Toxn Posted October 17, 2015 Report Share Posted October 17, 2015 So I dug this up again (the images having now gone the way of the dodo) and it struck me that it might be useful to have a place to gather as much good information on historical armour testing as we can in one place. Jeeps_Guns_Tanks, LeuCeaMia and LostCosmonaut 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted October 17, 2015 Author Report Share Posted October 17, 2015 Some YouTube poop: Edit: more Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sturgeon Posted October 27, 2015 Report Share Posted October 27, 2015 Gib dis man your sub brahs:https://www.youtube.com/user/neosonic66?&ab_channel=KnyghtErrant Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sturgeon Posted October 28, 2015 Report Share Posted October 28, 2015 The greaves video is really informative, and helps explain why wearing modern reproduction armor gives you no better impression of how historical armor feels than shooting a dollar store airgun gives you an impression of how effective an M4 Carbine is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sturgeon Posted October 28, 2015 Report Share Posted October 28, 2015 Helmets: I actually find helmets to be pretty fascinating, partly because of the way they have been perceived. For the vast majority of human civilization, helmets and armored caps have been standard military equipment, but there's a weird blip, and that's between, oh, 1670-1915. The reasons for this are a little bit fuzzy, perhaps more of a subject matter expert than I could give you a detailed answer, but a theory I'm fond of is that the perceived effectiveness of helmets is greatly reduced once warfare becomes fixed around firearms and cavalry. After this time, one notes that most threats attack laterally (lances, guns, grapeshot) and there's little reason to wear frontal plate as powerful firearms are introduced in the 1600s with muzzle velocities above 1,300 ft/s. Ironically, the decline of armor during this period also induces the decline of those very powerful firearms, and by the 1750s you see smoothbored muskets dominating the battlefield with subsonic muzzle velocities.While I think scientific study would have revealed that helmets still would have reduced head injuries and deaths during this period, there really wasn't such study occurring during that period. It's only with the invention and popularization of the trench at the end of the 19th Century and into the early 20th Century that helmets really come back. Suddenly, not only is the head the most exposed part of the soldier, but also artillery has become totally revolutionized, and is not a massive threat to the soldier, shelling him from out of the sky itself. This is quite unlike the artillery of earlier periods, which were more like short-ranged shotguns, or large, individual cannonballs, against which helmets would be useless.Anyway, it's not a subject I know terribly well, but I find the perception of helmets being "new" rather than the era of no helmets being anomalous to be fascinating. And of course, now we're even seeing armor come back. It's stimulating to imagine that maybe we'll see full articulated suits of armor again, only this time made of composites, and possibly self-powered. Or, alternately, maybe guns become so powerful that armor is truly rendered useless, as it was in the 17th Century, and then the guns themselves are reduced in power in response. All fiction-level speculation, but it's still fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sturgeon Posted November 8, 2015 Report Share Posted November 8, 2015 Excellent video, a must watch: Toxn 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donward Posted November 8, 2015 Report Share Posted November 8, 2015 It would be nice if the video and narrator didn't have to spend a minute and a half issuing caveats about when the Middle Ages really ended and how long the Roman Empire lasted and fuck the Internet and pedants who would fill up the entire comment section complaining about this. JUST GET TO THE MEAT OF THE VIDEO!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T___A Posted November 8, 2015 Report Share Posted November 8, 2015 476-1517 seems good enough, or if you want to be poetic 476-1453. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sturgeon Posted November 8, 2015 Report Share Posted November 8, 2015 It would be nice if the video and narrator didn't have to spend a minute and a half issuing caveats about when the Middle Ages really ended and how long the Roman Empire lasted and fuck the Internet and pedants who would fill up the entire comment section complaining about this. JUST GET TO THE MEAT OF THE VIDEO!!! I found it interesting, actually. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted November 9, 2015 Author Report Share Posted November 9, 2015 It would be nice if the video and narrator didn't have to spend a minute and a half issuing caveats about when the Middle Ages really ended and how long the Roman Empire lasted and fuck the Internet and pedants who would fill up the entire comment section complaining about this. JUST GET TO THE MEAT OF THE VIDEO!!! Not a fan of vegetables, I take it? Sturgeon 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sturgeon Posted November 16, 2015 Report Share Posted November 16, 2015 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted November 16, 2015 Author Report Share Posted November 16, 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMVgpYenYcg Padded armour, even shitty padded armour, proves itself tougher than expected again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoooSeR Posted November 16, 2015 Report Share Posted November 16, 2015 More from Skallagrim: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted November 16, 2015 Author Report Share Posted November 16, 2015 One of the few verified examples of wooden armour: http://www.fioredeiliberi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3461 http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent-exhibitions/human-origins-and-cultural-halls/Hall-of-Northwest-Coast-Indians/tlingit/tlingit-armor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted November 19, 2015 Author Report Share Posted November 19, 2015 Testing of a different sort. http://wattsunique.com/blog/ I loves me some obscure but heated historical arguments, and this particular one has a dude slinging large crossbow bolts almost a kilometre. Belesarius 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sturgeon Posted November 29, 2015 Report Share Posted November 29, 2015 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted December 8, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 8, 2015 http://www.currentmiddleages.org/artsci/docs/Champ_Bane_Archery-Testing.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted January 20, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 20, 2016 Slings in a nutshell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzDMCVdPwnE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted January 20, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 20, 2016 Big rock... worse rock? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyYLFO3o_rY Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sturgeon Posted January 28, 2016 Report Share Posted January 28, 2016 I feel like this myth is something we can 100% blame on plucky heroes defeating armored opponents in Hollywood movies: SuperComrade 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted January 28, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 28, 2016 As always, the idea of tradeoffs seems to elude people. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted January 28, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 28, 2016 Heck, I'd go further and say that the attitude of "it's not perfect, therefore it's useless" is one of the sicknesses of the modern age. xthetenth and Sturgeon 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sturgeon Posted January 28, 2016 Report Share Posted January 28, 2016 Heck, I'd go further and say that the attitude of "it's not perfect, therefore it's useless" is one of the sicknesses of the modern age. It has a very simple cause: Boredom. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted January 28, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 28, 2016 It has a very simple cause: Boredom. True, but I think it may also be a case of being raised in an environment where you're far enough up the ol' hierarchy of needs so that fairly minor (but difficult-to-solve) stuff seems important. My wanting things to be perfect is function of them being good already, with the remaining issues then being seen as either eminently solvable or impossible. This leads to a mindset of 'if it can be done, it should be able to do to perfection.' Which is a terrible mindset for a world where solutions to complex problems tend to come with significant problems of their own. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted January 28, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 28, 2016 Admittedly, this may also be a function of the fact that the vast majority of the people commenting on youtube channels are, at best, entitled little shits. Belesarius 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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