Low-Tech Armour Loadouts.

[Sam Baughn]

I've been playing around with the armour creation system in Low-Tech this morning and trying to come up with some historically accurate loadouts.

Please bear in mind that I'm not an expert on historical armour by any means and that this is the first time I've tried using the system, so there is a good chance that there are some mistakes...


High Medieval Knight (around 1200 AD)

Hauberk - covers Torso, Arms and Thighs with Heavy Mail (DR 5/3*), $2,340, 35.1 lbs.
Mail Coif of Fine Mail (DR 4/2*), $270, 4.5 lbs.
Arming Cap - Coif of Padded Cloth (DR 1*), $15, 1.8 lbs.
Flat-Topped Full Helm of Light Plate (DR 3), $240, 2.9 lbs.
Mittons - cover Hands with Fine Mail (DR 4/2*), $90, 1.5 lbs.
Chausses - cover Legs and Feet with Light Mail (DR 3/1*), $550, 13.2 lbs.

TOTAL: $3,505, 59 lbs.

This is the classic 'crusader knight' look - head-to-toe mail topped off with a simple barrel helm. The weight and cost seem to be in the right ballpark for a heavy cavalryman and the entire body is reasonably protected against arrows, spears and swords. I'm not sure about the helm; I don't know what thickness of plate would really be appropriate or if it should be considered fluted.

The coif was also a bit confusing; from my brief research, it seems that a hauberk of this era would frequently include the hood built in to the coat and possibly also have a vantail. I'm also not sure if it would be historically accurate to vary the type of mail in different areas of the hauberk; it seems logical that you would need less protection from the skirt, since it overlaps with the chausses. I understand that the chausses usually included a leather sole rather than covering the entire foot, but I priced them as all-over mail.


Later Medieval Knight (around 1350 AD)

Haubergeon - covers Torso, Shoulders and Upper Arms with Light Mail (DR 3/1*), $600, 14.4 lbs.
Coat of Plates - covers Torso with Medium Segmented Plate (DR 4), $900, 24 lbs.
Single Piece Bascinet of Medium Plate (DR 6), $6,250, 3.8 lbs.
Visor of Light Plate (DR 3), $250, 2 lbs.
Aventail of Fine Mail (DR 4/2*), $45, 0.8 lbs.
Arming Cap - Coif of Padded Cloth (DR 1*), $15, 1.8 lbs.
Chausses - cover Legs and Feet (10%) with Light Mail (DR 3/1*), $550, 13.2 lbs.
Gamboised Cuisses - cover Thighs with Padded Cloth (DR 1*), $22.50, 2.7 lbs.
Poleyns - cover Knees with Medium Segmented Plate (DR 4), $45, 1.2 lbs.
Schynbalds - cover front of Shins with Light Plate (DR 3), $250, 2 lbs.
Spaulders, Couters and Vambraces - cover the Arms with Medium Segmented Plate (DR 4), $450, 12 lbs.
Gauntlets - cover the Hands with Light Segmented Plate (DR 3), $60, 1.6 lbs.

TOTAL: $9,437.50, 79.5 lbs.

This is the 'transitional armour' of the 14th century, consisting of various types of plate over mail.

Again, I had a lot of issues with the head protection. Single-piece helmets seem to be really expensive for the limited weight savings they offer, but I'm fairly sure that bascinets of this era should be single-piece, although the visors often seem to have been made from several smaller plates.

The terminology and placement of the plates covering the arms was a bit confusing to me. As far as I can tell, the vambraces cover the forearm, the couters cover the elbow and tuck under the edge of the haubergeon's sleeves and the spaulders go over the top of the haubergeon covering the upper arm and shoulder. I was also a bit uncertain if metal plates or hardened and/or reinforced leather were more appropriate.

I wasn't sure if the cuisses were appropriate, or even exactly what they are or how they are worn (as far as I can tell, they were heavily padded crotchless shorts worn over the chausses), but the thighs seemed to be a bit weakly protected without anything overlapping them, so I added them.

Overall, the weight and cost seem rather high (the cost mostly as a consequence of the hugely expensive single-piece helmet) and the -1 DX for layering armour is pretty nasty, but I guess that's why people changed to less cumbersome plate as soon as it was available.

I'd appreciate any feedback on these and if anyone else has any armour sets they have made, please feel free to post them too...

[Stripe]

Cool. I hope to see a ton of posts like this. A Pyramid article, if not another companion, would be cool too.

[Bruno]

This kind of loadout won't appear in a "Companion" - they're either gameworld specific, or culture/era specific. This is one of the reasons why more like this didn't appear in Low Tech - the other big reason of course being "dear god our pagecount, what would we cut?" ;)

The difference between what a 10th century frankish knight would wear and a 15th century teutonic knight would wear almost fades into the background when you compare either to what the 15th century jaguar knight from Technochtitlan is wearing (and he doesn't look much like the also-TL-1-ish Sumerian warrior).

A Pyramid article on a specific culture/era combination would work, or a larger Loadouts PDF covering either one culture in a number of eras, or a number of related cultures in a single era would work too.

[Polydamas]

Alan Williams has published a sample of great helms (aka. barrel helms) dating around the 14th century. They range from 2.25 to 5.2 kg in mass. The lighter ones might lean towards battlefield use, and the heavier ones to tournaments, but the special jousting great helms of the 15th century are even heavier.

[Bruno]

A couple of things to keep in mind vis-a-vis real armour vs GURPS game armour (pretty well illustrated by the range of weights you've got for those helmets)

1) Real armor is made for real people, who come in many different sizes and shapes. In reality, this changes the amount of material you need to make the armour, and therefore changes the cost and weight.

In GURPS, everyone that's the same species and Size Modifier and is not Overweight, Fat or Skinny wears armour that weighs and costs the same. It may not fit everyone, but it doesn't change the cost or weight at all.

This is an obvious simplification from reality for game purposes.

It also means that there's a lot of difficulty in comparing random pieces of armor to their gurps archetype.

2) Real armour isn't made to a standard thickness or identical design, even for two contemporary pieces made by the same armourer for two clients of identical size and proportions. A little more wiggle room here or less wiggle room there or a +/- 0.1 mm difference in thickness may not impact GURPS statistics but it'll change weight. But a random sampling of helms over a 150 year period will show way more difference in thickness and design than that, as the fashion changes! Some will be DR 5, some will be DR 6, some will be DR 7.

3) Real historical armour is VERY variable in the way it's been treated over the last 300+ years. One piece that's been polished every day will have been worn thinner than another piece that sat in a box of grease in a cupboard for 100 years and the third that's corroded will have picked up oxygen atoms and weigh more and the fourth that's corroded and crumbled a bit will weigh LESS and never mind repairs and inept victorian "restoration".

These are most of the reasons why creating "real armor weights" has been so very hard, and subject to so much argument.

A fourth reason is shown by your using the term "Great helm" and "barrel helm" interchangeably. GURPS goes with the definition of "Great helm" which is "A big extra helmet that goes over your normal helmet, mostly used only for jousting, and sometimes was even bolted onto your torso armor" - which is pretty clearly not a "barrel helm", but two different historians maintaining a museum catalog might have had different definitions of a "great helm" - one using it as a synonym for "barrel helm" and the other using it in the sense that the Low Tech authors went with. Definitions changed over time and between regions and languages.

It's very frustrating.

[Sam Baughn]

Here's another one...

Late Medieval Knight in Full Plate (around 1450 AD)

Bascinet of Heavy Plate (DR 9) with Fluting, $5,000, 7.2 lbs.
Visor of Medium Plate (DR 6) with Fluting, $3,125, 4.5 lbs
Gorget of Medium Segmented Plate (DR 4), $45, 1.2 lbs.
Cuirass - Heavy Plate (DR 9) with Fluting on front of chest, Medium Plate (DR 6) on the back, $8.437.50, 18.3 lbs.
Pauldrons and Rebraces - Heavy Segmented Plate (DR 5) on shoulders and upper arms, $240, 6.4 lbs.
Cowters - Medium Segmented Plate (DR 4) on elbows, $45, 1.2 lbs.
Vambraces - Medium Plate (DR 6) on forearms, $625, 5 lbs.
Gauntlets - Light Segmented Plate (DR 3) on hands, $100, 0.8 lbs.
Faulds and Culets - Medium Segmented Plate (DR 4) on abdomen and thighs, $630, 16.8 lbs.
Codpiece - Light Plate (DR 3) on groin, $50, 0.4 lbs.
Plate Cuisse - Light Plate (DR 3) on front of thighs, $225, 1.8 lbs.
Poleyns - Heavy Segmented Plate (DR 5) on knees, $60, 1.6 lbs.
Greaves - Medium Plate (DR 6) on shins, $1,250, 10 lbs.
Sabatons - Light Segmented Plate (DR 3) on feet, $60, 1.6 lbs.

TOTAL: $19,892.50, 76.8 lbs.

This is pretty much the hollywood image of a knight in shining armour, from the last days of heavy shock cavalry.

I wasn't sure if the armour should use hardened steel or not. In the end I decided against it on the basis that the cost was already frightening enough; hardened steel would triple the price.

Exactly what grade of armour to use on which body part was mostly a matter of guesswork. I knew that the chest would probably be the strongest and guessed that the skull would also be well protected, then worked my way down from there. The end result is a rather messy mix of different DRs, but that seems to be fairly standard with this system.

The main weak point I think could possibly do with up-armouring is the abdomen, since DR 4 could well end up getting carved open with a sword or stuck through with a spear. Maybe increasing the protection granted by the faulds to the abdomen and decreasing that given to the thighs would be the way to go, but I'm not really sure how realistic that is.

The gauntlets and sabatons are rather vulnerable, but I think it's probably realistic that the amount of armour you can put on hands and feet before you have problems is going to be very limited.

[DanHoward]

Looks pretty good. You forgot the arming doublet. Did you include padding for the helmet? Cost looks about right. It would take more than a year's wages for a mercenary to afford something like this. Using the new Edge Protection rules you'd be practically immune to sword cuts in this suit, which is the way it should be.

[Sam Baughn]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

You forgot the arming doublet.

Yes, I did.

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Did you include padding for the helmet?

No, I didn't... which raises a question. Do helmets include any padding in their base cost, like other armour, or are they considered to be unpadded unless you buy the extra padding? Also, the padding for the Full Helm seems to include padding across the face, which seems somewhat impractical.

[Sam Baughn]

Yet another one...

Kamakura period Samurai (about 1250 AD)

Dō-maru (body armour) - covers torso and thighs. Front is medium lamellar (DR 4), back is medium hardened leather (DR 2), $489.38, 31.2 lbs.
Kabuto (helmet) - medium plate (DR 6) pot helm with crest and cloth padding (+1 DR). $530, 6.2 lbs.
Shikoro (neck guard) - medium segmented plate (DR 4) lobsterback. $27, 0.7 lbs.
Sune-ate (shin guards) - medium hardened leather (DR 2) covering the front of the shins. $31.25, 3.8 lbs.
Arm guards - medium hardened leather (DR 2) covering the forearms. $31.25, 3.8 lbs.

TOTAL: $1108.88, 45.7 lbs.

I'm even less familiar with samurai equipment than I am with medieval knights', so there is almost certainly something wrong in the above.

I think this would be appropriate for a relatively poor samurai (it's a lot less expensive than his euopean counterpart's gear, for example). The wealthier ones seem to have had solid plate body armour, metal limb armour and fancy masks.

I'm very vague about exactly what arm protection samurai had. Illustrations and reconstructions seem to generally show some kind of vambrace covering the outer surface of the forearms and sometimes small plates attached to the elbows, upper arms and shoulders. It isn't clear to me which of these are decorative and which actually could offer substantial protection.

I'm also unsure what kind of padding samurai wore under their armour. Illustrations seem to show very bulky trousers and sleeves which sould easily have room for quite a bit of quilted fabric. The padded cap under the helmet is simply a guess, but seems likely.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Perfect Organism

Yes, I did.

No, I didn't... which raises a question. Do helmets include any padding in their base cost, like other armour, or are they considered to be unpadded unless you buy the extra padding? Also, the padding for the Full Helm seems to include padding across the face, which seems somewhat impractical.

Most armour has padding included because it is not heavy enough to give additional DR. Helmet padding has Dr 1 and so is treated separately. None of the helmet stats include padding, but padding stats should be listed in the description of each helmet. No layering penalty for helmets and I'd waive the penalty for neck armour too.