Illustrations of Sassanid Persian Clibanarii

[Renatus]

Persons were raising doubts about the practicality of wearing plate over mail, the existence of char aina armour makes the point eloquently that it was perfectly practical.

I was not questioning the practicality; I was querying the necessity. However, perhaps I am misunderstanding the concept of plate-over-mail. I was assuming that this involved a complete mail defence covered by a complete plate defence. In other words, a cuirass of mail covered by a cuirass of plate. I can quite see the desirability of wearing a suit of mail with vulnerable points further protected by additional solid plates. So far as clibanarii are concerned, however, I see them more as wearing plate (in the broadest terms) with gaps filled with mail than as wearing predominantly mail with separate overlying plates. Nevertheless, that is not to exclude the possibility of a combination in which different parts of the body are covered by different types of armour, as I noted in the case of the Sassanid cataphracts.