Question on thickness of armor

[ChrisMiller]

Hello everyone
First off I just want to say, I've been a bit of a long time lurker here and read through quite a bit. It has been amazing, one those "everything I thought I knew turns out to be wrong" moments, and so I just want to thank everyone that has been involved in setting so many things straight.

Onto my question though, I've been trying to figure out how thick various types of armor were. If someone knows on average what various pieces and types of armor might have been, I would love any info on it. Or if someone could point me towards a source somewhere that discusses it. I have found very little on my own, and where thickness has been posted for items I'm left wondering if it is historically accurate or just applying to that replica or reproduction of a piece. Just to be clear, I'm not interested in it for safe sparring purposes, but rather historically how thick these armors tended to be.

Thanks in advance.

[Parker Brown]

Hey Chris! That's a good question. Historical armour tended to be anywhere from .5mm to 2 mm thick depending upon time period and where on the body the plate was being placed. Basically, a suit of armour will have a variety of thicknesses depending on the plate's placement. A small plate covering one of the fingers would likely be pretty thin (about 22 ga.) while areas such as the chest and head would have thicker protection. The cool thing about historical armourers was that they were skilled enough to create varying thicknesses within the same piece of plate! On a breastplate, one might find that the armourer has pushed and formed the metal so that the front of the plate is thicker than the edges. Given that the differences can be within 1/2 mm....the skill of these craftspeople was astounding. For modern armour, most pieces are between the same guidelines (12 ga. - 22 ga.). I hope this helps and feel free to ask more questions!

Parker Brown
ARMA Denton
www.crescentmoonarmoury.com