Jean Chandler

A sleeveless vest of brigandine armor, consisting of two layers of textile armor with overlapping metal plates sandwiched in between. Quite effective protection.

A vest of relatively thick but soft leather, like a modern leather jacket. Provides marginal protection.

A thicker iron cuirass. Very heavy to wear, usually only worn by cavalry.

A khazaghand aka ‘jazeraint’ is the Arab / Central Asian variant of a mail haubergeon, of long sleeves with integral padding both above and below the mail built into the armor. The cloth is usually silk and the version listed here would include a high quality hauberk, either of foreign ‘ferrengi’ origin or from a top quality Muslim armorer.

Some khazaghands incorporated inferior quality mail, these may cost as low as half the normal price (if the buyer can determine the quality of the mail he is buying) but the protective value is reduced to 6/12/18.

The khazaghand represented here would consist of fine quality mail haubergeon with several layers of silk both above and below the mail quilted with a thin padding of rabbits fur, raw silk or felt. The textile component of these armors was thinner and less bulky than a standard European aketon or gambeson while being equal or superior in quality, making these highly desirable panoplies which were sometimes imported into Europe

This is simply a brigandine vest (see Brigandine Doublet) worn over a heavy gambeson (see Gambeson and Helm), and a full helmet. This is medium weight, reasonably light armor which provides good coverage and pretty good overall protection.

The first row represents the protective quality of the helmet or the brigandine and the gambeson, the second row represents the protective quality of the gambeson alone. See Armor Table Key, Layered armors for more about how this works.

Heavier than an ordinary cuirass, typically bullet proof, these began to appear in the 16th Century, and were used by heavy cavalry through World War I. The shape of a heavy cuirass could be of the ‘gloubus’ type, the box-shaped type, or relatively form-fitting.

This is a special type of textile armor made of so called “Buff Leather” (buffalo rawhide) over padding, in the form of a long coat with sleeves. These were worn in the 17th century.

Also sometimes referred to as ‘half harness’, this means armor which includes a helmet and gorget, breast plate or cuirass, pauldrons to protect the shoulder, and articulated vambraces to protect the arms, and faulds to protect the hips, but there is little or no thigh protection (sometimes short tassets). This armor was made of good steel with a heat treatment has been ‘proofed’.

A thicker gambeson with up to between 20-30 layers of linen in the most vulnerable areas, and about 10 layers in the areas which need to flex. Fairly stiff and heavy, something like a baseball catchers chest protector, except longer and with sleeves. These were a very popular type of armor particularly in the 14th Century, both as stand-alone protection and to be worn over mail.

This is a sort of poor-mans brigandine armor consisting of small metal plates sewn inside two layers of textile armor. It was used by common footsoldiers in late Medieval through Renaissance Europe.