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Brigandine and Arrows vs. Armor 3
Dec. 29th, 2025 05:25 amArrows vs Armor 3 premiered a few weeks ago, and it stirred up all sorts of thinking in my brain. (Thanks, guys!)
How do you handle repair? With these newer arrowheads damaging the armor, that was an expensive problem.
What struck me most about brigandine was that repairing it looked so much simpler than repairing a breastplate. It's the sort of thing that can be done in the field with minimal labor. In fact, the more than I thought about this, the likely it seemed that the entire suit of brigandine could be constructed in the field.
A breastplate takes highly skilled labor, and likely, a specialized workshop. You have to work with a single, complex sculpture. Brigantine, on the other hand, looks like it can be mostly constructed by apprentices, and can likely be constructed in the field. That's a huge cost savings right there, which means more sales.
Armies used to be followed by artisans, people who could maintain all the equipment. If there were fights, they were more busy, and if there weren't fights, they were less busy. Most certainly, there were times when the artisans weren't busy enough. In those situations, you had everyone together, in the right place, to do some experimenting. They could put their heads together, try something out, and then shoot arrows at it. They could do this numerous times, trying various ideas. The results were the brigandine, with near breastplate protection at a fraction of the cost.
The brigandine strikes me as a bottom-up product. It wasn't designed for the nobility, it was designed for everyone else, their customers who kept asking for something, who had to work, who didn't want an arrow sticking out of them. It would have been a big market that wanted this product.
Over time, the brigandine proved itself, enough so that the nobility also adopted the system.
Best in class is good, but brigandine reminds us that second best is good enough.
How do you handle repair? With these newer arrowheads damaging the armor, that was an expensive problem.
What struck me most about brigandine was that repairing it looked so much simpler than repairing a breastplate. It's the sort of thing that can be done in the field with minimal labor. In fact, the more than I thought about this, the likely it seemed that the entire suit of brigandine could be constructed in the field.
A breastplate takes highly skilled labor, and likely, a specialized workshop. You have to work with a single, complex sculpture. Brigantine, on the other hand, looks like it can be mostly constructed by apprentices, and can likely be constructed in the field. That's a huge cost savings right there, which means more sales.
Armies used to be followed by artisans, people who could maintain all the equipment. If there were fights, they were more busy, and if there weren't fights, they were less busy. Most certainly, there were times when the artisans weren't busy enough. In those situations, you had everyone together, in the right place, to do some experimenting. They could put their heads together, try something out, and then shoot arrows at it. They could do this numerous times, trying various ideas. The results were the brigandine, with near breastplate protection at a fraction of the cost.
The brigandine strikes me as a bottom-up product. It wasn't designed for the nobility, it was designed for everyone else, their customers who kept asking for something, who had to work, who didn't want an arrow sticking out of them. It would have been a big market that wanted this product.
Over time, the brigandine proved itself, enough so that the nobility also adopted the system.
Best in class is good, but brigandine reminds us that second best is good enough.
