Rawhide scale armor test.

[@supinearcanum]

You can hear Malcolm shout FINALLY when he hits on the windy shoot and it made me laugh. Worth the watch XD.

[@MalcolmPL]

Well, I'm glad I left it in then.

[@discipleofsound4565]

Small, overlapping pieces of tough material: a universal concept. Certainly won't prevent broken bones or internal bleeding, but I'm impressed by how resilient rawhide is.

[@MalcolmPL]

Yeah, think this is ideal for archers or skirmishers, people who mostly have to deal with arrows.

[@hamasmillitant1]

having been hit a few times in mail and leather respectively youll get a lot more internal injurys in mail than leather leather absorbs ALOT of impact wheres mail almost seems to concentrate blunt impact onto a ring or 2/increases how much it hurts to get hit on wrist or ribs ext

[@lisasharpe]

Your posts are very interesting. I just finished a 1/9 scale model of fully armored Comanche and horse. Will be posting it shortly on my channel. This is such an interesting topic!

[@wyattw9727]

Rawhide is probably the most overlooked historical armor. Not only is armor that was rawhide gets conflated with leather, but its protective qualities are about the best organic armor can provide. It's used just about by everyone who had access to thick skinned livestock or game to convert and makes for great scale armor, hence its popularity amongst cattle drivers or buffalo hunters (the Benin probably used it extensively). It's hilarious how much its protective qualities 'jump' in comparison with normal leather, like a gambeson compared to lamellar.

[@MalcolmPL]

I disagree, it's got strengths and weaknesses, for example, it's harder to cut, but it is lousy at absorbing and distributing force.

[@MrTechmoore]

You are conducting very scientific experiments and you are having fantastic results. You are doing a great job!! Well damnit man. Now a a Dungeon Master I have to give armor bonuses to hide armor. That is surprisingly strong. Even though the steel tips went through, it was a minor injury. When the fighting gets down to close quarters unless there is a steel blade involved it'll be skill based fight, may the best melee fighter win.

[@MalcolmPL]

Take it from me, don't give yourself the headache of trying to fix dnd rules.

[@InSanic13]

Why do you have to give it a bonus? It's still not going to perform as well as steel scales or mail, which are the immediate better armors in D&D.

[@KartarNighthawk]

Very nice. That cowhide was as resistant as it was speaks well to the potential protective qualities of tougher and/or thicker sources of rawhide, like bison, buffalo, giraffe, rhinoceros, etc. Since a lot of those animals are endangered it's unlikely I'll ever get to test all the ones I'd need to for my African work, but seeing this test at least gives me a lot more confidence when discussing them theoretically.

[@MalcolmPL]

Yeah, just take the results of thinner skins and multiply.

[@HAYAOLEONE]

I think some African tribes used zebra flr their shields.

[@jonajo9757]

@@HAYAOLEONE I'm not too sure about this, but I did hear that the armour worn by the warriors of the Kingdom of Benin were made of rawhide of somesort.

[@KartarNighthawk]

@@MalcolmPL It's not quite that easy, since some skins have different internal structures too, but it definitely gives me a baseline to work from when theorizing. "If cowhide can stop this and it's both thinner and has a weaker structure..."

[@MalcolmPL]

@@KartarNighthawk You're being overly fastidious. There's enough variability in any blow, and indeed between one inch of skin on the same animal that no one is ever going to get anything close to perfect results. Even under perfect circumstances.

[@AncientAmericas]

Super cool!

[@MalcolmPL]

Good.

[@nicholasmaximus3412]

Been reading more and more on Inca armor and find it fascinating how protective wool can be. Keep up the awesome work

[@MalcolmPL]

On a similar note, I was reading a surgical treatise from the english civil war, where the writer talks about sword cuts to the head and how the hair is very good at preventing them. Wool being the same thing but denser, it makes sense that they would use it.

[@nicholasmaximus3412]

@@MalcolmPL that is truly interesting, hopefully never in a situation where human hair is the only padding available

[@KartarNighthawk]

@@nicholasmaximus3412 The Tuburi of Cameroon wore basketry helmets that were then covered in wool for the padding. Sheepskin may make bad armour, but the fur works out nicely. As for human hair...would you believe the Lotuko of South Sudan made helmets out of their own hair? They clayed it up into a solid mass, locked brass plates into place around it, then shaved it off and wore it. Brass provided the hard surface, their hair the padding and insulation.

[@MrBottlecapBill]

@@nicholasmaximus3412 The Turban, and the long hair wound under it are believed to be remnants of a makeshift helmet one can wear day to day rather than a metal one. The many layers of silk wrap backed by a thick layer of human hair become a decent head protection against lite weapons.

[@jdzencelowcz]

There're prob'ly ways to make the scales less vulnerable to upthrusts without canceling the benefits of their looseness, like how they're tied on.

[@teddyholthaus7618]

This is a really interesting concept for armor. Your testing grounds reminds me of attacking things with various melee weapons and bows against hay bails as a kid. :)

[@billykid6745]

Very interesting, this really is to show that unusual materials for armor (such as wood or rawhide) are exceptionally practical; I have heard that the Maya used Gambison-like vests made from cotton, was there anything similar used by the Iroquois?

[@MalcolmPL]

No, no cotton up here. Just dogbane which is too low volume. A fur coat works as padding and is lower effort. That’s the only thing I can think of that might fill the same niche.

[@Intranetusa]

Rawhide isn't an unusual material for armor. It was widely used across Eurasia to cover shields, and was also not uncommonly used as armor. In East Asia during the Zhou feudal era to the Warring States era (1000s BC-200s BC), rawhide armor or partially tanned rawhide armor was often made out of thick and tough rhino hide and water buffalo hide. Some medieval Japanese armor were also made of rawhide lamellar. In medieval India, elephant hide was made into shields (and probably could be made into armor too). Medieval European historical texts often make mention of leather armor (specifically half tanned leather), which is likely rawhide that was superficially/partially tanned. There are historical depictions of ancient Greek and Roman soldiers wearing some sort of moulded cuirass that has been interpreted to not be bronze plate but moulded rawhide or partially tanned leather. The ancient Greek linothorax is believed to typically be made of glued flax-linen, but some variations used or incorporated metal and rawhide into the armor.

[@KartarNighthawk]

@@Intranetusa Rawhide shows up a lot in Africa too, for shields, and for armour. To date I've located cuirasses made from buffalo, elephant, various species of antelope, and what's probably plain old cowhide.

[@Intranetusa]

@@KartarNighthawk Indeed, it was also commony used in Africa. Most of the historical Eurasian references to leather were likely actually referring to rawhide or partially tanned rawhide as well. So very common across multiple continents.

[@KartarNighthawk]

@@Intranetusa Someone did an experiment where they were testing whether rawhide shields would stand up to Bronze Age Egyptian weapons. Both the axe and kopesh failed to penetrate the face, and the axe bounced off the rim (the kopesh sliced right through the rim about 7cm, which is pretty devastating). That was cowhide rawhide with no defensive structures added and by the author's admission, a lot thinner than it probably should have been. Would love to test some of the tougher African shields under similar conditions and see what happens.

[@stevencunningham4680]

Not bad but I think if you had a bigger target it would be easier to hit. I like the idea and I wonder if you could make a full vest from the rawhide. Good work.

[@MalcolmPL]

For the most part I make these test panels out of scraps too small to use. I don't like wasting more material than necessary, especially animal material, it's expensive and disrespectful.

[@stevencunningham4680]

@@MalcolmPL I'm the same way I don't like wasting material. I'm a Bowyer and materials are precious. Especially wood , if I make a mistake on a bow it may cost me the whole stave.

[@pendantblade6361]

New idea for my homebrew setting! Just need to make up some fictional animals to make hide with. Btw, Malcolm, Idk if you're familiar with Christian Cameron, but he has a series called Traitor Son with heavily strong Native American/First Nations influence. Thought you should know!

[@MalcolmPL]

I’ll look into it.

[@mattisbette3932]

I really enjoyed the video, but I'd like to see the test when the armor is in front of something harder. In your tests the armor is pressed into the hay, resulting in less energy for the cutting or piercing the scales.

[@MalcolmPL]

Armour isn't rigidly attached to a body. Tests which place armour against a rigid surface are biased in favour of the weapon. For instance, I can chop through a piece of 16 gauge steel if I bolt it to a splitting stump, but that test wouldn't tell me anything useful about armour.

[@mattisbette3932]

@@MalcolmPL That's correct but the human body is more rigid then an haystack. You could try to put multiple layers of fabric between the armor and the splitting stump to get something comparable to a human body. Or if you could put it over ballistic gel if you have the ability and budget for it.

[@nilsgensert5814]

Scale seems like a bad idea for a material such as rawhide, which you could instead cut into strips and then weave, both when wet or dry. I imagine rawhide is a beech to puncture and sew. That would also allow you manufacture plates as a whole, forego a base material and make the whole think immune against the upwards thrusts.

[@godmaster-hc6cx]

It's amazing what good protection rawhide provides. Even better than planks. Although I remember the test of the wooden slat armor wrapped with rope, and it was also very durable and even stopped the spear when it hit the wood instead of the gap. I wonder how much damage the wooden armor would have withstood if it was covered with rawhide? The rawhide would protect the wooden slats from splitting like rope, and would also protect the gaps

[@alexanderhay-whitton4993]

The main objection to organic armours must surely be weight? For a given amount of protection, they'll necessarily be far heavier than metal.

[@MalcolmPL]

Yes and no. You're sort of comparing apples and oranges.

[@leoscheibelhut940]

Excellent tests! Are you familiar with Tod's Workshop and his experiments on various European armors and weapons, especially from the Middle Ages? Btw, why did you make triangular scales instead of say rectangular? Is that because of historical examples?

[@MalcolmPL]

Yeah I’ve watched his videos. I think they’re biased in favor of the weapon, but they’re a good resource. The scales are triangular because I’m copying a picture. You also get a lot more coverage with triangles.

[@Intranetusa]

What draw weight and draw length was your bow? Could the spear point have hit any of the scales weakened by the arrows, knife, and/or axe?

[@MalcolmPL]

I don’t know for certain, The bow is more than sixty and less than a hundred forty five. I estimate about ninety, but I’m probably wrong. The draw length should be thirty four, but I’m not strong enough to pull it all the way. So it’s between thirty four and twenty eight depending on my fatigue levels and willpower. I checked the location of the spear thrusts, there was no scoring from the previous weapons.

[@Intranetusa]

@@MalcolmPL Thanks.

[@bellatelevisionehdtvcompat3048]

Have you thought about recording your results in graphs and such? you’re doing pretty awesome experimental archeology here and I think the data could be fascinating.

[@MalcolmPL]

There you go, graph is at the bottom of the page. sites.google.com/view/malcolmplforge/experiential-archaeologygeneral-ramblings/armour-tests

[@bellatelevisionehdtvcompat3048]

@@MalcolmPL Fascinating!

[@Wolfse]

So this might be a silly question but I couldn't help but wonder- if the scale armor was actually secured down wouldn't the results be much different? When the arrows bounced of the scales I imagine a bit of that is also because the scale patch is being pushed away by the force of the arrow. So let's say it was secured down, perhaps being word by a person- wouldn't the arrow and blades have a better chance of penetrating?

[@MalcolmPL]

You’re right, if for example I duct taped the panels to the bale as a lot of testers do, weapons would fare much better. However I think this biases the test in favor of the weapon. You can chop through even thick plate steel if you secure it to a chopping block. But when worn, a suit of armor isn’t rigidly secured to the body, it hangs loose, it has give. Think about your clothes, they’re only really tight to the skin at the shoulders and the waist, armor needs to be looser than clothing as it doesn’t stretch.

[@Wolfse]

@@MalcolmPL Ah, that's a very good point! In my mind I had definitely thought of it being secured down with very little give. I appreciate you taking the time to provide that insight!

[@MalcolmPL]

@@Wolfse That's why I'm here.

[@HAYAOLEONE]

👍 Another good vid. Hand feels better?

[@MalcolmPL]

More or less. Just a bit uglier now.

[@HAYAOLEONE]

@@MalcolmPL You dislocated something?

[@MalcolmPL]

@@HAYAOLEONE I sliced myself very badly on a kitchen knife.

[@HAYAOLEONE]

@@MalcolmPL oof

[@MalcolmPL]

Cut the vein and required stitches.

[@conradswadling8495]

outstanding indeed! thank you

[@MalcolmPL]

Cheers.

[@lilalmonds4595]

I know buff coats were very expensive in Europe but is there any evidence or chance that a similar kind of armour could have been prevalent, maybe against clubs, stone axes and arrows it wouldn’t be as useful but seeing your videos on Iroquoian clothing featured a coat that i imagine could be made out of thicker moose or maybe bison leather and it probably wouldn’t be easily distinguished from a regular coat even if it were depicted and a person writing at the time might not even notice that one guys coat was thicker and sturdier than most

[@MalcolmPL]

Yes, the materials are almost the same. The high grade european buff coats were made from moose suede that had been oil tanned, while oil tanned suede was the standard method of leather production in north america. There are surviving examples of armor from the pacific northwest as well as more regular coats which would have offered fairly decent protection.

[@lilalmonds4595]

@@MalcolmPL cool, and thanks for getting back to me

[@steelraptor1273]

Remarkably similar to the linen backed rawhide armour found in King Tutankhamun's tomb.

[@MalcolmPL]

Of course, why shouldn’t it be.

[@filminger5096]

Great channel

[@MalcolmPL]

Cheers.

[@tonykaczmarek278]

Dig a large Dakota fire pit.start fire let burn untill you have lots of coals.steak down rawhide above hole but not laying on hole.if the coals are too hot you can toss sand over them.let dry.the steaks will bend inward as the rawhide dries.the rawhide will shrink alot and get thick. After its dry and thick. Cut out your triangles.get ready to work because thick rawhide is not easy to cut.

[@MalcolmPL]

I don't know if that's worth the effort considering how many scales you have to cut.

[@HAYAOLEONE]

Isn't it more practical to cut bands/stripes of material before the dry heat? Then you 'only' have to axe over hard wood at 90° to get rectangles (or do the reverse, get an old axe head/blade attached/stuck in whatever, blade up or facing a side, and then drop hit with a big baton/let a big baton swing hit lateraly - feeding the material horizontaly).

[@MalcolmPL]

In the modern day, yeah, in an era without metal axes, no.

[@karlnash7105]

Nice. You can also harden leather by using hot (not bouling) water. I believe that you are correct that cutting rawhide wet will give thicker sections. Thanks for the vid. Love to see the results from the other method. ♡

[@MalcolmPL]

Well, yeah.

[@Intranetusa]

Historical leather armors are likely more appropriately called rawhide or partially tanned rawhide armor. In Edward Cheshire' work: "Non-metallic Armour Prior to the First World War," he conducted tests of leather and rawhide, and found that rawhide is significantly stronger than leather when used as armor. So rawhide (which is hide that isn't tanned or only partially tanned) is both cheaper and stronger than fully tanned leather. He also found that boiling leather significantly weakened the material, while boiling rawhide only slightly weakened it while allowing it to be moulded, thickened, and/or take on other properties. So cuir bouilli might actually be boiled/hot water hardened rawhide rather than boiled/hot water hardened leather.

[@MalcolmPL]

I’ve seen that fellow’s results, and while I’m glad academics are doing some work, I would take them with a grain of salt, due to the extreme differences in the performance. Besides that They do not align with my own experience. As to the opening thesis, many surviving leather armors have been tooled. You can’t tool rawhide.

[@Intranetusa]

​@Malcolm P.L. Some of the historical European references to leather I've seen makes mention of "half tanned" hide. This leads me to believe that the leather they were referring to was actually "partially tanned" or "superfically tanned" hide where the surface of the hide was tanned into leather but the core/most of the inner material remained untanned rawhide. Partially tanned hide would retain the toughness of rawhide while allowing the outer layers to be tooled with designs. In your experience, did you find leather (of an equal weight and area) to be more comparable in protection to rawhide than what the Cheshire tests revealed?

[@MalcolmPL]

Yes.

[@jkhippie5929]

how powerful was the bow ?

[@MalcolmPL]

The warbow was more than 85 pounds. The hunting bow was about 40.

[@HAYAOLEONE]

It works.

[@MalcolmPL]

Indeed.

[@zebusaqua4415]

Cool spear

[@MalcolmPL]

Cheers.

[@tylerphuoc2653]

Certainly reminds me of pila in its ductility, heh.

[@torg2126]

To be fair to the axe, when blocked by something, it doubles as a club! 😅

[@HAYAOLEONE]

Scales = less isolation too Less heat.

[@MalcolmPL]

The underlayment sort of prevents it from breathing though.

[@HAYAOLEONE]

@@MalcolmPL True, true.

[@blaf55]

pretty goood

[@MalcolmPL]

Gooood.

[@yerbeilisready8562]

Weird.

[@MalcolmPL]

Sure.