Talk:Armour/Archive 1

Spelling
What is the concensus for spelling on Wikipedia?

The article is Armour but its in the catagory Armor. Which is the best to use? (apparently brits took over and made a LOT of articles use armour instead of armor)

This site was created by americans so should the default spellings be american?

Inconsistency is one of my biggest pet peeves and will just confuse users in the future.


 * My opinion (as a Canadian) is that international English should be used. Thus armour, valour, flavour, centre, programme, organisation, etc. Let's all remember that the Americans are the odd ones out as far as spelling goes, because of Mr. Webster.
 * Urhixidur 13:40, 2004 Aug 16 (UTC)


 * An international English has never been agreed upon. Also, this is an American website.  But really, the only thing that should be considered is consistency.
 * Looking at the spellings on the category page itself I'd say there seems to be a stronger case for changing that to Category:Armour. adamsan 10:20, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Does anyone else else think it's strange that is says (US Armor) in parenthesis even though the majority of people reading this article live in the U.S.? Seems kind of silly to me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.189.245.21 (talk • contribs)


 * How do you know where the majority of people live? Let's not forget that this is an international site, regardless of who started it. And that the rest of the world outnumbers the USA 8:1...


 * Although a greater NUMBER of countries use some form of "Commonwealth" English, a greater number of PEOPLE in the English speaking world use American English. The former possessions of the British Empire hardly outnumber the American English speaking people worldwide (thanks in large part to pervasive US culture and entertainment).  I think it's ridiculous that we default to the British spellings on this encyclopedia, the only reason to prefer one over the other is whichever is used by more people in the world, with some consideration to the nation of origin of the project.  American English wins on both counts. Ghost of starman (talk) 07:16, 8 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with Ghost of starman. American English is much more common on this site. In order to be consistent and less confusing we should use it. OptimistBen (talk) 08:39, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a policy on which policy to use for articles. It can be found here. This article should use a spelling that is not specific to any country, or if such a spelling does not exist, the article should remain as is and be consistent throughout. --Pdeq (talk) 00:07, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Personal armour
It would be great if someone would describe the different parts of armour. For instance, what are bracers? ··gracefool |&#9786; 03:48, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * I think the correct historic term is vambraces and that word can be found in the wikipedia. Braces seems to be predominant in RPG's. The person to blame is probably Gary Gygax who introduced it in the ancestor of (almost) all RPG's, Dungeons & Dragons. There is another term that is missing and that is werebraces that, if I'm not mistaken, is the armour protecting the legs. The reason I mention this here instead of writing an article is because of the words "think", "seems" and "probably". I haven't researched the subject enough to state it as fact. --Soffkartoffeln 21:30, 12 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Bracers were used in england in some sources as full arm defences, the entire arm assembly in other words. But for the most part you are correct.  Rebracer means upper arm defense. Sethwoodworth 10:19, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I've read the upper arm defense as 'rerebraces'. It must be mentioned that while 'bracers' seem to be an RPG thing, there is some evidence for something like them: Transitional armors include a series of metal splints covering the fore-arms. You can see it on an various crusaders effigies.

Non-Western Armor
It would be useful for this article to include images or descriptions of armor from non-Western societies, such as African warriors, East Asian and Southeast Asian.


 * Agreed completely. Sadly my knowledge of such information is lacking.  Anyone else?

A suggestion for spelling
A simple solution is to use armour for any type of historical (let's say pre 1700) as these variants are predominantly of european origin. Modern body armors have been, as far as i know, mainly developed in the US due to the higher availability and use of handguns there (no insult intended). By this reason the spelling should be armor for these.

It's difficult to achive full consensus on spelling as there will always be advocates for any variant that will defend their opinion with religious fervor. But this way, both sides get a share in the action.

I myself would of course like the articles to be in swedish as I seldom manage to keep track of all those, in my eyes, tiny differences between written british, american, irish and australian english. :-)


 * The basic rule about British vs. American spelling is that we only change it if the article is inconsistent. Regarding Swedish, there is a Swedish Wikipedia as well even though the article there is not as nice as the one here. Sjakkalle 07:38, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia policy is to maintain the spelling system used by the article creator unless the subject clearly demands a particular national spelling: e.g. U.S. spelling for Abraham Lincoln. Durova 04:38, 6 March 2006 (UTC)


 * ... or, arguably, UK/International spelling here, since armour was not much worn in North America. Johnbod 19:06, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

swimming
well, I would be interested in documentation of swimming knights. It all depends on what you mean by "plate armour", of course. I suppose you could swim wearing just a sallet, and maybe gauntlets, or greaves. But wearing a full suit of armour, especially including a chainmail shirt worn under the plates, is certainly impossible. So we would need to specify how exactly those swimming knights were armed. dab (&#5839;) 19:11, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

It may or may not be true that Frederick Barbarossa drowned becasue he attempeted to swim while wearing his armour.


 * "Swimming" as it is translated through the ages can be misleading, often referring to a number of men crossing a substantial but shallow body of water, such as a moat or fording. These too were often largely full of refuse, which made them a greater ordeal for the common person, but no more difficultly traversed by one in armor.

Knights too were often not fully armored, particularly when the need for more knights surpassed the resources available. In desperate times, knights could be little more than distinguished militiamen, fully capable of course of swimming.

Decline of Full Plate
"Gradually starting in the 1660s, one plate element after another was discarded to save weight" I always assumd that process started long before the 17th century... Should I say early 16th century would be more accurate?

Actually, many cavalry units, as late as the Battle of Vienna in 1683 wore 2/3 suits of armour, no arm protection, with hats and a "secret" skullcap under it. The lower legs were in leather boots,thats what made them 2/3 suits. Until the rifled musket, in the early 1700s, plate could save a heavy Cavalryman's life. Nativeborncal 04:29, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Modern Armour
Seems most focus of modern armour is on bulletproof vests, shouldn't there be a page for stabproof as well seeing they are important as well especially to police officers.

Definition of Armour
This may just be personal opinion, but the definition of armour here seems somewhat narrow. The Shorter OED defines armour primarily as 'Defensive covering for the body': Surely some mention should be made of the non-military uses of armour, ie in sports. --KharBevNor 22:40, 20 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I suppose the protective gear worn in fencing belongs in this article. A goalie mask, shoulder pads, jock strap, knee pads, shin pads, etc., used in sports like American football or hockey are not the armour that this article is about.  They belong in their own articles, or perhaps someone should write "sports padding".  See also protective clothing.  —Michael Z. 2006-03-06 04:59 Z 

3D Images
Am I the only one who gets a headache from these 3D images? I suggest moving them to a separate page, creating a gallery on Wikimedia Commons for the tiny percentage of people who have the glasses to view them properly. Durova 00:15, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
 * No one objected so I created a new category at Wikimedia Commons and moved the images there. Durova 01:20, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Hoplites
Shouldn't the start go back to the Greeks - moving from bronze to iron and steel was an important step, but also at Marathon and Thermopylae, as I heard it, the bronze armed and armoured hoplite had a huge advantage over the less armoured Persian. Midgley 02:02, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * This article and wikipedia in general hardly feigns proper depth, particularly with regard to antiquity. It's a shame, but I hardly have the research to put up.


 * Yes, the Greeks had a significant advantage over the Persians in every sense but numbers, armor quality among these. They were hardly though in the fifth century BC the first to wear bronze, they simply employed that technology en masse.

UNpowered?
Is it just me, or is this paragraph on UNpowered armour, well, confusing? It's not well written, but I have no idea what this paragraph is talking about, so I couldn't begin to edit it. A citation, or some sort of example of this armour, would be very helpful. I've read it twice and I have no idea what this person is talking about. -anon

Imagine a unpowered suit of armor weighing a ton, HA! Is this a reference to some RPG or sci-fi movie? -drgk In trying to cite sources of the Macenea armour that predates the greco armour it should be noted that it (the armour was on display at the Archaeological Museum of Nafplion as well it found in May 1960 by Nikos Verdelis in the graves in the cemetery at Dendra in the Argolid, the the Central Archaeological Council - Bulgaria(KAS) has decided. the following cites are of its authenticity. http://www.stonepages.com/news/archives/002133.html, http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/news/content.asp?aid=76144 http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=2146412692 All these are related to the fact that it is in the restoration process and is in fact from the 15th century b.c.e.

Non-Metalic old armour
I know little of this subject so I can't add much myself, but wouldn't it be a good idea to start with the earliest armours? Like leather armour, or even just thick padded cloth armour. -OOPSIE- 02:30, 6 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The trouble armor from pre-history is that organic armors decayed and left no remains, and the pictoral record of their existence is sketchy at best. It's hard to tell clothing from armor, for example. We could presume, from the various armors recorded by literate societies as they encountered more primitive culture. Africans, American Indians, Aboriginals, Filipinos, Celts, etc. Examples of which include a 'cord' armor based on corded textiles, the 'cotun' is a celtic garment made of layers of cloth, salt-soaked cloth of the Aztecs(?), a quilted jacket made of a layer of rock-salt between two layers of cloth... Or we can use the records from early Greek and Roman historians, from which we know about the Greek linothrax (made of layers of glued linen), and armor made from 'boiled leather'.

Theblindsage (talk) 09:05, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Vandale copy and pasted page to Armor
On the 20 July the unregistered user 166.127.1.201 copy and pasted the page over to Armor but hashed it up and did not move the talk page aswell. I initially used the WP:RM page but after looking at the page there seemed to be a large back log and as the move was to fix vandalism i moved the page back to Armour. I dunno if we can get an Admin to ban the user or even better to educate hime. TheEnlightened 00:59, 21 July 2006 (UTC)


 * You did good :-)
 * Just blocked the anon to get his (school IP) attention. Vsmith 01:58, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Exoskeleton
Would someone please comment on this article? The Hamilton Spectator - From Bears to Bullets It's about a guy that has invented a full body armor, like a non-powered exoskeleton, supposedly bulletproof. If someone know test results or has any other kind of knowledge of the suit, please write. MigB 15:43, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Arms Race?
The beginning of the History section describes the development of armour as an arms race. I find this assertion untenable when talking about personal armour. In all instances that I am aware of the type of armour worn is dictated by socio-economic factors and technological factors.

Plate armour is frequently described as a reaction to more powerful weapons such as the couched lance, crossbow, and/or longbow. But none of these weapons were developed just before plate armour. The crossbow and couched lance predate the first plate by centuries. The crossbow had been banned by the Pope nearly a hundred years before the first known piece of plate armour. The longbow existed this early as well but was not extensively used in warfare until Agincourt in the second half of the 14th century. By that time virtually all of the French knights were wearing full plate harness and the weapon still played a significant tactical role.

There is however a connection between the development of water-powered trip hammers and the infrastructure necessary for making and then affording to buy plate armour. This explains why in appeared in between the emergence of the above weapons and not in reaction to them.

Mercutio.Wilder 19:10, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure you're right. This editor had extremely dodgy style before being copyedited & I'm dubious about it all. Why don't you write it up? Johnbod 19:14, 19 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The idea is just flat-out falsehood to be honest. Both plate and crossbows were known from antiquity to the early centuries A.D., and simply fell out of fashion due to social and economic constraints.  An arms race implies that these things were being invented and improved upon constantly, such as occurred with breach-loading muskets and nuclear weapons.  Improvements were made, but they were generations apart, and there was little pressure to hasten the process.

US-ification needed?
This article s written entirely in British English. Our goal is to be global. So, we should use the most common forms of the words. So, I agree with the words "civilisation" or "vandalise", for example, but in this form, the article sound too Britannica-ish. (Possibly we also need a copyvio check with Britannica? The entirely British spelling of the article might hide Britannica copyvios.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by NetRolller 3D (talk • contribs) 10:14, 23 April 2007 (UTC).

It has already been said that the official Wikipedia police is to "mantain the spelling system used by the article creator, unless the subject demands a particular national spelling". This is not the case, so I think we should keep it as is.

Leather Armor
The article on Prehistoric Warfare claims that leather armor was the counter to the mace in ancient times. I'd like to know more precisely when it was invented, if anyone knows.

AThousandYoung 23:39, 29 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Sounds like a guess to me. Leather armor is a very obvious development from leather clothing and must have been used from the earliest days of warfare. But, possibly the sword and certainly the spear and arrow were also used at the time so it can never have been designed solely against the mace. As it happens, in the oldest image I can think of depicting a man wielding a mace, no one is wearing any armor at all. TCC (talk) (contribs) 01:41, 30 July 2007 (UTC)


 * It's foolery. Leather protection predates written history, and was worn in all circumstances.  The mace and the sling stone both damage by concussion, and leather is little better at absorbing those forces than metal.

Category:Medieval armour
Shouldn;'t this be Category:Mediaeval armour ?

I'm from the US but just wondering; it seems like US and UK are being used in the same name. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)

Some good links.
I'm cruising the web looking into arms and armor, and I've come across a couple of good sites, by people who have done some good research. http://www.regia.org/warfare/spear.htm www.regia.org http://www.geocities.com/normlaw/ http://www.sengokudaimyo.com/katchu/ Theblindsage 09:01, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

mild inaccuracy
In the section Modern armour it states ' modern ballistic armour is much less impervious to stabbing weapons unless they are augmented with anti-knife/anti-stab armour (usually a form of Mail (armour))[citation needed].' As maille armour is anti-/slash/ not anti-stab (it is quite useless against stabs) this seems rather dubious.


 * Mail armour is not useless against stabs. Many forms of mail armour have rings with an inner diameter of less than 6mm.  Such rings would impede all but the skinniest of blades from puncturing. Mercutio.Wilder (talk) 23:00, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

This article is full of inaccuracies
Sorry guys, but as it stands, this article is very inaccurate and entirely Euro-centric. As it stands, it should not be taken as even slightly authoritative. I might try and tackle it in a few weeks. 89.124.164.6 (talk) 20:52, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Most here would agree with you. The article suffers from a series of small contributions rather than an overall, consistent approach based on reputable sources.  But it's a big job, and I, for one, have been waiting for someone else keen enough to attempt it.  You mention the eurocentrism: note that Chinese armour, Korean armour and so forth have their own pages.  Might make sense to create (or move this to)  European armour or Armour of the European knight or something, cover it in detail there, and create a much more general overview here at Armour with linked summaries of the main armour traditions. Gwinva (talk) 21:58, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, those are all ideas I was thinking of. Although definitely European armor, as it should cover a far wider range than just what was used by knights, although that probably deserves its own page as well.  I'll be settled in for the summer starting in early June, might try to take it on then.  From an IP that isn't close to being blocked for the "contributions" of the other residents of my university housing block here in Galway.  -rolls eyes- 89.124.164.6 (talk) 07:53, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Great. Feel free to drop me a line if you ever need me to look over something, get a second opinion or look something up (I've a mountain of sources: see my user page).  I would recommend getting an account; see Why create an account? It prevents a block of others affecting you, makes it easier for you to keep track of your contribs, keep a watchlist, and it makes it easy for others to get in touch; there's also all sorts of gadgets you can enable to make editing easier. You also need to be signed in to do things like move (rename) pages. Another bonus is you can create your own subpage (sandbox/workpage), where you can mock up an article, play around with it before it goes "live".   Choose a random name if you want to keep your anonymity; in fact,you could make it a play on your IP, like "eight.nine.one.two".  Gwinva (talk) 09:25, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Fit of Plate Harness
In this thread on myAmoury we see a discussion of the fit of armour. In it Randall Moffett provides a large number of specific refences which indicate that the majority of armour was not custom fit to it's wearer. These records include the personal accounts of lords who kept a number of harnesses on hand to give out to retainers as needed. Also import documents showing hundreds of harnesses at a time shipped to England to be sold on the open market. The open and unanswered question is how much was fitted after-market and to what degree. Having personally fought in poorly fitted armour I can attest to both the value of well-fitted armour and the fact that you can fight well in poorly fit armour. Mercutio.Wilder (talk) 02:20, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I think we should assume that almost all tournament armour was made or altered to fit. But hardly any other armour was made to fit. However a very high percentage of surviving armour is of this top quality made to fit category. So survival has hugely distorted the common perception i.e. everyone thinks of Henry VIII's successive suits of armour that show him getting fatter and fatter.Sheredot (talk) 12:58, 13 June 2008 (UTC)