Archaeologists: “Uhhhh, there’s still a lot of debate about how effective leather armor really could have been on a battlefield. Alas, we shall never know.”
Punks: “Hey, fresh cut, the boneheads carry knives sometimes so make sure and lift a good leather jacket. It’ll save your life.”
Layers layers layers! Slashes won’t do shit even to most t shirts but a stab will ignore the shit outa your leathers. Layers will keep the blade from getting as deep as it otherwise would and gives more for it to snag on if it serrated.
Armour has always been about layers.
Example 1200s minor noble: linen shirt, gambeson (layered and quilted linen with wool insulation), chain mail, surcoat, arming cap, helmet, coif, bigger helmet.
Another example Alexander era Macedonian hoplite: linen tunic, greaves, 1" of tightly pressed and laminated linen, helmet (probably with some sort of arming cap/padding inside), big ass shield.
Layers save lives.
Yes! Cloth is hard work to cut with a knife. When they were trying to ban (sword) duelling in Europe, they banned people from carrying around shields/bucklers, so your defensive tool was a cloak wrapped around your non-sword fist, with plenty of loose fabric to catch your opponent’s blade. You might get your cloak torn, but you’re less likely to get your skin sliced up, and that’s the important thing.
You know what is a surprisingly amazing material for armor?
Silk.
Silk.
The Mongolians used silk vests because silk isn’t broken by an arrow, and you can use the silk to gently pull the arrow back out, even if it’s barbed. They also often used silk as the backing for leather armor.
The first bulletproof vests were made in Japan and Korea. Out of, yup, silk. Silk could stop black powder bullets, but was rendered obsolete by higher powered modern firearms. A combination of silk and metal was experimented with, but dropped because of the expense of silk.
Franz Ferdinand was wearing one such vest when he was assassinated, but it didn’t help because of where he was hit.
The US military is now looking into something called Dragon Silk, which is spider silk made by GMO silkworms, to make body armor that might be more comfortable than the current kevlar vests.
Silk, people.
You want proof about silk being able to stop an arrow? Try sewing it with the wrong machine needle in place. I have shattered – literally shattered – needles that were too thick. They just will not pass between the tightly woven fibers, even when in a machine that can go through your actual fingers. And that was just a lightweight taffeta, not something woven to be intentionally impenatrable.
It is horrible at stopping slashes, though. Whether by the blade of scissors, roller cutter, or well honed dagger or sword, it just falls to pieces like it never meant to be whole in the first place. This is, again, where your layers come in – a nice heavy leather for slash damage, a dense silk for piercing. You probably want to put something under it though, silk against sweaty skin is unpleasantly sticky. It *clings*. Eww.
Useful things elementary school neglected to teach me, exhibit #5839
