapsing at the middle. There's also pretty deep creases in male muscle cuirass but I've never heard of people complaining about it.
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CoffeeStained Are you fucking kidding me? Deformation and rupture of materials is determined by the yield and ultimate strength. Stress is measured in the same unit as pressure. Since I use metric, I typically use MPa or N/mm^2. Even in a universe where physics were different and pressure wasn't related to stress, the fact is that the grooves are strong points and not weak points. >"Which REALLY supports the reason to not have a preexisting fold there in the first place." That's ridiculous. Whenever you release stress on metal it will not be stressed. Stressing it again has to start from the beginning, it doesn't create a "stepping stone". If you need 400 MPa to enter plastic deformation, the preexisting fold will not lower this limit. Now, I am speaking generally but there are indeed factors such as work hardening (the fold making the yield strength increase) or hysteresis (reduces yield strength as opposite stresses are applied). However these are cold forming processes and forging a plate is typically done when hot. Virtually everything you are saying is incorrect from an engineering standpoint. >"Structural physics tends to disagree with you." You mean the same field that for centuries used curved and domed shapes to better support loads? My point isn't that it's stronger, my point is that it's not the lethal weak spot people have made it to be. People talked out of their ass to react to boobplate, turns out they were full of shit. Move on.
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