Physiological effects of wearing armour and heat

[Ed]

Certainly the weight/heat was a contributory element to the loss at Hattin which wrote finis to the First Crusade. But isn't this sort of a given? I mean to say that even a modern soldier, if fully burdoned and exposed to the heat, would doubtless cease to be an effective fighter.

This little snippit shows that serious heat related disorders have 3 times the incidence of wounding in Iraq. And that is within a modern army!

BTW, I read in my searches that the load amedic carries is 65 lbs(!)

Assuming medical air transport is an indicator of serious wounds, injuries, or sickness, these data can also be described as follows:

* 6,273 seriously wounded;
* 6,430 seriously injured in non-hostile events (e.g. vehicle accidents)
* 17,662 seriously ill (e.g. serious heat prostration)
* A total of 30,365 seriously wounded, injured, or sick – all causes.

http://www.cdi.org/program/document....intversion.cfm

Serious stuff indeed.

ETA I just noticed that heat related illness is one of the disorders counted among the 17000.