Comments by "" (@neutronalchemist3241) on "White Italian Armour VS German Gothic Armour" video.
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To say that fluting strenghten the armor is, unfortunately, an oversemplification.
1) For the same area covered and the same thickness, a fluted plate is heavier.
2) For the same area covered and the same weight (that's the real limitation of what a man can carry) a fluted plate is thinner.
3) For the same area covered and the same weight, a flat, or almost flat, fluted plate, is stiffer, less prone to be bent, so is a better protection against blunt weapons.
4) 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, so is a worst protection against piercing weapons.
5) 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.
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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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+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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