I believe one of the Burgundian ordennances specifically states infantry should get sallets without visors and mail collars for throat protection which doesnât hamper breathing like a raised plate bevor would. That said very poorly made sallets with visors have been found. Keeping in mind the above average pay of many medieval soldiers in the later period I doubt a small movable piece of steel would add such a cost as to make it unavailable for the average foot soldier.
PS, here is an interesting article.
http://www.the-exiles.org/Article%20Towton.htm
The team was surprised to find no chest wounds. Although very few people could afford armor to protect themselves, most would have worn padded jackets. The head apparently was targeted. Nearly everyone wore helmets, but they âmight have easily been dislodged with a hard blow,â said Novak. The skulls of many individuals showed healed head wounds from previous blows.
In addition to the information gleaned about the menâs battle scars, the University of Bradford team also documented histories of injuries on some individuals. Boylston said, âOne man had a deeply piercing wound to the mandible, which he somehow survived, and it showed as a healed fracture. We also found trauma to the teeth, from the battle itself, and also previous trauma which suggested [some of the men] were using their teeth to string bows. Some of the men were archers. One skeleton [of an apparent archer] had a lesion on the elbow, such as you find in baseball players.â
THE soldier now known as Towton 25 had survived battle before. A healed skull fracture points to previous engagements. He was old enoughâsomewhere between 36 and 45 when he diedâto have gained plenty of experience of fighting. But on March 29th 1461, his luck ran out.
Towton 25 suffered eight wounds to his head that day. The precise order can be worked out from the direction of fractures on his skull: when bone breaks, the cracks veer towards existing areas of weakness. The first five blows were delivered by a bladed weapon to the left-hand side of his head, presumably by a right-handed opponent standing in front of him. None is likely to have been lethal.
The next one almost certainly was. From behind him someone swung a blade towards his skull, carving a down-to-up trajectory through the air. The blow opened a huge horizontal gash into the back of his headâpicture a slit you could post an envelope through. Fractures raced down to the base of his skull and around the sides of his head. Fragments of bone were forced in to Towton 25âs brain, felling him.
However
On the run from the battle, with Yorkist soldiers in pursuit (some of them doubtless on horseback), the men would have soon overheated. They may have removed their helmets as a result. Overhauledâperhaps in the vicinity of Towton Hall, which some think may then have been a Lancastrian billetâand disorientated, tired and outnumbered, their enemies would have had time to indulge in revenge
Or they simply threw helmets away at first chance.
http://www.eaines.com/archaeology/the-bioarchaeology-of-medieval-warfare/
Not only were archaeologists at all three sites able to determine which weapons produced which injuries in many cases, they were also able to detect weaknesses in armor and lack of adequate protection on certain parts of the body. For instance in Towton, only 33% of the perimortem trauma occurred below the neck, whereas all the other individuals in the grave had severe head injuries. This may indicate they did not have helmets, or that they had inadequate helmets (Novak, 2007). Similarly at Visby, such a large number of the dead exhibited injuries to their legs and heads that it was clear they did not have adequate armor and helmets to withstand the blows coming off the heavy Danish weapons
Helmets are not ski masks, and also it is a possibility that most helmets were not tailored to one specific person, and his measurements of head. Padding also requires a surplus in extent, and keep in mind that you have to be able put on and take off your helmet, removable visor or not. Helmets also has to somewhat allow you the freedom of movement and breathing - the latter is not always self-evident, especially with relatively heavy and hot armor on which might have barely any ventillation and engaged in a long and exthausting combat and with the helmet itself potentially significantly obstruct the current of air; but is harder to model all this in a game than vision, if not impossible at all. To put it simply, eye slits in my opinion are not that close to your eyes.
