Comments by "" (@neutronalchemist3241) on "Metatron"
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+Jeffery Wells
The armors shown are not intended for foot soldiers. They were incredibly costly items that only a few could afford. The level of craftsmanship involved in their making was so high that fluting or not the plates was only a question of preferred style, not of cost. A well equipped foot soldier of the same period would have worn a brigandine over a mail shirt, or a simple breastplate, with a single piece, or a simple two piece, helmet as a complement.
The fact that a flat surface is more apt to deflect blows, while the flutes are less likely to deflect the blows, and more likely to offer them an orthogonal surface where the blows can have the maximum effect, means exactly that the flat surface does not need to be thick enough to stop the weapon, but only enough to deflect it. Once the blow (of the quarrel, spear, pollaxe, halberd...) is deflected, it's power had not been absorbed by the armor, but is simply directed elsewhere. The percentage of the force that the armor has to absorb is higher the more the incoming angle of the blow is closer to 90 degrees.
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+Jeffery Wells Please. First, is sufficient to look at the sabatons of the gotic armors to see that they were not made for someone that had to walk. Those armors were not only only intended only for cavalry, but specifically for heavy cavalry.
Second. The man who could pay for a complete armor like the ones shown could easily equip himself not only with one, but with several war horses, so why on he earth should he have to fight on foot? To die more easily?
Third. Hardly any of those armors were designed for real fights at all. The armors survived until now were primarly parade armors (and that's why they survived), and secondarily joust armors. On the battlefield, even the knights tended to wear far lighter armors (IE the Italian corsaletto. Not by chance Giovanni de Medici was buried in one). Even more, since, at the same time those armors were developed, the heavy cavalry was at it's end. Following the example of the Venetian Stratioti, the european armies were relying more and more on light cavalry, and this led to a lightening of the armors (that soon would have consisted only of a curiass and an helmet).
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-- For the same area covered and the same weight, a flat, or almost flat, fluted plate is more prone to be pierced, cause is thinner, and cause the flutes are less likely to deflect the blows, and more likely to offer them an orthogonal surface where they can have the maximum effect.
Note thet the flutes on the frontal pieces of historical armors are not horizontal (so more likely to deflect the tip of the piercing weapons away from the body) but vertical, so likely to direct the tip of the piercing weapons towards the throat or the groin, exactly where nobody would want them to go. That means that, in all likelyhood, they started as simple hornanents and demonstrations of the ability of the blacksmith.
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As I said: "for the same area covered and the same weight, A FLAT, or almost flat, fluted plate, is stiffer".
Unfortunately there are not flat surfaces on an armor. The stiffening effect of fluting decreases as long as the curvature of the plate increase (infact the section of a sphere is naturally resistant to be bent, think of the helmet, or the pauldron), until, for a certain curvature, the effect is reversed, and flutes actually makes the plate less stiff. The stiffening effect of a very moderate fluting on an already curved surface is minimal.
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Herodotus,The Histories, Book V.22; Alexander I of Macedon (ancestor of Alexander the Great') wanted to compete in the games, but the other athletes opposed to it, since the games were for Greeks, and not for barbarians. Alexander was finally allowed to participate, after having "demonstrated" (read: "invented a story that") his dynasty originated from kings of the Greek city of Argos, but that was valid only for him, not for the Macedonians. They were still barbarians.
Moreover, Dio Chrysostom (Discourses, 2.23) wrote that Alexander I nickname was "philhellene" ("friend of the Greeks", so not a Greek himself).
Still Thrasymachus (On Behalf of the Lariasaeans) called Archelaus, grandson of Alexander I "a barbarian".
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The oplite phalanx relied on his "pushing" power, so the oplites usually did a brief run, mantaining the formation, first to clash with the enemy line. Exactly in the same moment, the legionaries threw their pilum at once.
Imagine the scene. Much of the oplite shields become unmaneuvrable, with one or more pilum stuck to them. Many oplites of the first line die. The ones behind them stumble on the dead bodies and on the spears on the ground, then, without the time to regroup, the legionaries arrive.
As for the Macedonian phalanx, the Romans lured it on rough terrain, where it could not mantain it's unity. Once divided the phalanx, the sarissas were only a bother.
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+pypy1986820 And, thinking about Caesar, we have to think about it's enemies.
At Alesia he reportedly faced 85.000 armed Gauls barricated into the city and 240.000 outside it. We know, from the aftermats, that the first number was quite accurate, the second can be exaggerated, but, even admittting he doubled it, that means that the Romans were facing 200.000 armed men. Those were not professional soldiers, but probably most of them had already fought in battles or duels in their life, since disputes and skirmishes were common between the celtic tribes. Their equipment was usually composed of a long iron sword or an axe, a shield, a spear, a helmet and, at least for the wealtier of them, a mail armor (the Romans actually adopted the "lorica hamata" and the helmet with cheeckplates from them, centuries before). They could use (and used in the Gallic War) javelins and bows as well, and had a cavalry, altough not efficient as a medieval one (no stirrups).
A similar army, at Agincourt, would have walked over the English due to the sheer strenght of numbers, longbows or not. Probably they could have walked over the English and the French at the same time.
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Sorry, but I've never talked about impossibilities or combat capabilities. I was talking about numbers. "Romans could field tens of thousands of professional soldiers in armor". Medieval armies were "huge" when they reached, or barely passed, 10.000 men.
"When numbers are similar" a heavy medieval knight is a great weapon, but heavy medieval knights are extremely expensive items. Numbers will not be similar, since 10.000 knigts were more or less all that a powerful medieval state could deploy. 10.000 legionaries were a relatively small contingent.
However, it had been the legionaries that made those fortifications. They didn't found them there. Do you think they would have been incapable to make the battlefield impracticable to horses? Is not that they didn't know how to dig, or sharpen poles. The English did, and, with all the due respect, they were not 45.000-50.000 Legionaries capable to build 16 km of double fortification around the city.
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+buckwheat219970 In Italy still survives the expression, when someone is in a close dispute, "essere ai ferri corti" ("to be at the short irons", were the "short irons" are the short bladed weapons, like the daggers). It originates exactly in that period, when, in most cases, after the knights grown tired and can't lift the sword (or mace, hammer, axe...) any more, the final blow was given by the winner with the short blade through the openings in the plates (armpits, neck, eyes...)
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