War hammers weren't giant mallets. They were designed to break bones and tear muscle through plate armour.

my bad

Probably meant the armor itself was impervious to such attacks. The user would still feel the effects of blunt force associated with a powerful impact - they wouldn't get stabbed or slashed but those ribs are gonna break.

to be fair it never said it made the wearer impervious to most attacks

Yeah, it was the chainmail that was impervious, not the person wearing it

It Clearly states that
"Chainmail was nearly impervious"
Who gives a **** about the guy wearing it.

It's true the chainmail was impervious to even warhammers. Your ***** gunna right ****** up tho m8

The mail itself was almost unbreakable. The flesh behind wasn't.

chainmail is contrary to what the post says unbelievably weak against arrows.
its main purpose is to protect for slashing attacks not piercing ones

It means you could do basically whatever you want, the chainmail would be fine to loot off of the corpse of the guy you killed. It doesn't mean the person wearing it would be fine.

naw m8, plate got ****** my bludgeoning, mace and hammers ****** knights, they were very visceral weapons and caused the splintering of bone and rupturing of all the blood vessels with a good hit. A single hit from a hilt of a sword to the helm caused great disorientation and nausea, almost a one hit ko.

Chainmail was.
Not what was underneath it.

Bruh, i've played a few hours of Skyrim in my lifetime and let me tell you what, deadric armos is the most superior. Pretty sure that is how the vikings where able to kill mammoths. By just looking at them so the mammoyh went: ''oh **** , that guys must be a badass, i'll better just die of a heart attack now instead.''

And thats the story how about i became the fresh prince of bel air.

Dunno why they are downvoting you, they appeared in 13th century as a response to hardened plate. Because of relatively small point of impact they offered more focused strike. They were also pretty limited in what they did, so they weren't all that popular, except to fight other plated knights on horseback.
Before that good ole mace did the trick.

While arrows could easily penetrate chainmail, chain wasn't worn over skin or normal clothes. Underneath the mail, a soldier would wear padding. Both to prevent chaffing and as a security measure: In a lot of cases, an arrow would pierce the mail but lose it's force and get stuck in the padding before it could reach the flesh.

"1/5 arrows hit would give a major wound."
- cherubium

Yeeeeah no.
You should watch little less anime. Swords that cut through steel don't exist.
Top heavy falchions were more of a problem because they'd break the bone.
Good ole two handed longsword and a well executed thrust (preferably with opponent on the floor) was still biggest problem for the chainmail.

That said, a poleax can cut through the links of riveted maille, not enough for the blade to penetrate deep enough to cut flesh, but it does cut through them. Even then the main problem is the crushing of bones.

IT does. But it doesn't really cut them, (though it certainly has same effect as it did) it really just puts so much concentrated pressure on the links that they break.
Having your bones crushed and being impaled were the two major killers in middle ages, very few things got straight up cut off, at least for nobles.
Peasant militia got cut down like what.

i dont think leather was ever used as armour in those times

the average soldier back in the day wore either no armor or leather.
lower nobility had hard-leather and sometimes even a rather ****** chain-mail.
Higher nobility had the best of the best , full Mail with leather underneath for extra protection, because Chainmail itself is not just **** , it's THE most expensive type of armor.
Plate mail was not just easier and cheaper to produce, but also a lot more effective, and contrary to popular belief, gave you a lot more mobility than Chain-mail, because it was lighter.

a stiff vest made from hardened leather, similar to brigandines , much like the ancient greeks and the mongols wore them.

well that's not quite it, but it's the closest thing I guess.

Why can't i tell if this is a painted picture or a photo?

yeah that comes closer already, but I was thinking a single piece.

Idk how to describe it.
Looks like plate but is brown I guess?

well thickly stacked leather is actually quite effective for it's price, only downside is, when leather becomes thick enough to protect you like plate , you're basically just a statue.

you do realize the length of the middle-ages yes?

600-1700 is a long time.

Gamberson wasn't a thing until way into 1300, and even then wasn't widely used until 1500

m8 the renaisance wasn't a thing, nothing really changed except art.

besides, the way I was taught in school it's basically

everything between Justinian the Great and the Industrial revolution = middle ages.

no need to be such a cunt m8

anyway, there are a lot of ways to look at things and the way my teacher decided to look at things was Socially, to her the Middle-ages really kicked off around the time Islam became a thing and Rome was trying to preserve the Empire , all the way to when Human rights and the Industrial revolution popped up.

European societies at large didn't exactly change all that much until way into the enlightenment.

And the reason why I'm saying the renaisance wasn't a thing is , is because frankly no one knew it was a thing until fairly recently.
An era that took place exclusively for the wealthy , which as you know is a small portion of people , shouldn't be considered as such, just because we like the thought of it.
Sure in retrospect you can give the renaisance some importance, but it didn't exactly change things for the people living in it.

fair enough.
we reached a conclusion then I guess.

fair enough , but still my point remains.
at least 40% of the middle-ages were without gambeson.

but imagine that bruise from them arrow hits

it says chain-mail was nearly impervious to all attacks, not the ******** wearing it. But yes bludgeoning weapons would still do nasty damage to a person wearing chain-mail... even more so to someone wearing your superior plate armour because chain-mail doesn't cave on on the wearer from blunt strikes like a chest plate would. I will agree that a high drawback bow would do more damage to someone wearing chain-mail than someone wearing plate.

Chain-mail and padded armour was still more widely used because it was less expensive and didn't restrict your movements as much, the bulk of an army would be wearing chain-mail or padded armour because of this.

"But yes bludgeoning weapons would still do nasty damage to a person wearing chain-mail... even more so to someone wearing your superior plate armour because chain-mail doesn't cave on on the wearer from blunt strikes like a chest plate would."

lolwut. Plate armor does not cave in so easily, you've been watching too many cold steel videos. Proper plate armor is made of 14-18 gauge steel (It varies depending on what piece it is, a helmet will be 14 gauge but a greave could be 18-20 gauge).If it is mild steel a flanged mace or a warhammer only makes small, almost inconsequential dents the size of a dime in the armor that look like hail damage on a car, a poleax makes pretty substantial dents, not nothing even approaching "caved-in", maybe 3 or 4 times bigger than a flanged mace. If the armor is made of spring steel the dent resistance is significantly increased. Source: Me, I make historical armor and have seen armor be tested against all sorts of weapons.

You're probably correct, but metallurgy back then wasn't as good as what we have today, and if the plate ever cracked from sustained damage it would increase the odds of the armour buckling under pressure... I didn't say it'd happen from every blow but it still happened frequently enough that it was a real issue for men at arms during a battle.

The wrought iron used in early plate armor (e.g. 1300-1450AD) had a slag content of about 1.5-2.2% slag with virtually no carbon in it (Williams, p.940 appendix 4-5), Its estimated fracture toughness is around 200 kJ/m^2. An impact test shows that it takes over 190 J of impact energy to create a 5mm fracture into a 15 gauge (about right for a helm or a cuirass) plate of said iron, or 90 J to produce a tiny fracture 5mm in length on a 19 gauge plate (about right for lower leg, forearm, or bicep defenses). (Williams, p.942 appendix 7)

190 J is the same amount of impact energy required at a "High Striker" carnival game to shoot a 1kg iron bar 19.4 meters into the air, 90 J would get it 9.2 meters into the air. A proper english/welsh war bow can hit up to about 200 J at 20 meters, and I cannot find a good test of how hard a mace or poleax can hit where they actually measured the impact energy.

Now, that was iron with 1.5-2.2% slag with virtually no carbon, but the steel used for later armors (e.g. 1450-1520AD) is a completely different animal. The steel used in German armor during this time had less than 0.5% slag in it (Williams, p.492) and a carbon content of around .5% or so, and would be tempered in a way that it would be quite springy in nature (Edge, p.233-256), so its dent and fracture resistance would be even better.

Sources:
Edge, D., & Williams, A. (2001). A study of the German 'Gothic'C’ 15TH-century equestrian armor (A21) in the Wallace Collection, London. Gladius, 233-256.

Williams, A. (2003). The knight and the blast furnace: A history of the metallurgy of armour in the Middle Ages & the early modern period. Leiden: Brill.

Actually chain over gambeson over thick wool clothing was pretty darn effective against blunt attacks.
Not as effective as plate, but added mobility gave you a chance to move to take glancing instead of full on blows.

I'm a fan of padded armour myself.

"This is me giving a **** ."

"especially arrows"

Unless it was the incredibly rare expensive kind, arrows would often slip through the holes.

Slip through the holes?

An arrow head wouldn't even fit through one of the holes at a perfect angle, before taking into account that the holes overlap. What's more likely to happen is that it's going to break a few chains and then pierce through anyways.

But medieval soldiers would wear padding underneath the mail which most often stopped the arrows from reaching skin.

Bro you better be dressed up like this ****** over here if you wana live cause chainmail doesn't do **** against arrows, it's be 100% on that padding to save your ass.

Chainmail is made of metal ******* . Yes, arrows would pierce it. But most of the force of the shot would be stopped by the mail. A few layers of leather would be enough to stop an arrow after it was slowed by the mail.

There's an arrow vs butted mail, penetrates easily.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LdGUMulJUI
Here's an arrow vs riveted mail (much more expensive, but more durable).
It doesn't punch through it and if you had a gambeson or leather it would stop it but then again these are probably 90lb bows, English longbows were known to go 120lb + draw weight, so that's fairly weak. I'd expect a 120lb bow to punch straight through.

Just saying but I think a 90lb draw weight bow made today would probably be better than that 120lb bow back then.

Is it tempered at all? If not its useless

Un-tempered mild steel is far from useless, as long as it has been hammer-hardened. In the process of flattening the rings, they become hammer-hardened, which is a form of case hardening. I make armor, and have seen armor tested against all kinds of weapons. 16 gauge mild steel plate can stop 9mm and .45 ACP despite not being tempered. Also, tempered maille armor is extremely rare, it was made of wrought iron during the middle ages (which did not have enough carbon content to be tempered) and it is made of mild steel today (again, not enough carbon), and yet they work just fine against most weapons.

Wow, I have a bit of an obsession about plate armour (especially Gothic types). What made you get into smithing and how do you find someone that will teach you??

I've also have always been obsessed with plate armor, especially German Gothic and Maximillian. I found out that a sculpture professor at the College I used to go to was a blacksmith, and had made armor in the past, so I spoke with him about a independent study. Most of what I know actually came from the book "Techniques of Medieval Armor Reproduction" by Brian R. Price, it is a huge 500 page book that will give you a great start, and I also watched a lot of videos, mostly Eric Dubé, of making armor, and just tried to do what they do. I spend about 3 months of practicing techniques on scrap metal before I actually started to make armor, even then my first piece was horrible, but my second piece was that leg harness above, and it turned out pretty great for only my second piece I ever made. Point is, you can teach yourself if you are willing to go through a little trial and error.

>i make armor

as a Saracens I've never psychology aroused this far

I'd do the same but:

1. An English longbow was not the average medieval bow used in war.
2. The film doesn't show it but it seems like they fired relatively close by which would most probably not happen in a real battle
3. The average shot would probably not hit the mail straight but from an angle which diminishes the penetrative strength
4. The arrowhead used in the video is a bodkin head which is designed to pierce armour. Broadheads(which do more tissue damage when piercing the skin) were more often used as a lot of soldiers in the early and high middle ages couldn't afford mail

Did someone say war hammer?

It is normally paired with leather and cloth padding under it. Its cheaper to put this on the front lines than plate. Plate has to be made to body, mail is a shirt.

actually m8, it's a lot cheaper to create plate than chain mail.

Do you even remotely understand how much ******* effort goes into creating Chain-mail? by the time you get a Chain-shirt done, you have an entire Plate armour finished.

Sure, Chain is easier to equip, but it's not nearly as fast-produced, cost-efficient or even as light as Plate armour.

Plate became popular because it's better in literally every way, except Equip-time.

Like it takes a minute to put on that Chain-mail , but an hour to put on that Plate armour, with assistance from your courtiers and page.

Can confirm. My chainmail weighs about as much as the rest of my suit of armor combined.

I once tryed to knit my own mail ... I feel you brah It took me sooo long for even a little pice of mail ( 20x20 cm) so I stopped at that point. I guess when youre used to it youre way faster but its still ... very slow.

Plate is easier to make(for a good smith, a mediocre one will find chain much easier) but also much much more expensive than mail because it requires so much more metal.

Making chain is tedious but not hard or expensive. You can do it yourself if you've got the time.

Making good riveted mail is a lot more than just tedious, its a work of art.
And you sure as **** can't do it yourself.
You can make a mediocre butted mail at most.

Hey hey I said nothing about riveting. If you've got the rings, pliers, some knowledge of technique, a lot of time and a little bit of practice you can make your own chainmail. Sure it won't be the best quality and riveted chain is much stronger, but I could definitely do it.

I was just correcting what you said that making chainmail is not hard or expensive.
In middle ages really good riveted chainmail was very very expensive.
Low quality chainmail is actually pretty easy to make, especially if you go more for visual than use.
If you buy rings and practice a little you can do it while watching tv. I make stuff all year and give them as gifts during hollidays, saves me a fortune.
theringlord.com/cart/

Also: Nice hobby

Let me correct myself: Chain is not cheap but it sure as hell is cheaper than plate.

You're wrong because rune platebody has less crush defense than rune chain.

Check your facts before you post from now on

I ******* KEKED

If I want to parade around my false information, than that's my own business.

jk

The chainmail itself is impervious.

The person inside isn't so lucky.

Yes, similar to me saying "underwear is impervious to all climates and weather conditions"

Throw a man in his underwear out in the snow. Sure, he'll freeze to death, but at least the underwear will still be okay.

Hence the word "nearly".

Chain mail is actually more effective against blunt strikes than plate is, due to the fact chain mail is flexible.That's one of the reasons why warhammers and large maces weren't prevalent until the advent of plate armor.

Chain mail would flex upon impact, and ripple the force of the blow across a wider area. It'd still hurt and likely injure, but not to the extend of plate, which would buckle under the impact.

Chain mail's biggest weakness was also the cause of its flexibility. Thrusting attacks, like those of a spear or heavy arrow, could split the rings individually, nullifying their advantage.

Another misconception is that warhammers are actually heavy...they're not. Most warhammers weighed around the same as a good strong sword, but the weight is all focused on the head of the hammer instead of just in front of the hand.

That just isn't true. Chain mail was made to stop slashing and piercing blows, which is was quite good at but its flexibility meant that it couldn't distribute the force of a heavy blow very far. When a sword or arrow hit the chain mail, the victim would feel the hit and be damaged by the attack, usually in the form of bruising or fractured/broken bones, but would not get cut. Obviously the chain mail's ability to hold up to such piercing or slashing attacks depended on its quality and the actual weapon being used against it. When a heavy weapon, such as a mace hit someone in chain mail, the mail would not break but its wearer's bones sure would.

Plate, on the other hand, was much better at distributing a blows force across a wider area. Yes, plate would bend and buckle, but its rigidity is what allowed it to potentially withstand heavy blows without the wearer's bones shattering. The only reason there weren't more people wearing plate is because it was so damn expensive. It was also heavy as **** and making it thick enough to not buckle under a heavy hit would mean the wearer would probably be unable to move in it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ymBF3nfhCU This is a video were they talk about a few different types of medieval armor. At about 3:27 you can see what a mace does to a wooden dummy wearing chain mail.

wear chainmail over plate

problem solved

Most fighting men who didn't use plate wore chainmail over or under a Gamberson, which is essentialy a thick, compact linnen coat. The gamberson would require a cutting edge to get through, while the chainmail is mainly weak to narrow, piercing thrusts. This is why templars, for example, were described as looking like hedgehogs. Because broad-headed arrows coldn't get through their chainmail, while armor-piercing ones can't get through their gamberson.

Chainmail was also effective against swords too, well slashing attacks anyways.

Actually arrows are almost useless against riveted armor.
It takes a full power of a war longbow with a 90lbs draw or a good composite bow (mongol type) to pierce a riveted chainmail.
70 lbs longbow will barely get through the mail and will be stopped by gambeson under the maile. Don't forget armor was worn in layers. And that's when 70lbs longbow was shot at the armor at 15 feet.
Butted chainmail offers little to no protection though.

You are underestimating the draw on war longbows. As far as we can tell from the records, their draw weight was closer to 120-150 lbs.

I was actually going in kilos, because why wouldn't I make an ass out of myself.
Yeah, they actually went higher, Longbows came in range from 100–185 lbs draw weight.
The ones recovered from Mary Celeste were in 150-165 range.