>Early Platemail was cast from Iron,
No, it was not cast, not even the bronze plate of the ancient Greeks was cast. It was hammered and
reasonably light (the leather and scale suit I used to fight in was about 60 lbs plate actually can
be lighter and being distributed evenly over your body is a HECK of a lot easier to deal with than a
60 lb. backpack.
>Early platemail was
>so damned thick and heavy, if a knight were to be knocked from his warhorse
>(horses bred specifically to be able to carry a knight) it meant likely
>death, the knight trapped like a turtle on its back in the hot sun.
No, these are myths based on literature and parody illustrations of the day and a modern
misunderstanding of the differences between battle and jousting armour.
I have seen a fully armoured person do summersaults and vault a 4 foot pole, I have seen them lythly
hop up from a prone position on the ground. This was wearing armour of a period thickness hammered
of regular steel, not stainless.
Armour designed specifically for the de-horsing period in jousting got very VERY heavy and very
specialized but this stuff was never used on the battlefield. Battlefeild armour remained a balance
between weight and flexibility.
The whole thing about a fallen knight being like a turtle is a myth, now, that being said, a dozen
peasents with polearms pulling a knight off his horse and shoving a itty bitty knife through his
visor is a GOOD idea *laughs* and certainly happened. The famous illustration of putting a knight on
his horse with block and tackle was a *parody* illustration, not historical documentation.
No one
>forged stainless steel in those days. (Come to think of it, maybe the EQ
>plate is made of stainless steel.) Little of this early armor remains, only
>those pieces from especially short individuals, which no one else could fit
>into, when said short individual died within it.
Plenty of this armour remains in collections throughout the world. A whole lot more is manufactured
by modern smiths using period techniques based on these existing pieces.
Tszaaz