Reducing Low-Tech Armour Don Times

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Sindri

What I'm interested in is how much you could improve each kind of armour, I guess with a fine: quick donning option, compared to normal examples. How much can you optimize one armoured coat compared to the next?

By far the biggest improvements would be procedural: keep people in armour, hang it ready to put on instead of storing it in a box or bag out of the way, have soldiers dress each other instead of waiting for their servants. After that come choices with tradeoffs of speed for fit, durability, and security eg. replacing a back opening with a front opening or three buckles with one belt. Anything beyond that would probably be below the resolution of the guesses in Low Tech. I don't have enough armour to guess how long you might save by the second or third type of choice.

[Culture20]

A realistic Low-Tech fast-donning solution: Always carry a maille hauberk (with long arms and even an attached coif if desired; double-maille if you need extra protection). Even if it's not a part of your primary armor, you can slip it on or off in a matter of seconds.

[gilbertocarlos]

Originally Posted by Culture20

A realistic Low-Tech fast-donning solution: Always carry a maille hauberk (with long arms and even an attached coif if desired; double-maille if you need extra protection). Even if it's not a part of your primary armor, you can slip it on or off in a matter of seconds.

Can you really? remember that you also need padding underneath.

Better solution: A shield.

[Culture20]

Yes, literally seconds. I own a hauberk and a haubergeon. Padding will help keep you from getting broken bones when the swords' edges are converted to blunt impact damage, but a quick donning of a hauberk is better than nothing in a pinch. If you need the gambeson (cloth armor), you can sew the maille to the gambeson for quick donning.

[SimonAce]

Originally Posted by gilbertocarlos

Can you really? remember that you also need padding underneath.

Better solution: A shield.

From experience mail is not much harder to put on than a sweater with a bit of practice anyway and neither is an arming coat.

Its not a matter of a couple of seconds though as some belts need to be tightened and mail is heavy.

Its much faster than many other kinds of armor which I suspect contributes to the fact it lasted more than a thousand years as primary armor and is still in use for various purposes.

However if you need an immediate defense, the most popular was a buckler, worn at the belt.This was the default defense for something like half a millenium and its as fast as a weapon and with the training very effective in melee.

Since I am in a GURPSY state of mind (best to the tune of BillY Joel's New York State of Mind)

Gurps Low Tech calls this weapon the dueling buckler. Its DB 0 giving plus one to block which is realistic and makes it almost a borderline ethic badass weapon

Given a skill of say 12 in sword and buckler, rather a basic amount for an adventurer -- this is a block of 10, 50% typically -- typically with retreat a bit of defense, the block goes up to 12 still allowing an attack role of 10. Thats with basic training.

[SimonAce]

Originally Posted by Culture20

Yes, literally seconds. I own a hauberk and a haubergeon. Padding will help keep you from getting broken bones when the swords' edges are converted to blunt impact damage, but a quick donning of a hauberk is better than nothing in a pinch. If you need the gambeson (cloth armor), you can sew the maille to the gambeson for quick donning.

in GURPS terms I think this take a quick donning penalty. Still with edge protection it would be a DR of 6 vs cuts 3 vs everything else

Proper use without the penalty of course needs the waist belt to take weight off the shoulders and I think a little adjusting sometimes,

Its still massively faster than say say a plate harness and can easily be done by one person.

[DanHoward]

Don times for armour are a bit like the hiking rules. They assume an optimal situation that rarely occurs in the real world. I'd have problems with any attempt to reduce the times any further. Realistically it should take a lot longer for most types of armour. Mail is probably the only exception so there isn't much point concentrating on that example. As has already been said the don times are supposed to include time to put on any underpadding. Joinville wrote that during a night attack he didn't have time to put on his mail so he had to fight in his aketon. He was wounded by five arrows because of it and complains about still feeling "sore" the next day.

[Sindri]

It seems reasonable to allow faster or slower dressing than normal with appropriate penalties and bonuses but there obviously has to be a floor on how much time you can shave off.

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Don times for armour are a bit like the hiking rules. They assume an optimal situation that rarely occurs in the real world. I'd have problems with any attempt to reduce the times any further. Realistically it should take a lot longer for most types of armour. Mail is probably the only exception so there isn't much point concentrating on that example. As has already been said the don times are supposed to include time to put on any underpadding. Joinville wrote that during a night attack he didn't have time to put on his mail so he had to fight in his aketon. He was wounded by five arrows because of it and complains about still feeling "sore" the next day.

The thing is not "armour donning times are unfun and must be lowered" it's "how much can you shave off realistic donning times whatever they may be."

[Agent]

I really want to see the supplement 'Dan Howard Unfettered: The Gameability-less, Pitiless Conversion of GURPS Low-Tech to Untenable Levels of Realism'.

Or is there already a similar blog? :-D

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by Agent

I really want to see the supplement 'Dan Howard Unfettered: The Gameability-less, Pitiless Conversion of GURPS Low-Tech to Untenable Levels of Realism'.

Or is there already a similar blog? :-D

I'm also quite a fan of untenable levels of realism. : ).