@supernerdallen asked @bikiniarmorbattledamage
So a friend of mine asked me to make a purists gang for his DnD setting, and naturally it's going to be a band of merciless, lesbian pirates who are all vaguely shark-looking. Would you know any good resources for clothing and armor they would wear on the high seas?
Honestly I would say just look for clothing and armour that would be suitable for land troops for their region, mix it up a bit so it’s clear they don’t have a uniform and add any adaptions necessary for the “shark-looking” aspect (and well any magic elements that apply since it’s DnD).
Pirates from the Golden Age of Piracy are usually shown in regular clothes with pistols and swords because that was well, an easy enough kit for an opportunist to put together and at that time firearms had greatly diminished the stature of conventional armour (the era basically starts at the decline of plate armour from battlefields).
Though this wasn’t necessarily universal, Cheng I Sao, for instance, probably had armour for her and her troops but she ran her operation more like a navy than a gang (so much so that when she retired most of her troops get work in China’s military)
抢掠中的郑一嫂 (Cheng I Sao looting) 1836
Generally speaking: People who fought at sea whether they be in the navy, hired guards for merchant ships or pirates tended to wear pretty much the exact same sort of armour as warriors on land did in the given era. (And if armour was redundant, they wore clothes best suited to their task)
The reason is simple: While drowning is undeniably a terrible way to go and a real hazard when you’re wearing 20-30 kgs of gear - it was a somewhat secondary danger compared to the people actively trying to kill you. That and generally speaking in a fight, the more heavily armoured warrior has more options and can better manage risks.
So if you were in a plate armour you were almost certain to drown if you fell into the sea, but you were also in a much better position to avoid having to anything the might make you slip overboard like jumping to the side.
(Generally speaking the best you can hope to do in battle is improve your odds of survival and even if you could swim, being in the water when your enemies are on the ship would probably still result in your death)
I mean seriously, these are all Italian navy officers in the 1500s:
Die Sieger der Seeschlacht von Lepanto (The Victors of Lepanto) 1571
However if you can’t protect yourself with armour then you may as well do something else, whether it’s prep yourself to be able to swim should you fall overboard, show off your personal style or a signature look.
Really the major shifts for fighting at sea instead of on land where that long weapons became less helpful so they’d be less likely to carry spears, halberds, pikes, etc. Those will get tangled in rigging way too easily and you won’t be able to get good use of the reach advantage.