Half of a Morion

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Philip

Olá, Nando
You provide some interesting background info. I think the padded cotton is not necessarily lower than the layers of only skin, based on experiments conducted by archer friends in the Netherlands, who were serious about traditional Eastern archery. He says it all depends on how thick the quilting was.. .

That would certainly be right, Filipe. The sentence in the article is not about the principle but the specific way those three provincial cuera variants were made. It is put in a simplistic manner, that could imply in a not so thick cotton interlining between two layers of leather, in comparison with the 'standardized' multi layers .

Originally Posted by Philip

...The Mongols wore a shirt of well-woven silk under their armor. If an arrow pierced the armor, the silk kept the point from going very far into the body, so someone could break the arrow shaft, remove the armor, and gather the folds of the shirt around the arrowhead and pull it out, leaving a more superficial wound that might mean greater chances of survival than if it went deep into tissue, or an organ...

So true ... and probably the same happens with bullets. The intensively wooven silk, instead of tearing apart, penetrates into the body in a form of a pocket, allowing for an easier way to extract the projectile and leaving no particles of material. Cocoon silk is amazing; the longest existing natural thread, so fine that allows for a rather thight weaving. It has an extremely high resistence, only supplanted by spider web silk.

Originally Posted by Philip

... I'll leave it to a physics guy to explain why arrows, which are so good at breaking through the links of chain mail or sticking deep into wood and harder materials, can be stopped so easily by soft things like quilting and curtains...

I am glad i am no physicist, so that i can speculate at will. Hard immobile materials offer far more resistence to the impact, letting the projectile perforate them, while soft moblie stuff reduces (cushions) the blow. How's that for an ignaro ?

And speaking of cueras (buff coats) and still hijacking Andreas thread, let us upload hereunder the harquebusiers attire of a noble person, Dom Pedro II King of Portugal (reigned 1683–1706)
(Courtesy of The Met)


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