chain mail

[desdichado]

I have been reading lately some fiction books about the 100 hundred years war and it got me thinking about chain mail as it seems to have been the most common armour of the day for the majority of the men-at-arms.

how effective was chain mail at resisting a sword stroke or spear? Longbows and crossbows seem to have been able to pierce mail quite effectively and it would seem to me that being hit in say the arm or shoulder by a sword blade swung with force would still break bones if not actually penetrating flesh as mail unlike plate will "collapse" about the force of the stroke so to speak. This would make the warrior next to defenceless and easy prey and the mail a waste of time. But as it was so common it must have had its use, perhaps against a spear thrust it was very good and hence popular for this reason?

Have any tests been done as to how well mail resists a blow from different types of weapon. I have seen an arrow shot through double chain mail before (from close range though) but nothing else.

[Hakonarson]

The shortcomings of mail are fairly well known - it'sa relatively easy to pierce with a narrow thrusting tip, sich as a bodkin point or even a spear thrust, and indeed it is flexible so you need padding to reduce the crushing effect of blows.

Lots of re-enactment organisations have carried out all sorts of tests - including draping pig carcasses with it and seeing how it works I believe.

However it certainly does work in many cases, and its advantages are considerable - especially its flexibility.

[desdichado]

Hakonarson,

thanks. the padding makes sense and the flexibility is definitely a bonus. Hmmm, I will try to find the results of some of these pig tests

btw, glad to see the All Blacks took it easy on the Italians yesterday http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif . Wallabies still have some work to do

[71-hour Ahmed]

I have seen on tv a pigs carcass in armour and without getting it. The pig was a lot healthier after being hit with sword and axe with the chain mail on. I can't remember what the result of the arrow test was though, and they didn't do a spear test.

[MrWhipple]

I am a member of the SCA (Society for Creative Anacronisim), and make chain mail as a hobby. It was designed to deflect sword blows. Worn with a lot of padding it is amazing how much impact you can sustain without feeling a thing. Even spear thrusts are deflected unless they are dead on and forcefull.

Now the problem begins when a bunch of rabble yeomen think that they can usurp their betters and come to the party with a bunch of bows and cross bows Also you might run up against some clergy who are squemish about spilling blood and give you a couple of good whacks with a well made mace or flail, breaking a few ribs or worse, your head. In close combat everyone carried a dirk (long pointy dagger) and they have a habbit of being able to find those anoying seams in your armor, like armpits and groin.

As those pesky yoeman became more popular and nobody listned to the Popes ban on crossbows, everybody started going to plate armor for the more vital bits, but chain was still popular for the bits that needed more flexibility like neck, forearms, groin, armpits etc.

Mail is realy fantistic stuff and is quite simple, but tedious, to make.

[ChErNoByl]

how, exactly, is it made?

and back then was it cheaper or more expensive to make? Like, if you wanted to equip an army would it be easier to go plate or mail?

[Hakonarson]

There are articles on hte net about how to make it - search for "how to make mail armour" or something like that http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

It was easier to make than plate because it didn't require the ability to hammer consistant thicknesses of thin iron - IIRC the wire was made by pulling iron (or bronze) through smaller and smaller holes, and this was relatively easy to accomplish.

The wire was then wound around a rod to make the rings, and cut off by simply chiselling in a line.

The rings are then linked together and closed - sometimes they are just left "as is" - ie with hte ends butting against each other, but often they were riveted closed, which must've been quite a job

[The Wizard]

Of course it was effective. The chainmail was effective in deflecting swords, but arrows with, for instance, a bodkin head easily pierced it. Chainmail gave a reasonable good protection, and at a lot better price than that of plate. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Pellinor]

To make authentic mediaeval mail:

- Find some iron
- Hammer it into a rough wire, or cut a strip off the edge of a sheet
- Draw it through smaller and smaller holes in an iron plate to get a more or less uniform wire
- Wrap the wire round a bar (3-13mm thick, epending on the thickness of your wire and how much work you want to put into the job) to give you a spring
- Cut the spring, with a chisel or shears, to get lots of little rings with the ends slightly off-set.
- Squidge the rings so the off-set ends overlap each other. You can do this by putting them on a slightly smaller rod and rolling it, by forcing them through a hole slightly smaller than they are, or by cutting them with the overlap already there (this is a bit tricky).
- The rings are now a bit work-hardened and brittle, so heat them up to red heat for a bit then let them cool slowly (called "annealing" or "normalising")
- Hit the rings with a hammer to flatten them. The idea is to get the overlap squidged together; you can optionally do the whole ring. Tastes vary.
- Punch a hole through both bits of the now flattened overlap. Use either a sharp bit of metal and a hammer, or if you're clever set up a pair of tongs with a punch in the jaws. You may need to anneal the rings again before you do this.
- Thread each ring through four others in the approved manner, then put a small rivet through the holes in the overlap and "peen" it: squidge the ends over so it stays in place. Again, you can use a hammer or a pair of modified tongs.
- Repeat 10-100,000 times

Optionally, you can punch half the rings out of sheet iron. The simplest way to do that is basically to punch out the hole in the middle, then punch out the ring from the sheet using the hole as a guide for the larger punch.

An alternative to punching is to take the overlapped rings and weld them closed: heat till soft then hit with a hammer. There's a knack to this, though. A bit of flux may help.

As a further option, you can put the completed shirt into a ja and heat it up to red heat, then put the jar over a pot of cold water and break it so the shirt falls into the water and cools very fast. This makes the metal very hard, but brittle. There is some debate as to whether you really want to do this, as some people think the softness (and therefore toughness) of the rings is more important than their hardness.

If you're trusting the stuff to protect you, make sure every ring is riveted, welded or solid. Butting the ends closed makes for much weaker armour, unless you use really thick wire in which case it makes for only slightly weaker armour that is much much heavier.

You may want to set a whole village to doing this for you. Alternatively, there are mail-making machines on the market then will make very strong mail with all the rings welded closed: around £250,000, IIRC, but not entirely authentic for the mediaeval period.

Pell.R.