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Quote:
" Useless for pierces" thats easy to say and may be right...but...until someone does a test on an actual Japanese chain armor or an accurate re-creation of one its just an opinion and not fact.


I don't mean to be rude, but that would only be ignorantly beating a dead horse. There's isn't anything magical about period Japanese butted 4-1 mail. Butted 4-1 mail has been tested time and time again with same results despite ring thickness, size, or material when taking pierces into account. To say it's my opinion is incorrect when it's been tested already as fact hundred times over. Just because it's Japanese doesn't make it special. If it's butted it will be vulnerable to arrows and spear points.

This man tests a 6-1 tight weave steel butted chain mail piece that is folded over and it is still penetrated by arrows. It's pretty conclusive, and I don't consider it my opinion at all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4gPgHyaG1Q
Couple of comments ... I did some research on this recently..

The Japanese did use stand-alone mail armor (called Kusari Gosuko or Kusari Katabira) though it was not a prestige or popular armor for Samurai. Probably because it was not that great against arrows (and later arquebus balls). Like most archery oriented cultures lamellar was preferred but not as universal as sometimes depicted.

Japanese butted mail is double ringed like a key chain, this probably makes it a bit more durable than the ren-faire type butted mail. But it's also often much thinner wire, in 16th and 17th Century Japanese panoplies that I've seen the wire was about as thick as a paper clip and the links no more than 3mm or so, and the weave was very open with gaps between each link (a sort cross pattern). These were linking small iron plates in sleeves and side of the armor. It was much weaker than equivalent European, Central Asian or South Asian mail that I've seen.

It is my understanding that the Japanese adopted riveted mail shortly after European contact in the 16th Century widely if not universally, and also purchased mail shirts in some quantity from the Portuguese, the Dutch and the Spanish. In fact it was mentioned in surviving European records from the 16th Century as a significant trade cargo. The first cargo brought to Japan by William Adams included a chest containing 100 mail shirts IIRC.

Japanese armor came to incorporate foreign elements in the 16th Century and armor incorporating European breast plates were prestige armors. Indigenous Japanese armor began to feature solid or solid-riveted breast plates shortly after European contact and the traditional laced kozane (lamellar) began to decline as the principle element of Japanese armor. The old fashioned ô-yoroi was replaced by heavier 'modern' European style armors called Toudei-Gusoku or Tosei Gusoku, some of them were proofed (some surviving do have proof marks). They even created a 'Nanban' (foreign) style version of a peascod breastplate which was called a pigeon breast armor IIRC.

J
Jojo Zerach wrote:
That's interesting, I didn't know the Japenese ever used European chainmaile patterns.
I made a very small sheet of maile with a Japenese pattern, I found the concet more basic than European pattern, though actually putting it together was quite tricky for me.
Here is the European style chain pattern used to cover the back of a fore head protector "hachi gane"
I live in Japan and have observed pretty much the same thing that R.M. Henson mentioned earlier in this thread. All the authentic suits I've seen incorporating mail seemed to have used it as a either secondary defence on lower limbs and joints and to connect plates together. They may have also had a decorative purpose as all of these suits were worn by nobles who likely had little front line involvement in battles. The rings were all fairly thin and had a much wider diameter compared to what I am used to with period European mail. I've never seen them tested but I have little doubt that they would be too much better than modern butted mail in terms of resisting a heavy thrust. However in saying that they were probably never intended to stop a spear thrust but more likely the mail was there to prevent glancing blows, light cuts and stabs from swords and daggers, especially while grappling. As R.M. Henson stated the primary target for a spear, i.e. the torso, head and upper legs, were covered with much thicker lamellar /scale plates in the suits I've witnessed.

That's not to say that the Japanese didn't make other types of mail, this just my personal observations of surviving pieces at museums.

Unfortunately I don't really have much in the way of photos of them but I'll post up some that I took at Himeji castle. I have to apologise in advance for the low quality of the pictures but they were taken with a phone camera in a rush due to me having to act as a sudden tour guide to a group of impatient non-Japanese speaking engineers. I believe the armour dates from the 16th century although it may possibly be 17th.


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Jean Henri Chandler wrote:
Couple of comments ... I did some research on this recently..

The Japanese did use stand-alone mail armor (called Kusari Gosuko or Kusari Katabira) though it was not a prestige or popular armor for Samurai. Probably because it was not that great against arrows (and later arquebus balls). Like most archery oriented cultures lamellar was preferred but not as universal as sometimes depicted.

Japanese butted mail is double ringed like a key chain, this probably makes it a bit more durable than the ren-faire type butted mail. But it's also often much thinner wire, in 16th and 17th Century Japanese panoplies that I've seen the wire was about as thick as a paper clip and the links no more than 3mm or so, and the weave was very open with gaps between each link (a sort cross pattern). These were linking small iron plates in sleeves and side of the armor. It was much weaker than equivalent European, Central Asian or South Asian mail that I've seen.

It is my understanding that the Japanese adopted riveted mail shortly after European contact in the 16th Century widely if not universally, and also purchased mail shirts in some quantity from the Portuguese, the Dutch and the Spanish. In fact it was mentioned in surviving European records from the 16th Century as a significant trade cargo. The first cargo brought to Japan by William Adams included a chest containing 100 mail shirts IIRC.

Japanese armor came to incorporate foreign elements in the 16th Century and armor incorporating European breast plates were prestige armors. Indigenous Japanese armor began to feature solid or solid-riveted breast plates shortly after European contact and the traditional laced kozane (lamellar) began to decline as the principle element of Japanese armor. The old fashioned ô-yoroi was replaced by heavier 'modern' European style armors called Toudei-Gusoku or Tosei Gusoku, some of them were proofed (some surviving do have proof marks). They even created a 'Nanban' (foreign) style version of a peascod breastplate which was called a pigeon breast armor IIRC.

J
Jean, can you tell me were you read about mail shirts being imported to Japan, thats very interesting and I would like to read the passage...what year was that? And were did you read about the Japanese using riveted mail? No one that i know of has ever seen an example of this. All levels of samurai wore armored clothing..from the lowest level to the highest....I have seen plain basic chain clothing and very fancy high grade ones....I have looked look at period prints and pictures and l see very little actual armor being worn except in large scale battles, but I have seen many pictures were chain armor can be seen under the samurai kimonos...the chain can be seen at the neck and arms and legs. In cities samurai did not carry bows and spears....they used swords and other hand weapons and wore armored clothing..much like a bullet proof vest is worn now. Here is a very fine chain armor owned by Ian Bottomley...it was obviously owned by a person of high status and not some low ranking samurai..notice the workmanship and family mons. And to compare..a picture of a plain basic grade chain armor with no frills at all. You can see the difference between a high grade armor and a low one quite easily.
R.M. Henson wrote:
Quote:
" Useless for pierces" thats easy to say and may be right...but...until someone does a test on an actual Japanese chain armor or an accurate re-creation of one its just an opinion and not fact.


I don't mean to be rude, but that would only be ignorantly beating a dead horse. There's isn't anything magical about period Japanese butted 4-1 mail. Butted 4-1 mail has been tested time and time again with same results despite ring thickness, size, or material when taking pierces into account. To say it's my opinion is incorrect when it's been tested already as fact hundred times over. Just because it's Japanese doesn't make it special. If it's butted it will be vulnerable to arrows and spear points.

This man tests a 6-1 tight weave steel butted chain mail piece that is folded over and it is still penetrated by arrows. It's pretty conclusive, and I don't consider it my opinion at all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4gPgHyaG1Q
So according to you...because an assault rifle will shoot through a bullet proof vest that makes them worthless and people should not wear them? And because a cross bow would have penetrated European armor that made it useless also? You think that every were a samurai fought that they only had arrows to worry about? In the last couple hundred years of the samurai era bows became more and more obscure. No type of armor was perfect and no type of armor protected against all attacks...oh except your magical European knights armor..I forgot!
Eric S,
The tone in a couple of your posts in this thread is unnecessary. Please keep the sarcasm out of your posts.

Thank you.
Eric S wrote:
Jean, can you tell me were you read about mail shirts being imported to Japan, thats very interesting and I would like to read the passage...what year was that?


This was all in the 16th -17th Century and occurred both directly in Japan and also among Japanese Ronin working for Waco pirates in Malaysia and the Philippines and Ronin bodyguards hired in the thousands by the Dutch as mercenaries and bodyguards.

There are numerous sources for this, I couldn't list them all off the top of my head, but two secondary sources for this are these two books by Giles Milton:

http://www.amazon.com/Samurai-William-English...0374253854
http://www.amazon.com/Nathaniels-Nutmeg-Incre...amp;sr=1-1

Both of those books are compiled from primary sources including the personal journals of William Adams and various English and Dutch ship captains as well as the archives and records of the Dutch East India Company and the English East India company. All of his sources are carefully listed and cited.

I remember that in Samurai William it specifically mentioned that William Adams brought a chest of several dozen mail armor shirts as trade goods in his initial voyage to Japan, and later mentions mail armor as a trade good brought by Portuguese Jesuits in Nagasaki harbor. Of course the principle trade good was Silk which the Japanese had an unquenchable demand for and could not purchase directly in China. The trade monopoly of the Portuguese bringing these cargoes to Japan made them fantastically rich. There is also a really interesting account of a 3 day pitched battle between a Spanish galleon loaded with an immense treasure of Silk and the armies of two Japanese warlords who decided to rob it. In the end the Spanish captain fired the magazine and destroyed the ship with all hands in a stupendous explosion to prevent the Japanese from capturing it.

Some of these primary sources are available online, for example this book

http://books.google.com/books?id=BAoVAAAAQAAJ...mp;f=false

... referenced by Giles Milton in Nathaniels Nutmeg, is the 16th -17th Century journal of an English navigator who was killed in 1605 during a violent encounter between English privateers and Japanese pirates somewhere in the Malay Archipelago.

I believe mail armor is mentioned in that journal but I don't remember, but you can search the google books.

There was also a mention in this book which is about a Jesuit Missionary who worked in China in the 16th-17th Century, he describes the trade to Japan from Jesuit controlled 'factories' in Macao and Goa. There are several period documents available online which concern Ricci I think including his personal letters and journal, which go into more detail about these shipments.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matteo_Ricci

There is also a lot of information about all this in the Portuguese National Archive which I have been provided some unofficial translations of from friends in the HEMA scene but I can't share any of that in public until it is published.

I try to keep an open mind and I gather Japanese armor was relatively effective in general but I have yet to see any evidence that Butted Mail works even 10% as well as riveted mail. I've never seen any test on butted mail which would stop an arrow or a thrust from a sword or a spear, whereas I have seen good quality* riveted mail resist arrows and a spear thrust successfully. If it is possible to make it work better by some means that the Japanese knew there is enough armor remaining that it should be possible to make a replica that can be tested or even test some antique armor. If butted armor can be made to work that well it would be interesting news.

* which is not all that easy to come by, the Indian made stuff which is widely available now is of poor quality.

Quote:
And were did you read about the Japanese using riveted mail? No one that i know of has ever seen an example of this.


I'll stipulate that I'm not an expert on Japanese armor I just did some research for a book so I could be wrong.

My original source about the Japanese shifting to riveted mail was just a guy I knew who was a kendo practitioner, but I did a search of a lot of auction sites and found some riveted mail which was supposed to be of Japanese origin. Whether it was made in Japan or imported I can't say, or even if it is really authentic.

This is one of the links I had found at the time but the photos are no longer there:

http://www.artfact.com/auction-lot/two-kusari...s7zrpnwyq7

Quote:
...but I have seen many pictures were chain armor can be seen under the samurai kimonos...the chain can be seen at the neck and arms and legs. In cities samurai did not carry bows and spears....they used swords and other hand weapons and wore armored clothing..much like a bullet proof vest is worn now.


Of course, I think we are talking past each other in terms of battlefield armor vs. civilian protection. I was speaking in terms of battlefield armor. It's interesting and of course quite plausible that the Japanese wore mail under their clothing, this was widely practiced in a civilian context in Renaissance Europe as well long after mail had gone out of fashion for use on the battlefield (out of fashion if not entirely out of use). I have seen some remarkable tempered steel mail shirts of very fine links from Renaissance Italy. In fact in some of the Italian fencing manuals they recommend to test the clothing of your opponent before a duel to make sure he is not wearing a mail shirt under his clothing (they also advise testing for magical talismans)

Nice images. Here is another nice (and pretty typical) mail panoply on the right. I understand these were used by urban police.

[ Linked Image ]

J
I'm suprised by how much the Japenese-made butted European 4-1 maile looks like modern butted maile, especially the "no frills" shirt closeup.

Did Europeans ever use butted maile, I wonder?
Butted mail would be perfectly suitable in a civilian Japanese context where the primary threat would come from a sword. If the links are small enough then it would even provide passable protection from a knife or spear thrust. I'm not sure how any of this is relevant. The principal argument is that butted mail is inferior to riveted mail. There is a copious amount of literature to support this conclusion. No amount of wishful thinking can change the fact that Japanese butted mail is less capable of resisting weapons than Europen/Indian/Middle Eastern riveted mail. But, just because it is less effective does not mean that it is ineffective.
Jean Henri Chandler wrote:
Eric S wrote:
Jean, can you tell me were you read about mail shirts being imported to Japan, thats very interesting and I would like to read the passage...what year was that?


This was all in the 16th -17th Century and occurred both directly in Japan and also among Japanese Ronin working for Waco pirates in Malaysia and the Philippines and Ronin bodyguards hired in the thousands by the Dutch as mercenaries and bodyguards.

There are numerous sources for this, I couldn't list them all off the top of my head, but two secondary sources for this are these two books by Giles Milton:

http://www.amazon.com/Samurai-William-English...0374253854
http://www.amazon.com/Nathaniels-Nutmeg-Incre...amp;sr=1-1

Both of those books are compiled from primary sources including the personal journals of William Adams and various English and Dutch ship captains as well as the archives and records of the Dutch East India Company and the English East India company. All of his sources are carefully listed and cited.

I remember that in Samurai William it specifically mentioned that William Adams brought a chest of several dozen mail armor shirts as trade goods in his initial voyage to Japan, and later mentions mail armor as a trade good brought by Portuguese Jesuits in Nagasaki harbor. Of course the principle trade good was Silk which the Japanese had an unquenchable demand for and could not purchase directly in China. The trade monopoly of the Portuguese bringing these cargoes to Japan made them fantastically rich. There is also a really interesting account of a 3 day pitched battle between a Spanish galleon loaded with an immense treasure of Silk and the armies of two Japanese warlords who decided to rob it. In the end the Spanish captain fired the magazine and destroyed the ship with all hands in a stupendous explosion to prevent the Japanese from capturing it.

Some of these primary sources are available online, for example this book

http://books.google.com/books?id=BAoVAAAAQAAJ...mp;f=false

... referenced by Giles Milton in Nathaniels Nutmeg, is the 16th -17th Century journal of an English navigator who was killed in 1605 during a violent encounter between English privateers and Japanese pirates somewhere in the Malay Archipelago.

I believe mail armor is mentioned in that journal but I don't remember, but you can search the google books.

There was also a mention in this book which is about a Jesuit Missionary who worked in China in the 16th-17th Century, he describes the trade to Japan from Jesuit controlled 'factories' in Macao and Goa. There are several period documents available online which concern Ricci I think including his personal letters and journal, which go into more detail about these shipments.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matteo_Ricci

There is also a lot of information about all this in the Portuguese National Archive which I have been provided some unofficial translations of from friends in the HEMA scene but I can't share any of that in public until it is published.

I try to keep an open mind and I gather Japanese armor was relatively effective in general but I have yet to see any evidence that Butted Mail works even 10% as well as riveted mail. I've never seen any test on butted mail which would stop an arrow or a thrust from a sword or a spear, whereas I have seen good quality* riveted mail resist arrows and a spear thrust successfully. If it is possible to make it work better by some means that the Japanese knew there is enough armor remaining that it should be possible to make a replica that can be tested or even test some antique armor. If butted armor can be made to work that well it would be interesting news.

* which is not all that easy to come by, the Indian made stuff which is widely available now is of poor quality.

Quote:
And were did you read about the Japanese using riveted mail? No one that i know of has ever seen an example of this.


I'll stipulate that I'm not an expert on Japanese armor I just did some research for a book so I could be wrong.

My original source about the Japanese shifting to riveted mail was just a guy I knew who was a kendo practitioner, but I did a search of a lot of auction sites and found some riveted mail which was supposed to be of Japanese origin. Whether it was made in Japan or imported I can't say, or even if it is really authentic.

This is one of the links I had found at the time but the photos are no longer there:

http://www.artfact.com/auction-lot/two-kusari...s7zrpnwyq7

Quote:
...but I have seen many pictures were chain armor can be seen under the samurai kimonos...the chain can be seen at the neck and arms and legs. In cities samurai did not carry bows and spears....they used swords and other hand weapons and wore armored clothing..much like a bullet proof vest is worn now.


Of course, I think we are talking past each other in terms of battlefield armor vs. civilian protection. I was speaking in terms of battlefield armor. It's interesting and of course quite plausible that the Japanese wore mail under their clothing, this was widely practiced in a civilian context in Renaissance Europe as well long after mail had gone out of fashion for use on the battlefield (out of fashion if not entirely out of use). I have seen some remarkable tempered steel mail shirts of very fine links from Renaissance Italy. In fact in some of the Italian fencing manuals they recommend to test the clothing of your opponent before a duel to make sure he is not wearing a mail shirt under his clothing (they also advise testing for magical talismans)

Nice images. Here is another nice (and pretty typical) mail panoply on the right. I understand these were used by urban police.

[ Linked Image ]

J
Jean...GREAT info..thanks..I will check those books out as information from that period is very hard to come by....That picture is absolutely incredible...quite a find. If you notice the 3rd samurai on the right..his chest armor is made from hexagon armor plates "kikko" which is very rare, and one samurai is wearing a fore head protector with chain armor neck guard along with his traditional armor.. There was no such thing as civilian protection..a samurai was a samurai and they were not civilians.....they ran the whole country including fire and police protection and internal security forces. Non samurai civilians would not wear armor for the most part and could not wear long swords and other heavy weapons. The link you posted was for a butted mail armor (nanban kusari )and like I said, as far as I know no one has ever come up with an example of a riveted Japanese chain armor but I would love to see one if such a thing actually exists. What do people actually mean by battle fields anyway...how many people does it take to have a battle? Its is said by several sources that samurai police wore chain armor but you have to realize that samurai police were not stopping speeders...they had to subdue armed samurai while not killing them if possible.....they had to deal with criminal gangs, duels, civil unrest etc. There were many conflicts and battles after the Edo period police state was set up and all rulers had to keep security forces on hand and maintain an arsenal of weapons and armor. This type of armor tended to be more portable and light weight then traditional armor..imagine trying to wear 60 lbs of battle armor all day on a daily basis. A full suit of chain armor from helmet to socks weighed about 20 lbs. It was the same in Europe...most people did not wear a full suit of battle armor either...only those that could afford it.
Dan Howard wrote:
Butted mail would be perfectly suitable in a civilian Japanese context where the primary threat would come from a sword. If the links are small enough then it would even provide passable protection from a knife or spear thrust. I'm not sure how any of this is relevant. The principal argument is that butted mail is inferior to riveted mail. There is a copious amount of literature to support this conclusion. No amount of wishful thinking can change the fact that Japanese butted mail is less capable of resisting weapons than Europen/Indian/Middle Eastern riveted mail. But, just because it is less effective does not mean that it is ineffective.
Dan, the statement made was "Most of butted mails are almost completely useless" Thats quite a bit different then saying that it was not effective against certain weapons and tactics. Thats my only point, not if it is as strong as riveted or not..I am NOT arguing that point, I myself would wear riveted chain if I had a choice. The samurai used vast amounts of chain on their traditional armor and non traditional armor for quite a long time. My problem is with statements by people who do not know what they are talking about at all ( its parade armor. its fire mans armor, they did not have full suits of chain armor, Japanese chain was only used to connect plates of armor, they did not use chain armor as a stand alone defence, they did not use it in combat, etc) All those statements are just plain wrong. The Japanese had the ability to make riveted chain armor but chose not to so you have to assume that their chain armor did the job that they expected it to. We might not understand their preferences but it had to work for what they needed it to or they would not have used so much of it for so long.
Is the image of the Samurai a photograph? I thought it was a painting of some sort, due to the colors. Though the grass at the bottom does indeed look out of focus.
Eric S wrote:
R.M. Henson wrote:
Quote:
" Useless for pierces" thats easy to say and may be right...but...until someone does a test on an actual Japanese chain armor or an accurate re-creation of one its just an opinion and not fact.


I don't mean to be rude, but that would only be ignorantly beating a dead horse. There's isn't anything magical about period Japanese butted 4-1 mail. Butted 4-1 mail has been tested time and time again with same results despite ring thickness, size, or material when taking pierces into account. To say it's my opinion is incorrect when it's been tested already as fact hundred times over. Just because it's Japanese doesn't make it special. If it's butted it will be vulnerable to arrows and spear points.

This man tests a 6-1 tight weave steel butted chain mail piece that is folded over and it is still penetrated by arrows. It's pretty conclusive, and I don't consider it my opinion at all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4gPgHyaG1Q
So according to you...because an assault rifle will shoot through a bullet proof vest that makes them worthless and people should not wear them? And because a cross bow would have penetrated European armor that made it useless also? You think that every were a samurai fought that they only had arrows to worry about? In the last couple hundred years of the samurai era bows became more and more obscure. No type of armor was perfect and no type of armor protected against all attacks...oh except your magical European knights armor..I forgot!


Doesn't seem like you read my posts. Go back and read them again. Your analogies have no correlation to what I've stated on the subject. Where did I say Japanese butted chain mail was completely useless and not worth wearing? In an effort to not repeat myself, just go and re-read. You're getting a tad emotional and it's causing you to twist the things I've written down into nonsense.


Also to add, I'm not biased against Japanese armor. I'm Japanese born (Aomori ken), and Majored in Japanese Studies and Language. I am somone who knows what they are talking about and not some uneducated simpleton. Your general belief that everyone in this thread is an idiot has lead you to believe that everyone besides you and the people that agree with you are wrong. And THAT is simply not true.

Unless you've clearly understood the point I've been trying to get across and can write something a little less zealotus, than I am officially done with this thread.
We've done extensive testing on piercing attacks against both butted and riveted maille. Although they were both backed with leather (as a blunt additional defense) the butted maille greatly helped the slashing attacks but failed miserably against a stanch piercing attack. The riveted maille, although occasionally permitting a separation of a ring or two was much superior in preventing a piercing attack than the butted mail. In cases where penetration of the butted maille presented a 3" breach, the riveted maille yielded only about 1/16". The tests were performed with 8mm ID rings and both 7/8 oz and 13/15 oz leather.
How did the riveted maille serve in relation to the butted maille in the slashing/cutting tests?
Brawn Barber wrote:
We've done extensive testing on piercing attacks against both butted and riveted maille. Although they were both backed with leather (as a blunt additional defense) the butted maille greatly helped the slashing attacks but failed miserably against a stanch piercing attack. The riveted maille, although occasionally permitting a separation of a ring or two was much superior in preventing a piercing attack than the butted mail. In cases where penetration of the butted maille presented a 3" breach, the riveted maille yielded only about 1/16". The tests were performed with 8mm ID rings and both 7/8 oz and 13/15 oz leather.


Some of the tests I have done with cored tamagashi mats that have segments of butted and riveted mail has lead me to similar conclusions as well.
R.M. Henson wrote:
Eric S wrote:
R.M. Henson wrote:
Quote:
" Useless for pierces" thats easy to say and may be right...but...until someone does a test on an actual Japanese chain armor or an accurate re-creation of one its just an opinion and not fact.


I don't mean to be rude, but that would only be ignorantly beating a dead horse. There's isn't anything magical about period Japanese butted 4-1 mail. Butted 4-1 mail has been tested time and time again with same results despite ring thickness, size, or material when taking pierces into account. To say it's my opinion is incorrect when it's been tested already as fact hundred times over. Just because it's Japanese doesn't make it special. If it's butted it will be vulnerable to arrows and spear points.

This man tests a 6-1 tight weave steel butted chain mail piece that is folded over and it is still penetrated by arrows. It's pretty conclusive, and I don't consider it my opinion at all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4gPgHyaG1Q
So according to you...because an assault rifle will shoot through a bullet proof vest that makes them worthless and people should not wear them? And because a cross bow would have penetrated European armor that made it useless also? You think that every were a samurai fought that they only had arrows to worry about? In the last couple hundred years of the samurai era bows became more and more obscure. No type of armor was perfect and no type of armor protected against all attacks...oh except your magical European knights armor..I forgot!


Doesn't seem like you read my posts. Go back and read them again. Your analogies have no correlation to what I've stated on the subject. Where did I say Japanese butted chain mail was completely useless and not worth wearing? In an effort to not repeat myself, just go and re-read. You're getting a tad emotional and it's causing you to twist the things I've written down into nonsense.


Also to add, I'm not biased against Japanese armor. I'm Japanese born (Aomori ken), and Majored in Japanese Studies and Language. I am somone who knows what they are talking about and not some uneducated simpleton. Your general belief that everyone in this thread is an idiot has lead you to believe that everyone besides you and the people that agree with you are wrong. And THAT is simply not true.

Unless you've clearly understood the point I've been trying to get across and can write something a little less zealotus, than I am officially done with this thread.
Well...since you were born there and MAJORED IN JAPANESE STUDIES....maybe you should have studied about their armor a little more and I would not have had to correct your uneducated statements so many times.....like this one " For the most part chain mail was utilized as a connecting piece, not it's own stand alone armor like in Europe." or this one
"The biggest pieces of chain mail that I've seen in Japanese armor where around the arms and legs where penetrating damage was least likely. I've never seen it used to protect the torso." or this one "Also it seems I was correct about the weave pattern being European in style, as it was adopted from Europeans during the late Edo period after the Japanese had lots of exposure to European cultures"
Quote:
For the most part

Quote:
that I've seen

Quote:
I've never seen it


Anecdotal, yes, incorrect, no. You failed to remember that these relate to my experience of museum visits, not as a ubiquitous state of thought.

Admittedly I was off on the dates when foreign mail was introduced to Japan, forgive me for not recalling so perfectly.
But instead of taking into account that my original argument was that Japanese 4-1 butted doesn't need to be tested to know it will fail a pierce test, you went off subject to attack my academic background and (incorrectly) assumed my stance on the subject whilst putting words into my mouth.

Forgive me for not being perfect like you.
Okay, people, enough is enough. This topic has already had a moderator notice in it and now I'm here. Knock it off. Play nice or get booted. Simple as that. I've no tolerance for this.
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