Well, Isaak Krogh made mail coif, so not very big piece, out of rather big (~8mm ID) rings, and wanted to sell it for 1500 without tax few months ago. Plus very few people make somewhat authentic mail ,so there's lot of waiting. Add in the rest of equipment (never mind horses, like in this particular one) and it's definitely not something easy to organize for everyone.

thaank you very much

it is an ongoing problem, i have a few cirophones that are incompatible, i need to get a good lapel mic

thank you very much. there are a bunch of examples in museum collections, on original shafts and from acavations. hence we have some sizes, some weights, and some dates. we also checked these against depictions of said heads. now we just wanted to make sure these were right for the period, not so much how far these extended in their 'battleship curve'. more bladed heads are more common early on (11th century) and the heads become smaller and much lighter as time goes on, and lances grow in length. having said that, a heavy lance is always 'over 12 foot' pretty much all the time. light lances vary a lot, but the later napoleonic ones are usually 10 foot, rarely a little less. Light lances in the 17th c are REALLY long sometimes, at up to 21 schuh, which is almost 22 foot. Medieval heavy lances grow their length range, though, they start at 12 foot but go all the way up to 17 foot. Anyway, at those lengths the weight of the head is really important for handling. and 100 grams less is a huge deal. most are about 150 grams or so. Coronels are routinely much heavier. even our coronels are 250 grams and these sharps are 150.. so you really notice- these different types, however, are really quite different amongst themselves as well, with the bodkin tyypes much lighter and easier to aim.

well thank you on all those counts i need to get making more videos

yes ash is likely much scarier; hence we want to try both and compare

distinction is mostly the grapers or arrets de lance that can denote a definite lance. we see those in the manesse codex already, but in a jousting context. the detail in depiction is also rising at the same time. similarly the number of originals of any type of artifact goes up as we get to younger eras. when we have single-line- drawings of lances, we don't see much taper depicted, but even in the statue of the 13th c knight over the doorway i think you see a lance with taper and i seem to remember a graper as well. the evidence where the depiction seem sto make a depiberate choice to depict a taper tend towards tapers already earlier. having said that, without a lance rest the lances are thinner and shorter by necessity. this means taper is a lot less apparent and therefore it makes sence to not bother to depict it. for instance pollaxe shafts almost invariably taper or barrel in original shafts, but depictions would never show that, even fotographs you would never be able to tell. (arrows same story) but they are very clearly affecting the performance of the design. with lances it seems so apparent to the artists as a key part of the lance from the 14th through to the 17th c that they consistently depict taper, sometimes in very small images in books, (like the outremer chronicles) so the taper becomes more pronounced as the lengths grow and the lance evolves and its' merits grow as well. this is similarly seen with staff weapons extant anyway... nearly all taper .

That makes sense, thanks a lot for clearing it up

As far as i am aware (hearsay) the winged hussar lance is indeed very long, and i have heard the length of 6 m touted too. (cannot really confirm it with real authority) i do understand that the back of this particular lance design extends quite a bit behind the riders armpit, so leaving a little less reach than the overall length suggests. Wallhausen in 1616 Germany does mention two types of lances 16 'Schuh'f or the heavy and 18-21 for the light lance. these are still very long. the measure of 'schuh' refers to the foot measure of the time, but there are some versions of it, and i really should sort out what that really is. I have seen people claim anything up to 27 to 31 cm per schuh, and i have not been able to get some nice reliable data on what is right. nevertheless a 16 foot heavy lance (couched at the end) is in German use in the 17th century. the longer lance in wallhausen also might not be couched quite at the end. In general couching a little shorter is done organically in mounted lance use A LOT. anyway the 21 schuh measure would make it well over 6 meters long, if you assume the longer size of the schuh. this is just discussing one particular source and there is a lot of variation in lances. Even batches in arsenals are not all the same length sometimes, so there is a lot of 'how long is a piece of string' what seems to be quite common though is that pikes throughout a long period of history tend to be 'longer than 450 cm' again up to 6 meters. This is however more towards the shorter of those two as the shorter weapon is not only much easier to carry it is also more complexly used in fencing with them. Similarly the horse lance is intended to be fenced with and the lengths tend to be around 380-460 cm but some very long exemples are around. now the actual range of the weapon is a little more long for a couched lance than a pike per cm of shaft as the pike is held less at the end. (it is a complex issue as the pike can be 'shot' out and held in one hand at the very end, but has no defensive capability there, whereas a lance can be deflecting another weapon at full couched length) this means that the common range of both pikes and lances are about on par. however, when you have a VERY long lance, the weapon becomes much harder to wield and starts affecting the balance of te horse more and more. This can be used to your advantage as seen in medieval sources by turning under the lance in dealing with attacks from behind, but it gets unwieldy over 450 cm very quickly. lances also get thinner as they grow longer, and this also has many implications to penetrative power, easier to deflect by the opponent, as they don't 'slap' in there fo heavily, more flexible means very quick loss in accuracy and so forth. so back to your question,: the mention of a specific countries lances being longer is potentially occasional, as in 'this particular time group a turned up with lances longer than group b' but we do read of jousting lances from bohemia being longer than the ones used in germany the classical period kontos is also pretty darned long... but a completely different era and use, though they hang on in bysantian use longer. (please note that the above examples are pretty wide in areas and time... it is a pretty random selection of factiods) anyway, it seems to have been 'take you pick' and there is pros and cons.

@Lane Hok i just got a lead on a specific mention of early fifteenthcentury longer lances in france, up to about 450 cm ish, i need to go dig up the original passage and see what it actually says

@Lane Hok longest is '21 schuh' according to wallhausen. that is 21 foot... that is pretty darned long

yes, although the arrêt matters evidently, as we measured years ago in a scientific experiment. the reach is trumping the absolute top penetration in this, as a stiffer tapered sharp steel spike might be used (like an estoc, couched on the arrêt) but the usable length might be more lmited

it is a quote from the primary sources, which were considering european species of pine only.

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/lcWEo62Ezae9nJ8.html Have a look here, from about 0:31. These lances hit pretty hard, as far as pine lances go, here we were jousting and it is filmed rather precisely. it can definitely slam the faceplate of the helmet into your head, which is possible to cause concussion, but that is not a given. Gestechhelms are very well designed to mittigate this issue, field helmets less so the lance will most probably not go right through your head, or rip your face off, but you will be pretty dazed and might lose control for a few seconds. The head is a little vulnerable like that Impact forces on the body are often overestimated. Bruising and internal bleeding are essentially not a thing in the armour, though i have broken some ribs , though i only found out a few days later at the hospital.

@@airnt I guess I could have phrased that better; I meant I never considered the recoil of the impact hammering at the person holding the lance, as opposed to the person taking the hit. And of course, I did understand that purpose-designed jousting harness, to be used with blunted lances in a tournament setting (as opposed to a joust a l'outrance) would deal with those impacts better than a field harness which would have to be functional on horseback as well as on foot because of the realities of actual combat, as opposed to the more artificial environment of a tournament.

no, we were trying to get a test set up to measure force and or energy, and also we were waiting for a full horse armour to be done for the test, for savety of flying lance tips

yes, 'tournaments' develop a lot, as the events you refer to are really early. They seem to me almost like a re-enactment battle, but 'capture' seem a really major part of the game. it might be that the lances were altered, i don't think we have much specifics. later sources are really specific, where 'sharp lances like in war' are used for jousts 'of war', aas opposed to coronels for 'jousts of peace' (in German 'rennen' vs 'gestech'.) this lance in this video probably meets the description of a joust of war challenge for a joust at Smithfield in the middle of 15th century by 'the squire to the Compte de Charolais' (later to become Charles the bold) in being sharp heads for war, but used in a jousting context, which means a pine lance body. we really need to get on and do the version with the ash lances

having been hit in the face with historical solid lances hundreds of times in my career, yes frogmouths help, but sallets do a pretty ok job. i THINK (but have not been able to measure) that an ash warlance might provide bigger forces than a pine jousting lance, yet they are thinner due to weight, so the denser ash might not actually add as much strength as might seem obvious. they feel stiffer and this give more of a punch and less of a push. 'breaking your neck' is an extremely unlikely scenario, this takes a remarkable amount of force, but also your head can flex a long way. An armet can actually provide a fulcrum, though that when your head is pushed back the bottom edge of the back of the helmet could push on the spine and cause the spinus processes to break, but a full break of the neck i think is pretty unlikely. ideas like these are common in discussions of armour function. (it did not penetrate but it would still have injured you) by and large these after armour effects are a lot less than people think (hydrostatic shock, concussion, contortion to injury (whiplash, neack or joint breaks).. stuff like that. whiplash type injuries from lance impact are known, but are usually rather light and cleaar up pretty well, despite being rather repetaative in most cases.

@@airnt wow, that's very informative 👍🏻 Thanks for the reply!

@@FlinnGaidin gladly, i aim to please

really? what video did he link it in?

there is a recipe for that also, and there is mentions in the 13th century 'three hauberks and one hauberk out of steel' so that is definitely a thing, but we

@@airnt „but we… .“? Try iron first and do surface carburization and hardening later?

@@Schmunzel57 i hope so

not necessarilly, there is very clear evidence of both. A lot of the fencing manuscripts are very clear you do attack on both sides. There is a real advantage to attack on the right side, tactically, but then, a shield would protect you on the left, moreover, the victim might be using a sword or warhammer and be much more disadvantaged on the left. or the attacker just doesn't get a choice. now we are also looking at the more powerful strike. sure the right sidde the lance is strighter, so 'freehand' it might be stronger, but with an arrêt, that is set up for the left target, you get a better grip on the graper on the left, or at least more easily. so attacks ont he left are very much a thing in war, the use of pine is more a big point of difference, which we should adress soon, now that we have the ash lances and the bard to protect the horse. But since i will be riding myself this time, using the ash, i might look at doing it on both sides, depending on the amount of lances we get to expend on it

yeah, that would not even break a tooth, really, i doubt the concussion would be much to speak of. i mean... frogmouth is nicer against historical solids, but i have been hit like that dozens of times in the face (steel coronels) and it was quite ok

@@arnekoets3085 Spears will be shaken. Necks will be splintered.

@@appa609 not had any necks splinter ins over 500 solid lance runs i have run, and thousands i have witnessed

genau!

If you are French.

merci

having been hit in the head by these lances roughly 500 times in my life... i disagree. it remains to be seen how much the ash lances will add to the impact, but this experiment was about penetration. We have a lot of dataa on jousting impacts from the historical solid lance jousting we haave done the last 13 years across the world. It is a commonly seen trope on the interenet to assume behind armour concussive damage, but this jsut doesn't seem to be anywhere near aas immediaate or obvious as you would assume. sure, in the few thousand headhits we have seen a bunch of concussions (i think 2?) so it is not as if there is no risk or no effect, but helmets work much bettern than people think.

@@airnt Really ? Damn that's impressive. I knew helmets worked wonders to avoid penetration but not to avoid concussion. So all a lance to a torso does is push you back ? Also this begs questions about maces and warhammer, how much did they work ? Because I had always assumed their efficacity came from some kind of concussive damage but if a lance doesnt do it now im not so sure.

@@HyperGnome so most of those hits were on a frogmouth or grand bascinet helm, so there the head is suspended in a padded cap. however we did have a few with armets and close sallets, where the occupant was ok. in a wider sense in blasa jousting 'socket' or 'ferrule' hits are aalso common, where the solid section of the lance (not talking about the frangible tip) hits and those hit faces many times. this still is a similar force transferred in those cases. the rider caan be pushed back, but this is usually more due to the head being craanked and then leaaning , rahter than aa physical punsh back. when lances don't break they can act like a spring and push more, this then also gets a different angle, due to the horses passing each o ther by and then often pushing riders out the side. especially when the rider can make the pace of the horse match the impact the horse is aacelleraating the rider against the impact, so acelleration (or decelleration) is minimal. bsically the lance takes it all. in terms of helmet design, in various ways helmets have suspension liners and padding, this is quite effective, also the weight of the helmet has inertia. in fact the padding of period armours is mostly centred around protecting the head. in terms of maces and warhammers against this kind of armour, those are usually penetrative, even the flanged maces. earlier use of them targets mail or unaarmoured opponents. Also lighter helmets can be hit from much worse angles, simple turning the helmet, thereby causing the occupant to fall, much like a necklock-throw, rather than a concussion of the brain per se, also using the equilibrium confusion of both vision and inner ear. in wrestling in the period techniques called 'showing the sun' are those designed to tunr the head so that the occupant is contorted to fall.

i was born in the netherlands, lived in yorkshire for a while, and currently in germany, but i travel a lot, so my accent shifts with where i have recently been

this is a very good question: the design of the target is there to give back pressure with the counterweight to resemble the 'follow through' and add more force... this is not the same as the amount of energy in the system. the opposing rider would add a lot of speed. this makes a difference in several ways. there is more energy int he system, but this energy is not all transferred, necessarily. the two horses still have speed after the impact, in fact pretty much the same speed. the time in which the impact occurs would be less, this makes the effects more brittle and less pushy. this aactually means lances reach their fail point more easily, so the point at which it breaks is a cap for the energy transferral, when this happens is a realy big deal in practice you can feel a VERY distinct drop in energy in jousting with a fast pass over a slow pass, just as the lances fail more readily. so the horse here could have been up to twice as fast, if we would have had a better run up and more ideal conditions, and then you could have nother coming in at that speed again. fastest we have been clocked in jousting wasa 51 vs 53 km/h totalling in over 100 km/h closing speed. there has been a crash test experiment, conducted by an official crash test facility in Germany, which did publish their findings, but did not quote their energy numbers, but they verbally claimed to have measured 4000J transferral (albeit with a more sturdy lance, and this was a slad test with a speed that hey determined somehow, not sure if it was more optimistic speeds) we did tests with the Wallace colleciton and meaured 'over 350J' transferral with one horse onto a stationary pendulum. i have been thinking how to rig a target to come the other way, but it might mean wearing a force plate in an actual joust. the issue is the huge variability so you really need many datapoints. the other issue is that the lethal ammunition is tose ash lances, not the pine ones.... don't really want to level the lethaal ones at a friend... so a roboticly moving target might be necessary, but this could well spook the horses. Will be a big project.

@@airnt What if you used some kind of a rig on a railroad track or something, like you set up your dummy like you have it but it would be on a pullable cart on a track of some kind that then would be drawn toward you as you ride toward it and strike it with the lance.

@@Zwerchhau yes that is roughly what the set up was at the Landshut crash test facility, where they measured 4000J impacts. I suppose i need to make one myself so the horse caan get truly used to it as well, so the run is representative

well we get hit by these lances (albeit with steel coronels) regularly, and i have been hit on mail and i am alive. the big difference is the sharp edges of the point, really, which didn't defeat the mail or the plate. potentially with more mass in the shaft and more stiffness and break strength in the wood a warlance might give a bigger impact that could do more damage. The pieces of wood don't pack much of a punch, although some fly pretty fast on some occasions if the shattering worked as a particularly rare spring, maybe going multiples of the speed of the horse, they tend to be very light and just don't hurt much at all, especially if a person is even lightly armoured.

Isak krogh made the cut of my riding trousers... they are bespoke. i tried to have those made for a long time, but never managed until then. i think i just wore a cheap shirt from china with it...

@@airnt damn, I better get that PhD and professor position if I am to buy all the bespoke clothes I want

@@SgtMcDick just make them,.... yes, that takes skills to learn, but it is doable

@@airnt well I know how to sew, but I do so much stuff on the side I don't want to take time to get better and do it myself...

yep

Armor and horses are expensive. I want to do this, but I lack the resources. :)

There are people across America working to this level and doing testing etc. Whereabouts are you?

@@GriffinHistorical Yes I am aware of that. There is no one in the New Hampshire area that does. Ken and his folks are about 3 hours away and are not currently meeting due to COVID. Not to mention most of the folks there do not have harness.

Hope you get to hit some metal soon Merlin!

i have gotten a bunch of different microphones now, hopefully better in the future

that might eb nice, we have iron ore lying ready, i am a bit wondering what the variables are.

@@airnt There many variability’s. The chemical composition of your or, the kind of char coal used, the material the oven is made from (normal it melts partly and ends up in the slack), the temperature around the oven, the size of or und other stuff you shuffle in … . You can thing that the first 4 times it only produces slack. Best is you spek to on already using you kind of or. There some groops on Facebook, old E-mail and address lists ore you get the fist ideas by books like :Eisenhütten in Afrika Beschreibung eines traditionellen Handwerks Museum für Völkerkunde, Frankfurt 1991 ISBN 3-88270-381-4 in German and France(half pages).They made also a film I hop the link still works www.der.org/films/inagina.html Also other Books are: Peter Tunner, Freiberg 1858; Buchhandlung J. G. Engelhard. Zeite verbesserte und vermehrte Auflage: Die Stabeisen- und Stahlherstellung in Frischherden oder Der wohlunterrichtete Hammermeister In German but I believe there is a 100year old translation in Englisch. The very important foundation in many languages translated: Georg Agricola Basel, 1556 De Re Metallica Libri XII And some other Films, partly now public like the short iron making in the German children’s Program. “Die Sendung mit der Maus” where Alfred Haberman(n?) sows how to make steel to forge a pick to dig for or. You find some chemical infos on the page of Hitachi Steel manufacturer that also help the TATARA to be run in Japan. It is in there History section and then following several Links down, you can even get some degree thesis about steelmaking in small laboratory ovens with different char coals. I did it on different occasion but every time with different ore so the results ware mainly strongly magnetic slag. Only one time with some more experienced men we got some hundred kg out of a big Tatata like oven that was way less than we hoped fore. I still have some. If you use old slack you are more likely to gain iron, I heard, if you use smaller ovens. I made a big box bellow if you are interested. I made only little videos about a two chamber bellows I build on youtube, in several parts.

@@airnt By the way, I red about hornbeam used for lances and also Ilex for war, while apple and pear for tournaments because the break with blunter ends. I have some poles already dry at an carpenter because I wanted to make pole arms but with the creasy rules the forge sad they have to change to only do massproduction. :-(

@@Schmunzel57 where do you have those woods from? what is the source?

@@airnt Good question. Several sources mixed in my brain. That apple and pear break with out the long splinters you get with some other woods I can confirm with making firewood. Some are from descriptions in Museums (What was found to be the remaining rest in a socket), some would be from Books, modern and reprints. (I believe Apple was some old description about requirements for a Joust) That Lances from Ash and Hornbeam had different names in English I got somewhere from an Internet content, likely Lindybeige. I believe Ilex as an wood was from a old book with shards of wood uses, carpentry construction and so. Beginning Interest in that in the early 1980s it is difficult to remember the sources. Newest addition would be that I saw myself that the year ring pattern in poles of pikes are 90° to those in halberds. I found that while I looked at hundreds or poles, in the Graz armoury. If /when I finally get my polearms in a small production I will try to offer ash and as additional option hornbeam. I would love to give you some to try out, but that craziness now is screwing up several ideas.

KE in the system, yes, but not necessarily transferred. Basically the horses and riders keep moving afterwards. the highest speed we were clocked at jousting was 53 vs 51 km/h toalling over 100 closing speed. (yet the impact was not very hard) a cavalry cha rge in formation the highest measurement i have for our guys was 37 km/h, bu i think higher is very possble. so an infantryman being hit by cavalry is about this speed so the lance transferring the impact is a big factor, this caps the energy transferred. we were also looking a force, vs energy, the pendulum is to provide back pressure to have a realistic force

@@airnt Ok, I really overlooked this, this is the same as with the bow arrows, as the wooden shaft explode and fail to deliever most of its jules... but werent late medieval renessaince lances a bit thicker and stronger? On some paintings they looks beefy

@@jordankozuch3436 the beefyness is mostly in the very base, if there is any. the tip is , if anything, even thinner. like viking spear shafts at the tip might be 16 mm or less thick, medieval war lances are about 27mm or more at the socket of the head, but renaissance this does go down a bit. lances might get a little longer, though. longest original i know of is 467 cm long this gives a longer reach than a 6m pike held in the 'de Geyn' position. arrows and corssbowbolts are both interesting, as there is some possibility that a crossbow bolt is working more on momentum than a bullet, and for longbowarrows this might be somewhere in the middle. some energy is lost in the destruction of the arrow, sound, sparks, heat; some is retained in the bits of shaft flying off, thereby no5t3 going into the target. the muzzle energy of a longbow is somewhere from 60-130J but the terminal energy is less, as some is lost in flight. Of the energy in the arrow at the moment of impact only a part is transferred to the target. In contrast, we measured transferred energy with pendulum hits with lances, where there were losses in the system of the experiment, so we can say the numbers should be read as 'higher than 350 J' so in comparison, a longbow hit is 'less than 130 J' (probably by quite a margin)

@@airnt I saw a few test with the reproduction of a roman pilum, and a throws made by inexpirienced throwers were able to go easly through mail and overall results performed by many independent people looks much more devastating than this lance strike... this is confusing for me at least... I know javelins are powerful, and olympians are releasing them with over 100 km/h (though they are only 700 grams), but it is strange for me than it is so easy for a pilum to go through mail while it is hard for a lance...

@@jordankozuch3436 Depends on mail, plenty if not most mail tested is pretty crappy and usually of very light variety. Isak's work is very good and this particular aventail is pretty tanky. ThegnThrand has video about throwing pilum at some welded mail and it stops the pilum. Though obviously welded joints are likely quite a bit stronger than even the best riveting, so it may skew the results a bit.

It is actually the other way around, mail usually does worse when it has a hard backing, because it allows the weapon to directly transfer the force and cut the rings. It is very difficult to cut mail on a soft target, but if you put it directly on a wooden block, unless it is very thick you can usually cut it with a sword or an axe. This had 4 layers of felt, so it was not directly on the wood.

@@Isakkrogh Still even with padding under the mail the force transferred to the throat might be pretty severe or even deadly. I have a late 14th century Bascinet with aventail and padding underneath but I wouldn't want to be hit with this amount of force.

well, sort of... you do need a lot of metal. PLate flaps less for the same thickness. Also you can really gradiate the plate. the other thing is the shell it works as, so impact is reduced a lot. Also being trampled in full plate armour by a horse is MUCH less damaging than in mail. Mail is, however, much underestimated, but plate is per weight still more protective. most armours layer them, though, in various ways, and this is very effective in its' own right, both in protection as well as practicality and comfort

@@airnt wow, that’s insightful! I wonder if the bevor you wore with the sallet has a device that connects to the cuirass and holds it in place. If not, won’t your lower jaw absorb the whole impact of a lance during jousting? I feel like that’s something that will seriously injure someone.

@@thomaszhang3101 i have had a whole bunch of hits in jousting to a bevor, in fact, several different ones. mostly i jousted balsa with bevors, whereas i usually use a frogmouth for historical solids, but the 'ferrule' holding the balsa tip hit my beovr well over 100 times, (so ash fat, stiff lance behind a steel pipe). Now i did try to attach the bevors on my old armour to the breastplate with a point. This was woefully ineffective, and just might as well not be there under impact. these ties do keep things in place and help against things slipping under the plate. the good thing is that the bevors when smashed back should have good padding. also the shape of a bevors should allow you to take the impact on the underside of your face, so it doesn't apply to the corner of your jaw, which would shock all the way up through your jawjoint into the head. the muscly bit at the very bottom of your face can take a lot of impact that prevents this most common of concussion-causes. now... having seaid that... a GOOD shield is really a good idea and i kep adding quality to my shield provisions over the years due to facehits. If you actually have a shield that is anything like the originals, then the bevors is mostly covered with a large section of the shield. this really helps. if the shield is too small you can get hit with the edge of the shield itself, which is kinda counter productive. In the jousting community (due to flight baggage restrictions and peoples' incorrect ideas that shields were obsolete by the 15th century) shields are often made far too small. IN general they reach from shoulder to shoulder and from wrist to eyeslit. they are also 30 odd mm thick in the middle and taper at the edges. anyway, for historical solid jousting at large (without a tiltrail) we did at Veste Coburg, i did commission a close sallet in stead, and that one has a strap i can attach to the front buckle of the breastplate i the same way as the frogmouth does (two straps through one buckle) I like to use the chinstrap over the bevors which keeps them together and gives me good head freedom for foot combat. The close sallet is rather heavy, but not a big problem, the sallet and bevors are just more versatile in campaign use. (vision over shoulder and stuff)

@@airnt wow, 15th century knights still used a shield despite having full plate armor that protects the left arm? That’s interesting. Was it mostly for jousting? Or were shields still used by knights on campaigns?

@@thomaszhang3101 both. In tournaments most events assumed shields, though a few notable ones delete it specifically, though they are very much the exception. In jousting you know you will get hit, so the shield makes sense, in war you might avoid hits a lot. now if you are the guy who forms the tip of the attack against another cavalry formation, you really want a shield (targe) just in case, but the rest of the formation might just make do without. Probably in an ideal world the front 5-10 guys and the rest of the 300-2000 riders in a cavalry charge would just file into the gap you made. By the time it devolves in a melée, the shield matters a lot less, but is also not a big impediment. If you are charging infantry (both pikeblocks or archers) the shield might be lass important, as their weapons are hitting you in a glancing angle, and the hardest hit is to your horse, so you might rather make sure you have horse armour. this does put into context that these decisions are made on assumptions of what might happen, and you might gues wrong in advance.

you mean than reproductions? if anything we have a tendency to make thinner armour. most plates were made with a lenticular crossection, ie tapering to the edges. this means a comparatively limited weight penalty would consittute a lot more resistive plate. I have handled a fair number of original pieces, and they are generally fairly thick. The goll thesis and others have tried to compile thickness measurements and there is probably a slight bias in the variety towards the thicker end of the spectrum,as well as much more bias for thick for torso and head and thin for limbs. Metal quality is a different matter, it had different properties, for sure, was less consistent and people were less aware of what and why it had those properties. yet sophisticated methods were in use, like layering metal to make armour plate, hardening and tempering were widely used by the middle of the 15th century. in this video we are testing on a mild steel and annealed piece, so very low quality for modern standards, but shown in varius parameters to be quite representative for low quality armour around 1400 AD and sub standard for the standards of , say, 1480. Knight and the Blast furnace is a good starting point for reading up on medieval armour metallurgy, but much work has been done since to widen our understanding of this subject.