Some new acquisitions

[Sir James A]

Well, it is actually quite easy to thrust into maille...how far you'll get depends on the quality of the rings, the pointiness of the weapon and the supporting garments under the hauberk, if by itself.

One common misconception is that maille armor will stop this or that sort of blow- I find that it is more likely to have been a preventive measure, one that obviously helped, but wasn't by itself a guarantee...think of it more as a way to leverage the odds of survival more in your favor than going w/out armor.

I don't want to derail the thread completely, but once I finally got my grubby gauntlets on some actual period mail... Our 9mm indian repro stuff, the Albion Talhoffer blasts through like butter. I got to feel some 5.4mm period mail, and I will say, it would take a lot of effort to get through that. Certainly possible, but almost like threading a needle. And it's every bit as flexible as the 9mm is; and moreso at the joints, as it has less bulk when flexed.

This is one of the pieces I got to handle: http://www.allenantiques.com/M-15.html

The inner diameter of the rings, when accounting for the thickness of the 4 rings also passing through it - that piece of period mail is about half the size of the opening in the 9mm mail. It's small rings, but it's not the smallest they made, either. Check this one out:

http://www.allenantiques.com/M-5.html

The 1/8" converted to mm is a little over 3mm. Yes, 1/3 the size of the opening of the 9mm stuff most of us have. I'd wager even a reinforced tip rondel would be a chore to punch through it with. Regardless, still easier than trying to stab through plate!

[Sir Ulrich]

I've used 9MM maille against knives and stuff, actually the wedge riveted with solid links is pretty decent at deflecting blows especially the solid links, as is the GDFB dome riveted stuff. The Icefalcon maille seems thinner and more prone to failure but it's lighter. My coif I refuse to even test out because if I damage the links I have nothing to replace it with. I would assume it's as good as period maille if not better because it's tough stuff. Sure it's small links that are around 17-18 gauge but it's probably tougher than Indian stuff. But it all depends on quality, indian round riveted is weaker because they punch the material away, wedge riveted just uses a drift to push stuff away similar to period maille, even period dome riveted maille used a drift rather than a punch and the rivets were often cone shaped rather than mushroom shaped like modern repro maille. I'd have to dig up the article again, it was some translated norwegian article on maille and it showed how the links looked, it even had some original maille chausses in the article which were tie in the back types, they even had bigger rings to link them together, which could explain the teeth on the period art of laced chausses.