Using today’s technology, materials, and design expertise, what would be the differences in a suit of full plate armor used by the knights of old?
I’m pretty sure we could design armor that could reliably stop a sword thrust or an arrow fired from a longbow, though I’m not sure if it would be any lighter. Of course, that protection would not be on 100% of the body, because of the need for articulation. A lot of melee weapons were blunt, and it would be impossible to make any practical armor that would provide anything near full protection against a crushing blow from a mace or war hammer.
Not sure you’re right there, Badtz. I’ve got armor for motorcross and ice-hockey, both of which have taken some real hard knocks for me without complaint (the impact energy from a hockey puck after a slap shot must be comparable to the impact from a mace). Both of them are far lighter than plate mail or chain could ever be.
Layer some kevlar over a plastic and foam frame, and you’d have some rather formidable protection.
I think modern armor could be made that is definitely better than plate, but I think there is a difference between a rubber puck, which can’t weigh more than a few ounces, and a 5 pound flanged mace. I’m sure plate mail would protect you from a puck better than what you wear, yet maces, hammers, and flails were still effective against it.
As to falling injuries, most of the energy is absorbed by the flexibility of your body, not the pads. When you fall off your bike, not all of the energy of your body hitting the ground is absorbed by the first part of your body that hits it.
Certainly, for the comparative expense of a suit of armor in medieval times, a similar suit could be constructed out of carbon fiber, with a lightweight padding, and it could probably even be comfortable. I remember reading about a guy making a “bear-proof” suit, supposedly able to withstand being mauled by a bear.
More info:
http://formen.ign.com/news/13111.html
http://www.nob.on.ca/archives/mar99story/deep.html
Apparently, if the guy can get $1.2 million, he can work on the next model, which will have 85% mobility.
I’d say that beats a suit of armor hands down.
Yeah, but for at least some of those tests the suit was empty. Yeah, the suit might survive a 150 foot drop intact, but the person inside it would be very dead. Same thing with the trunk drops and the truck - the suit might be undamaged, but the person inside would not be.
If someone was wearing a helmet that was totally rigid and well padded on the inside, and someone took a hard swing at their forehead with a baseball bat, the helmet would be undamaged, and the skull of the person might be unbroken, but you can bet the person inside would have their brain seriously jarred, and their neck could be broken.
I just read the article on the suit…it weighs 147 lbs, twice what medieval full-plate would weigh, and is extremely bulky. They also make some pretty outrageous claims about it - they say it is ‘comfortable’ at 3000 degrees, claim both that it is waterproof and that it has ventilation fans (!!!)…sounds like it should be taken with a grain of salt.
I’m pretty sure the claims are legitimate. I also saw a similar article in the Boston Globe a while ago. According to the second link, the inventor was in the suit for those tests:
Sure, it weighs twice as much, but would you wear a suit of armor while being rammed by a pickup truck?
As for the temperature claims, they seem reasonable, considering that they guy sees fire departments as one of his chief customers. Sooner or later they’d figure it out if he was lying.
A puck is a hard, vulcanised rubber object. It weight just under half a pound (depending on make). A good slapshot will send it at speeds of over 120mph. That must be a comparable impact to any of the items you’re talking about, if only because the source of power behind it is the same (a strong person using a large lever)
If there’s anyone who could do the maths to actually work out how the impacts would compare, I’d be most interested.
In terms of protection, the actual impact is absorbed by layers of foam under the plastic plate. The equivalent for armour would be the thick cloth or leather jerkin worn under plate mail. The question would have to be which had better “shock absorber” properties, as without that the armours only goint to transfer all that kinetic energy directly to the wearers body.
OK, force being M*V[sup]2[/sup]…
I’m going to use ounces and MPH, I like the metric system but the conversions can be a pain…
8*(120*120)=115200
I’ll be conservative and say that you could swing a mace at 90 MPH. The end of a baseball bat moves faster, but it’s shorter than a mace.
80*(90*90)=648000
5.625 times the force. Actually, the weight of the arm of the person swinging the mace should be added too, but then only the end of the mace would be moving at the top speed, which might be too high, though I doubt it.
For a 5 pound object to hit with the same force as a puck moving at 120 MPH, it would have to be moving less than 38 MPH.
My apologies to the OP for continuing this hijack, but…
sorry BM, I’ve got to question some of your variables.
I’ve had a quick look around for details on war hammers, maces, and the like, as sites such as http://www.armor.com and http://www.museumreplicas.com/
“With the increasing sturdiness of plate armor, the sword became less and less effective against a fully armored knight. Axes and maces soon became the weapon of choice for hand-to-hand combat of the mounted knight. The war hammer quickly evolved and became one of the premier weapons. Generally, it was lighter than the mace, and faster”
Museumreplicas gave specs for hammers weighing it at 1 3/4 lbs, and maces at 2lbs 5 ounces.
If we look at those sort of weights, especially the lighter hammer, we get much closer to the figure for a hockey puck.
Then there’s the question of whether you could swing a hammer at 90 mph. I’ve no idea how we could get an accurate figure though, so any suggestions would be welcome.
Thanks, I was just guessing on mace weight. Knew broadswords were 3 to 5 pounds, (incorrectly) assumed a bludgeoning weapon was heavier.
I think some consideration has to be given to the weight of the arm swinging it. I think someone hitting you with a puck held in their hand which they somehow swung at 120 MPH would be a lot worse than a free-flying puck.
We know a person can throw a baseball at 100 MPH. Is circumference pi*diameter? I can’t remember…well, if I am wrong, someone can correct me…if a pitchers arm was 30 inches long, the circumference of the circle his hand would move in would be 94 inches…that would be .0014 of a mile…blah, I think I’m doing something wrong, that would make it .052 seconds for him to swing his arm all the way around (which of course he couldn’t, but that shouldn’t matter). If the mace extended his reach by 18 inches, that would increase the circumference to 150 inches…and I realize that’s all I would have had to figure out…that would have the mace head moving 159 MPH…but he wouldn’t be able to move his arm as fast if he was holding a 37 ounce mace as if he was holding a baseball (which I am having trouble finding the weight of)…
Heh, I have been awake WAY too long. Why don’t we just hit some goalie in the head with a mace and ask him which hurts worse?
Sure thing. I’m playing on sunday, so I’ll let you know how I got on on Monday (as long as I can find a mace by then - maybe Bauer do one).
Um, that’s not a serious recomendation, I still think it would do a lot more damage than a puck. 8^)
I saw that suit when there was someone in it. They got people hitting him with sledge hammers and stuff. As for armour, you can get stab proof vests and bullet proof vests (but its difficult to make one with both, I dont know why) These are made of kevlar or some similar fabric so are much lighter than medieval suits of armour.
Sounds like that suit was designed by Tony Stark.
Ok… there’s been some pretty detailed discussion going on here… much of it very interesting. I think I’ll opt for simplicity regarding the OP;
er… lighter.
er… stronger.
er… more movement.
er… you probably wouldn’t need a forge and a blacksmith to build it.
On the topic: I am currently building a suit of armour using a combination of tin, foam and fibreglass. Though far from finished, when completed it should be able to withstand a direct attack from a beer and will be comfortable within a temperature range of 16-26 degrees Celcius.
It cost a hell of a lot of dough in the Dark/Middle Ages to equip an armored knight, especially a mounted one. Only elite cadres with rich sponsors could swing full custom-fitted plate. The relative costs of building a custom suit today are probably not that far off.
I’d agree with the previous opinions that a mace, especially a balanced one, is going to hurt a lot more than a hockey puck, even at a fairly low speed. The puck would be more prone to ricochet, also, while the mace is going to be attached to an arm on a body weighing a considerable amount, perhaps over 200 pounds if also armored. If they swing with their body rather than just their arm, that’s a tremendous amount of force.
Think about this as well - a /running/ mace-wielder in full armor swinging for your head. Ow.
Hell, I can usually withstand a direct attack from a beer with no armor. 