Wooden armor

[andrew881runner]

I have worked with wood since my family in the past had a small business in making and selling wooden items. I noticed that wood has many desirable features which would make it great for making armors, at least cheap armors: there are different woods, harder, softer, more flexible, more durable. It can be cut easily and almost every person with some free time and one or two tools could build a basic armor, for chest for example.  An hard wood would be very suited since it would resist, I can assure you, basically any slashes or thrusts, if thickness is more than 3/4 mm. And hard wood does not splitter at all as soft woods (if you have parquet at home and you want to do a quick test, since parquet are usually in hard wood, you could try to stab it with a big knife.. If you are lucky you will make a small dent over it). Wood is light, and this means you could wear a lot of protection with no problems. I already said that it is cheap and there is wood everywhere?  Some time ago I found an article which told how wooden armors of Inuits repelled bullets of Russian traders who attacked them to steal their pelts, in 18th century. This tells a lot about resistance of wood, even if I find it quite extreme example really.  so when I hear about poor peasants of every age going to fight with no armor, or almost no armor, I wonder why they did not build themselves some wooden protection, maybe for chest and vital organs. It could make the difference between life and death.  If I had to give armor to a big army with least expense, I would think immediately to wood.  Maybe most simple and effective wooden armor would be a with overlapping scales,or lamellar armor. Something like the typical ancient Chinese lamellar armor, which was made with leather (or they said so... On my opinion, it could be wood too).
I know many of you will remind boiled leather, which is quite good too. Yes it is, for same thickness provides even better protection probably. But usually to achieve same thickness of a solid plate of wood you would need Many many layers of boiled leather, which would make it very expensive. And leather tends to be expensive itself, since killed animals are a limited resource. Then you need people who know how to work with leather and that adds expenses.
While as for wood, give a kid some tools and enough time and he will learn to shape objects himself (as most sailors did in the ships to spend time).

[Patrick Waterson]

I have wondered the same thing, although it is noticeable that almost every culture that creates armies uses wood - often with hide - for shields and metal/linen/leather for armour.

Looking around a bit, I noticed this site, which while not hugely informative provides some useful nuggets of information, including:

Wood isn't great stuff to make armour out of - it may be a lot lighter than metal and easier to work, but it lacks both strength and flexibility. Wooden armour will only tend to appear in cultures that lack easy access to metal and leather. Historically it appears mainly in South and Central America, South East Asia (particularly bamboo and laminated wood) and the Pacific Islands (including the fibre matting previously mentioned). Some examples of highly decorative ceremonial armour made from carved wood also appear in China and Korea.

Does this seem reasonable?

Although a bit outside our period, I could not help noticing this.

[Patrick Waterson]

Some time ago I found an article which told how wooden armors of Inuits repelled bullets of Russian traders who attacked them to steal their pelts, in 18th century.

Perhaps this one.  And this may be the 'NW Coast' post referred to therein.

[andrew881runner]

Yes that was the article, Exactely.

[andrew881runner]

I have wondered the same thing, although it is noticeable that almost every culture that creates armies uses wood - often with hide - for shields and metal/linen/leather for armour.

Looking around a bit, I noticed this site, which while not hugely informative provides some useful nuggets of information, including:

Wood isn't great stuff to make armour out of - it may be a lot lighter than metal and easier to work, but it lacks both strength and flexibility. Wooden armour will only tend to appear in cultures that lack easy access to metal and leather. Historically it appears mainly in South and Central America, South East Asia (particularly bamboo and laminated wood) and the Pacific Islands (including the fibre matting previously mentioned). Some examples of highly decorative ceremonial armour made from carved wood also appear in China and Korea.

Does this seem reasonable?

Although a bit outside our period, I could not help noticing this.

"it lacks strength and flexibility". For my experience of wood worker (part time) I do not agree. There are many types of wood. Do not forget that they made bows and longbow with wood...is a longbow flexible or not? I guess it is. As for strength, I do not know what he refers Exactely as "strength", maybe resistance to heavy blows? I can assure that in this sense hard woods have enough strength. Everyone has some wooden item at home, you can do simple tests to try wood's strength. 
Since wood is very light, you could wear thick wooden panels (half an inch or more) very protective with no effort.

[tadamson]

The main reason you don't see wood as common body armour is that weight for weight it's not significantly less effective than leather, which is, in turn, less effective than iron or steel.

Quite a few early samurai armours incorporated lacquered wood, but later changes in lacquer allowed lacquered leather.

Tom..

[Duncan Head]

There's another discussion on this very subject at http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=21363

Not long ago I read Ritta Nakanishi's A History of Japanese Armour, Vol.1, which illustrates several examples of Yayoi-period wooden cuirasses; there have clearly been more examples found than the one that was illustrated in the Osprey Early Samurai and in Michael Fredholm's Slingshot article.

[andrew881runner]

So why did Chinese and Japanese used
wooden armor but Europeans did not? It is strange.

[tadamson]

If you can't get anything better you use it.............

In Europe big solid shields were pretty common, and a better way of using wood.

[andrew881runner]

In China wooden armor was used for 3 centuries (700/400 bc about), they had bronze, they had iron, they had leather and boiled leather, they chosed wood, covered by leather (to prevent water damage I guess). They made very interesting and protective wooden armors with overlapping plates linked one to the other. Something very complex and not even a basic stuff for poor peasants.

[Erpingham]

One area where Europeans did use wood in armour was osier framing for leather helmets.  I'm only aware of one mention of these, at Agincourt, but they could ave been more common.  Incidentally, a similar design continued to be used for miners helmets in the Forest of Dean for centuries and examples of these exist, so we can get a fairly good idea of what they might have been like.

[Duncan Head]

At http://antiferus.net/clothing/headwear.htm is a brief note on the Syrian leather hat-helmet filled with wooden blocks that David Nicolle had written about. I'm not sure how far the wooden blocks are intended to be protective, or just "filler". 

Woven rattan is  often mentioned as armour in south China and SE Asia - does that count as "wooden"? It's a kind of palm-fibre, I think. See http://www.ashokaarts.com/shop/early-chinese-teng-pai-woven-cane-or-rattan-shield

At http://www.themalayartgallery.com/other_weapons/baju_perisai_sumbawa_rotan.htm is a Malay armour made of a woven rattan base - a much finer rattan, more like sacking - covered with "scales" made of "a kind of seed" that actually look quite like wooden shingles.

Andrew, what's your evidence for "Chinese wooden armour 700-400 BC"? Are we sure it's for use and not just funerary, like the Qin stone armour?

[andrew881runner]

At http://antiferus.net/clothing/headwear.htm is a brief note on the Syrian leather hat-helmet filled with wooden blocks that David Nicolle had written about. I'm not sure how far the wooden blocks are intended to be protective, or just "filler". 

Woven rattan is  often mentioned as armour in south China and SE Asia - does that count as "wooden"? It's a kind of palm-fibre, I think. See http://www.ashokaarts.com/shop/early-chinese-teng-pai-woven-cane-or-rattan-shield

At http://www.themalayartgallery.com/other_weapons/baju_perisai_sumbawa_rotan.htm is a Malay armour made of a woven rattan base - a much finer rattan, more like sacking - covered with "scales" made of "a kind of seed" that actually look quite like wooden shingles.

Andrew, what's your evidence for "Chinese wooden armour 700-400 BC"? Are we sure it's for use and not just funerary, like the Qin stone armour?

Look for "Chinese armor" in YouTube, there are several good videos with all pics and dates. In first video of the list, you will find the "rhino wooden armor" with detail pictures. It was made with overlapping linked wooden plates covered by leather.

[Duncan Head]

Look for "Chinese armor" in YouTube, there are several good videos with all pics and dates. In first video of the list, you will find the "rhino wooden armor" with detail pictures. It was made with overlapping linked wooden plates covered by leather.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvmFAoNJS68

Thanks. But I suspect that may be worthless. There are some interesting reconstructions in there (along with some plagiarised Li Yonghua illustrations!) but a lot of it looks to be imaginative rather than soundly evidence-based. For example, the "bronze face-mask" in one of the early sections is usually identified as a decorative plaque from a shield. And what it gives us is one modern drawing of a block of wood faced by leather, with no indication of provenance. This is not really evidence. Is this reconstruction based on an excavation? If so, is it a complete suit or a fragment? Or is it an interpretation of a written source? And why has it not got into any of the standard works on Chinese armour?

Even if correct, it wouldn't prove that "wooden armour was used for 3 centuries": at most, it might mean one example from somewhere in a three-century period.

[andrew881runner]

Look for "Chinese armor" in YouTube, there are several good videos with all pics and dates. In first video of the list, you will find the "rhino wooden armor" with detail pictures. It was made with overlapping linked wooden plates covered by leather.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvmFAoNJS68

Thanks. But I suspect that may be worthless. There are some interesting reconstructions in there (along with some plagiarised Li Yonghua illustrations!) but a lot of it looks to be imaginative rather than soundly evidence-based. For example, the "bronze face-mask" in one of the early sections is usually identified as a decorative plaque from a shield. And what it gives us is one modern drawing of a block of wood faced by leather, with no indication of provenance. This is not really evidence. Is this reconstruction based on an excavation? If so, is it a complete suit or a fragment? Or is it an interpretation of a written source? And why has it not got into any of the standard works on Chinese armour?

Even if correct, it wouldn't prove that "wooden armour was used for 3 centuries": at most, it might mean one example from somewhere in a three-century period.

I did a research about Chinese wooden armor some time ago, it was Exactely like in the video, everything was correct. My advice is to make a better research in the Web, you will find all the sources.

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"