I am looking for info on the origin and uses of this unique armor, especially as it applies to medieval/renaissance russia. I'd also like to know what armor it replaced, and was in turn replaced by. Thanks in advance.

here is a link to a photo of an extant piece http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/html_En/03/hm3_4_1c.html

Tom this kind of armour ,often called maille and plates as a sort of ubiquitous heading ,is to be found from the middle east to the Phillippines, from India to Russia and Eastern Europe. The plate arrangements can vary from place to place(this particular Russian arrangement of small plates through out rather than several large plates on front and sides is sometimes called jazerrant) . The Russian us of it goes back at least to the 12th century and was still in use in the 17th and early 18th century. I have seen an article from the London Times in 1852(article in History Magazine from 1966) that has a plate/picture subtitled "czarist troops from the caucus region muster" and shows mounted troops still wearing it with bows in cases at thier saddles.

Russian bakhterets, 17th century, the picture is from "Armes et Armures Russes", Editions d'Art Aurore, Leningrad, 1982:



Turkish mail-&-plate armour (jawshan), 15th century:





Armour of this type was also used in Turkey, the Mamluk Sultanate and Iran from the late 14th to the late 17th century. A lot of Russian armour from the same period does show a strong Turco-Persian influence.

Actually the tall pointed helmet of the second armour in Hisham's post was very popular in Russia as well dating back to the early middle ages. The Russ were noted for helms with these tall points.

Another 17th century Russian bechteretz:



And a Polish one, please excuse the poor quality, it was scanned from a tiny picture:

Hey, that Polish ones really snazzy! I'm diggin' that quite a bit.

A Google image search produced these two pages, unfortunately I can't read Polish:

http://www.man.poznan.pl/~ritter/Html/of_bechter.html

http://www.pulawy.net.pl/karabela/zbroje.html

I've stumbled on the second maker once before but can't for the life of me remember where. Always have liked maille and plate armours. They have a bit more visual"depth" that plate armour.

Thanks Michal, I always used to think of mail-&-plate armours as being mainly Middle-Eastern and Russian. Obviously they were used in Poland as well. You learn something new every day. The first Polish Bechter looks different to the Russian and Turkish versions though. What sort of Polish troops would have used bechters?

http://smhospital.fatal.ru/SNAR/bahterec_i.html Here is described how to craft bahterec. If you want I can try to help with translation.

Here is interesting bahterec from Moscow Kremlin, whitch was found in "Ivanovskaja Ploshad". http://www.kreml.ru/ru/main/virtual/name/trea...I-XVII/10/

Here is "machine" translation of this article made through "Promt" (www.promt.ru) -

1975 at civil work on the Ivanovo area, on depth about 4 meters, richly decorated subject of arms which casual hit in the ground is excluded completely has been found.
Despite of bad safety of a thing, after restoration before us предстала the most part of a complex ¬«½ýþáÔ«-lamellar armour бахтерца, the form and which sizes are completely reconstructed. It had short sleeves (15 sm) and rectangular вырез a collar the Breast, the back and the bottom part of an armour are strengthened by the plates located in some numbers сталистого the iron, coming one on another from below upwards. Numbers of plates are connected among themselves by means of double уплощенных rings. Кольчужные rings бахтерца are fastened, basically, " on a nail ".
The humeral part of a chain armour bearing the basic loading (its weight reached ten and more kgs), is executed from the rings, fastened by two rivets (thickness of a wire of 2 mm, diameter of rings of 12 mm).
And a sleeve and other part бахтерца rings had more simple connection by one rivet. 145 breast plates of an armour were kept. They have the sizes of 39 (40) and 17 (18) mm. The humeral part of a chain armour bearing the basic loading (its weight reached ten and more kgs), is executed from the rings, fastened by two rivets (thickness of a wire of 2 mm, diameter of rings of 12 mm). The central number of plates, which length is allocated only at width of 18 mm колеблется from 50 up to 73 mm. On a back бахтерца 94 plates in width of 16-18 mm and by length 33-40 mm were kept.
They are decorated by the silver notch put on сталистому to iron, and the background of plates is processed зубильцем in a fine cell. Magnificent thin figure of a part of plates simulates the Arabian inscriptions. Near at hand masters they have turned to beautiful ornamental curls. In a set of the central numbers alternate a plate with a pattern and smooth, decorated entirely gilding.
Kremlin бахтерец is very rare and dear product of Russian gunmakers of XVI century. It is possible to consider as its nearest analogy an armour of prince Vladimir Staritskogo, the cousin of tsar Ivan of IV Terrible. Despite of losses, бахтерец and today it is looked as the fine sample of products from an arsenal of Russian soldiers of XVI century.

ps - бахтерец = bahterets
Кольчужные = chain mail

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Thanks for all the help.

Thanks, Mr. Gaballa--
Two more books to add to my library :\ ;)