"how much protection does a cuirass give?" Topic

is it just "flashy" oer really helpful?

my guess is that it is not too bad in melee but near useless when shot at. is that about right?

Very good against other mounted sword/lance using troops. Not so good against loaded muskets at long range. Useless against loaded muskets at close range.

Not great against cannon fire either, as you'd expect

picture

well, I think if somebody was going to fire a musket at you and you had a choice of wearing one or not,I think you would choose to wear it.

In David Howarth's "Waterloo: Day of Battle", cuirasses are supposed to be proof against "all but the most subtle sabre-work" and could "sometimes turn musketballs aside", presumably at longer ranges.

I think they must have provided at least some protection against muskets or shrapnel, particularly glancing shots. Whether they would do so often enough to warrant factoring into your rules is another matter. I wouldn't bother.

I recall a story in which the Duke of Wellington was asked "Did the French Cuirassiers come up very well at Waterloo?" His answer: "Yes, and they went down very well too!".
Nevertheless, the Household Cavalry has them to this day…

It all rather depends on the design and quality of the cuirass. For example, French cuirasses became more pigeon-breasted over time, making them more able to deflect the rather slow-moving musket balls. French officers' cuirasses seem to have been of better quality and rather more pigeon breasted than those of the rank and file.

However, given that the horse provided a far bigger target for musketry than the rider, I suspect that they had little effect in that regard. In melee, they were certainly a great advantage.

i ssem to rememeber reading french a french cuirass was
proffef first by have a pistol shot at it ,hence all troopers had a small pistol ball indentation in them.
the highlanders cooked beefsteakes in theirs so maybe some
wer marginally musket proof at distance. also the brits were
taught to fire at the horses against cuirassiers and carabineers to alow for the armour protection.

no a cannon ball was different………..eg the famous
holed cuirass!!

I understand that a cuirass can protect the wearer against a bricole at 50 yards.

Better than NO protection.

Remember that this type of cavalry was to overwhelm their enemies with mass: Mounted on larger horses, armored to help defend against enemy sword blows and adds more mass to the charge.

They were not supposed to be invunerable to ranged weapons as battle cavalry was intended to go in and mix it up; NOT sit back and make funny comments to discourage the enemy! 8>)

I'd sure want one if I were a cavalry guy back then! />)

Best
Tom Dye
GFI

yes, its probably psychologically effective.

are you sure about it deflecting musket balls? with 17th century black powder weaponry i can believe that armour was effective, but were napoleonic muskets and rifles that bad?

i will probably figure it in my rules as something like a save on a "6" in melee. i like to add a bit of flavour with things like that, seems to make it more enjoyable.

I should think it would be convenient if the protection it bestowed roughly counterbalanced the loss of mobility it imposed.

Modern tests (made by a special institute of the Austrian army) revealed inter alia, that an original cuirass of the 16th century was punched by a pistol ball at 8,5 meters (appr. 9 yards), but the ball had lost all its energy, so the wearer of the cuirass should have survived with a bruise.

There was some research I read that suggested that the majority of wounds to cavalrymen in hand to hand fighting were to the head and arms, irrespective of what they were wearing.

So a good helmet and long, thick gloves were probably more useful.

I bet wearing a good cuirass boosted confidence though!

grenadier corporal: that is about 1 1/2 to 2 centuries early. surely there was a big change in musket design. i am only not sure on how much more effective the changes made muskets at penetrating armour.

A Cuirass was supposed to be proof against a pistol shot. Hense the small indent shown on them. It is interesting looking at the concussive effect that is known to have killed people.

During the English Civil War, a Cuirassier in 3/4 plate fell off his horse and was only killed with a knitting needle through the eye socket despite having his legs hacked off below his knees. This was done by camp followers.

Stephen

Infantry were trained to fire at horses, not at riders so, I would suggest that cuirasses wouldn't have made much difference. However, in the famous description from the Waterloo campaign where a volley was fired at cuirassiers, described as sounding like hailstones, not many riders fell, which suggests that the cuirasses were at least fairly effective.
I would suggest that against the soft lead, low velocity, musket bullets, well shaped cuirasses would have been reasonably effective at anything beyond absolutely point blank range, ie. 15 yards or so. Most of the surviving cuirasses with holes in were pierced by artillery rather than bullets, either round shot or "mitraille", ie. cannister rounds. The only exception I know of is one that was pierced at close range by Dreyse rounds at Worth or Froschwiller in 1870, but we are talking about considerably higher velocity rounds here.
hwarang, the test was on a cuirass of the 16th century, not of a pistol of the 16th century; cuirasses of the early 19th century were significantly better both in shape and design, and in quality of the metallurgy.

Marshall Turenne's cuirass is at the Musee de l'Armee in Paris, with the 3 pound cannon ball that killed him. The cuirass has the indentation on it from the hit. It didn't penetrate, but killed him just the same, or at least mortally wounded him. "I didn't mean to die today ….." his last words.

looking at all our comments i reckon the cuirass was
effective in combat and was primarily worn for use as a form
of musket protection and obviously man to man combat. the
poor old chasseurs a cheval had a rolled greatcoat!!.as chouan correctly says they were fairly effective at quatre
bras one regiment wore cloaks and the brits were told
"fire at teh horses they are in armour! . ( i know the 11th eme cuirassiers didnt have any cuirass s for the 1815 campaign (or very few)…(it may have been the 8tth ) cant remember)but the brits must have known the
effectivness of the armoured horsemen. and once "a la pied"
they were usless…….unbuckle the armour and leg it!!

I'm sure I remember reading somewhere in one of my books on Waterloo (think it might have been Siborne) that the infantry in British squares could hear the sound of their musket balls pinging off the French Cuirassiers. Could of course be fanciful thinking in the heat of battle.

Pete

During the English Civil War, a Cuirassier in 3/4 plate fell off his horse and was only killed with a knitting needle through the eye socket despite having his legs hacked off below his knees. This was done by camp followers.

Ouch!

Camp? With knitting needles? Surely not…..

Nevertheless, the Household Cavalry has them to this day…

Although they were a post Napoleonic fashion accessory and never used in combat.

During the English Civil War, a Cuirassier in 3/4 plate fell off his horse and was only killed with a knitting needle through the eye socket despite having his legs hacked off below his knees

Interesting though somewhat barbaric anecdote.

I believe the more usual method of disposal was being captured after the killing of their horse!

Cuirassiers in ¾ armour we singularly ineffective in the Civil War and little used as a result of the cost and difficulty sourcing all that plate for enough men to form units.

Messrs Chouan et britishlinescarlet2: in Scott's piece of versified journalism and Tory propaganda "The Field of Waterloo", he included a note from a serving British soldier in which the rattling sound of musket-balls striking cuirasses is compared to "Tinkers" mending thousands of pots and pans. If I'm not mistaken, the cuirass in the photograph posted by Connard Sage was actually bought by Scott, during his visit to Belgium, for his own collection of militaria at Abbotsford.

Additionally: wasn't there an incident when French Cuirassiers, in both back- and breast-plates, came up against Austrians (or, perhaps, Russians) wearing only the front plate, and inflicted significanlty more casualties, which tends to support hwarang's original point?

The carabinier cuirass is at the Musee d'Armee, and the relevant section may even be open some time this year! It has been closed for the last three years (each time I've taken my History Students there, and each time I've been told it'll be open next year!)

And here was me thinking that "chiuso per restauro" was only a permanent fixture in Italian museums.

The carabinier cuirass is at the Musee d'Armee,

Correct, or it was the last time the rooms were open. Which was so long ago that I didn't own a digital camera…

The unlucky owner was one Antoine Faveau IIRC.

and the relevant section may even be open some time this year! It has been closed for the last three years (each time I've taken my History Students there, and each time I've been told it'll be open next year!)

You too? Every time I look on the Musee de l'Armee website there's a different opening date. It currently says 'closed until 2009'. Doesn't say when in 2009

Last time I looked it was May this year, but I wouldn't hold your breath…..

Chouan,

Infantry were trained to fire at horses, not at riders

Interesting point – it's my recollection that Napoleonic infantry received very little actual musketry firing training and that muskets were simply levelled as opposed to aimed, thus firing at horses would simply not feature? They would fire ahead at whatever target was in front of them.

With regard to the point pertaining to cuirasses; anyone whose worn body armour will know that with armour you are that much more confident about closing with the enemy, as has been mentioned. Without armour one is slightly more hesitant about getting stuck in, esp. if your opponent is armoured!

DB

Sorry, perhaps trained is the wrong expression; they were ordered to fire at the horses.

that was also my impression, that musket armed soldiers in mass formations would just fire straight ahead.
picking targets is what rifle weere for.

It is interesting that the British cavalry largely stopped using armour a long time before the Napoleonic Wars--they thought it was too heavy and restrictive for the rider and only offered marginal protection..Also as stated without your horse being armour plated you are as an easy a target for infantry and a slower target (albeit marginally)…I would say what melee advantage with other cavalry a cuirassier gets he should also lose due to lack of agility and speed.

Let history give its view point. The French 'God Bless em' wouldn't have used it if it didn't have an effect, remember your asking governemtn offciela to buy stuff here!!!

Its effect was probably not that much in battle but its morale effect would have been far more valuable.

The post iw wasn't very good a muskets may be slightly in error a stat I found when researching smoothbore ranges was that at 100 paces (250 feet or 83 yards) it would stop a round, as most nations other than British Line fired at this range and above it must have made a huge difference to the wearer.

It can't have made them that confident.. I have read (somewhere) that the poor horse was more often shot than the rider, not only because of the obvious mass difference, but also because invariably the rider would duck down low behind the horse as best he could…

TW

That's a point – v small arms, the rider's body is pretty much behind the horse's head anyway.

Went to the Horse Guards museum in London yesterday, and tried on a cuiraisse…. not particularly encumbering, slightly uncomfortable, but actually less of an impediment than a helmet, and I imagine one would quickly get used to wearing it.
Would rather be wearing it than not if someone was shooting at me.

christot

interesting point you would soon get used to a cuirass
even the french line dragoon helmets were made from very
thinly beaten brass and were not that heavy. the problem
for say fully armoured heavy troops was sitting mounted
in the full sun in all that army …a good example being
the cuirssiers under Arrigi de cassona prior to the battle
of Wagram as some slid off there horses from sunstroke….
the italian guards of honour on the march into Russia
in their giant eagle topped hemelts were also seen to fall
off their horses from heat stroke/exhaustion

link

Russian factory at Zlatoust had their cuirasses tested at 60 paces with a musket shot- loaded with lead bullet 32.4gr weight and with 10,8 gr of powder. Acceptable were only cuirasses that not only were not shot through, but did not have even a slightest dent or scratch. Rejects were about 20 to a 100 made. These tests were recorded in 1840s. Earlier cuirasses made during the reigns of Pavel or Alexander 1st- 1795-1812 were too light to be musket ball proof. Sestroretzk factory started to produce bullet proof cuirasses in 1820s, Zlatoust in 1830s.

clearly that indicates that the cuirasses were being designed not only for proof against sabres but also bullets…many soldiers even today wear bullet proof vests to this day and probably always will so their combat advantages are used for a very important reason, enhanced survivability.

Shane
davout.blogspot.com

It is the standing still for prolonged periods that makes one faint, not necessarily through sunstroke. Several people fainted during my passing out parade (no pun intended) at BRNC Dartmouth, which was in a cold February.