murphymurphyjohn@... wrote:
> While I hold no brief as an expert in armour, offhand it seems that the
> armourers of Western Europe were much more concerned with the articulation of
> their armor than those in Japan. Whether Gothic or Maximilian, German or Italian
> or French, the armourers seemed to take more care in what we would call the
> ergonomics of armor than did their contemporaries in Japan. If one studies
> merely the arm defenses of both knight and samurai...not getting into the
> technical terms French or Japanese..it seems apparent (at least to me) that there
> was more technical sophistication, including armpit armor, in the armor shops
> of Augsburg than in Sakai. Of course, the question arises also did Japan have
> the mineral resources to produce all the steel armor that Europe had? Jack
Speaking as one who's worn both types of armour, I can see little difference
when it comes to the armpit. Both European and Japanese were exposed there, so
both had alternate methods of dealing with it; the Japanese had the manjuwa or
wakibiki worn under the armour, and the Europeans had arming doublets with
integral mail gussets.
I assure you: if articulation is important, you can't articulate better than a
cloth foundation. The difference is the amount of *solid* protection on the
sleeves. European were solid, with upper and lower canons and articulated elbow
cops, while the Japanese didn't provide the same amount of solid protection.
It's an exchange: the Japanese as a rule was looser and provided a far greater
range of motion, while the European was more protective and in all but the
highest quality suits a slightly restricted range of motion.
Were I fighting Europeans, I'd prefer their armour; but fighting the Japanese,
I'd prefer *theirs*. They were each admirably suited to the milieu in which they
were used.
(But, yeah, Augsburg armourers made *damn* nice looking stuff!)
Tony