Postby JeanryChandler » Fri Jan 23, 2004 1:00 pm
I missed it last night though I've seen it before, really cool half-swording with John, and... who was the other guy?
Last night though on History International I blundered into a half finished show on "Chainmail" (sic) and Plate armor. It was pretty interesting, they had a lot of forensic evidence from a 15 th century War of the Roses battlefield in England, with plenty of gruesome injuries to skulls (pierced through by pikes, hacked open by swords and faces smashed to bits by maces) as well as the much sought after clip of the guy doing a cartwheel in plate armor (which I wish I could have tapd because it would settle many bets I have had). They also did some more tests revealing that a longbow and two kinds of crossbow failed to penetrate plate armor.
The only thing I didn't like was it seemed to perpetuate the myth of mail armor being fairly easy to penetrate with sword or spear. Most of the re-enactment seemed to be done by the Royal Armory people at Leeds, and there is a slight bit of staleness about their performances and re-enactments.
All in all though, it was a good show, yards above and beyond the normal History / Discovery channel fare on this subject.
JR
"We can't all be saints"
John Dillinger
