8:42 mile.
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 ...
8:42 mile.
Just like US Rangers train extensively in full gear and extreme weather to prepare for battle, medieval knights trained from the age of 12 on in the art of warfare, including repeated drills and contests in full armor.
Putting randomly selected people from the street, putting them in armor for the first time in their lives and then putting them on a treadmill isn't very meaningful.
They might as well have said that the swords are real heavy too and that would have slowed them down as well as the heavy armor. But like you said, the people wearing them trained in them, so the armor wouldn’t have been as much of a problem for them as four volunteers who never wore armor in their lives before the experiment.
It’s meaningful since they are looking at the CHANGE in energy consumption going from unarmored to armored, not the absolute value.
If you double the energy consumption walking you can make valid inferences about what additional energy was consumed by putting armor on a man on horseback.
Question for historians: What fraction of actual battle time did knights spend on their horse and how much knocked off and fighting on the ground?
I carried 65 to 90 pounds in Vietnam (No, I did not see John Kerry while there), the lighter load while patrolling in the mountains. Walking is OK, but if you have to run with it, it’s a kicker! Especially through rice paddies!
Later in training in the mountains in Korean my team had packs weighing 105 to 115 lbs. I would not want to carry much more AND fight. Of course, we always dropped the bulk of the load before an assault.
I was 5’ 8” and 155 lbs at the time.
If your arm is twice as heavy for being encased in metal then you can slash your sword half as often regardless of how fit you are.
Why bother doing the study? All one needs do is read the battle accounts written at the time. They all say the same thing, no matter which battle. Extended fighting in armor is exhausting. Doh!
The charge was led by Captain Obvious.
Albeit messy, but the coffee should come right off my monitor... ; )
Think of it as "medieval stimulus". There were frequent reported incidents where peasants would strip the dead for their armor after a battle. I've read of stories where they'd kill a armored soldier if they had a chance just for the value of their gear if they could get away with it.
Gotta love these threads. There's so many tidbits to take away from them.
I once read that the Roman foot-soldier trained in heavy armor but fought in light armor.
We have a tendency today to downgrade the men of those times as ‘smaller and weaker’ than we are. However when a few actual english Long Bows were pulled up from some water that had preserved them perfectly it was found that the “pull” on them was a lot higher than formerly theorized. The truth is that when a mans life depended upon his mastering a thing HE MASTERED THE HELL OUT OF IT!
;’)
Roman legionnairies relied (like their hoplite predecessors in Greece and Macedonia, among other groups) on fairly heavy shields, a decent helmet, and of course, the formation. Those on the outside would fight, then their officers would blow a loud whistle (not makin’ this up) and the soldiers behind would move up. Those retiring would head to the back of the line to rest and wait their next “shift”. These cycles of combat were measured in minutes, and help account for both the effectiveness of the Roman army and for its fairly small size, given the length of the frontiers and extent of the territory.
body armour ping
Always a good idea.
> I was 5’ 8†and 155 lbs at the time.
So, how tall are you now? /rimshot
:’)
Thanks, that’s an excellent anecdote, because the wet terrain in Vietnam is analogous to the field conditions at Agincourt (freshly ploughed ground, rained for days before).
Thanks Pan_Yan.
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