"Lead Ball Bullets And Armour" Topic

The flight of a ball tends to drop steeply right at the end.

Apparently civil war armour wasn't strong enough to defeat a musket ball at close range.

So if you were shot by a musket at close range (say within 100 metres) any armour wouldn't save you.

However, if you got shot by a musket at long range (300 yards?) – then your corslet might save you; if the shot arrived from above – your helmet might save you. This would apply to pikes as well as horse.

So – if you are not wearing armour for protection against shot at close-ish ranges, then why are you wearing armour for protection against shot at longer ranges?

I reckon it was mostly to add to the intimidation factor when charging, which of course was the main function of armoured cavalry. Also, it boosted the morale of the wearer and it would have offered some protection from cut and thrust battlefield hardware.

I wonder if it was more likely in garrisons than field armies, as the garrison units didn't have to march so far in the ironmongery.

I forgot to add:

Assumed at close-ish ranges (100 metres) that flight of ball is taken as being horizontal with enough power to punch through a typical corselet/breast plate.

And:

Horsemen's pistols had very long barrels, but with smaller-bore (than muskets) – so assuming similar characteristics (early flight horizontal with power, later flight plunging with lesser power)

Wasn't it worn to protect more against edge weapons than fire arms?

I was in the Royal Armouries in Leeds the other day and was struck by the difference in armour between an arqubusier of the British Civil wars versus a cuirassier of earlier ones.

What factors went into reducing the armour coverage, and armour thickness?

Later 17thC kept the arme-blanche weapons as per earlier times, but jettisoned the armour.

The penetration of ECW black powder shot has little to do with whether the ball strikes straight on or from above.

It has everything to do with the fact that BP is a relatively slow inefficient burning propellant (especially at the time of the ECW) So the projectile doesn't get all that much velocity and a round heavy .75 ball isn't all that good of a projectile.

So 300 yards isn't close range, 60 yards is close range, 300 yards is very long range.

Not exactly sure where your notion that ECW armour wasn't ballproof comes from.

At the start of the wars many much older pieces of armour were pressed into service: these date from the days when firearms weren't used so widely on the battlefield, so we're much thinner and less likely to stop a ball. Armour made in the C17th was made thicker (and heavier) to be pistol and carbine proof. Many older pieces were modified to bring them up to date – breastplates were made thicker by adding layers and forge welding the edges, helmets had brow pieces added.

This pistol (and carbine) proofness is evident by observing the proving marks on armour on display in museums (not just cuirassier armour but also pikemen's armour and harquebusier's armour). Of course unscrupulous armourers could always undercharge the firearm in order to deceive the buyer. (Probably not the wisest thing to do, as I'm sure armed, angry survivors/relatives would no doubt pay the armourer a visit.)

The Royal Armouries collection (Tower of London) has some breastplates that Parliamentarian forces had used to test various projectiles out on (and whether the breastplates would stand up to the impact) – I don't know if they have complete records of what was fired at the plates, but the one on display is rather reminiscent of the cuirass on display at Les Invalides, as it has a cannonball sized hole in it. (The smaller hole is believed to be a hole made to affix it to the target)

Contemporary references to proofness:
In 1639 the Lords Committees of the Council of War ordered a large number of pistol proof breastplates from Flanders.
Sir Edmund Verney, fighting in the Bishops Wars, remarked that full cuirassier armour would kill a man due to the weight preferring pistoll-proofe lightweight helmet, back and breast plates and gauntlet.
Royalist captain Henry Hexham writing in 1642 refers to cuirassier armour being "ideally pistol-proofe".
At Roundway Down a fully armoured Haselrigge was repeatedly assailed by Captain Richard Atkyns – Atkyns discharged his pistols when he felt their barrels touch his opponents armour, "he was too well armed all over for a pistol bullet to do him any harm".
There are a number of contemporaneous military manuals referring to pistol and carbine proof armour.

Most of these references specifically refer to pistol and carbine balls and not musket balls. The musket was notoriously inaccurate and slow to load, and had a very poor killing range, so armoured cavalry have are actually pretty indestructible except at point blank range (their horses less so). Their armour is mainly designed for cavalry on cavalry action. We also know that harquebusiers occasionally fought on foot during sieges (Leicester, Basing House) – their armour being a good defence against ball and shrapnel (from grenadoes).

When I mention poor killing range I mean immediate death by musket all range, muskets killed many from infected wounds. Armour, and buff coats would protect from these wounding hits.

The demise of the cuirassier is down to a number of factors (not lack of bulletproofness) – cost, in 1632 cuirassier armour cost three times the cost of a harquebusier; time it took the armourer to make it; and as mentioned by Sir Edmund Verney above the effect it had on the soldier wearing it (weight, heat, lack of mobility etc).

Royalist lack of armour was down to other factors, most notably they didn't have a lot of it – according to the 1644 Oxford Articles of War a cavalryman could pass muster if he turned up with a sword . Parliament controlled the main British armourers, so the Royalists predominantly had to rely upon imports (this wasn't just an issue for their cavalry but also their pikemen).

Fashion must also be taken in to account – the great and good liked to wear full cuirassier armour for their portraits, but undoubtedly wore the cutting edge fashionable buff coat with back and breastplates on the battlefield.

Not all armor was created equal.
Some were must iron, some were steel and some were hardent steel. Only the last one offered proper protection against musket balls at effective range.
And the thickness varied too, some weighed as little as 2.5kg, probably not thick enough to stop muskets balls. Others weighed over 4kg, these might do the trick.

In C17th England armour production was pretty much confined to London and the Armourers Company of London; outside London armourers tended to be small scale repairers/modifiers of armour rather than mass producers.

So whilst, obviously, there would be a wide variety of quality and materials evident in armour production nationally, that produced by the Armourers Company is going to meet the standards specified by the military manuals of the time.

Production was so efficient and on such a scale that prices for harquebusier armour reduced by 20% in a short space of time between mid 1640s and mid 1650s.

Stoppage,
Mounted Arquebusiers/Harquebusiers had less armour by design as they served in a diffrent tactical role than Cuirassiers. They originally light cavalry while Cuirassiers were heavy/battle cavalry and the Reiters who were ubiquitous on the Continent served as sort of medium Jack of all trades. The introduction of the so called "Burgundian"/"Walloon" style of mtd arquebusiers saw the begining of mission creep as the arquebusiers was equipped with helmets as well as body armour (back and breastplates or just the breastplate) alongside a pistol. And with the armour came the expectation that they could start to fulfill the "medium" Jack of all trades role, only cheaper than the Reiters.

By the ECW they had essentially taken over the "medium" role completely with the same armament as the Reiters but with less metal armour. And between being "good enough" as well as cheaper than the full Cuirassiers they were pretty much becoming the 'standard' cavalry across Europe with the Cuirassiers now being fairly rare specialists.

Allegedly one needed a stronger horse for a cuirassier as well.

It seems that no matter how well armored the riders were, a volley, even at longer range, would be quite effective on the horses, thus damaging the cavalry unit.

Also much like in tank warfare, you don't need to penetrate to wound or even kill. The ball can make a dent in the armor and metal in the inside will flake off creating "shrapnel " apparently this was how many Italian wars gendarmes died. The arqebuses weren't powerful enough to penetrate(a least not the cuirass), but when dozes of balls hit the chest and back plate, enough of the metal inside that flakes off can wound or kill. This happened on a large scale at Pavia. Given the same concept was true for tanks during ww2. I assume it also apply to curiases for the 17th, 18th and 19th century too.

And secondly, even a cuirassiers was uncovered on his legs (though at long range the thick leather will give some protection) and the face, no matter what style of face protection used, would not stop a musket ball at effective range. With thousands of balls flying some % would hit vulnerable parts.

And like mentioned above horses were not protected.

Sorry no idea about gendarmes in the Italian Wars. I have, however, inspected the inside of a number of Civil War breastplates – proofing marks make a small deformation (you'd certainly know about it, being bruised the next day or possibly a broken/cracked rib) but certainly no signs of flaking or damage to the inside other than the deformation. Civil War musket balls don't really have enough velocity to do that – very small cannon shot certainly, but nothing from a musket/pistol/carbine. Civil War era shot deforms considerably when it hits something rather than penetrating.
Plus we mustn't forget that hardened armour, which started appearing in the early fifteenth century had become the standard munition armour by the seventeenth century.

Cuirassiers and harquebusiers are clearly not indestructible, they have their weaknesses, but a breastplate wearer would have to be pretty unlucky to be killed by a shot to their armour. Buff coats were designed to protect from sword blows I'm not so sure how they stand up to shot. They may well offer protection from long range shot, close quarter shot I would assume very little protection.

As I intimated in my first post, horses are their big weak points (I forget how many horses Sir William Waller records were shot from under him). An unseated cuirassier with limited vision and slow moving is quickly going to be bashed and spiked to death by more numerous fast moving foot soldiers. Even an unseated harquebusier is probably going to be at a disadvantage

Date clan in Japan used bullet tested armor in the late 1500s. Gotta have a lot of faith in your armoror.

Bullet proofing isn't the same as battle conditions.
If spalling happend to 16th century hardent armor hit by arqebuses(Which are even lower velocity than muskets) and it happend to tanks in ww2. Then it also happend to 17th and 18th century armor. It's just a aspect of how metal works.

Gunfreak,
16th Century arquebuses are more than capable of penetrating any Gendarme armour at close range (close range= 10-30 meters based on the Graz tests of actual period firearms.)
The armour worn by Gendarmes were not particularly thick in the Italian wars and it was not designed to deal with firearms. So when Gendarmes were exposed to effective close range fire as at Cerignola and Pavia the result was devastating. But effective fire required a very specific set up, you had to prevent the Gendarmes from getting into close combat and also preferably have the ability to prevent or limit their ability to withdraw.

Neither they nor Alan Williams found any evidence of lethal spalling when doing test firing, what you do get with certain types armour playes are splinters which are driven into the wound cavity just in the same way that bits & pieces of clothing were driven into the wounds. This also occured with mail armour which was one reason some Reiter commanders did not want their men using mail sleeves or other pieces of mail.

Thanks for responses everyone –

@kentucky police department:

Thanks for high-lighting the New Model Army – they seem to have been equipped to the best level of the time – which included helmets and corselets for their close-combat troops – mounted harquebusiers and pikement.

My question was prompted (during a lawn-mowing thought-session) by another thread that discussed Napoleonic riflemen shooting at enemy artillery at long ranges – their shots falling steeply from above.

My mental image of 17thC battles is of a number of phases – including infantry standing still at distance being engaged by artillery – and possibly long-range pot shots from muskets. Hence the question re helmets and body armour providing protection at range. Also the best armoured tended to be in the front ranks; plunging-fire from almost-spent shot could hit unarmoured colleagues behind.

Stoppage – strange how initials have meaning for one group of people, and can mean something completely different to another group. I'd never have thought that KYPD could actually stand for something real (rather than the initial letters of my blog Keep Your Powder Dry), now I can see that it clearly is Kentucky PD. As a Brit your abbreviation of States to two letters is a bit of an unknown, I could probably work them out, but don't know them. Anyway, thanks for putting a smile on my face this morning.
Long range pot shots were lucky during the civil wars: famously Lord Brooke was killed by a sniper during the first siege of Lichfield at 180 yards by a poacher firing from the Cathedral tower (so the story goes). So it shows it was possible. I have read that after this event men with birding guns were taken on as snipers, but I can't remember where I read it.

And thanks for reminding me that I need to mow the grass today!

Pretty sure a ball at long range would be deflected by a cuirassier's mustache.