Wooden armor

[tadamson]

Interesting, I would be interested in where you found it.

I have seen the 'wood faced on both sides by rhino leather', but only in nineteenth century literature.  It ties in slightly with early stories of using rhino hide.  Unfortunately real rhino hide doesn't make very good leather.

Rattan armour is reasonably common, but it's confined to climates that are harsh on leather.

Wood has significant drawbacks as armour.  Amongst these are:

It's not very resistant to cutting, compared to metal and rawhide.

It splits along the grain very easily. Cross grained plywood can address this but it adds significantly to weight so really only works for shields.

It's heavy.  Strength to weight ratio is poor compared with alternative materials.

Tom..

 

[andrew881runner]

JAM is that you from total war center forum?

[Duncan Head]

Ok found: gé jia, Zhou dynasty, rhino lather on wooden army.  You can find it in Wikipedia (and I am sure not only there) page "Chinese armor"

No, you've misunderstood that passage.

It describes "the gé jiǎ (革甲), a sleeveless coat of animal hide formed on a wooden dummy". That refers to what we'd call a "dressmaker's dummy", something like this - a wooden former, used to get the shape and size of the armour correct. The wood isn't part of the armour, it's just a device used in the manufacture and fitting of leather (rhinoceros- or buffalo-hide) armour. Thus for example "The Zhou used wooden dummies to mold armor made out rhinoceros and buffalo hide".

This process is mentioned in the Zhou li, a Han-period document that claims to describe the procedures of the Zhou-period court.

[andrew881runner]

If you see the picture in the video I linked, it is quite representative: the wood is the big part of the plate and leather is a very thin layer on the outside. I do not think that most protection was given by that thin layer...

[Duncan Head]

Yes, but representative of what? Not of the gé jiǎ, clearly. Is it representative of anything but imagination?

[andrew881runner]

Let me see a pic of a real ge jia, so.

[Duncan Head]

There are no surviving examples, obviously. The main source text, the Zhou li, is here in a French translation, or here if you prefer the original.

It's the style that Chris Peers tried to reconstruct this chariot crew wearing - although I suspect that he has underestimated how thick and bulky it was.

[Nick Harbud]

FWIW, my vintage copy of Armies of the Dark Ages shows a number of Byzantine infantry and cavalry figures with wooden vambraces and/or greaves.  From the illustrations these appear to have been constructed from a number of laths tied together and then strapped around the limb.

[Duncan Head]

IIRC, one of the manuals does mention wooden greaves; but there are no details of how they were made or what they looked like, so the splint construction is a bit of a guess.

And am I imagining it, or does one of the Tang sources mention wooden greaves for the Kirghiz?

[Erpingham]

IIRC, one of the manuals does mention wooden greaves;

Checking Heath's book, he references the 10th century Sylloge Tacticorum, for those who might have access to it.

[andrew881runner]

FWIW, my vintage copy of Armies of the Dark Ages shows a number of Byzantine infantry and cavalry figures with wooden vambraces and/or greaves.  From the illustrations these appear to have been constructed from a number of laths tied together and then strapped around the limb.

Could you put a picture?

[Nick Harbud]

You may like to try this site for some pictures and discussion.

https://pneymatiko.wordpress.com/2012/10/25/armour-in-byzantium-in-the-early-years-of-the-varangian-guard-with-special-reference-to-limb-defenses/