The charge was led by Captain Obvious.
With the help of a treadmill, the team was able to assess how much energy someone wearing armour would have used (Footage: University of Leeds)
Posted on 08/27/2011 6:37:40 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Medieval suits of armour were so exhausting to wear that they could have affected the outcomes of famous battles, a study suggests.
Scientists monitored volunteers fitted with 15th Century replica armour as they walked and ran on treadmills.
They found that the subjects used high levels of energy, bore immense weight on their legs and suffered from restricted breathing.
The research is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
The effect of the heavy armour was so great, that the researchers believe it may have have had an impact on the Battle of Agincourt.
"It is a huge fraction of the wearer's body weight" -- Dr Graham Askew University of Leeds
In this famous Anglo-French conflict of 1415, French knights were defeated by their English counterparts, despite the fact that they heavily outnumbered them.
The researchers say their study suggests that the armour-clad French, who had to trek through a muddy field to meet the stationary English line, were so slowed and exhausted by their march that they would have stood little chance.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
With the help of a treadmill, the team was able to assess how much energy someone wearing armour would have used (Footage: University of Leeds)
surprised to hear they had treadmills back then. i thought it was a recent invention.
The armor we see in museums is often ( not always) ceremonial in nature. Very little “working” armor has survived in large part because when weapons development made armor obsolete, the high grade steel it was made of got recycled. Nothing so valuable as good steel went to waste.
I would submit as a working hypothesis that a medeival knight was in much better physical shape that the average volunteer selected today. Consequently, he could have carried the armour without as much distress. The other interesting observation from looking at old suits of armour is that the medieval man was much smaller that the modern H. Sapien.
I'm just glad that U.S. taxpayers don't fund this sort of stoopid research. /s
That’s why knights were armored horsemen - heavy lancers.
Foot soldiers wore less armor - helmet, breast and back, and tassets.
8.4 Emergency Approach March Load Circumstances could require Soldiers to carry loads heavier than 72 pounds such as approach marches through terrain impassable to vehicles or where ground/air transportation resources are not available. Therefore, larger rucksacks must be carried. These Emergency Approach March Loads can be carried easily by well-conditioned Soldiers. When the mission demands that Soldiers be employed as porters, loads of up to 120 pounds can be carried for several days over distances of 20 km a day. Although loads of up to 150 pounds are feasible, the Soldier could become fatigued or even injured. If possible, contact with the enemy should be avoided since march speeds will be slow.
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Ordinarily I might not ping this, because it's a medieval topic, and as it is late in the week and I'm about to do the Digest, I'd probably avoid pinging it now. But number one, I had it all lined up for posting on the evening when FR was down, and number two, it's pretty amusing that someone just now studied this in detail. |
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i thought you only wore armor like that if you were mounted...
LOL!
That’s what she said...
Well, I cleverly pinged the wrong list. :’(
Historians Reassess Battle of Agincourt
By JAMES GLANZ
Published: October 24, 2009
The heavy clay-laced mud behind the cattle pen on Antoine Renault’s farm looks as treacherous as it must have been nearly 600 years ago, when King Henry V rode from a spot near here to lead a sodden and exhausted English Army against a French force that was said to outnumber his by as much as five to one.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/world/europe/25agincourt.html
The Agincourt Honor Roll
http://www.familychronicle.com/agincort.htm
That the armour was a problem at Agincourt has been known for years. Master historian John Keegan gave a detailed account in his classic work “Face of Battle” in 1983. (A book most Freepers would find fascinating and a bit inspiring.)
But, these armored human tanks certainly did have their place in medieval warfare for several centuries. They could not simply be countered with a brave serf with a knife.
Oldplayer
True. However, by Agincort the French had a century of experience that heavy cavalry assaults against entrenched bowmen was just a way of dying tired. Turns out horses with arrows in them become a little hard to control.
The English knights had, in these battles, fought on foot.
So the French decided the answer was for them also to fight on foot.
Apparently not realizing that standing and waiting means the English knights will be a little fresher than the Frenchies will after slogging thru a half mile of mud.
Exactly. Even more to your point, anyone who could afford to wear plate armor back then had probably been training to fight, in armor, from the time they were 9 or so. It's what their class did for a living. Also, the general idea was that the knight fought from horse back as much as possible.
I would also add that had they not worn armor the battle would have been even shorter, with the French knights stapled to their horses by arrows 300 yards from the English.
“May have” had an effect on the battle of Agincourt???
The French were outfitted in armor and attempting to maneuver on muddy ground, and faced an “arrow storm” from the English at fairly close range, many from arrows that were specifically made to penetrate armor. Its difficult to know exactly how many arrows were fired over the course of 5-10 minutes, but it is clear that there were thousands of them, and more than enough to completely overwhelm the French. The French were so confident that mere English archers were no match for the “sophisticated” French, many of them part of the French aristocracy, that they marched to within range of the archers, then tried to stand their ground while the English arrow storm hit them.
In addition, the French cavalry were supposed to attack and defeat the English archers, but each one of them had cut a large pole for himself, sharpened it and planted it in the ground beside his position. When the horsemen approached, the archers just stepped back a couple of paces behind their barricade, and kept on shooting.
Nobody knows how many arrows those English archers fired, but Henry V brought about 3 million arrows with him for the campaign....
badda bing... 8^)
A bigger question is why didn't the French learn anything from the previous battles of Crecy and Poitiers where the longbow was also used decisively?
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