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Old 09-24-2019, 06:51 AM   #25
Flyndaran
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
Default Re: [Low-Tech] Padded Cloth and Layered Armour penalty

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
The other issue with layering armor is that realistically (though this is not represented in GURPS and varies by armor type) a single double-weight armor layer is likely to have superior protective value to two layers of single-weight armor, so you really only layer armor if there's an interaction between the layers that increases performance (in which case you are likely to never use at least one of layers solo -- for example, vest inserts) or there's a technical issue that forces you to (flexible armor to fill gaps between plates), and both cases are really better represented as a single suit of armor with multiple elements, not layered armor.
I'm looking into some history, but am still quite the novice idiot. So everyone correct me when, not if, I'm wrong.
But it seems like as plate started to get more prevalent, people began to add it piecemeal over suits of mail around the 1300s. But by the 1400s, they quickly began to just stop wearing the mail underneath except for the gaps.
It seems like that would make most sense if they realized that it was more weight/protection efficient to only wear one layer of armor.
Is this a valid assessment?

(I know that over time, plate became less expensive than mail, but that happens a bit later than when much of this cross over seemed to have occurred.)
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