How Medieval Armorers Made Flexible Armor 

Adam should try going to Bicolline

Yeah! As Tod Culter says, “medieval people weren’t stupid!” - they may not have had access to the level of science and technology we have today, but they were smart, clever and ingenious people nonetheless, and came up with solutions that can astound and surprise us even today.

WTH are you guys talking about? we are physically indistinguishable from our ancestors from +100 000 years ago, a few hundred years is nothing. Only a complete moron would think there was any significant anatomic difference....not sure what's the point in creating/holding up that strawman....

they had the same brain as we have today. Karens, woke cultists excluded

My favorite are the automata! Historical clock makers were wizards!

@@altergreenhorn And they used it better than many in 2023, this time will be known as The dumb ages.

while its super impressive adam did correctly infer its use, these historian's jobs is to know for certain that was what it was used for which is why it took 50 years to say for certain that it could have been a crotch piece which is why they showed us the earlier theory about horse armor. Adam couldnt have known 100% without the historian elaborating on it especially without the other photos.

​@@Tojeaux_the need to protect the *_family jewels_* is eternal LoL

Correction: Adam worked it out in 19 seconds

I love how the curator just didn't address it.

@@Tojeaux_ I agree with what you said a 100%. But an other factor is also the differences between how some groups of people look at things. Like a historian is trying to put a story of history that is factually sound so if you have an object that may support and inform about something that we have little information about, like horse armour, its very tempting to look in that direction. While Adam as a maker and problem solver looks at it from a more technical perspective. what could this piece achieve with the function it has? neither approach is necessarily better than the other. for instance you could find an object that would do great at a specific function but was actually used for something else. in which case historians have a better chance of getting the answer because they are building a story with context. the thing to learn from this I think is to get a diverse group of people looking at a problem. they have all different insights and that will make the chance of getting the right answer greater! edit: spelling

I'm an armor and medieval enthusiast, I literally guessed what that piece was for once i saw that little front part that connects to the bottom of a codpiece. also, it was kind of obvious when you realize that most animals are not able to move their limbs in as many ways as us humans, i can't think a single animal that humanity has put armor on at one point that can rotate their rear limbs to the same degree as us people.

Good to know because im no amor enthusiast, only German with some history knowledge and was able to solve that with my first thought when the piece was presented. It would have been easy now to leave the fact out of sight, that believing in something is for churches and that in science actual evidence is needed to confirm the assumption.

@@MarMonkey2606yes but you have to remember they can’t just say it’s a crotch piece without a legit explanation, they had to research every possibility so they can say with 100% certainty

I realy see a neck peice

I believer that type of plate without any mail is 16th century.

It was probably pretty bad for the mail industry, though.

@@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721 It was probably the same shops making plate armor that had made mail before. Just like companies today have to keep up with their competition so did shops back then.

First, this was for foot combat, you cannot ride a horse in this. Also, this required a perfect fit of all the pieces, a blow that bent a piece could render the articulation useless. I suspect this was vs swords only, since they are light weapons.

@@ronin1648 No, the armor was used for polearm fighting specifically. We actually have full sets with the weapons they're meant to fight with, and without exception these are impact weapons like warhammers, maces, and poleaxes. You actually got it right in your second sentence. The most common way the combatants won a fight was by disabling the opponent's joints.

And so much of that knowledge has been lost to time. We've had to re-learn a lot of it.....

you ever heard of a soldier called "The Iron Fist"?

A lot of it is patience. A breast plate would take half a year for a single man, if not more. Today, we make a reproduction breastplate (out of thicker metal, no less) in less than a week. Everything took longer back then, it was dealt with

The precision. Its amazing what you can do when you get your eye in; but that comes fairly quickly; the control, the practice, the combination of strength & finnese in craft motions. That takes longer. I was stunned by that rotating cuff; that tight & smooth motion was completely beyond what I thought possible by hand & by eye, and before standardisation of measures. I was a shoe repairer (no accreditation, so not a cobbler) before I became unable to work; we regularly work to fractions of MMs grinding soles back, thinning the edges of leather, etc. But that's still nowhere near accurate enough...

@@ckm-mkc Had to think back to a docu about medieval Japanese sword making and how they passed their knowledge to the next generation, fascinating.

Me too! I love them!

We're one old school bus away from having Mr. Frizzle

So glad you think so! Thanks for telling us!

+

I was looking at the upper arm piece and at the same time looking at the 8" 45 degree elbow duct sitting on my workbench.

So glad you're enjoying them!

More videos to come!

We’re dying to go back!

More videos to come! We LOVE filming there.

Military: Unknown piece of metal from a downed UFO. Adam: It's an Alien Codpiece !

"Doesn't look like much, but this was used to stop chunks of weaponized metal going faster than the speed of sound from perforating whatever poor sod was wearing it."

“In the early 2000’s, personal armour was heavy and rigid, so they had to make trade offs, and cover only the vital organs with these rigid plates. A side benefit was the soft carriers made to hold the plates could then be used as load bearing equipment. Can you imagine there was a time soldiers went into combat without personal energy shields? Seems downright irresponsible these days. But we have to remember what they had to work with at that time.

It took 50 years to *verify* the idea. But I agree, Adam was really fast to suggest the correct answer.

More to come!

It's probably more of a complex process than it looks from a 14 minute video. An engineer would look at it and figure out how they would use it, and a historian has to confirm it and double check it within the historical context.

@@alexanderthegreat6682 @alexanderthegreat6682 agreed, but they still went down a rabbit hole of effort and time thinking it was for a horse. The point is Adam's first assessment was accurate. Likely the result of his vast experience with spacesuit replica and body armor including apprenticing with armourer Terry English.

⁠@@ckohlermnIt is true that it should be obvious for many even myself as to what it was used for but I think the reason this took so long was likely a combination of this probably not being their main focus of study and historians needing to nearly absolutely sure of what something is to prevent the issue of someone being lazy or ignorant and deciding on something with little to no evidence to back it up and calling it a day like what happened with the first dinosaur recreations where it was just a bunch of bones cobbled together into one creature. This could involve years of study and become increasingly more difficult with the age of the item and the lack of info on said item. Like as he says with the armorers being so secretive of their designs it’s likely that there were little documents of the time that said what armor pieces were what so it could have been rather difficult to find any physical proof to back it up.

@@alexanderthegreat6682 Could have been solved by visiting a riding school & observing an actual horse's movements or by asking someone who works with horses.

Often more than you think! People love to say "oh but nobody could afford it", but this wasn't a time of conscription and state arsenals, rather one where society's elites raised their own forces and did much of their own fighting. They were *extremely* interested in shelling out for the finest equipment.

Was just thinking that lmao

With Adams history of prop making and creating copies based on drawings, his mind is pretty sharp at figuring things out!

To be fair proof can be a lot harder to come by then conjecture.

Adam would’ve been one of the state armorers in a top secret job during those times.

A guess is not for sure

I love that you're putting in the research to make your book more realistic, good luck!

In the defense of anthropologists/archaeologists, they were initially given a piece of armor that could have presumably gone anywhere and on anything. Adam was given that same piece under the assumption that it specifically went on a person. Not questioning the man's genius - which he absolutely is - just saying that when you begin an inquiry under such a refined field, the answer will come much easier.

it is totally the wrong shape for horse armour even more so that horses have gotten larger rather than smaller in the last few hundred years

The fact that it didn't fit an adult was probably the main reason it took so long to figure it out

Yeah, go ahead and become an academic expert in a subject matter, then we’ll perhaps care about your anti-intellectual opinions. Nah, not.

@@DoctorShocktor relax man... Was just a joke

So glad to hear! We have more to come!

I thought the same...maybe human centered thinking but, why would you not assume it fit into a human body somehow.

Totally get that!

Sometimes. You'd have to talk to the people and get a proper appointment though -- which can be difficult if you do not have connections nor a compelling reason to actually be there and depends heavily on what type of a thing you are trying to get access to. I've never tried making an arrangement/appointment, so I don't actually know how difficult it is to get something scheduled, but I can't imagine it being the easiest thing in the world to do unless you are going on one of their regularly scheduled tours. Regularly scheduled tours in a private group should be pretty easy to get set up. Specialized tours might be a bit trickier

It would be insanely hot

@@beesmongeese2978 🥵🥵🥵