Is this reconstructed Song Dynasty heavy infantry armor historically accurate?

SuperiorSoutherner said:

Not sure about its exact weight distribution, the only thing I could find on the internet is that its length is 83.3 cm.

I think they could very well be used to bludgeon the enemy, since Song's enemies all had heavy lamellar armors comparable to their own, very different from the situation that the earlier Han and Tang dynasties faced. That's probably the reason why they made the blade wider, as opposed to earlier Han and Tang swords that had very narrow and thin blades.

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Gratitude.

I'm not sure how much the width of the sword alone would dictated its use. All things being equal it would be heavier, that's true. But I think thinner swords can be pretty heavy too and vice-versa.

mariusj said:

Curious, are there any weapon that can both cut and bludgeon? I think you would need a good deal of thickness to bludgeon but then wouldn't that make the edge hard to cut?

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I believe so. The falcata being one example. In a sense, any swords can be used to bludgeon if they are hard enough, doesn't mean their impact will be the same of a mace or even an axe. But I think some swords were weighted to maximize that effect.

I remember flails were mentioned as far back as Mozi, in the chapters regarding defensive siege tactics. I can see the logic, with a flail you can both hide behind the wall AND hit people. Probably a good weapon for low-morale civilians to use in such a scenario, or else they might just hide behind the wall and be too scared to do anything else.

SuperiorSoutherner said:

Speaking of bludgeon weapons, long-handled battle axes were quite common during the Song period, in mural paintings and carvings of this period warriors were often depicted with an axe in hand.

Here are the four types of battle-axes recorded in the manual Wujing Zongyao

The Jurchen general Wanyan Zongbi, who was responsible for conquering the Northern Song, once said that he only feared two Song weapons, the battle-axe and the crossbow.

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Isn't the battle axe a chopping weapon as well as a bludgeon? Otherwise, why waste the effort and put a blade on it? In the West, they did use plain hammers and maces as weapons.

A powerful axe could chop through even most armour, although in late medieval Europe you stated see spikes on the back axes no doubt to pierce the plate armor which even axes would have a tough time piercing.

One thin:g it seems about the Song dynasty is that that the sides and under the arms seem unprotective - a dagger in close in combat in combat could pierce the side and deliver a fatal blow. Since the Chinese didn't use chain mail, I don't see how they protected the sides. Did the Song soldiers not engage in close combat, or daggers not part of their opponents weapons?

You can use lamellar to protect the armpit, it's been done before since at least Han dynasty (nor do you need a dagger to stab the armpit, a sword will do).



Every armor is a tradeoff between coverage, resistance, weight, and cost (both in resources and in time). No armor can be number 1 at all four. You want complete coverage? Well you'll have to settle for dealing with more weight. Don't want more weight? Well you'll have to make your plates thinner, making the armor less resistant to blows. Don't want the armor to be less resistant? Well you'll have to use better quality metal, increasing cost.

You also work with what you have. People whose armor exposes the armpits probably fought in a way that minimized exposure to the armpits. People whose armor exposes the face probably fought in a way that minimized exposure to the face. People whose armor covered everything, but at the cost of resistance, probably fought in a way that minimized the chance of taking a heavy blow.

SuperiorSoutherner said:

IMO the reconstruction is very well-done, what do you think?

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It looks fine overall, although I am not sure about the armored "belt" thing.

Bart Dale said:

One thin:g it seems about the Song dynasty is that that the sides and under the arms seem unprotective - a dagger in close in combat in combat could pierce the side and deliver a fatal blow. Since the Chinese didn't use chain mail, I don't see how they protected the sides. Did the Song soldiers not engage in close combat, or daggers not part of their opponents weapons?

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That sounds like a loaded question.

Armpit gap is a problem for most forms of rigid or semi-rigid armor (lamellar, scale, brigandine, transitional armor, full plate, all have this issue), not Chinese armor in particular. Mail armor (chainmail) is about the only metal armor not having to deal with this problem.

Even with superior armor design, such as adding besagew (found on Gothic plate among others) or using large pauldrons like Italian armor or Song Dynasty armor, weak spot issue can only be lessened, not completely eliminated. That's also the reason half-swording techniques can still be useful in the age of full plate.

The only real foulproof way to elinimate this problem is, again, wearing mail underneath. Armpits can actually be covered up perfectly with lamellar armor (as the above Han Dynasty armor has shown), but apparently the design didn't caught on, so later armor design continues to have gaps.

Now to answer your questions:
1) Chinese did use mail. The stone wall carving of the Chinese warrior posted by SuperiorSoutherner clearly shows mail pattern on his cuirass and pauldrons, contrasted with lamellar on his legs.
2) They obviously fought in close combat.
3) Chinese obviously had dagger, although dagger was relatively unimportant in their arsenal. AFAIK they didn't have that much variety or dagger designed for specific combat purposes.
4) In any case, getting a dagger to the armpit was probably the least of their concern when majority of your opponent either came crashing at you on horseback with a spear, or armed with some nasty two-handed blunt anti-armor weapons that spell doom as long as they hit any part of your body, regardless of armor.



Another carving from the same tomb, showing the mail armor on his body even more clearly.

wolflance said:

That sounds like a loaded question.

Armpit gap is a problem for most forms of rigid or semi-rigid armor (lamellar, scale, brigandine, transitional armor, full plate, all have this issue), not Chinese armor in particular. Mail armor (chainmail) is about the only metal armor not having to deal with this problem.

Even with superior armor design, such as adding besagew (found on Gothic plate among others) or using large pauldrons like Italian armor or Song Dynasty armor, weak spot issue can only be lessened, not completely eliminated. That's also the reason half-swording techniques can still be useful in the age of full plate. 

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Actually, your are mistaken, European plate armor used mail under the arm and othe joints, you can see it when you look at a suit of armor in a museum. There are about a half dozen suits of armor at the local museum, and all had mail under the arm and around the groin as I recall

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The only real foulproof way to elinimate this problem is, again, wearing mail underneath. Armpits can actually be covered up perfectly with lamellar armor (as the above Han Dynasty armor has shown), but apparently the design didn't caught on, so later armor design continues to have gaps.

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It seems to me that the arm pit will still be exposed when he raises his arms to strike a blow

If I were fighting him, I would try to rush in and close with him, blocking his arm and stabbing him under the arm. I could block his sword so he could not. With just a slashing weapon, to get enough power in his stroke to cut through armor he will have toextend his arms and leave his arm pits exposed. But if the main weapon is a battle axe with along handle, you would probably never get close enough to use it, unless it was to kill some sstunned horseman knocked off his hhorse.

Now to answer your questions:
1) Chinese did use mail. The stone wall carving of the Chinese warrior posted by SuperiorSoutherner clearly shows mail pattern on his cuirass and pauldrons, contrasted with lamellar on his legs.
2) They obviously fought in close combat. 
3) Chinese obviously had dagger, although dagger was relatively unimportant in their arsenal. AFAIK they didn't have that much variety or dagger designed for specific combat purposes. 

Is it obvious? I don't see daggers hanging off the belt the way I see in European illustrations. What you describe sounds like a knife, and a knife is always useful

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4) In any case, getting a dagger to the armpit was probably the least of their concern when majority of your opponent either came crashing at you on horseback with a spear, or armed with some nasty two-handed blunt anti-armor weapons that spell doom as long as they hit any part of your body, regardless of armor. 

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It was my understanding that mail was import, worn only by offocers.

And it the Jurchen Cavalry Charge thread, I just read that the Song fought in formation and didn't fight individually, although I am sure there were times they had to fight one on one.
Are there any manuals on individual combat and sword fighting, as there are for medieval Europe? We have a number of German sword fighting manuals, and while most date to around the Ming, the oldest I think would date to the Song.


I ask about a dagger because because medieval knights did carry them to slip the knife into vulnerable spots like the arm pit, and to dispatch woundSooes A dagger is much easier to position to bills vulnerable spot, and I didn't see any daggers hannging off the belt as you see in illustructions for European knights. European knights faced the same kind of problems as you describe, many of the swords were 2 handed, and there were also poleaxe and halberd, and bills , and battle axe (although the Chinese battle axe was closed to a poleaxe, European axe had a shorter handle). A dagger would seem to be useful. English archers and foot soldiers would use their daggers to dispatch wounded knights who had fallen off your horse. A slashing blow often won't kill you outright.

Another puzzling thing is that the Song swords are just slashing weapons, with no point on them. Mail is difficult to cut through with a sword, but it can be done, and I would think lamellar would be harder yet. Plate is virtually impossible cut through. European swords had m ore of a posing, and the point became much sharper when plate became the main armour, to be used for stabbing through weak spots. Chinese swords all seem to be slasning and cutting weapons, with little ability for thrusting and stabbing. This suggest that lamellar wasn't much more resistant to sword cuts thanlhim.

Bart Dale said:

Actually, your are mistaken, European plate armor used mail under the arm and othe joints, you can see it when you look at a suit of armor in a museum.

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No I do not. As what you just said not only does not contradict my point, in fact, it supports it.

Here's my previous reply:The only real foulproof way to elinimate this problem is, again, wearing mail underneath.

And that's exactly what Europeans did, using voiders if not the whole hauberk.

Bart Dale said:

It seems to me that the arm pit will still be exposed when he raises his arms to strike a blow.

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Yes, indeed it does expose armpits. That's a weakness inherent to most rigid armors.

If I were fighting him, I would try to rush in and close with him, blocking his arm and stabbing him under the arm. I could block his sword so he could not. With just a slashing weapon, to get enough power in his stroke to cut through armor he will have toextend his arms and leave his arm pits exposed. But if the main weapon is a battle axe with along handle, you would probably never get close enough to use it, unless it was to kill some sstunned horseman knocked off his hhorse.

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I am not entirely sure what are you trying to confer, and it can work if you managed to pull it off, but aren't that basically half-swording?

I mean, you will probably do the same thing against a full plate armored knight.

Bart Dale said:

It was my understanding that mail was import, worn only by offocers.

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Possible, but there's no definite concensus about this given the undescriptive nature of Chinese texts. The wall carvings certainly do not depict officer though.

Bart Dale said:

And it the Jurchen Cavalry Charge thread, I just read that the Song fought in formation and didn't fight individually, although I am sure there were times they had to fight one on one.
Are there any manuals on individual combat and sword fighting, as there are for medieval Europe? We have a number of German sword fighting manuals, and while most date to around the Ming, the oldest I think would date to the Song.

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Nothing substantial survived from Song period I afraid.

Bart Dale said:

I ask about a dagger because because medieval knights did carry them to slip the knife into vulnerable spots like the arm pit, and to dispatch woundSooes A dagger is much easier to position to bills vulnerable spot, and I didn't see any daggers hannging off the belt as you see in illustructions for European knights. European knights faced the same kind of problems as you describe, many of the swords were 2 handed, and there were also poleaxe and halberd, and bills , and battle axe (although the Chinese battle axe was closed to a poleaxe, European axe had a shorter handle). A dagger would seem to be useful. English archers and foot soldiers would use their daggers to dispatch wounded knights who had fallen off your horse. A slashing blow often won't kill you outright.

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Indeed dagger was rarely talked about (or show up in illustration) in Chinese source.

The "tackle/wrestle/pin someone down then use dagger to finish him" aspect of dagger is very useful, although (I speculate that) Chinese rarely did that. In general they seem to avoid going to ground at all cost, if Chinese martial arts is any indication.

They did use knife to dispatch wounded enemies, but that's after the battle was over (i.e. not during combat).

Bart Dale said:

Another puzzling thing is that the Song swords are just slashing weapons, with no point on them. Mail is difficult to cut through with a sword, but it can be done, and I would think lamellar would be harder yet. Plate is virtually impossible cut through. European swords had m ore of a posing, and the point became much sharper when plate became the main armour, to be used for stabbing through weak spots. Chinese swords all seem to be slasning and cutting weapons, with little ability for thrusting and stabbing. This suggest that lamellar wasn't much more resistant to sword cuts thanlhim.

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Lamellar can stop a sword or axe cut reliably, but repeated blows to the same area will probably cause it to fall apart, so it is actually inferior to mail in this regard. What it is really good at are resisting blunt trauma and other high-powered attacks such as heavy polearms, heavy crossbows or even pistols/light arquebus round.

Mail armor generally performs better than lamellar against sword cuts and spear thrusts and arrows shot from warbows, but against heavy hitters such as halberds and poleaxes and arbalests, it is much worse than lamellar.

If you look into the weapons of Song Dynasty, they are actually quite similar to late 13th - 14th century Europe, in that there are lots of nasty hacking polearms and crossbows running around. Before that, European battlefield weapons were mostly spear and sword, with some odd Dane axes, fauchards and couses thrown in, so mail was generally sufficient. Come the 14th century with all the bills, voulges, and halberds, and mail suddenly became not so protective, so armor rapidly improved into transitional armor, then plate.

Chinese thrusted into 14th century level of "lots of nasty polearms" warfare several centuries earlier, and lamellar armour held up just fine (while mail armor failed to keep up with the development of weapon in Europe), but then again they kinda stuck at that level, too.

wolflance said:

Lamellar can stop a sword or axe cut reliably, but repeated blows to the same area will probably cause it to fall apart, so it is actually inferior to mail in this regard. What it is really good at are resisting blunt trauma and other high-powered attacks such as heavy polearms, heavy crossbows or even pistols/light arquebus round.

Mail armor generally performs better than lamellar against sword cuts and spear thrusts and arrows shot from warbows, but against heavy hitters such as halberds and poleaxes and arbalests, it is much worse than lamellar.

If you look into the weapons of Song Dynasty, they are actually quite similar to late 13th - 14th century Europe, in that there are lots of nasty hacking polearms and crossbows running around. Before that, European battlefield weapons were mostly spear and sword, with some odd Dane axes, fauchards and couses thrown in, so mail was generally sufficient. Come the 14th century with all the bills, voulges, and halberds, and mail suddenly became not so protective, so armor rapidly improved into transitional armor, then plate.

Chinese thrusted into 14th century level of "lots of nasty polearms" warfare several centuries earlier, and lamellar armour held up just fine (while mail armor failed to keep up with the development of weapon in Europe), but then again they kinda stuck at that level, too.

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One part doesn't make sense to me. If armor is better at resisting crossbow quarrels, then it should be better at resisting spear thrusts and arrows as well.

wolflance said:

No I do not. As what you just said not only does not contradict my point, in fact, it supports it.

Here's my previous reply:The only real foulproof way to elinimate this problem is, again, wearing mail underneath.

And that's exactly what Europeans did, using voiders if not the whole hauberk.

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I see what you mean. Different percention of the definiton - When I think of a suit of plate armor, I include the mail as an integral part of armor, and the mail not as a separate piece, but what you say is right, and amounts to the same thing,


[/I]I am not entirely sure what are you trying to confer, and it can work if you managed to pull it off, but aren't that basically half-swording? [/quote]

Yes, I think so. I think saw something like that in a picture of one of the German fencing manuals Fechtbucher

I mean, you will probably do the same thing against a full plate armored knight. 

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Correct, that is where I got the idea.



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Possible said:

I recall now that one person proposed the Mountain Pattern Armour was really a form of mail. I know it doesn't much look like mail, but artist had a hard time depicting mal. The NHorman knights look like they were weigh scale armor instead of mail in the Bayeux tapestry.


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Nothing substantial survived from Song period I afraid. 

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Too bad, it would have been nice to compare styles. Any from the Ming?




Indeed dagger was rarely talked about (or show up in illustration) in Chinese source.

The "tackle/wrestle/pin someone down then use dagger to finish him" aspect of dagger is very useful, although (I speculate that) Chinese rarely did that. In general they seem to avoid going to ground at all cost, if Chinese martial arts is any indication. 

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Wise idea, being on the ground makes you very vulnerable. I was thinking of getting knocked off your horse, which can momentarily stun you, but not leave you completely incapacitated. Perhaps that kind of thing didn't happen as often in the armies China faced. The Mongols lived their whole life on horse back, tougher to, maybe their saddle was more secure, or they used their battle axes to finish off the wounded from a safer distance.

(I see below you said they dispatch the wounded after a battle with a knife, but I wonder why then the knife isn't depicted more. Because it was only used after the battle?)

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from a knife to dispatch wounded enemies, but that's after the battle was over (i.e. not during combat).

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The Mythbuster lamellar armor is around 26 kg (show said the paper armor is "nearly 30 pounds"). It managed to stop a flintlock pistol without serious damage to the armor.



It failed against a Colt Revolver, though the armor makers seemed to think that there is a reasonable chance that the penetration wasn't enough to hurt the wearer.



If the squished white thing in the dent is the bullet, then it's definitely not enough to hurt the wearer. It's a shame we don't know the thickness of the armor, but we do know that the armor weighs around 26 kg so we can extrapolate from that.

This suit is made by the same producer weighing 17 kg for medium sized. The producer says that the armor scales are 1 mm of stainless steel.



Given that the two armors have the same coverage, I would say that the lamellar armor in Mythbusters probably had scales of around 1.5mm thick. Modern stainless steel would probably be of higher quality than medieval armor though.

These two Han armors weigh 16.5 kg and 16.85 kg respectively, excluding the weight of the threads. They both have 1 mm scales as well. Given more or less the same weight as the above armor, with around the same coverage and scale thickness, I really don't think the lamellar lacing contribute significantly to the armor's weight at all:

Mail armor generally performs better than lamellar against sword cuts and spear thrusts and arrows shot from warbows, but against heavy hitters such as halberds and poleaxes and arbalests, it is much worse than lamellar.

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Generally speaking, I really doubt that mail is better against piercing than lamellar. The riveted mail tested in the following video is a Viking reproduction with 0.8mm diameter, with alternating punched and riveted rings, metal quality is mild steel rather than iron.



The riveted mail did well against a 45 lb Scythian bow and a 350 lb European crossbow (33.57 joules). But against a modern compound bow of 70 lbs it penetrated through the mail and gambeson by about 4 inches, while the modern crossbow with 185 lbs of draw weight (183 joules) penetrated the mail so thoroughly that it's almost as if the mail wasn't there.

The draw weight and joules came from another video from the same guy (Skallagrim):


This goes along the lines of Alan Williams findings in Knight and the Blast Furnace showing that it takes 80 joules for a bodkin arrow to penetrate riveted mail, and 120 joules to penetrate both riveted mail and padded jack. What's interesting about Alan's test is that he tested two mails. One is a reproduction by Erik Schmid and another is a specimen of 14th century mail gusset. Erik Schmid's reproduction did way better than the Medieval specimen, which should be deducible because gussets tend to be less protective than normal mail that is worn as the primary armor. A blade required more than 200 J to penetrate the reproduction, but only 170 J to penetrate the specimen. A lance required more than 200 J to penetrate the reproduction, but only 140 J to penetrate the specimen. However, an arrowhead required 120 J to penetrate both the specimen and the reproduction [The joules involved here includes penetration of the jack behind the mail]. Thin piercing weapons don't seem to be much affected by the increased protectiveness of mail.

The advantage of mail, is that it is light! Given the same coverage, lamellar armor probably needs to be about around 0.6 mm thick in order to weigh the same as mail. Under this circumstance, the lamellar's protective ability would decrease significantly. So judging lamellar to mail probably isn't very fair, because lamellar weighs more than mail when given the same coverage. For fairness, a person in mail should wear two suits of mail as protection, when pitted against lamellar armor of ~1.2 mm thick scales (given the same metal quality and coverage).

SuperiorSoutherner said:

I heard some say that the mountain-pattern armor commonly found on Song period statues and carvings might be a artistic rendition of mail armor.

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If I am not mistaken, that guy was me, but my memory is fuzzy so I am not sure.

The idea wasn't mine though, I am just the first dude to post it in this forum...I think.

SuperiorSoutherner said:

Wujing Zongyao is substantial enough, although it focused mainly on weapons, armors, and formations, not on individual fighting techniques. This might indicate that individual fighting abilities were not highly-valued in ancient Chinese military doctrine (apart from archery, which contestants need to pass archery tests in order to become a general, similar to civil service exams)

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Bart Dale was probably asking about martial arts manual instead of military manual like Wujing Zongyao, hence my answer.

SuperiorSoutherner said:

But they did gradually transition into brigandine during the mid-Ming period.

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Brigandine is still more-or-less meant for 14th century warfare though, although it does have some improvement over lamellar, namely even cheaper, and it has larger and usually thicker plates.

Bart Dale said:

I see what you mean. Different percention of the definiton - When I think of a suit of plate armor, I include the mail as an integral part of armor, and the mail not as a separate piece, but what you say is right, and amounts to the same thing

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Agreed. Voiders are surely nice thing to had.

Bart Dale said:

I recall now that one person proposed the Mountain Pattern Armour was really a form of mail. I know it doesn't much look like mail, but artist had a hard time depicting mal. The NHorman knights look like they were weigh scale armor instead of mail in the Bayeux tapestry.

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At this moment there are all speculations. Some insist that it is a type of scale/lamellar, while others thought it as some sort of unique mail weave pattern (the so-called Japanese dragonscale has been proposed as a possible weave for mountain armor). A relatively recent idea is that it just depicts the bog-standard 4-in-1 mail.

Bart Dale said:

Too bad, it would have been nice to compare styles. Any from the Ming?

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There are quite a lot from Ming, although most of them presume unarmored combat.

Bart Dale said:

Wise idea, being on the ground makes you very vulnerable. I was thinking of getting knocked off your horse, which can momentarily stun you, but not leave you completely incapacitated. Perhaps that kind of thing didn't happen as often in the armies China faced. The Mongols lived their whole life on horse back, tougher to, maybe their saddle was more secure, or they used their battle axes to finish off the wounded from a safer distance.

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The Western way of riding horse (with the legs stretched to almost-straight) is probably more secure, they had to withstand the recoil of couched lance charge after all.

I personally suspect the usual way to dispatch a downed enemy is to gank up on him and club/spear him to death. Given that there's no concept of "capture for ransom" in Chinese warfare, and battlefield contribution was usually measured in number of heads taken, they probably had very good incentive for doing so.

Bart Dale said:

(I see below you said they dispatch the wounded after a battle with a knife, but I wonder why then the knife isn't depicted more. Because it was only used after the battle?)

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Most probably.