Can anyone explain to me why the brigandine is the best armor?

Was just looking at the armor shop and the milanese brigandine was the most expensive and it also had the best stats

in the shop at least

i find this hard to believe, especially when there was a series of regular plate cuirassses that were about half the price and had 4-5 points of armor less in all categories

Eh, you don’t have to use those awful-looking brigadines to roflstomp. You’re still virtually impossible to kill with a Milanese cuirass and a decent hauberk.

It certainly is strange, though. That dyed brigadine looks like leather armor. Ugh.

well its not leather, its actually a bunch of plates rather than a solid piece of plate
would have been worn by those who count afford actual plate which is why i think its weird

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The brigadine takes up multiple layer slots, the cuirass takes up one.

wish i could wear the mail under the gambesons, the chains just cover up the nice quilt

Are you sure about that? I’m pretty sure I’ve worn the Milanese brigandine over both mail and a gambeson, which resulted in the highest armor protection possible. I thought that was definitely strange too, since there are no sources or tests to my knowledge that mention brigandine being superior to a well made single piece plate cuirass.

213 was talking about the aesthetic
Upon testing brigandine leg pieces take up 2 slots but the chest piece only takes up the body plate slot

I’ve been busy recently so I’m not too far though the game (All that glitters quest) but the better quality brigandines I’ve come across so far actually look more like a common type of 14th century plate cuirasses where they would rivet a layer of textile directly onto the cuirass

Thing is looking like one thing dosent mean that it is the same
one piece of steel is naturally going to give better defense that multiple smaller plates would
in most cases at least, maybe in medieval bohemia full plate is crap or something long, but then again there is milanese plate…

it looks like lather, because the plates are on the inside and not the outside, or sometimes they are between an inner and outer leather layer.

even today some of the same principles are used for ballistic vests which have plates placed within a vest.

arent ballistic vests meant to disperse the force either by breaking (ceramic) or just spreading it out (kevlar)

some just have steel plates that drop into pockets in the vest.

there is no spreading it out with Kevlar fabric, its fabric after all, only plates will spread the load over a wide area the size of the plate.

oh? how does kevlar work then, for modern day armor i just kinda go by what it looks like, never really cared to check properly

and is the steel plates thing for modern day?

Kevlar doesn’t spread load like a plate (i.e. bullet surface area vs. plate surface area along with the mass of the plate vs the bullet mass and kinetic energy) instead the Kevlar is flexible and attached to the vest, so as it hits the Kevlar and thus the vest pulls tight but it wont stop the bullet in the very localised impact point from braking your ribs or even partly entering some flesh if the vest was to lose, or stop the hydraulic effect as the pressure wave from the impact and distortion of the Kevlar causing internal damage.

likewise Kevlar vests on their own while they may stop a bullet without plates they are near useless vs knives and even arrows or other pointed objects, so to make a Kevlar vest stab-proof plastic plates are often used, but plastic wont stop an arrow.

e.g. the normally the rank and file police officers will have Kevlar vests with stab proof plates, as in the main they are not going up vs. heavily armed people, while police officers who specialise is hostage situations or where their is a high likelihood of going up vs heavily armed persons will often have Kevlar vests with steel or ceramic plates for stopping larger calibre rounds and other penetrations.

steel vs. ceramic is another post in its self

so modern armor is an interesting topic. kevlar is plastic, typically made into thread. solid block kevlar has been used in the past, but isn’t really used anymore. it has properties similar to silk, so one could use silk to get similar protection. essentially it is a high tensile strength thread, which when used in layers provides enough protection to ‘catch’ a bullet. it doesn’t work by using mass to stop the bullet, thus you tend to have a lot of kinetic carry through. it is flexible, so it doesn’t disperse the energy very well, though as you know with gambeson more layers means less flexibility and thus more dispersion. most vests are thin, and either use plates for reinforcement or not. the thinnest ones are the ones you see in Hollywood that are really thin and look like clothes, or are fitted under clothing. the thicker ones don’t fit under clothes very well. the thicker ones tend to have extra padding and pockets for plates.

as for plates, they are either steel or ceramic. steel can be a few different thicknesses, with the thickest being useful for mild rifle fire before being penetrated. ceramic is lighter, though it also is thicker than the steel for equivalent protection. they aren’t made as light duty as steel, as they need the mass to absorb the energy, thinner plates would be much worse than steel and can’t really do low end protection. they are made for light rifle fire and sustained rifle fire (best protection currently). while they do fragment instead of stretching, the thicker versions stay together much better than its thinner counterpart and thus breaks apart much slower. the ceramics are made into helmets and other forms of protection as well, just like steel. only the best equipped forces use ceramic plates for its forces, and most forgo any protection.

so as far as stab wounds go the thicker kevlar vests will protect you like a thin gambeson, unless it has plates, in which in the area of the plate it is very good prtoection. some vests will use the kevlar as a way of holding plastic plates in place just for stabs, though the kevlar tend to be rather thin and not useful, though like any cloth it can be made many different ways.

so in medeival times it is possible to get kevlar like protection by using a silk gambeson, which plenty of forces in the far east did, and it works well against arrows. the reason stabs do better is the mass of the person behind the stab, arrows however lack that mass and rely on force in a small area and pushing the threads out of the way, which as you know from gambesons only works so well, and enough layers will defeat such. i forget how many they told us the military issue vests were when we were issued them, but it was more than 24, as that is standard for level 2 vests and these were considered better in areas that there weren’t plates. so what ever it takes for a gambeson to stop a stab or a given arrow hit then modern kevlar could do it in less, how much less is up for debate though.

of course there are some new materials and designs out now that change this a bit, some (like dragon scale) are lighter, and some (like special composite ceramics) are tougher.

I’m wearing a cuirass with higher protection right now, madburge or something like that

Malderburg, has like a clover in the middle, 25 armor.

To my knowledge, what I’ve seen in the game so far (99 hours), the best cuirass is the Nurembergian Cuirass (armor 25, weight 4, value 3.2k).

That’s probably the armor I’m thinking of

yeah i have 80 hours played that’s the best plate i have seen as well