Period Accurate Armor?

[Khysamgathys III]

While Im gladdened that there's a damn fine mod for the Three Kingdoms Period for the M2TW Engine, i'm rather a weee bit disappointed at the skins for the units on the battlefield. NOT at the Koei-based models of the "Main Heroes" though, those are fine and even iconic in Chinese culture to the point that they can't be avoided being depicted that way, but with the rest of the regular troopers and minor characters in the game.

So in light of that mood, while I am not demanding that the modders change the skins of the troopers, I am however posting a few pages of reference material for Period Accurate armor for the future benefit -if any- of this project.

The following are pages taken from the book "Illustrate Ancient Chinese Armor" [Engrish intended] by Shanghai Bookstore Publishing House. I dunno if this source has ever came up in a discussion in the ROTK Forum but eh, posting it anyway. These pages are taken from the Han Dynasty and the Wei Kingdom/Ssu'ma Jin Period section discussing armor of those periods.

[Khysamgathys III]

First up is the armor of an Aristocrat of the Western Han (early Han Dynasty) half of the Han dynasty. It features a Tiara-like lamellar headpiece, and a lamellar cuirass decorated with gold and silver studs arranged in a diamond pattern.
[IMG]<a href="http://s1259.photobucket.com/user/TimuTarkan67/media/China/Han%20Dynasty%20Aristocrats%20Armor.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1259.photobucket.com/albums/ii555/TimuTarkan67/China/Han%20Dynasty%20Aristocrats%20Armor.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo Han Dynasty Aristocrats Armor.jpg"/></a>[/IMG]

[Khysamgathys III]

Whoops lets try that again. Im new to this image thing. Aristocrat's Armor.

[Khysamgathys III]

Now before I continue, I must warn you that the information in this thread came from a very rough translation of what I read from the book.

This armor should belong to all senior officers of the Han Military or the Chinese Emperor's guard. Unlike most rank & file soldiers of the period who only had a turban or a leather protective cap for headpro, he wore a metal lamellar helmet, tufted with what looks like Pheasant feathers. According to the book, a color between red and orange robes marked the elite members of the Han-Period Emperor's Imperial Guard, which were called "缇骑" possibly a cavalry formation.




This armor is that of an average soldier of the Han period whose drawing is based off the Yangjiawan Terra Cotta Army (i.e. The "Mini-Terra Cotta Army" which contained miniatures from the Han Dynasty as opposed to the bigass life-sized ones of the First Qin Emperor's). He Wore a cloth/leather cap/turban. Its not clear if the cuirass possessed a single pauldron/upper arm guard over the left shoulder or it was just a mistake in the part of the sculptors (My Personal theory: cuirass only had a left shoulder guard to aid the use of a shield, commonly held in the left hand with the fighter often presenting his left side, alongside with his shield, to the enemy).



Another soldier's armor. This one has two pauldrons/upper arm guards as opposed to the previus soldier. The color of robes indicates elite or professional infantryman status. (Possibly soldiers of the infantry members of the Imperial Guards). On his back he has a badge or plaque of some sort, suspected to indicate his unit and possibly his rank . The experts base this hypothesis on how latter Dynasties having such a practice of unit identification, in which lower ranked troopers had badges at the back while senior officers had badges up front.



This one is a Cavalryman's Armor, also from the Mini-Terra Cotta Army, probably of the light cavalry variety like horse archers. He has a two-feather He-Guan (Headress?) and, like the regular trooper before him, has a badge/plaque on his back. Variations of this armor shows a large feather back-plumes similar to Polish-Lithuanian Hussars of the late 1600's. The book says that there is hypothesis on the plumes which ranges from the feathers marking out Cavalry Officers (the book says this is unlikely as it will mark them out in the field) to marking out battlefield messengers & runners.



The following pieces are from the Wei Kingdom and its successor states and eventual winner of the 3 Kingdoms, the Ssu'ma Jin Dynasty period. Now these wouldve likely showed up in the 3 Kingdoms period.

This is a cavalryman's armor of the Wei-Jin period, possibly of the heavy cavalry kind. Also possibly a general's or senior officers armor and is an upgrade of the Han Aristocrat's armor initially shown way up above this thread, he wear's something called "Hundred-Beaten Steel" Armor. The cap shown here is that of an official but most likely he wouldve worn a lamellar helmet too. They also seem to have worn a cap based off the Steppe Nomads that inhabit the northern/western borders of the Wei Kingdom/Jin Dynasty.


This armor set also marked the first appearance of lamellar faulds/extensive leg armor in the Chinese armor kit, which marked the increasing usage & mastery of cavalry typical of Late Han/3 Kingdoms/Ssu'ma Jin China


Finally, the armor of the Wei Kingdom/Ssu'ma Jin Dynasty period infantryman. Soldiers of the period seem to now wear a metal helmet and there seems to be a change in the trousers too as long trousers seemed to be favored.



Well, that's it for me, hope you enjoyed it. If I repeated or reposted material already used for fashioning this mod then my apologies.

[k/t]

I haven't played this mod yet, but the "heroes" also have inaccurate armour?

[WhiffOfGrapeshot]

I haven't played this mod yet, but the "heroes" also have inaccurate armour?

They're like subdued Dynasty Warriors/Romance of the Three Kingdoms models. Technically inaccurate, in that they'd really probably all look almost the same, but while they're all unique, it's more that they look like their artistic representations, rather than full on anime craziness.

Check the first pic in the screenshots thread.

[Sint]

This armor is that of an average soldier of the Han period whose drawing is based off the Yangjiawan Terra Cotta Army (i.e. The "Mini-Terra Cotta Army" which contained miniatures from the Han Dynasty as opposed to the bigass life-sized ones of the First Qin Emperor's). He Wore a cloth/leather cap/turban. Its not clear if the cuirass possessed a single pauldron/upper arm guard over the left shoulder or it was just a mistake in the part of the sculptors (My Personal theory: cuirass only had a left shoulder guard to aid the use of a shield, commonly held in the left hand with the fighter often presenting his left side, alongside with his shield, to the enemy).

The Yangjiawan Terracotta Army:


Looks like the average soldier was not only wearing armor a bit differnt to what your picture shows they often didn't even had armor.

Commander:
Cavalry:

[k/t]

It does seem unlikely that the Chinese would be able to armour every soldier in an army 100 000 strong.

Heh, the guy in the middle has two swords...

[Khysamgathys III]

Looks like the average soldier was not only wearing armor a bit differnt to what your picture shows they often didn't even had armor.

For the Han Period, the book presents armor not only from the Yangjiawan find but corroborates it with other discoveries and written material from the Period (i.e. the Senior Officer's armor was based on a 1960's find in a Han-Period Tomb). Compared to Qin Shih Huangdi's detailed Terra Cotta Army, the Yangjiawan Mausoleum's figures were of lesser detail & craftsmanship - the sculptors relied on paint to show armored parts of a soldier for one, which faded slowly in time- so the book's authors had to show it in some other way rather than rely on the figures 100%

That said, yes, majority of Han China's troopers are not uniformly armored. The small standing army and the Imperial Guard were obviously well outfitted but since Han Dynasty was quite Feudal, the majority would be troops raised by Provincial Governors and the remaining Feudal Nobles whose provinces'/fief's varying degrees of wealth & resources meant that not all could be possibly armored in the modern steel fashion. Cheaper leather armor would be popular still or in the case of poorer landlords and provinces who prioritized weapons over armor: the soldiers would just be given a shield.

Also troop type determines whether they wear armor or not, just like everywhere else in the world back then. Some missile troops, skirmishers, menials, squires, and rear-echelon soldiers were given minimal protection.

As for the Yangjiawan troopers in the famous array, the first two ranks are composed of armored blokes. The guys at in the middle seem to be lighter infantry types, who only have a shield. Armored guys also make up the last two infantry ranks.

The Mausoleum contained a lot of other military figures outside of the array. For example, the Cavalry dude used in the book was based off this guy.

.

[Khysamgathys III]

They're like subdued Dynasty Warriors/Romance of the Three Kingdoms models. Technically inaccurate, in that they'd really probably all look almost the same, but while they're all unique, it's more that they look like their artistic representations, rather than full on anime craziness.

I think its pretty OK they'd be left that way. They're part of the draw for players in this mod. Furthermore some of their depictions are pretty embedded in Chinese/East Asian culture that making them accurate takes something away from them.

Like, for people in the East Asia region, Guan yu will always be that guy with the long beard, in a Song-Period style Armor, and armed with his Green Dragon Crescent Saber, not some guy wearing any of the above and holding a period accurate Ji Halberd.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

The uniformity of most medieval armies in most mods is a bit unhistorical but it is also a matter of practicality. It is nice we have any models at all.

I do like the illustrations you posted myself, though they also do not look much like the terracota army in the photographs. They seem to be affected by the older style terracota army of Qin Shi Huang in their hairstyle and some of the armour. Also bodily proportions in these illustrations seem to be based on idealised human proportions and do not compare with those of the terracota soldiers.

Indeed, another difference of the terracota army and the RoTK models is the relative bodily proportions. Also the terracota army seems to have soldiers from the age of perhaps 12 or so up to perhaps 50 years old or more. The mod only has teenaged soldiers.

Scientific correctness aside, the RoTK skins are professionally done, look interesting and must have taken a huge amount of time and dedication to do.

[Khysamgathys III]

I do like the illustrations you posted myself, though they also do not look much like the terracota army in the photographs. They seem to be affected by the older style terracota army of Qin Shi Huang in their hairstyle and some of the armour.

Not quite. For one thing the soldiers of Qin Shi Huang all wore leather armor while the armor in the Yangjiawan were steel. It's also worthwhile to mention that save for the Imperial Guards of Qin, most armored Qin troopers wear leather armor that only protects their front like an apron.

Furthermore it shouldn't surprise people that the Early Han Dynasty essentially had similar looking equipment with then Qin. People tend to forget that the Qin Dynasty lasted only 15-22 years making it a really recent thing. Wont be surprising if aspects of its equipment & fashion carried over to the Han.

Scientific correctness aside, the RoTK skins are professionally done, look interesting and must have taken a huge amount of time and dedication to do.

I don't begrudge their efforts, that's for sure. I do particularly the skins of the Normal Unit's weapons. Love all the Ancient Jian and Dao all over the place. The Spears are also fascinating as I expected it to look like the stereotype Latter Chinese tasseled spear but they featured the bare long bladed spears of the Earlier China, which was elegant.

[Intranetusa]

Thread necro for TW 3K!!!

Looks like the average soldier was not only wearing armor a bit differnt to what your picture shows they often didn't even had armor.

The "unarmored" looking soldiers are likely wearing some form of armor too. They are likely wearing what is basically cloth armor similar to the gambeson worn by medieval European soldiers or a non-compressed version of the layered linen armor (linothorax) used by ancient Greeks. The PBS documentary "Emperor’s Ghost Army" recreates the typical armor of the Qin army as including multiple layers of clothing and padding. Mike Loades shoots a recreated piece of armor with a Qin crossbow bolt in the documentary and states the "bulky clothing" of the terra cotta figures involves multiple layers of fabric and padding.

Modern video tests of gambeson shows cloth armor is pretty effective and makes a person invulnerable to certain attacks such as sword slashes. Gambeson & cloth armor was basically just multiple layers of cloth, and was used by everybody from ancient Romans to Celts to medieval Europeans to steppe nomads to other folks in Eurasia.

Not quite. For one thing the soldiers of Qin Shi Huang all wore leather armor while the armor in the Yangjiawan were steel. It's also worthwhile to mention that save for the Imperial Guards of Qin, most armored Qin troopers wear leather armor that only protects their front like an apron.

The excavated armored soldiers of the Qin's Terra Cotta Warriors shows their armor as wrapping around their body and covering front, back and sides. Also, I believe armor was primarily lacquered rawhide (or boiled leather, as regular leather is soft and rather useless for armor).



https://www-tc.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/...anine_9631.jpg

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ESGowFPTGwQ/maxresdefault.jpg

http://media1.trover.com/T/539bbfe32...w_large_4x.jpg

[Seether]

Just an update on this, but a lot of the units have been updated for v1.6 with period accurate armor. While there are still a few that need to be done (like some of the unique units), that is on hold until we can get some modelers and skinners.