Great analysis! Nice link to the MET as well.

A chunk of the information on here was also discussed with Jessica Finley, designer of the JF SPES HEMA jackets and author of the Medieval Wrestling: Modern Practice of a Fifteenth-Century Art, via personal email who I can ask for more details if needed.

But alongside some of the normal armor, there would be cases where additional armor would be worn on top of field armor to make it appropriate for courtly combat.

...specialized exchange and reinforcing pieces were devised that allowed a single field armor to be adapted for use in various forms of the tournament. The ensemble of pieces was known as a Garniture. -Kolman Helmschmid Reinforcing Pieces for the Tourney

Really the weight should also factor in if the armor is custom made to fit you or not as well. Since you would have better spread weight distribution and better articulation.

I also hope that armor weight effects your ability to parkour if you are wearing substantial amounts of armor.

While I don't know at what point you'd see someone as wearing substantial amounts of armor, it usually does not restrict movement in the sense, that you could to fully stretch you arm or something. Cavalry armor at times restricts your ability to lift your arms very high, but infantry harnesses should really restrict you less, than say a 20 kg backpack, or similarly badly distributed weight.

A video on elbow flexibility in armor

It just depends on the timeline or year in history the game starts on.

It should be hard to process the mats, produce the armor, own, opperate, and maintain it. As most people would have light/medium armor. As well as their own personal prefrence to the look and style of armor.

I disagree in that fact that those examples are pretty well made armor.

As well as there should be a major difference in the skill of the crafter and the quality of armor they can make, wether they crafted it in a school forge (qulity), a guild forge (mass production), or your own home forge (inspiration?). As well as if it is light medium or heavy.

Not all but mass producing armor should not fit everyone the same as you would want to measure or tailor the armor to an individual to minimize articulation loss of movement in the joints. Many pieces that arent jointed would not really matter.

Reinforced armor or whatever they plan to do should matter about how much protection a person really truely thinks they need.

But at the same time I do not think that anyone should ever be 100% invincable ever. Maybe to 1 type of damage but there should always be a weapon type that should cut through or smash through your armor in time.

I just mentioned armor distribution since most people think that just because armor weighs 90lbs that it is heavy an hard to move. A well fitted suit of armor can make all the difference.

But like you see with more ancient armies it really depends on the timeframe in terms of the armor/weapons arms race in the tech needed to prevent new weapons from getting to you.

But also that many of the armies before the middle ages wore for the most part light to medium armor since it was easy to mass produce and replace rather than full plate. Hell some people didnt even wear clothes or armor to fight in war.

If it is hard to process the material, then why waste it on low quality armor?

All pieces of armor except maybe stuff like a mail coif or an aventail need to be fitted to the wearer aswell as other armor pieces he wants to include in his configuration. This is because you want the weight to be distributed as evenly as possible. A fitted greave will be held by your leg, while one that doesn't fit most likely rests on your foot. So even pieces without joints should be fitted.

I don't know what you mean by reinforced armor.

I also disagree with your statement that there should always be a weapon type that can cut or smash through the armor. It's not a pleasant experience to be hit with a poll-axe, even if it doesn't "cut or smash" through the armor, and you could still get internal injuries. I'd advocate for damage through armor to mostly depend on apparent mass, if it fails to break it, or pierce it, or cut it.

So I think all weapons should to a degree damage you through armor but not in one of this stupid rock/paper/scissors scenarios. For example an arrow that doesn't penetrate your armor is completely harmless, but you will feel a quarterstaff, even if it never had a chance of actually getting to you.

Posted By RedAngel at 07:37 AM - Thu Aug 24 2017

As well as there should be a major difference in the skill of the crafter and the quality of armor they can make, wether they crafted it in a school forge (qulity), a guild forge (mass production), or your own home forge (inspiration?). As well as if it is light medium or heavy.

The forge and the "weight" of the armor have very little to do with the quality. Even the skill of the smith only comes into play on top-end work. The primary contributors to quality are:

1. The size of iron "bloom" available limits the size of plate that can be forged without adding weak welds

2. The price the customer is willing to pay. Steel in the medieval period was 4-5 times the cost of iron. Accordingly, even renowned armorsmiths produced field armor from unhardenable mild steel or wrought iron.

But also that many of the armies before the middle ages wore for the most part light to medium armor since it was easy to mass produce and replace rather than full plate.

You'd be better off to say that no armies outside Europe wore full plate. Mail is a medium armor- it is very labor intensive. (There's a decent argument that the transition from mail to plate occurred as much because the Black Death depleted the labor pool as because of evolving weapons).

The weight should matter by the tribe and the size requirements for each. As well as the materials used either in the forging process or after when you swap out parts for better quality mats. The weight of any armor should be a choice of how many layers of hide or the thickness of the plates that accumulate into a finished product.

Everything you can customize in a piece of armor should come with protection and drawbacks

The weight should slow you down in some ways for the protection it provides.

Armor doesn't slow you down.

Drains more stamina, yes. But you're not slow.

Yes it should.

If there is strength, and weight, and encumberance it would count against the total weight you can carry on your person. By itself you would not notice any slow. But you have weapons, potions, food, water, backup weapons and ammo, and anything else you are looting or carrying = slows you down.

I don't know whether or not to start spamming all these videos....

Gifs will do for now.

It's just that it will slow you down considerably less, than carrying that amount of weight in your backpack etc.

Armor heavily impeding you is something of a myth ...

I guess it comes from peoples reproductions being somewhat heavy, aswell as jousting armor being well represented in surviving pieces ...

Cool they are running. Awesome. How fast is that vs someone not armored? Light armored? Heavily armored? Cause im sure that 90+ lbs will slow you down in some way before you factor in all the supplies you will have with you. How much slower will you be with another 50+ pounds of supplies on top of your 90+ lbs of worn gear?

And how long can you keep that sprint up.

I dont see gifs of armored people running a marathon.

I wish I had the ability to post as it would be a lot easier to show things.

Watch obstacle run in armor on youtube. Then imagine the knight with weapon(S) and a backback full of supplies or a shield when you watch the soldier and firefighter in their "full gear". The knight would have at least the backpack of the soldier's weight. The knight in full armor still beats the soldier though in the vid though a firefighter beats the knight.

Did you read the OP at all? 90 lbs. is excessive for armor that you want to run in.

Field armor for combat on foot only rarely weighs more than 60 lbs./~27 kg, most of it would be around 40-55 lbs./~18-25 kg.

Do you see gifs of other marathons btw? They'd tend to be quite long, don't you think?