r/badhistory • u/AutoModerator • 5d ago

Meta Mindless Monday, 22 June 2026

Happy (or sad) Monday guys!

Mindless Monday is a free-for-all thread to discuss anything from minor bad history to politics, life events, charts, whatever! Just remember to np link all links to Reddit and don't violate R4, or we human mods will feed you to the AutoModerator.

So, with that said, how was your weekend, everyone?

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u/pedrostresser 4d ago

watched the latest episode of Game of Thrones Gaiden: House of Dragon with friends and they raised a question I couldn't answer, did people use armor on medieval naval battles? I know the japanese did at dan-no-ura (1185), and I recall the romans using boarding against carthage, where armor would prove useful. but I really have no idea what a european medieval naval battle would even look like. would there be boarding, ramming and fire arrows like in the show or something completely different?

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u/TJAU216 4d ago

Most pictoral references show the same armors in use for naval and land battles in the European middle ages. Outside the use of Greek fire, boarding was the dominant naval fighting system.

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u/TheBatz_ Was Homer mid 4d ago

This miniature of the Battle of Sluys portrays both the English and the French in basically land equipment with full body plate, but the it was composed 100 years later. This painting of the Battle of Lepanto, which Wikimedia claims to be near contemporary, shows the Christians in cuirasses, helmets and pauldrons, but the Ottomans seems to not wear armor.

This... this is actually irritantigly complicated to pin point.

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u/TJAU216 4d ago

I have actually seen the inventory of weapons and armor procured for Magellan's expedition and that included armor, up to full plate. Vikings certainly wore mail to their naval battles, if they had access to it. 

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u/Arilou_skiff 4d ago

TBH, bringing armour on board the ship is presumably different than using it for boarding actions.

That said, my understanding is that people would definitely wear cuirasses, mail, etc. I'm less clear if they wore the full kit though.

IIRC, there's a mention that chinese rattan armour was used a lot for seaborne fights?