Thursday, 22 November 2012

Japanes Armor

Although the full suit of armour (gusoku) consists of 23 or more elements, starting with the tie (fundoshi) and finishing with the pike mainstay (yari-ate), the basic elements (rokugu) are only six in number. These are the cuirass (do), the helmet (kabuto), the face mask (men yoroi or menpo), the armoured sleeves (kote), the greaves (suneate) and the cuisses (haidate). The seventh very important element, which was not part of the rokugu, but was a part of the cuirass, were the shoulder guards (sode).
Click to enlarge
Fig. 1—Parts of the armour (shown on a maru-do yoroi)
The cuirass (do) featured different construction—scales, lamellae or full-plate—during different periods of Japanese history. It is the largest part of any armour and its type4 gives an armour its name. For example, aka-ito-odoshi-no do-maru gusoku means "armour of scale construction with cuirass, which wraps around the body and red-colored lacing," and kiritsuke-kozane ni-mai do gusoku means "two-section clamshell cuirass armour, made of lamellae, imitating classical kozane"5. The protection for the thighs (kusazuri—literally "grass scrapers"), is attached to the bottom part of the cuirass with suspending cords. The shoulder guards (sode) protect the shoulders and the arms from the elbows to the shoulders. Sodeconstruction varied from period to period, and in some types of armours are merely vestigial. Despite all the transformations, they were always in use, giving the armour its distinctive appearance.

The helmet (kabuto) and cuirass (do) are the oldest parts of the Japanese armour. Usually the kabuto is made of several plates, but during Heian period (794-1185) and after introduction of full-plate armours, Japanese armourers produced some excellent examples of single-plate helmets. Thekabuto consists of two integral parts—the bowl (hachi) and the neck-guard (shikoro). Another element, the date, is attached to the hachi and has different functions—mythological, status symbol, decorative and even something like the warrior's "signature" or "ID card". The most widespread type of date was the horn or antler-like kuwagata.

The face mask (men yoroi), which literally means "face armour," was very popular but few samurai used it on the battlefield because they wanted their face to be visible to the enemy. Under the men yoroi a neck and throat armour (similar in functions to the European gorgets) was worn. It could have different construction and names (nodawa, eriwa and guruwa are three different types), and could be either separate from the men yoroi or be made as one element of the full suit (gusoku).


http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_jpn_armour.html

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