How could armour be designed to improve hand-to-hand martial arts? Reinforced, angular greaves with pads underneath to improve sweeps and kicks? Full plate is always good, but I feel like it could always go one step further and specialise.
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$\begingroup$ Hello Replicator, welcome to WB.SE. You haven't yet taken our tour or read through our help center so you probably don't yet know that questions must be specific and answerable, cannot lead to answers that are all equally valid, and cannot be open-ended. "Martial arts" in your mind probably evokes images of Bruce Lee, but "martial arts" actually refers to almost every form of combat and military activity in all of history. To avoid closure, please explain exactly what you mean by "martial arts" and what you're trying to achieve. As written, this question is too vague. $\endgroup$– JBHCommented Mar 14, 2022 at 7:06
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1$\begingroup$ @JoinJBHonCodidact as a martial artist, this question is perfectly clear, specific and answerable. $\endgroup$– Monty Wild ♦Commented Mar 14, 2022 at 8:18
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1$\begingroup$ @MontyWild I'm not a martial artist. Aren't you making my point by concluding that the Q is only clear from the POV of your expertise? $\endgroup$– JBHCommented Mar 14, 2022 at 15:08
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1$\begingroup$ @JoinJBHonCodidact There are quite a few questions on this site that are only clear to SMEs, and get at least one VTC as a result. $\endgroup$– Monty Wild ♦Commented Mar 14, 2022 at 16:26
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1$\begingroup$ You will need to draw a very fine line between offensive weapons and defensive armor. Greaves, for example, if allowed, would be widely used for offensive kicks, and barring regulations, would feature sharp barbs on the outside. Protective gloves can easily morph into brass knuckles and so on. $\endgroup$– AlexanderCommented Mar 14, 2022 at 16:34
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2 Answers
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As a red belt in Shotokan Karate and hapkido, I've had personal experience with armour used with unarmed martial arts. In the dojo in which I trained, we used foot, shin and hand pads at all times, and head and body armour on occasion. The pads were used to help prevent the otherwise inevitable injuries that tend to accumulate from practising a striking style.
If you're facing an opponent using a striking style, even light rigid armour is going to reduce the effect of an opponent's blows a lot. A hard kick to the abdomen that might be incapacitating is reduced to little more than a push.
However, this sort of armour isn't going to protect you against locks and holds. If anything, regular armour is going to make it easier for a martial artist using these styles to get a grip. Armour that would protect against holds would necessarily be slippery, and would still not be a complete defense, while armour that would protect against locks would more closely resemble a rigid diving suit, with joint movement limiters built in, and would likely be fantastically expensive and difficult to make, and would need to be adjusted for an individual wearer.
Armour to enhance a martial artist's blows is nothing new either. It's a simple matter to add spikes to knuckles, elbows, knees, heels and toes. You can also add mass to help increase impact energy. However, locks, throws and holds are unlikely to be able to be improved by armour - a martial artist can either do them or not, and most don't require any great strength, so not even powered armour would help significantly.
answered Mar 14, 2022 at 8:10
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$\begingroup$ I was too focused on a lot of striking-based hand-hand as a boxer myself that I've somehow neglected locks and holds lmao. I'm surprised you say that some form of powered armour wouldn't help significantly, I'd have thought they'd be great to lower the risk of the person you've got in a hold from breaking out as well as preserving stamina when you've got somebody. That and vice versa to make it easier to break out of a hold while expending less stamina. $\endgroup$ Commented Mar 15, 2022 at 9:42
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$\begingroup$ The holds I've learned don't require either strength or stamina. They're really easy to hold for long periods, and as long as you have a certain minimum strength (that's pretty low), it doesn't matter much how strong the other guy is. Either they're going to break out because you got the position wrong or they know a counter... or not. As I said, additional strength won't help. There are locks that a skinny 10yo can use to harmlessly drop a champion body builder like a sack of potatoes, that only need a hundred grams of pressure. Much more, and you'll just do permanent damage. $\endgroup$– Monty Wild ♦Commented Mar 15, 2022 at 13:56
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I'm not much of a fighter, but most societies with a warrior class taught their fighters A LOT of different styles, both as a matter of pride and common sense. If your knights' social status depends on knowing how to FIGHT, and with many societies training their warriors from childhood to adulthood, you probably want them to be well-rounded. That means teaching them at least one or two years of wrestling and fist-fighting techniques, between ages 10-20 years old.
Quora has a similar question asking if medieval knights and other warriors trained in grappling, and throughout Asia and Europe, they very much did.
Hell, it seems that grappling (both with and without armor) was expected for the warrior castes, albeit the worst-case scenario, specifically because it meant you've run into another elite warrior, and neither of you managed to kill the other with regular weapons yet, so now it's time to suplex each other until someone's unconscious/dead.
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1$\begingroup$ Children expected to become warriors would have been learning to fight from the age of 3 or 4, and it would be an every-day thing for most of their youth, not just a couple of years. $\endgroup$– Monty Wild ♦Commented Mar 14, 2022 at 10:20
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3$\begingroup$ The question asks for what armor improvements could be done for hand to hand combat specifically, not if hand to hand combat was trained. $\endgroup$– DemiganCommented Mar 14, 2022 at 13:07
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$\begingroup$ @Demigan Armor was already known to be VERY mobile, the weight was well-distributed across the body, and most hand-to-hand fighting techniques were clearly already taught to those in full armor. Short of modern-day folks intentionally REVIVING plate armor for actual combat, I wouldn’t know if there’s anything to really improve. $\endgroup$– Jamie L.Commented Mar 14, 2022 at 16:52
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$\begingroup$ @MontyWild Oh, so I underestimated that decade of fight-training in my main comment. But yes, if your social status depends on fighting and you trained from toddler age to grown adult in ALL aspects of fighting, it would be impossible to not learn at least SOME grappling techniques, and armor was not modified for that. The question as I read it seemed to think that “People in Armor” either didn’t learn grappling or couldn’t grapple in armor, because they couldn’t move well in it. “Plate armor was heavy and cumbersome” is a common misconception among people. $\endgroup$– Jamie L.Commented Mar 14, 2022 at 17:00
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2$\begingroup$ @JamieL. Again the question is not about combat techniques, but the armor. Things like a ridge that prevents a proper hold or a mechanical stop against overextention. Plate armor is heavy, and while mobile it severely limits endurance. In medieval times the second best way to kill plate armor wearers was to grapple with them and get them to fall, as getting up again was too hard when someone tries to stop you (and knives were used while grappling but thats besides the point). Plate armor is too focused on slashing weapons, what armor would improve non-weapon martial arts is the question. $\endgroup$– DemiganCommented Mar 14, 2022 at 18:46