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I raise you Emperor Ferdinand I Armor, specifically it’s Codpiece.
I’m just saying. Sexualized armor is very historical.
Doesn’t make it and less ridiculous to try and be sexy in a situation where you need protection to prevent dying.
True. But it keeps happening.
Be it two thousand years ago or 500 years ago. Sexy armor proves that humans haven’t really changed.
Kings and generals don’t really find themselves alone on the front lines. The armor is nearly ceremonial, no one is supposed to take a shot at the king. Even if the king were expected to visit the front lines.
As such, kings, princes and other nobles never had practical armor. It’s all armor-fashion and status symbols (including sexualization, when said sexualization was in fashion).
Do we have modern sexualized plate carriers? I know we have the cat-ear helmet bit, but how far can we go?
Dunno about personal armor but we have nekkid furry ladies on planes and tanks… humans keep being thirsty.
Ok.
zxro
I believe most full plate armor was hardly practical either, some being so heavy that basically required the wearer to be mounted. Most foot soldiers would wear chain armor with pieces of plate here and there, and thats only the extremely rich who could afford things like that. Full plate also heavily limited your movement, many battles by extremely well geared soldiers were lost because they couldnt out maneuver barely armored militia, or even just rain. Knights wearing full plate needed help to stand if they were toppled! Its funny when people talk about full plate being ‘practical’ and ‘realistic’ when it was mostly a sign of status, ornamental and incredibly impractical.
This is a common misconception but it’s just not true. As you can see in this video mobility is hardly a problem. It certainly would be possible that a piece could be bent or damaged badly enough to hinder you, but a properly fit set is going to let you do whatever you need to do in a battle. You are certainly right that it was expensive though, full plate was similar to buying a luxury car. It was rare but not that rare, a sign of wealth and social class but not like only kings could wear it. And it certainly was not strictly ornamental.
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There is only once context of actual use where this is true: jousting. And this is because it was a sport that the competitors expected to walk away from.
Apart from that, what you said is a complete myth. Mobility what highly important on the battlefield, and armorers had to keep that in mind throughout the middle ages. There are many instances where troops acquire or are given pieces of armor that they later discard because it was too heavy or hindered them, and the weight you’re imagining is not all that great. And this is not a problem unique to the middle ages - it still happens up to the modern day
As for full plate, it’s not actually as heavy as you think it is because there are a lot of shaping techniques used to gain the maximum amount of strength for the least amount of weight. Generally Late Medieval full plate harness weighed 35-55lb Source
There are medieval reenactment groups such as the Society of Creative Anachronism (SCA) or Historical Medieval Battle (HMB) where people will regularly wear armor and fight. I myself do this, and my kit fluctuates between 40-55lb depending on what I’m fighting with that day. Adding that to my body weight results in a total of about 200lb, and dare you to claim that people at that weight can’t move around.
What’s even funnier is that groups like HMB tend to have armor that’s significantly heavier than the medieval period because they need their armor to last a lot longer. In period, men at arms only needed their armor to last a few battles, while reenactors look to use their armor on a weekly-to-monthly basis for years
Most foot soldiers would wear chain armor with pieces of plate here and there, and thats only the extremely rich who could afford things like that.
Mail was much too expensive to produce to outfit “Most foot soldiers” with. For much of the middle ages, most foot soldiers wore some kind of Gambeson and a helmet. A mail hauberk was the next step up, as it was still cheaper than a full mail shirt.
Plate cuirasses became common among the more wealthy in the late middle ages. By the early modern period, when the Almain Rivet (half-armour) became cheap enough, you’d see smaller professional armies be outfitted with them. But the common peasantry generally couldn’t afford either for the longest time.
Its funny when people talk about full plate being ‘practical’ and ‘realistic’ when it was mostly a sign of status, ornamental and incredibly impractical.
As a rule, if something didn’t work in war, people wisened up and stopped doing it. They weren’t stupid, just because they didn’t have the same wealth of knowledge thay we do.
Knights didn’t want to impress and get killed, they wanted to win and live. No amount of status will help you if your opponents dance on your grave. If plate was as much of a liability as you claim, it wouldn’t have become more popular, comprehensive and accordingly expensive over time, until Gunpowder started accelerating weapons development far beyond anything protection could keep up with.
You’re right that full plate was often worn by heavy cavalry, both as a matter of wealth and as a matter of utility. Heavy Cavalry were shock troops, morale breakers, designed to make your (often not professionally trained) soldiers falter, break order, open gaps in their ranks to get out of the way of the thundering beast charging at them. The appearance added to the indimidation, but it also helped protect on the way to and through the infantry lines.
There were mounted heavy infantry too that would ride to battle, then dismount and advance with the soldiery, and there too did plate help protect. It’s easier to confidently walk into a line of levied peasants pointing spears at you if you’re hard to actually wound.
In either case they were made of much thinner plate than some pop culture depictions would make them out to be - about 20-30kg. A modern soldier’s kit isn’t lighter than that.
many battles by extremely well geared soldiers were lost because they couldnt out maneuver barely armored militia, or even just rain.
Most battles that saw heavy cavalry lose were because of miscalculations, not because the armour made them immobile. If infantry in good order maintained cohesion, but the cavalry kept charging instead of turning to feint, they likely got stuck in a melee where numbers would be against them. If they rode into heavy missile fire, no amount of mobility will magically let them dodge the arrows, but a good plate would increase your chances of survival. If they got stuck in the mud as sitting ducks, that was because horses don’t always deal well with running across uneven ground, particularly with sudden pitfalls where the ground is softer, and even more if heavy rain and blinders impeded their vision.
Yes, bodkin arrows from a sufficiently powerful warbow at sufficiently short ranges and steep angles of impact may well penetrate plate, particularly the less solid visors, and arrows in general bear a risk of felling your horse, but some armour is better than no armour.
Like I said, if it didn’t help in battle, they wouldn’t go to such lengths and expenses to produce it and wear it to battle. They’d wear it to ceremonies, to parades and to tourneys, but not to war.
I’ll leave you with this demonstration of mobility
@Dagnet @dragontamer
I saw a video of a guy doing breaststroke in full plate mail once. Sure, it was rough for him, and he was already pretty fucking good at swimming, but he didn’t sink like metal Mario or anything like that.Almost completely wrong
Something about humans relates sex and danger. We like having them together
You might want to rephrase that. It would be very easy to misinterpret.
Ah, you mean danger cosplay. Yeah, ok. Even kinksters have safe words and things like safe, sane, and consensual.
Most mounted knights don’t really need crotch protection. Their saddles had a kind of shields projecting up for that purpose. If they get dismounted in a melee, that might be a different situation, but even then, the codpiece will probably not be the weakest part of that armour.
I don’t know, this is starting to sound like a separate discussion with separate issues, and as a result it feels like goalpost moving.
The issue with women’s fantasy armour has long been that it exists for the Male Gaze, as a trope that is propagated by men for the purpose of titilizing men. It’s objectifying the female form, and doing so in a way that does not include women in the discussion at all.
The second image, instead of being a continuation of that, just feels like fashion, and complaints about it land as “no one has ever cared about aesthetics in a suit of armour” which is a totally false take and indefensible platform.
I mean… some kink shaming if you’re into necrophilia.
I get the usual necrophilia hate, but honestly, if they’re undead and can consent, more power to you.
Konsi wouldn’t shame you for that, but she might quietly take you aside and privately ask you to not do that. :)
Chris from suikoden 3.
That’s a reference I haven’t seen in a long time.
Fire Emblem has a couple bangers too. And some less so.
Hear me out: a metal 1990s Lara Croft uniboob. Hits are no longer directed to the sternum.
If that isn’t credible enough for you, make the uniboob bigger, redirecting force outward, away from the chest.
If that isn’t credible enough for you, a massive uniboob containing a tiny gnome sorcerer able to slay at range. Basically a lil green skinned tiddy tank.
That’s just called 1600s era half plate.
As halberds and other armor penetrating weapons became normal (and Guns), the focus of armorers was on deflection rather than outright stopping blows.
Also, iron became cheaper and thus mass produced. So in some sense armor got worse, but far more people were wearing armor. The small bits (gloves, legs, etc etc) couldn’t be custom made per person anymore because of mass production templates. But armor was well on its way out by then anyway as guns were obviously the future.
Ok, so the issue with that is it will direct arrow and crossbow bolts upwards towards the neck and face, so you will need to add an angled gorget with a lip to redirect the bolts/arrows.
This was an actual armor design for a while, but it is not as pronounced as you would imagine.
where does the gnome go?
Is this a meme that I am unfamiliar with?
If that isn’t credible enough for you, a massive uniboob containing a tiny gnome sorcerer able to slay at range. Basically a lil green skinned tiddy tank.
Dragon Age quote from Iron Bull: Some high-ranking women wear ornamental crap with tits hammered into it. One good shot, and all that cleavage gets knocked right into the sternum. Real messy. Good on you for going practical. …Leaves something to the imagination, too.
Brienne of Tarth
10 out of 10
Left has thicker plot armour.
If no boob shape, then boobs squished. Also I think outward curves are harder to bash in than flat portions, assuming equal thickness?
ETA: yes, I do have boobs. No, mine won’t squish flat.
If no boob shape, then boobs squished.
Hi, lady here who owns and wears armor sometimes. There are a few things wrong with this.
(Prefacing that only a very very small number of women historically wore armor)
You’ll find that basically ALL medieval plate bulges out in the chest. That is specifically because dome shapes are stronger, but also for ease of movement. A flat plate will make it harder to bring your shoulder back (or you’ll need to make a bigger arm hole).
You’ll also find that most people who do stuff while in plate armor tend not to carry a lot of fat, and since boobs are mostly fat, women who wear armor “for a living”, and are thus swinging pole arms quite a lot, tend not to be very busty.
Thirdly, the main difference between my armor and the armor the guys are wearing is not in the plate, but in the padding underneath. I have a gambeson and armor coat that is thicker above and above my breasts than right in front. There’s basically a boob-slot in the padding, so that a hit to my chest gets absorbed by my body instead of my boobs.
I’m so glad you wrote all of that, and so much better than I could have. Men have no idea of the ways in which breasts need support, or how generally the better it looks, the less comfortable it is.
That, and many of us have little idea of what all goes into a full plate setup.
Excellent write-up, I’d just like to say as an irrelevant aside
@Tar_alcaran @Shivirani The typical breastplate shape is what I call the “Robin’s breast,” a swollen dome shape that protects the vitals from strikes to the body center.
So does that mean if my husband gets armor I could wear it too, I’d just need a different gambeson? My breasts protrude a couple of inches even in a sports bra.
Also, added chest muscle makes your boobs stick out more…
Is a breastplate/gambeson/armor coat etc something you can effectively buy online, or is it something you want to try on in-store before you buy? And where did you get yours from?
Buying armor is like buying a suit, and all the answers are kind of similar.
You can get a cheap mass produced one, but it won’t fit as well as a tailored one, and that won’t be as good as a custom made one. You can wear someone else’s (within reason), as long as they’re mostly the same size, but it won’t be great.
A gambeson or arming coat (typo before) is similar, off the rack is fine, but it’ll fit much better if you have it custom made. And like bras, being a woman is expensive here. I bought a good one and modified it myself.
I got my armor custom made by a guy in Ukraine like 15 years ago, the whole thing was 6000 euros which was a huge bargain. But if you just want a breastplate for occasional use (larp, cosplay, etc) getting one online and accepting it’s kinda awkward is very much an option. If you need it to actually stop swords (reenactment, HEMA) that’s still an option, but you’ll need to be much more selective.
Hits to full armor aren’t about cutting through or breaking the armor, but trying to get as hard of a hit as possible. One central outward curve will deflect hits.
Two bulbous curves next to each other will deflect hits on the outside but focus hits on the inner curve into a shape that will ensure all of the power in the hit goes right to the chest. A great way to ensure the wind is knocked out of the wearer.
Plus, the biggest concern regarding the deflection of blow by plate armor was lances. A lance blow is often described as having the momentum of both the rider and the horse behind it (not quite true, but certainly more than just the knight). That is a lot of force for a body to absorb
Why would you ever want two curves? Even a sports bra gives you a uniboob.
Chest plates aren’t form fitting.
Oooo! Boobplate post. (Grabs popcorn)
“vital Organs” of a demon???
I mean, how familiar are you with the biology of demons?
Both are good
But, boob sash.
It’s weird how I still recognise the armor guy.
Yup!
Boob plate is a pet peeve of mine. That shit is dumb
Depends on the system mechanics; 3.5e/1e that first one will have way higher AC due to Natural Armor, Mage Armor, and the inevitable Monk dip.
As to the real world, so long as breastplate doesn’t have a concave catch point at the underboob the second would be both practical and effective. The riveted decorative “cleavage” at the top is actually fairly common and practical for diverting arrow/lance splinters away from the head and neck.
