I know almost nothing about eastern armour and weapons, but even to me cuman equipment always looked wrong for 15th century.
It looks like if designers wrote cumans in google image search and picked what seemed cool to them.
Even if they would use some outdated armour it should be mixed with more modern ones.
It is really shame that something like this is in game that puts so much emphasis on historical accuracy.
I hope they will improve this.
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@Lucem @Mundhalai-khan
Looks interesting, can you please provide some sources, next to photos? Maybe dissertation or some online archives? I know nothing about their equipment, would like to read more.
Here you go
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Can someone tell me what the enemy in the game, should be wearing? Ik very curious.
Ideas for helmets:
一
Simple four-segmented helmet. Because of it availability ideal for common warriors.
二
Helmet from Ploskii. XIII-XIV centuries. Looks similar to cuman helmet from Hungary
三 
Helmet from Olen-Kolodez tomb.
For reading: http://www.kitabhona.org.ua/lib_arh/olenkolodec.html
Reconstruction:
四 Helmets with eye coves
(Helmet 27)
Iranian.
Helmet from Eastern Europe.
Two years have passed and no new arguments. Boring …
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I remeber the epic answer:
She does not want to be disturbed. If geroj @ProkyBrambora afraids her, I wouldn’t certainly try my luck. Telling doc to go and put his life in danger can be considered as a clever way how to do it, but can be kind of contraproductive.
Well it goes into the issue of having a choice between trusting a full time employed historian behind the WH characterisation of Cumans or random guy on the forum.
No, it shows that general standard of living within a small group of people may remain basically the same despite the society around them moving 200 years forward.
While Slovaks living 500 meters away from settlement like the ones I showed cook their deep frozen chicken breasts on pans with induction heating, these people use open fire to prepare a freshly killed chicken of dubious origin the same as their forefathers.
While a Slovak living 500 meters away is most probably armed with one or more firearms, people living in the given settlement will most probably not have a better weapon than knives and sticks.
If this is possible today in the age of internet when anyone can get to the other side of the world within 24 hours, I don’t see why it would not be plausible in the middle ages (in case I would accept your thesis about the armour being obsolote for the era, which I don’t).
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Well, all I’ll say is that we are aware of this issue, Asia formost.
But I cannot really comment on the decision to have this kind of equipment in the game.
No, Wikipedia is not our source. Yes, the cumans who invaded Bohemia looked probably a bit more European then they do in the game. It was a design decision to let them look a bit more “cumanish” then then they would have been looked in the reality, and I already confimed that:
But it is not totally off and completely unbelievable. Again, the difference is not more than 200 years, but less than 160.
Yes, there would be more cumans with more western armor in reality. But this would make it very difficult for some players to distinguish them from other factions in the game, making the Cumans more unique and recognizable.
The cumans would still have used their armor to some extend, the representation of this will be stronger in the game.
Even today, we often use military equipment which seems to be outdated. The B-52 is from 1952, the browning M2 machinegun is from the 30s, and this by one of the most modern armies of our time.
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I guess this thread can be very nice start of “KCD Realistic Mod” if some modder will take care of this. Certainly would be good reason for me to play KCD again after i finish original game.
Huh! My ZB.26 was designed in 1926 and made in 1928. Czech Army phased them out of the Military stockpile in 1998.
BREN machinegun, updated version of the ZB.26, was used by Irish Reserve Force until 2006, by India 2012, and they remain in use in Jamaica and a number of other 3rd world countries even today.
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Now to the body armor.
First are lamellar armors.
In XV century lamellar and laminar armors were not used by Tatars. The only souce of getting such armor is Timurids Empire, where by the beginning of XV century laminar armor was still most popular way of defense. (Lamellar armor meanwhile was rapidly losing its popularity).
It’s recommended to remove lamellar armor completely or replace them with combined armors (laminar with lamellar) like on pictures 5, 11 on this table:
I also would recommend to add laminar armors, used in Iran: stripes hammer harded to leather belts attached to each other.
And, of course, remember there should be only a few of such armors.
http://www.kitabhona.org.ua/libwar_armor/bobrovsa.html
cough MG42 cough this mans flu is extremely bad this year. Having 2nd coughing attack in last few days.
Btw today there is plenty of weapons in use that are considered as “most modern” systems up to date. And I believe that coming weapon systems will serve for very long time befory they will be replaced. (e.g. Gerald R Ford class, LaWS, Zumwalt, Armata etc)
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I know of mercenaries in Germany from the late 15th century which refused to fight as the armour given to them by the city was outdated. (20-30 years) They demanded new. So the city ordered new armour for a couple of hundred soldiers.
I don’t understand the argument with “these helmet were for nobility only”, well just remove the gold and other decorations and you have a helmet everyone can use. Less decoration --> cheaper. The only piece of armour I know of that was used only by nobility was the armet helmet in the 15th century. And also this is not 100% true. Actually the armourers only sold this helmet when a complete suit was ordered. Most of the time however a knight ordered such a suit, therefore you can argue that most of all nobility wore these.
Can someone please explain in detail where the difference between lamelar and laminar is? I know nothing about east european armour.
This effigy is in Budapest and dates to the year 1434. Western armour definitely was available at the time for the Cumans.
Lamellar armor is made of plates tied to each other.
Laminar armor is made of stripes tied to each other.