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Originally Posted by M ELEY
Of course, you are right. I was just joking. On an interesting side note, is is said that despite all that Custer did to the Souix, they still had great respect for the man! When his body was recovered, he had been scalped, but otherwise, intact. All of the other soldiers at the BigHorn had been horribly mutilated out of vengence (per Native American beliefs, they would look like this in the afterlife). Interesting...
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LOL! I was right with ya Mark!!
and no doubt any kind of armour would have been enthusiastically received! if nothing else for moral support. This event has ever since often served as an analogy for any 'hopeless' situation.
It truly is worthy of note that Custer's body was spared the terrible mutilations of the others, typically carried out by the Indian women after the combat with the pent up rage they felt, especially for those they had lost, and as noted by Mark, for the afterlife.
While I would consider the perception toward Custer more as 'regard' in his capacity as a 'chief' than respect, it is known that certain less dramatic, nonetheless symbolic, bodily mutilation was applied in that his eardrums were punctured. This is thought to have some meaning to do with 'his words' and was carried out by Indian squaws.
The soldiers were horribly outgunned, and it is true that the warriors did have a number of Henry and Winchester repeaters which both fired .44 rimfire ammunition.The U.S. government in thier frugal 'wisdom' issued single shot carbines to troops to prevent excessive use and would 'be wasteful' ! Obviously not a very prudent perspective here. There are also numerous references to jamming from both sides in the battle. This would hardly be surprising in frantic, repeating firing of the guns and the enormous amounts of dry, Montana plains dust that would have been in clouds with the intense movements of horsemen in concentrated areas. There are reports of broken knife blades and jammed actions found among the debris.
The archaeological reports of the excavations at Little Big Horn battlesite in the 1980's led to incredible forensics and ballistic studies that revealed a great deal in better understanding the use of the weapons there.
Interesting information Chris on the face mail, and I have seen the shields used by riot police in the phalanx (?)formation. The use of leather on the frontiers of New Spain is indeed well known as the Soldados de Cuero found that heavily padded leather provided protection from Indian arrows. The use of guns in those times was quite limited earlier, and even later the lack of gunpowder caused even the Spanish to rely more on the lance as a weapon.
I had not heard of the layered leather vests in South America, and it would be indeed interesting to know more toward ballistic results on these. I think that as we had noted earlier, the earlier low velocity bullets may have been stopped or at least impeded by leather or heavily folded fabric, but the higher power bullets, probably not.
Good suggestion on the cuirassiers in the campaigns in Mexico..Gonzalo where are ya?!!
In a documentary just on about the Romanovs, and the massacre of the Royal Family in Russia in 1918,the young girls were apparantly not killed by the gunfire and ultimately bayonetted and bludgeoned. It was found the bullets were deflected by corsets laden with diamonds and jewels.
Just interesting note while I was writing this
All best regards,
Jim