[Craig Johnson]

Hi Cole

I have spent a lot of years dealing with misconceptions and out of date information from sources as varied as grade schoolers to museum curators. The level of accurate knowledge on much of the arms and armor world is, sadly I suppose, less than many other areas of study. Here are a few points I try to keep in mind when discussing information that is new to people or challenges a point they have stated.

• One I try to be humble as I have told folks the wrong thing in the past and later learned better. So approaching it as a sharing of examples you know with the person rather than challenging their belief by stating it as wrong or not correct. ( I do not think you did this in this case just laying the range of interactions I have committed over the years )

• Offer places to find more in depth information and details of such things. In your case you could direct him to this article as a quick way to several sources dealing with the metallurgy of the period. Some Aspects of the Metallurgy and Production of European Armor

• You did well to not challenge in front of the class it is easier for folks to be open to new info when they are not on the spot.

• If the person refuses to accept your opinion as having any value, I will often come back with a request for the sources and examples they are basing their opinion on. If they are lacking these they will often bluster you away or say I can not remember n which case give them your email and ask for them to forward the info as soon as they can.

• There will be some who refuse to see the value in what you bring to a discussion. These folks are often not worth your time to try and help. If you have conducted yourself with humility and honor, which I think you have done a good job of so far, those that may have witnessed the exchange will know.

Techniques I have used in the past in situations like yours is to follow up with a small note or email with some sources for the person to check if they wish. I have used later assignments or papers in the class to lay out the info you have to share in a scholarly argument. This can back fire as I have seen college profs and teachers smack down a contradiction of their views with little regard for the content and style of the piece. So if your gpa is most important take care of such a tactic, I fear I have never been one to worry much about gpa

Finally one of the points you should always remember is your knowledge and understanding is the power in this situation. You can learn something from everyone. What you learn and how open you are is your strength and power. IF this scholar is no longer willing to learn then he is not a scholar any more by definition. If he is stuck do not worry to much about it, you know there is more out there to learn and that is the fun bit.

Hope this helps
Still learning
Craig

[William P]

also i should point out maximillian armour and glothic plate, both were fluted so as to increase thickness without


also not to disobay chads reccomendation to knock on the prof
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmDER4qovS8
but if shows like this are getting this fact at least right, this professor looks even sillier

also, a 5 minute internet search of wikipedia will tell youthe professor is wrong.. the concept of the juggernaut knight aka super slow super powerful is a myth even mostly by todays standards, childrens books even note the kniight as being able to do handstands and such

ive done a search of knights armour and plate armour on google, encyclopedia brittanica and two oher websites roughly assumed that the armour was heav noting the first cuirasses placed stress upon the garments they were attatched too soo backplates duely followed (that was from the britannica website.
ironically wikipedia was one of the most accurate websites noting that a major reason for its increasing prominance was due to better inductrian techniques and ravages of the black death,


also heres another way this question was put to one guy asking us about armour at our viking display (-.-) that a suit of armour weights 30kg or so (manning imperial gothic harness, including waist length maile shirt ), but a soldiers backpack today can weigh almost as much and its all on the back. not even accounting for all the other gear


then again ive seen a book on the ancient greeks suggesting the bell cuirass was 6mm thick ( that said, if it keeps you alive.... *shrug* )

[Dan Howard]

[Jojo Zerach]

[Kurt Scholz]

I think this is a great threat. University professors can be difficult and some misconceptions get only resolved biologically.

I would suggest to write an essay about the history of armour research and how the conclusions about the weight issue developed. Afterwards you give this essay to your professor and kindly ask him for his opinion on your essay. This way he is able to save face because you reinstate him as supreme authority that can judge on your work.

[Scott Hrouda]

I think Kurt has a great idea there. Write a short 10-15 page paper on the subject and be sure to provide solid primary reference material. With this method you are addressing the dispute in a scholarly manner, providing reference material the professor can research on his own, showing initiative and possibly earning yourself a little extra credit.

[Reece Nelson]

Have you're professor view this video. This guy does a lecture on armour and is the curator at the he Metropolitan Museum of Art.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqC_squo6X4&am...plpp_video

Its a great lecture that dismisses a lot of the misconceptions

-Reece

[Timo Nieminen]

[Jojo Zerach]

[J.D. Crawford]

I think Craig gives a lot of good advice that comes from years of experience dealing with academics. I apologize, Chad, if I took things off topic. I tend to get my back up when I see professors giving students a hard time and giving my profession a bad name.

[Ken Nelson]

Craig does have a lot of good ideas, I would like to add a few numbers that may help with the new versus old steel remark.

If I recall , wrought iron/pure iron has a weight of 7.86 g/cm3 adding carbon to make a steel will make it lighter, mild steel is about 7.84 g.cm3, and a high carbon steel (about 1.0% C) weighs in at about 7.81 g/cm3 or still less than 1% difference from the pure iron. Alloy steels tend to be slightly denser since chrome, nickel, molybdenum, and tungsten are denser not lighter than iron. Vanadium is between iron and carbon in density, and can lower the weight slightly, but not as much as carbon.

You might also want to look up the Wallace Collection on the web. I believe they list weights and dimensions for many of the pieces in the arms and armour collection as well as the dates of probable manufacture.

[Cole B]

Update for you guys. Had a short chat with him this morning before class. He did watch the video I sent yesterday (The MET one you all are probably familiar with) which is more than I was expecting actually.

I think he has somewhat moderated his position in his head, but didn't want to flat out admit he was wrong in his lecture. (Armor weighing more than a knight did, 2-3 people required to help someone up)

His points and where I disagree but didn't have time to debate

The MET video is reactionary against the Hollywood myths (needing a crane to get on horse, etc) but goes too far in the other direction, only using the highest tier armor that would be owned by Monarchs as examples when they aren't accurate as far as what the average or poor knight would have worn
A knight participating in jousts generally had a certain level of wealth and a support system under him, the idea of poor knights jousting in ultra-crappy heavy armor seems silly. The most expensive armor was probably that way due to artistry/stylization and not a -significant- function improvement.

Earlier plate armor was heavier (I said iron doesn't weight significantly more than steel) to which he responded that it was cast iron(?) so it had to be made thicker, and these early examples of armor generally don't survive because they rusted
The idea that they used cast iron doesn't sound right to me, but I could be wrong. And in general there is a certain level of mobility anyone wearing armor would require that they can't compromise further on in protection, so old iron armor would have been less sturdy but a similar weight. And a full suit of armor would have been too expensive to just let rust. I'm shaky on these points because I don't know much about very early full plate.

He changed his original statement from 'if you fell on your back in armor you would need 3 guys to help you up' to 'falling off a horse with the added armor weight could knock the wind out of you and make you unable to get up temporarily'. I think he also backtracked from his statement about armor weighing more than the knight, by qualifying it with people were smaller and 'a significant amount of their bodyweight' i.e. noticeably heavier than, say, the 90lb melee/joust armor mentioned in the links earlier.
This is sounds like he's trying to save face to me with a bunch of qualifications for his initial statements which were flat out wrong or very misleading about armor in general if one is being very generous with him

Anyway, I think I might be able to convince him if I could provide an example of a practical/low-tier/bargain bin/etc + very early iron jousting armor with weight and/or thickness measurements.

[Jean Thibodeau]

Cast iron is completely unsuitable for armour or swords and is very greasy oily to the touch due to the very very high carbon content, crumbles when machined rather than have long curling shavings and is very brittle. Cast iron can chatter like glass if dropped on a hard surface.

Took shop classes a long long time ago but have real life experience machining with a lathe, milling machine, etc ..... and specifically a lot of our class project where made out of cast iron.

If he mentions iron/steel swords being cast into shape his source is probably the first Conan Movie.

Oh, I wouldn't present it to him like that unless you want him angry at you ..... I'm just being blunt/venting for your ears only. ( And the peanut gallery here. )


He obviously has little to no technical knowledge of materials and machining metals and I have my doubts about his logic skills !

I think you should probably just shut up, get your grades and fact check everything about anything he ever said in class !

Move on and educate yourself rather than trying to re-educate your professor ..... probably a lost cause !

[Cole B]

Haha. I'm definitely not going to push it enough to jeopardize my grade. UCLA wants me to keep my gpa at 4.0 to transfer

On the other hand, if I could correct him without pissing him off. Just thinking about how many people leave that lecture with the idea of turtle knights in 200lb armor makes me sad.

[William P]

what i dont get is why you would CAST a breastplate thats pretty much a shaped sheet

that said.. one guy in my reenactment group has a cast STEEL replica of a steppe axehead he said because its steel and not iron, if cast, it won have the same inherent issues as cast iron, those being more to do with the ultrahigh carbon content than the fact it is cast, in his opinion at least.

but i get the feeling that the idea of iron armour being much harder isnt density of the material but the not unreasonable assumption that for iron aka wrought iron armour to be as effective as spring steel, tempered or not, it needs to be somewhat thicker to make up for the STRUCTURAL weaknesses.

i remember MRL saying that greek bronze helms, in their discription of one of their corinthian helms, might have been abit thinner than contemporary iron helms in order to compensate for the fact that bronze is denser and therefore needs to be thinner to not be more cumbersome than an iron helmet.

[Dan Howard]

Greek helmets are as thick as they need to be to stop weapons. It has nothing to do with the density of bronze. It doesn't take a genius to work out that if they are letting weapons through then you make them a little thicker. They only weigh a few pounds. An extra pound will still make them lighter than many medieval examples.

[Dan Howard]

Myth of the knight being lifted into the saddle goes back to Henry VIII. It is alleged that he had to be hoisted into his saddle for a tournament later in his life. But it had nothing to do with his armour and a lot to do with his corpulent obesity. He would have had to be hoisted into his saddle even if he was naked.

On the other end of the scale - Edward I was reputed to be able to vault over the back of his horse into his saddle while fully armoured.

It is easy to refute the "cast iron" nonsense. It doesn't really start to be used until the 14th-15th centuries in Europe - and even then mainly for cannon. So where did all of the armour before that time come from?.

[Dan Howard]

[T. Arndt]

[Robin Smith]