Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Rice
So, people from a time when these things were a life and death issue and had the real experience of using them in deadly combat, would waste their time wearing 40lbs of chain and bulky padding underneath to no useful effect? Somehow I don't think so. It's obvious that the armour served 2 purposes; chain prevented penetration, padding spread impact force. If the recreations aren't showing that, then they are not simulating the armour of the period correctly. I would suggest that the underlying gambeson/padding is being incorrectly modelled.
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Whacking a dead pig is a lot different from whacking a live opponent, who is both trying to avoid being whacked and whack you back. The people in the real world who test everything from crash dummies to ballistic armor have to work pretty carefully to come up with a testbed that matches human results, and even then they're always coming up with better and better models.
Also, I would say that even then, a broken bone is a lot better than an axe to the lung.