Japanese War Gear - (pics)

[Ron Losey]

Even if they're not actually antique - just "real" (i.e. functional and/or well-made) weapons and armor are interesting.  My own blades are, while hand-made, clearly not very old ... but they still very much communicate the message.  You cannot help but be in awe of the power of such a weapon.

And now that you mention it, I don't think I've ever seen a stuffed duck on one ... although I have seen a number of other bird-related motifs, so a duck on the helmet would not really surprise me.

And that was a worthwhile note - I concur, a lot of the crests you see are remakes.  That doesn't necessarily mean they are inaccurate - period art seems to indicate that the originals could even be more preposterous than most of the remakes.  But it is extremely rare for an original crest to have survived from that far back, especially not one made mostly of biodegradable materials (i.e. actual horns, likely tacked to a wood block for mounting) or extremely thin decorative metals.  Even the few "old" ones were likely remakes of the 1700's, even if they were mounted on much older helmets... crests were a bit like handle wrappings on swords or polearm shafts, in that they were expected to have to be replaced occasionally.  That sort of thing happens when you actually use stuff, instead of just sitting it on a post to admire.

(I would know - I'm tough on equipment.  Pocketknives, pens, flashlights, cameras, watches ... I carry them around until there's nothing left, until they're just worn to a frazzle.  If I carried a sword every day, I would probably have to wrap the saya in duct tape.)

I would bet that helmet in question had been repainted and re-laced several times over its lifetime.  Hard to tell how old the most recent restoration was.

[Ichimonji Hidetora]

Even if they're not actually antique - just "real" (i.e. functional and/or well-made) weapons and armor are interesting.  My own blades are, while hand-made, clearly not very old ... but they still very much communicate the message.  You cannot help but be in awe of the power of such a weapon.

I agree.

And now that you mention it, I don't think I've ever seen a stuffed duck on one ... although I have seen a number of other bird-related motifs, so a duck on the helmet would not really surprise me.

Heh heh, you could of course make a stuffed duck on a helmet just for the fun of it  

I would bet that helmet in question had been repainted and re-laced several times over its lifetime.  Hard to tell how old the most recent restoration was.

Repainted sounds so cheap but yeah, it's not uncommon for armor to have been restored a couple of times, but of course it's not impossible to tell if it was done in modern times or a long time ago.
I have recently seen an armor for sale that was advertised as an "unrestored, all matching armor", it took me me 3 seconds to see that the lacquer around the holes for the lace was damaged, obviously the brand new looking lace was forced through the holes by an amateur.
And the armor was also a composite, meaning that several armor pieces from different suits were put together to make one set of armor that will look decent to the untrained eye.
Things like that amuse me, although it's sad to know that some poor ignorant sucker will pay a lot more money then it's worth.

[Ichimonji Hidetora]

Here are some pictures of my own samurai armor (it's antique) 

Unpacking the armor (it's in it's antique armor storing chest)... lot's of buble wrap and packing peanuts, the shipping weight of the armor was 23.5kg, the armor weighs about 9 or 10 kg less:


The complete suit on display on it's box and armor stand, front view (duh), the crest on the helmet that's shown on this picture is modern and is not the crest I got with it (thank god I got an antique one from the dealer):


The side of the armor that the enemy should never get to see:


The front side of the helmet with the neck guard collapsed, the antique crest shown is the one I got with the armor and although it's a good match, it's not original to the helmet, the helmet bowl is made of 62 plates (expensive, compared to 8 plates for cheap armor):


The side of the helmet (the camera view is slightly rotated towards the back of the helmet), I censored the web info that was shown on the middle of the picture with red pixels:


The inside of the helmet bowl, the arrows point out that some of the plates were not made from one piece, note that the picture is taken through a small gap in the liner of the helmet:


A mask of fierce expression:


The sode (pauldron):


The other side of the sode:


Suneate (greave):


Etchu haidate (Thigh guards), made of chainmail:


The other side of the haidate:


Oda-gote (also known as Kaga-gote), made of chainmail with a couple of steel plates as is typical for this type of kote:


Detail of the kote:


The inside of the kote:


Back and breast:


The inside view of the back plates, covered with leather:


Close-up of the breast plates:


Kohire (winglet) and eri-sho kikko (brigandine armored collar):


That's it, I hope you enjoyed the detailed pictures (whoever you are) 
Feel free to ask me questions about the armor if you have them.

[War_B*stard]

Wow.
From the pictures it looks like that all seems to be in pretty good nick, when does it date from and has it been restored much?
Stupid question: Have you been tempted to wear it?

[Ichimonji Hidetora]

Wow.
From the pictures it looks like that all seems to be in pretty good nick, has it been restored much?

Yeah, it's in excellent condition with only a couple of small chips in the lacquer, such as in the visor of the helmet (very visible on one of the pictures I've posted, and you can see a chip in the lacquer in the picture below (exposing the steel underneath, but you can't see that from this angle), the chip is located all the way on the right, one of the build up lacquer teeth is missing.


Also, some of the lace is damaged, some are in half, look at the tassets of the cuirass to see it, this type of damage is very common though.
The armor is in it's original state of preserve, so it's never been restored in any way.

and when does it date from?

Different parts of the armor date from different periods, like I said before, the helmet crest is not original to the suit, it dates from the late Edo period, the boots and straw sandals are modern and are there just because the suneate look kind of incomplete without them.
The helmetbowl is the oldest part of the suit and the suit was made to fit the helmet (so it's considered a matching set, an armor can even be considered to be a matching set if a Myochin smith makes an armor that incorporates a a Haruta school helmet bowl that's 200 years older).
The helmet bowl is very easy to date, all I have to do is look at the number of plates the bowl is made of,  in this case it's 62 ken, and that limits the date at about 1520-1530, as it was invented at that time by  a famous smith of the Myochin school, this bowl is Haruta school though, so it has to be at least a bit later.
Then I look inside the helmet to further determin it's age, you can clearly see that the rivets are not in a neat straight line, that indicates that the bowl can't date from later then the end of the Muromachi period (OLD!)
Of course there are even more ways to tell the age, like looking at the patina of the iron inside the bowl, and the tsunamoto (small double prong that holds the helmet crest) is typical of the late Muromachi period.
So the helmet bowl should be from about 1540-1550AD.

As for the rest of the armor, well... that's even easier, you don't even have to be an expert to find out, just look at the cuirass, what type is it? From when could it possibly date?
If you can't tell by looking at the shape/type of the cuirass, then you can still date it by Googling the "kamon" (family crests), there are a couple of possibilities for each kamon, but put together they can only point to one certain faction.
I wonder if Ron would be able to tell the age of this armor (I expected him to have posted a reply by now), or maybe you can find out the age yourself.
If no one can guess it it, then I will tell

Stupid question: Have you been tempted to wear it?

Nah... it's not a stupid question, it's only natural to ask such a thing, and yeah, I did wear the cuirass, it was the easiest and safest way to get it up stairs
But of course it's not a toy that should be worn to play samurai with, it has to be carefully preserved, like you can't expose it to sunlight as the UV will damage the lacquer within 30 minutes or less, so I keep it in a dark place with just the right temperature and amount of moisture (there is a good reason why the armor is still in excellent condition, it's because it was well stored and taken care of over the centuries).

Hmmm... no questions about the armor type or the materials used? Or what rank of samurai could have owned it?
I kind of expected those questions, but now it's time for me to go to bed, I do hope to get some more reactions from people, its almost as if these forums are a ghost town.

[Ron Losey]

I saw it.  And I could probably figure out the age by process of elimination, eventually, if I wanted to put that much time into it.  For example, it's tight weave pattern, so if it's later than the Onin War, it was on the more expensive side.  Sode are large-ish, also suggesting it was high-budget and probably early, but not the stiff O-sode seen on nobility o-yoroi.  The haidade are kind of light (maille, not heavy stuff), as are the arms and lower legs, which was more common earlier, but it is very complete head-to-toe coverage.  Contrasting that, the skirt is kind of short ... which likely dates it post-Onin War.  None of the ornamentation seen on more parade-oriented armors, so it was certainly intended to be used.  Lamellar construction throughout - no musket-resistant trauma plate over the chest, as would appear shortly after large-scale firearm use became an issue.  Flag ring on the back, so it's intended for rank-and-file (and certainly dating that part post Onin War)... but it's do-maru, not haramaki, so it's high-end.  So just from a quick scan of these pictures ... most of the pieces look mid-1500's, middle-ranking samurai, probably infantry.  (That's the ten-second analysis.  A lot of very general assumptions, not to be confused with actually researching anything.  That could be off by a good deal, but if I was researching it, that's where I would start looking.)

Never been much into collecting things, myself.  Unless I planned to open a museum, I prefer my stuff to be usable.  (Hope I don't have to use my blades ... I've seen too much of that sort of thing.  But I keep them for that reason, not because they are valuable to collect, which in my case they really are not.)  So I have trouble thinking of anything cool to say, besides something along the lines of "That looks very ... old."


Actually, I've been kind of busy of late ... along with the usual, I've also been doing some photography for the school (as their PR department is composed of one guy and one obsolete camera, so they needed the help).  Plus a variety of power and internet service failures over the last week has made checking on the forum here rather hit-and-miss.  So I saw the armor pictures, I just didn't take time to post a really extensive commentary.

[Ichimonji Hidetora]

Well... it doesn't look like anyone else has an opinion about my antique armor, so I will tell you what you got right and what you got wrong soon

BTW, has anyone seen this topic on Taleworlds?  http://forums.taleworlds.net/index.php/topic,64999.0.html
It's an interesting time and place and the involved clans are awesome, they did make some rather silly mistakes though, like "mounted ashigaru" wearing samurai armor?  
I do think that if they take the mod seriously, they can end up with a very nice mod.

[shalictar]

Thats quite the armor set you got there Ichimonji.

and regarding my mod heaven and earth...
those errors have been fixed.

and a quick question, has anyone heard from fujiwara lately?

[Ron Losey]

No word from Fujiwara since he reported scheduling problems (i.e. zero free time, 12 to 14 hour work days) some time back.  However, if that is still the case, there is no reason to be alarmed by the long delay, aside for any concerns for his health as a result of such.

Looking for him for some particular reason?  Or just wondering what was up?

[shalictar]

Well I needed to ask him some things.

that sucks that he has to work so much.

[go-shikisonae]

Nice pictures this indeed provide leaving artifact from the past.  What inspired the Ii Clan particularly Ii Naomasa about the Red Samurai Armor is based on the battle of Nagashino where Yamagata Masakage led the Fire Regiment under the banner of Takeda Katsuyori because of their well discipline cavalry. Ii Naomasa adopted that and carried on the legacy of the Red regiment under his wings and carried on at the battle fields of Sekigahara.  I notice though their is one Samurai warrior who almost wears the same armor and kabuto....The looser of Sekigahara and the commander of the Western Army...Ishida Mitsunari.  I am only basing this from Samurai Warfare book by Stephen Turnbull.

[Ron Losey]

I'll get a couple of those in easy-as-possible responses ... hopefully those will be more help than the "correct" (i.e. in complete technical detail) responses.

1.  The part about European armors being stiff and difficult to move is a myth.  It came from tournament armors, which were purely sports gear and actually could not be used in combat.  Realistically, armors with solid front plates (o-yoroi, and the later-period solid breastplate Japanese armors, as well as solid breastplates from other parts of the world - i.e. the Spanish conquistadors chest armor, Greek chest armors 200BC and before, etc.) are a little bit restrictive to bending in the middle, but otherwise, armor generally moves pretty freely.  If it did not, it would be useless in combat.  (Not to say that the weight doesn't wear on you ... it does.  But movement is not really directly restricted except by fatigue and weight.)

2.  The sode (shoulder plates) on Japanese armors came in several basic styles.  Tsubo-sode are the ones that adhere to the arm (like the Native model).  O-sode (large shoulder plates) can be either relatively stiff and mounted near the shoulderblade, or relatively loose and flowing over the shoulder, but they are generally not really attached to the upper arm - they fasten at the shoulder.  There are much more detailed terms for all of this, and a lot of history around it, but for what you're asking just figure that there are several styles.

3.  Do-maru pretty much just means the armor fastens on the side, as opposed to haramaki-do which fastens in the back.  There are plenty of variations on each, as well as other less common styles (i.e. fastens both sides, pulls on over the head, or whatever).  O-yoroi translates like "great armor" ... and traditionally meant armors with large trauma plates in front (and usually back), although that definition blurred a good deal shortly after single-piece breastplates became popular in response to muskets.  Either way, the number of plates on the thigh guards and such will likely not tell you much.  Again, that's painfully over-simplified, but at least it will get you on the right track.

4.  Your big texture problems will be with the decorative junk - that is what is normally used to determine the date of the armors.  And those things did change a good deal more than the basic designs.  Using the wrong ones for a given time period will stand out rather badly.

Hope that helps.

[Ron Losey]

Actually, the "tournament plate" armors were divergent evolution.  The first such competitions used battle armor, because they were intended as combat training.  As the tournaments became more of a sport for nobility, tournament armor became a specialized field ... while military armors continued to evolve in their own direction, specifically toward reducing casualties from gunfire and crossbows without weighing as much as a castle.  Eventually, the two had little in common, except for the fact they were both made of steel... and then the myths started when modern people couldn't tell the difference.

And despite being a fair historian, I never claimed to be a great expert on Japanese armors, in the sense of museum/collector details.  My research on the subject is more leaning toward what it takes to kill somebody who is wearing a shirt made of iron plates.  So don't look at me for complete solutions there.  I can usually place them in the right century, plus or minus a couple of decades.

I will say that the Native "strange armor" is Edo-period do-maru.  You can tell it's late Edo period from the bizarre decorative items, like the tassel rings on the chest.  Other than that, however, there's nothing wrong with the model - it does look like tsubo-sode do-maru, just like it's supposed to.  A little more color on the textures is all it really needed - well, and those odd things painted over, if it's to be used in any reasonable time frame.  ONR uses exactly that for several of the armors.  Tragically, the Native helmet just utterly sucks ... looks more Chinese than Japanese.  Fortunately, the current ONR helmets are a mix of other people's talent and my bizarre habit of mixing and matching things, and are finally starting to look pretty good.

Haramaki-do is very old, but was used mostly for low-ranking types - it was intended to be one-size-fits-all, and required some help to put on.  Many books say little about it, on the grounds that it was not what warriors were wanting, nor what modern collectors are really trying to get.  However, there was a LOT of that stuff floating around.  So do look it up if you're working on models for this kind of thing.

[Ichimonji Hidetora]

Ron, haramaki-do are actually very collectable, as they are typically made of ko-zane or iyo-zane, real scale construction like that is always expensive and sought after by collectors, and they are not as common as many other types of armor during the 16th century and later.
Also, o-yoroi do not have solid breastplates, it's all boards of scales, typically covered with printed leather on the front so the bow string does not get caught on the the scales.
A do-maru does fasten on the side, but so do many other types of armor, like my armor is not a do-maru, but a ni-mai-do (2 part cuirass), it has a vertical hinge on the left side that holds the front and back pieces together.
The do-maru consists of one continues piece that can not be broken down into separate pieces like ni-mai-do can, a do-maru would lay flat if you would put it on the floor, and wraps around the body when worn, for this reason they are typically made of scales for flexability.
My ni-mai-do is also made of real scales, but is rather rigid because steel wire inserts on the inside of the armor give it a permanent shape, it's still a bit springy though, unlike a solid plate cuirass.
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Welcome SantasHelper, I have seen some of your work in the past, but maybe you could give me a link to a thread on Taleworlds that you have been active in recently, I'm having trouble finding discussions about your mod concerning recent work in progress (it would be nice to see the discussions you have had with the modeller you mentioned).
I am a modeller myself, I suppose you haven't seen my latest work?
I recently posted a picture showing many different helmets in one of the other threads in this forum, but I will re-post it here for your convenience, they do need to be (re)UV mapped and textured though.


Anyway....
Concerning antique Japanese armor, you should know that armor from 1700/1800 or later is extremely common, and everything from before the year 1600 is uncommon, pre 1500 armor is extremely difficult (practically impossible) to obtain because the few armors that have survived the armor design revolution of the 16th century are national treasures kept in famous collections of castles/museums or temples, the "tate nashi no yoroi" kept in the Takeda family shrine is a good example of that, it's an o-yoroi and the name translates something like: armor that needs no shield (that name will tell you something about how hand held shields became obsolete in Japan), but my point with all this is: you won't find any armor sets on that website that are older then the late 16th century.
And although some armors basically look like they could have belonged in the 14th/15th century, the details (like narrow scales rather then large scales) will betray them for what the are.

I have known that dealer's website for quite some time now, it's funny how it's been "still under construction" after so many years it's very chaotic as well, difficult to navigate and now the links to pictures appear to be broken, so I can't look around properly at the moment.

About your question concerning flexibility/rigidity of armor: there is no one answer to that as this depends on the type of armor and if it's scale or solid plate etc, so you are going to have to be very specific.

So if I understand you correctly, you say that you want old style armor... right? Old style is rather much of the same couple of armor types though, rather boring, just like in Native with their same old chainmail, chainmail+coat of plates, chainmail with heraldry.... boring!
I recommend Japanese armor from about 1580, lots of different types and variety of construction methods, this is actually worth putting in-game, lots of awesome helmet types too.

I wanted to say more... but I should really go to bed now... 4:27 in the morning

[Ichimonji Hidetora]

ok. Fuji just looked shocked when he saw the armor I did. using the native strange armor.
and of course my book got none of thoses.

Yeah that was funny he was right though, the uchidashi sode (uchidashi=embossed) with the oni would have to go with an uchidashi-do, they were invented at about 1720/1730, the whole suit looks like it was made from bits and pieces taken from severall suits.
The purple cloth seen with the antique armor is just a table cloth really, some collectors/dealers like to put a cloth over the wooden armor stand, I do the same thing, so I would recommend putting a proper outfit under the armor, like a "yoroi hitatare" or whatever, make sure to add some color contrast (not just all purple), and a nice pattern maybe.

got lucky on that antique site, it seems I can no longer get to the pictures collection.
fortunately I grabbed a lot of data first time arround

I could see the pictures again for a while, but now they are down again

as much as possible, I want to try to do something that could be usefull to onin no ran, not just my mod
my book goes up to 1500. so yep, early samurai is misleading. it's [200-1500]
the osprey book by Anthony J Bryant, Mc Bride is the illustrator

Anthony is a great guy, he is a very reliable source of information regarding Japanese armor and it's history, he has a fantastic website too, a good place for people to learn about Japanese armor without being misinformed, unlike Wikipedia, just ignore whatever Wikipedia says about Japanese armor.
Funny, when I checked the Dutch Wikipedia today it showed the bunny ears armor, it said it was obviously a ceremonial armor, even though the cuirass and helmet are clearly for war, and of course it's most likely a composite armor to begin with... FAIL!
Unfortunately, antiques predating 1500 are extremely rare, you probably won't find any decent high resolution pictures of them

some of the best color plates show armors from the 1000s 1100s 1200s and 1300s
the color variety on the scales is stagering,
which brought me to find a way to get the dynamic texture engine working.
basicaly I could color scales on the fly, much like the back color for heraldic armor
so part of the color would be fixed, part dynamic it's also possible to trick the engine in creating a second color by using a two-color pattern instead of a single color background

Sounds good, but I think you are talking about the color of the lace rather then the scales right?

the book mentioned that the armors are made  of a mix of metal scales and leather scales,
that section of the book is quite complicated and I haven't digested the whole thing yet
how do I tell the difference ? do you have an example of large scales vs small scales
and what are those scales made of exactly ? clearly doesn't look like metal.
thought I think my book mentioned thin metal plates inside
I really need to read that again to understand it.

You should definitely read the part about the scales, it will help you understand Japanese armor much better, metal/leather scales is very common, the cuirass of my armor is made of those materials, it's known as tetsu-kawa kozane, so it's made of alternating steel and rawhide scales.
Those are also the only materials Japanese armor is made of (with exception of decoration).
The metal of samurai armor is typically soft iron on the side that faces the wearer, and hardened steel on the side that faces the enemy, the rawhide is also hardened, so it's extremely strong (low grade armor for ashigaru is typically made of slag filled iron or hardened rawhide).

If a tetsu-kawa scale cuirass would be hit by a weapon, and it strikes the scales rather then the few small solid plates that it has, then there is a 66% chance of it hitting the thickest part (with the most overlap), in that case the weapon would have to penetrate 2 layers of hardened steel and 2 layers of hardened rawhide, it provides more protection the solid steel lames do, as only 2 layers of steel would have to be penetrated at it's thickest point.
Of course, scale armors made of all rawhide scales also exist, and the same is true for steel (four layers of hardened steel scales at it's thickest point... a formidable defense).

Large scales are a bit wider and longer then the ko-zane, here is a decent explanation about scales from Anthony J Bryant's website: http://www.sengokudaimyo.com/katchu/katchu.html
You can't see the difference between the rawhide and steel scales though, as the scales are lacquered, although it might be seen when the lacquer is chipped off, a magnet is the best way to find out what is metal and what is rawhide.

I think I recognize some of your helms in there ;D

Very possible I have even more helmet models, but they didn't fit the picture, I also have some different mask models (including one with a long pinokkio nose), I have more other models too, flags, crests, architecture, a lot of it is still a wip though, including the helmets even though they look finished.

verry nice work on the helmets ! not sure I recognize everything there thought, beyond the kabuto
but I do know not all troops wore samurai armors ;D
do you think Fuji would allow your models to be shared accros both mods ? I may be able to convince rathos to do the uvmaping. I can take care of the texturing. I would need references thought. as I say I'm not familiar with all thoses.
Or maybe you're already planning to do the uvmap/texture ?  

UVmapping and texturing... nahhh, I have no plans to do that, I like to pretend the evil uv-mapping does not exist
Thanks for the compliment, the variety of Japanese helmets is huge so it's not a surprise if you don't recognize some of them.
Most helmets I modelled date from about a century after the the Onin period, I made them for myself as I planned on making my own mod, but unfortunately both BRF edit an the mad editor stopped working properly on the same day, shortly after I modelled those helmets.
I thought about giving them away to Shalictar, but his mod just died today.
I don't really know what to do right now

That's the little subforum, sharing it with Rathos (Britain at war)
He's a modeller/texturer and I'm a scripter, sometime texturer
CG programmer in real life
The modeler in question doesn't really post much. His nickname is Narf.
(What I really mean is discussions were private/oms, first with Rathos, latter with me after Rathos recommended me to contact him   )
He popped out of nowhere and contacted Rathos directly.
His stunning talent was quite a surprise
You can see some of his work in the Britain at War progress thread
they're top of page 2

Cool, his Gothic armor looks very realistic, I really like his style.
  

I'm currently adapting Britain at War to a Fire Arrow Base with a bunch of extra features and modifications. I must confess that Rucchi totally beat me in quality for Kingdom Management, so I trashed my old work
(But not the extended factions/culture/ fiefs/banners ... of course)
You can have a look at the gazeeteer of my map. the map is 3x wider, larger and higher than native.
It's a simple scaleup with lots of refinement. I needed the place for all those extra fiefs
(1200 fiefs total)
you can see one of the two shogunate near the top, part of it.
there are 36 factions, and it should support a few 1000s items, thanks to a trick I found.
so variety is in, the two shogunate are the ones using the Japanese style.
I don't have anything special for the city, but I might try to adapt the chinese city of tripartion.
won't quite look japanese

Nice screen shots of the worldmap, the rivers make it look very natural, I miss that in native.
(The proper word for shogunate is bakufu), it all sounds like a lot of work.

2 factions are japanese inspiration, names of the fiefs taken from some old japanese map
It's quite fictive I'm affraid, and it will lack the details of Onin No Ran for the towns/weapons
since my deal with Fuji only covered extending the armors
I do think it cover full set (armor, gloves, boots, helm.... let me see o-yoroi, gote, ?, kabuto ;D )
(and I believe I still need a final ok, thought he gave me the green light to proceed
... at the time it was just supposed to be hi res retextures/ variant textures)
As you can see I got both lucky and more ambitious.
anyhow, now you know why I need samurai gear, where it's getting used.
and what I intend to add (dynamic collors, LOD support, hi res textures)

Fictive like Native works well though, right?
I own antique Japanese blades, I have a lot of knowledge and hands on experience with all sorts of Japanese weapons, I even modelled some replacement weapons to replace those of Onin no ran to satisfy my need for realistic looking weapons with a higher poly count then those of the mod.
I also remodelled some of the pole-arms of Onin no ran and some other weapons, and I provided a lot of info and new weapon ideas that got implemented, weapons are easy, much more so then armor.