AV and different types of armor

[Starshadow]

Greetings.
I was wondering...

I have seen different discussions on armor types in this forum, but they've all been about chain and plate.
Scale mail, bronze plate, bear skin, boiled leather, etc...

Any ideas of an AV on these?
How effective are different types of scale mail compared to chain?
And cost compared to chain and plate?

[Ingenious]

Scale would be slightly less than chain in AV, due to how thin it is and the fact that it's made of 'scales' as it were.. and does not provide alot of protection from thrusts or pointy things. Boiled leather would be slightly harder than normal leather in terms of a higher AV, but it would be much stiffer and the resultant penalties to one's CP would offset that.
Bear skin would provide a hell of a lot of protection. From the elements. Not from a sword though, or an arrow, or other weapon.
Bronze plate leaves me scratching my head as my memory into metallurgy is fading. If bronze is harder than steel, have it be higher.. if it weighs more.. add more penalties to its use. If it is inferior to steel, then it would have a lower AV.. if it's ligher it would have less penalties. Or if it's inferior to steel in strength but weighs more, BUT costs less.. there's the selling point.

So here it is.
Bear skin
Leather(soft)
Leather(boiled)
Then there's scale
Then there's chain
Then bronze plate
Then plate
Then full plate

The top of the list obviously is the cheapest and less protective armor, and of course as you go down the list the AV gets better, but the weight might also increase... and of course the cost does.

-Ingenious

[Starshadow]

How about different types of scale?

I can see how, with small scales, that the scales are thinner, but how about larger scales?
The armor I have in mind have large, overlapping scales that crosses the chest and abdomen horizontally. More like pieces of plate a couple of inches wide.

Or is this type of armor what's called banded mail?
How about splint mail?
How good protection would thees have?

And how about coin chain for the really wealthy? :)

[Brian Leybourne]

There'll be a large section on all of this in TFOB, FYI.

Brian.

[Lance D. Allen]

Actually..

I could be wrong on this, but I've sat in on a few armor discussions offline by those who (presumably) know their trade, and scale is one of the better armors overall, as I've heard it. The scales are often the same thickness as your plate, and with the many overlapping rows, tend to spread the kinetic energy quite well.. it spreads downward onto the rows below. The same effect, as the scales are usually slightly curved, is likely to send a sword point sliding downward and away. It has most of the benefits of plate and chain both.. A hybrid of the two, not as flexible as chain, but not has heavy and rigid as plate, either.

I would actually put scale between chain and plate, unless everything I've heard was wrong.

[Durgil]

Two things that you need to remember about scale armour are:

First, the small metal or lacquered leather plates were not attached to each other but to a cloth or leather backing, and because the plates overlapped, they could not be used to cover the 'bend' of a joint (i.e. the inside of the elbow and back side of the knee).

Second, if it were superior, why did it fall out of common usage by the end of the 13th century?  Mail, on the other, was still in use during the early exploration and expeditions to the new world.

I'm no re-enactor, but I would think that it would be more susceptible to upward swings and thrusts.

[Caz]

I think scale dropped out of major use because it was just as heavy as mail, but a little less protective.  It absorbs impact better, but like you guys have said, it can be a bit more susceptible to thrusts, and is less flexible in spots.  It stayed in use throughout the middle ages but for small, specific purposes.  (the occasional aventail or skirt, etc.)
    Bronze is, from what I've heard, heavier and softer than iron or steel.  Bronze armour was often made thinner (lower AV) to offset the weight.  Sometimes it was thicker and heavier to offer protection more like that of iron, but naturally they wore a lot less of it in that case, and the overall weight usually comes out less than that of a full kit of steel.  (like helmet, body armour, and greaves)