Cataphract armour

[Daruss]

a

[ambrosius]

1964

It's worth owning even though it may not be a great film to watch, IMO. It was filmed on a MASSIVE scale. Lots of extras (the Spanish Army), the best costumes (IMO), the best sets, Sir Alec Guinness, James Mason, Christopher Plummer, Anthony Quayle and Omar Sharif

(Oh yeah, and Stephen Boyd, Sophia Loren :roll: )... :wink: ~Theo

Once you watch it, you'll see that David Franzoni copied it about 90%
for the script of 'Gladiator'. 8) Maybe he figured that, 36 years later,
everyone would have forgotten all about it... :wink:

Ambrosius/Mike

[Daruss]

D

[L C Cinna]

Welcome to RAT Warren and thank you for those great pictures.

You mentioned testing Roman saddles. We have a nice discussion about Roman cavalry and the horned saddle here link from old RAT
if you are interested it would be great to hear about your experiences with it.

[Arthes]

have I bored you guys yet

Not me, I could sit here all day drooling.. :oops: I mean looking at those photographs...I love the cataphracti, particularly the Sarmatian/Roxolani variety...!
Welcome to RAT.....
Regards
Arthes

[Robert Vermaat]

That look soo good - the very best Late Roman horse armour made so far.

[Arthes]

I think 'Arthur' when I look at the earlier photos without the horse armour..... especiallythis one.....waiting in the woods for the Saxons...
I love the photo with the man and the little girl too....just something about it...!

[Paulus Claudius Damianus]

Beautifull all this nice pictures and very good reenactement to my own!!!

[ambrosius]

I think 'Arthur' when I look at the earlier photos without the horse armour..... especiallythis one.....waiting in the woods for the Saxons...

Absolutely! 8) But my favourite photo was two below that, the one
with the horse-armour, and with the rider's lance levelled towards the camera... the last thing a Saxon would have seen before going to
meet Woden... :lol: :lol: :lol:

I love the photo with the man and the little girl too....just something about it...!

My thought, too. Cataphracts had families like everyone else. :wink:

Ambrosius/Mike[/quote]

[Robert Vermaat]

Hi Warren ,

Would you say that, in your interpretation, this construction below can work? Especially the neck of the horse-armour seems a bit choking for the horse.

[Daruss]

Hi,
I think this would work except I wouldn't have the armour for the neck joined to the rest of the body armour.
Horses tend to throw their heads about or drop their heads, sometimes to advoid the bit and sometimes to feed their faces
So if joined, when they move their heads the neck armour would pull, if seperated the horse can move its head freely.
Also take note that the drawing has stirrips and steppe style saddle.

[Nicholas Gaukroger]

How restrictive is this armour for the horse? Could a formation, for example, gallop a reasonable distance whilst wearing it?

[Daruss]

Hi Nicholas,
There's no restriction that I've encounted so far with the armour.
A good charge while in formation is around a 150m start off in line abreast move at walk then move to a sitting trot and then canter and then let go at the gallop, we did this with 9 horse's (not all are armoured, just mine) ...awsome...

[Nicholas Gaukroger]

Thanks for that. Most interesting

[Aedinius]

I would be very interested on the construction of your banded arms or Manica and how you got them to articulate so well.