Re: (TFT) Stewing in Your Own Juices

[lifeisfun@aol.com]

I do enjoy stirring up a little controversy.  People who know me well, are very accustomed to straw man style of argumentation.  My own habit is to look to my own experience and then contrast that with what experts write in books.  
 
Of course, I will admit having a scant education in armoring.  I should probably sit silently in the shadows and let others duke out the details.  But, I'll say just about anything to start up a debate.  That's just who I am.  
 
Anyway, about the statement below:  When I found myself dying in my ringmail on a hot summer day, it was entirely due to the metal heating up in the sunshine.  Wood can also get hot in the sun, but if I was to make some sort of armor out of wood, it would not be with big blocks or shingles.  
 
Personally, I look at armor from the perspective that it is good against specific types of attacks.  The different weapons do crushing, piercing, friction/burning or slicing damage.  I don't think that I could make a suit of wood armor that would be effective against piercing damage.  But, I think I might be able to make something useful against the other three.
 
Slicing damage is deferred by putting something hard enough or thick enough to keep the wearer from being cut.  I think strips of wood might be capable of absorbing most cutting edges.  Of course, the edge might stick in the wood, and that would be a problem.
 
Crushing damage is deferred by displacing the force of a blow over a larger area.  I've argued before that ringmail/chainmail isn't a very effective defence against crushing blows.  After all, a hammer focuses its force and is trying to break your bones, not cut your skin.  Chain makes your skin harder, but it is also very plyable and it doesn't distribute the force very well.  I wouldn't want to be beaten by a hammer wearing my ringmail.  Of course, any padding you are wearing under the chain would help.  I think that hardened leather might be a better defense against a hammer than chain.  And no, I don't want to be a test subject.
 
Friction or burning damage would be caused by weapons that lash across the skin.  Just about anything will help against this type of weapon.  
 
Piercing damage seems to be the biggest shortcoming of all of the armor types.   The best defense against this type of attack seems to be deflection.  There has been a bunch of talk about piercing armor with arrows and such in other threads.  I think it is clear that an arrow "can" penetrate a breastplate under the right conditions.  But, I also think that most plate style armor is designed to deflect piercing blows and is not intended to simply be thick enough to stop the penetration when it hits on a perfect right-angle to the plane.  So, I don't see how I could make wooden armor that could effectively deflect arrows since wood isn't exactly hard enough to turn a sharp point unless you have a considerable angle.  
 
Anyway, I wasn't aware that Saladin's knights wore metal armor.  Certainly there have been armies wearing pieces of bronze and other metals for a very long time around the equator, I don't know why they wouldn't have employed the technology except that my own experience leads me to steer clear of wearing materials that seem to retain heat.  I would point out that they don't seem to wear much metal armor in that area of the world.  
 
You know, on a completely different tangent, I didn't like wearing the ringmail in the cold either.  Maybe i'm just a girly-man.
 
Good Fortune,
Richard
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: raito@raito.com
To: tft@brainiac.com
Sent: Mon, 25 Sep 2006 12:21 AM
Subject: Re: (TFT) Stewing in Your Own Juices

And your wood armour would be worse than steel in the hot sun. First off, it
would have to be thicker. And it would insulate more than the metal.
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