What should a female breastplate really look like

[Shadowmant]

So, historically there have not been many female armoured warriors at all. This would lead me to believe that even the few historical examples of a female breastplate would not be as functional as it's male counterpart since the armourers at the time would have much less chance to iterate on it.

 

So the question presents itself, in a world where female soldiers are as common as male soldiers, what would a female breastplate have evolved into?  It needs to be wearable for a person with breasts but at the same time functional in combat with the ability to deflect or stop a sword.  How would one compensate for different sized chests without losing the basic functionality?

[Osvir]

How would one compensate for different sized chests without losing the basic functionality?

 

She would wrap bandage around her torso, and then be able to fit into male armor.

[PrimeJunta]

Since the physics of deflecting blows are the same for both sexes, I doubt it'd look all that different. Men come in a variety of shapes and sizes as well, y'know.

[Shadowmant]

 

How would one compensate for different sized chests without losing the basic functionality?

 

She would wrap bandage around her torso, and then be able to fit into male armor.

Would that be financially feasable to produce bandages for half an army?  Discomfort wise, would it not be risking some grumbling among that half of you're army?

[Merlkir]

The design would be pretty much the same, just size fitted for a lady. Men wear padding underneath afterall, so it's just a matter of leaving a bit more space. Boobs, even if they're big, are not rock hard, they don't need THAT much room. Similarly, if you have a guy with a bit of a gut, you just account for that.

[Sacred_Path]

It would certainly cause grumbling among the other half of your army, as it's probably more feasible to produce all armors with an enlarged chest than the other way round.

[Merlkir]

Plate armour wasn't really made in bulk for entire armies, not even companies. SOME of the parts perhaps, but overall the range of sizes would be too great a problem. (amusingly, a problem film makers face these days, because they absolutely need to mass produce costumes for extras. John Howe talks about this while discussing the design process of Gondorian armour for the LOTR films)

Plate armour (above certain quality and income of a soldier) would amost always be fitted to its wearer. (or re-fitted if it was looted)

[Osvir]

 

 

How would one compensate for different sized chests without losing the basic functionality?

 

She would wrap bandage around her torso, and then be able to fit into male armor.

1. Would that be financially feasable to produce bandages for half an army?  2. Discomfort wise, would it not be risking some grumbling among that half of you're army?

 

1. Yes. Although I've got to admit, I was thinking plate armor. If you look at some pictures of middle ages armor you'll see that it's fairly unisex and uni-size in a way that it's easy to fit 1 armor to several sizes. Similarly, majority of men are soldiers, soldiers die on the battlefield, looting and refitting on women = win-win. It would be more costly to produce a specific "Female Armor" and a "Male Armor". Bandages would be cheaper and they would only need to produce "One Type of Armor". On the battlefield you are not "Man" or "Woman", you are "Soldier".

2. Military discipline. 

[Elerond]

Female body armor named among best inventions by Time Magazine

 

http://www.army.mil/article/90697/

 

 

If you compare these to male body armors, you see that most major visual change is size and most changes are under the garments. And I belive if we would make breast plates or other medieval armours to fit women we would see only similar  changes.

[Osvir]

^You are comparing 2000'ish insights with late 1500/early 1600'ish insights.

[Keyrock]

I think the armor Cadegund wears is entirely reasonable for what archaic armor would look like in a world where female warriors are not uncommon (or less uncommon):

 

 

Note:  My favorite parts of Cadegund's armor are the reasonable pauldrons.  My biggest current gripe/nitpick with fantasy armor designs is comically gigantic pauldrons, other than bikini armor, of course.

Edited April 12, 2013 by Keyrock

[Elerond]

^You are comparing 2000'ish insights with late 1500/early 1600'ish insights.

 

Idea was that if we take assumption that armors will be fitted to women we would only see smaller armors from visual stand point and other changes are such that onlooker can't see them, such as different paddings and etc. As they did now even 15th and 16th century how to make under garments and clothes to fit women where men.

Edited April 12, 2013 by Elerond

[brownypoints]

I like Cadegund armor, it sits in this happy medium between  bikini armor enthusiasts and   the just give them mens armor crowd.

 

I also  think that  as you went up  the class ladder  you would find that  women (and men )  with  more income/status  would   add decorations, even feminized touches like slightly molded breast plates to their armor. 

[AGX-17]

 

 

How would one compensate for different sized chests without losing the basic functionality?

She would wrap bandage around her torso, and then be able to fit into male armor.

 

 

Nope. Ignoring the fact that different people have different bodily proportions from one another and assuming that all women have identical builds and all men have identical builds, a woman would not be able to wear armor designed for a man comfortably or effectively, if at all, and vice versa. One size does not fit all.

 

Shadowmant is starting from the fallacious assumption that the female torso is simply a male torso with breasts.

I like Cadegund armor, it sits in this happy medium between  bikini armor enthusiasts and   the just give them mens armor crowd.

 

I also  think that  as you went up  the class ladder  you would find that  women (and men )  with  more income/status  would   add decorations, even feminized touches like slightly molded breast plates to their armor.

It's quite far from the "bikini armor" end of the scale. If you hid the head it would still be a plausible assumption that the character is male based on the armor design alone. Hide the head and ignore the stance (or assume that homosexual men in the P:E world come in the "flaming gay" variety,) and it would look like male armor whose breastplate doesn't extend far enough to protect the soft abdominal region effectively. Edited April 12, 2013 by AGX-17

[Merlkir]

That's a curious position. What other physiological differences are there between a warrior woman torso and a man warrior torso?

 

Look at female athletes, their muscled bodies are very close to male ones, if generally smaller. Armour is not skin tight, while armour becomes significantly better if it's custom fit (and was mostly made to be custom fit), it's not like it's a perfect cast of your figure. 

 

Female breasts on woman warriors would fall into the range of size differences between various male warriors, I reckon.

[Osvir]

What I mean is that there are probably general outlines for different proportions. Instead of making "Proportion 1M & 1F" and "Proportion 2M & 2F" etc. etc. I'm sure it would be easier, and more cost effective, to make "Unisex 1" and "Unisex 2" for the 2 different proportions. Bandaging the torso makes sense to me as a compensation to make the "Unisex" proportions fit both genders easier.

EDIT:

Man 1 dies on the battlefield, Woman 1 inherits his armor because she has similar proportions.

Man 2 wouldn't be able to wear it just as Woman 2 wouldn't.

Edited April 12, 2013 by Osvir

[Caerdon]

Historically most women used plate armor made for men, and they had no problem with it. A typical plate armor already has some extra room in the chest area because of the way it was designed to deflect attacks to the sides, and if that wasn't enough, you could always go for "one size larger". There's a lot of padding worn underneath anyway, that's going to make up for most of the differences between male and female body types. In other words: while armor was generally made for men, it was essentially unisex in design.

 

That said, if female warriors are reasonably common in the world of PE, there will be armor made specifically for them. That's especially true if the armor in that world is more close-fitting than ours, which is certainly possible, as the world has its own history. Cadegund's armor looks good in more ways than one (although the abdominal area probably should be more protected).

 

While I find the typical female "breast plate" armor silly, there's no reason why an armor made for women could not - or should not - have some accentuated female characteristics. Armor was primarily made to be practical and functional, but often it was also made to impress. Some armors in our world had vastly exaggerated codpieces. In PE, it could be perfectly reasonable for a noblewoman to wear an armor designed to emphasize her beauty and femininity - as long as it doesn't affect its functionality too much. We shouldn't forget the importance of culture.

[Tamerlane]

So, historically there have not been many female armoured warriors at all. This would lead me to believe that even the few historical examples of a female breastplate would not be as functional as it's male counterpart since the armourers at the time would have much less chance to iterate on it.

 

So the question presents itself, in a world where female soldiers are as common as male soldiers, what would a female breastplate have evolved into?  It needs to be wearable for a person with breasts but at the same time functional in combat with the ability to deflect or stop a sword.  How would one compensate for different sized chests without losing the basic functionality?

You don't really change much of anything. Armour is not skin-tight.

[Elerond]

When speaking about women using men sized breast plates it should be remembered that average men has larger chest size than average women, so women problem with men's armor is not that they don't fit in but that armor is too large to use and move comfortably.

 

For example comparison in shirt sizes

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_you_convert_men's_shirt_size_to_women's_size

Edited April 12, 2013 by Elerond

[Woldan]

As people have already pointed out, armor was never skin tight, not even remotely. There is at least 5'' air space between the chest and the plate Armor, when you get hit with a blunt weapon the armor deforms and absorbs the energy instead of directly redirecting the force to your bones and breaking them. You also need some space so your chest can expand and you can breathe.

 

Also, a knight with a completely dented chest plate that touches his chest cannot breathe, something to avoid during combat, and a popular tactic used against knights when using blunt weapons.

So, with 5'' of air space most women should be able to wear the armor without any problems.-

 

So, how do I want female breatsplates to look like in PE? Like any other standard breast plate.

 

Examples:

 

 

Edited April 12, 2013 by Woldan

[LadyCrimson]

Somehow I doubt functional (vs. decorative) female plate armor would have wasp waists, but what do I know.

[Tsuga C]

Somehow I doubt functional (vs. decorative) female plate armor would have wasp waists, but what do I know.

Check out the armor thread. There are a number of photographs there of decidedly wasp-waisted plate. The chest was bowed outward to deflect blows and to take advantage of the natural strength of the arch and the breastplate tucks back in quite sharply at the waist. That ought to work just fine for large pectoral muscles and modest pectoral muscles with the boobage expansion pack.

[Woldan]

Somehow I doubt functional (vs. decorative) female plate armor would have wasp waists, but what do I know.

If you want a functional armor you TOTALLY need a wasp waist, armor weighs a lot and some of the weight must be carried by the hips, you don't want to wear armor where your shoulders have to carry all the weight. Well, unless you have the back and spine of a professional deadlifter.

 

Original armor with ''wasp waists''

 

 

 

[Tamerlane]

Those eyebrows are the most amazing thing.

[LadyCrimson]

I stand corrected. Altho I was more thinking about the actual size of those wasp waists. I can understand the physics of a design for blow absorption etc, but since I can't tell what the measurements of those armors are by looking at a photo/painting, they just seem....really really tiny, when compared to likely hip width (and I mean hips, based on leg-line position, not the flare-out point of the metal).

 

But then, there were periods where a lot of women and possibly men corseted their ribcages upwards to form 17inch waists, IIRC.