Cuirassier Armor

Origins

In the sixteenth century the fully armored lancer was gradually replaced by horsemen who fought with pistols. The wheellock allowed a rider to carry loaded pistols ready to fire, and German reiters used them in large numbers from the 1540s. Heavy cavalry who kept most of the armor of the old men-at-arms but gave up the lance became known as cuirassiers, after the cuirass, the breastplate and backplate. Because they no longer needed to brace a lance against a charging enemy, and because leg armor was heavy and expensive, the armor below the knee was dropped in favor of stout leather boots. The result was the three-quarter armor, which became the standard equipment of heavy cavalry across Europe by about 1600.

Design & Construction

A full cuirassier harness included a close helmet or a closed burgonet, a gorget for the neck, a breastplate and backplate, pauldrons covering the shoulders, full arm defenses, and long tassets of overlapping plates hung from the breastplate to the knee. A single long gauntlet often protected the left or bridle hand, while the sword hand wore a lighter glove or gauntlet. The breastplate was the most important piece. It was made thick enough to stop a pistol ball, and makers proved it by firing at it; the dent left by the test shot can still be seen on many surviving examples. Most armor was plain, blackened or left bright from the hammer, since it was made in large numbers for soldiers rather than for show. Estimates of weight vary with the piece, but a complete harness commonly weighed well over 20 kg, and proofed pieces made it heavier still. The rider also needed a strong and costly horse.

Combat Use

Writers such as Johann Jacobi von Wallhausen in Germany and John Cruso in England described the cuirassier as the most valuable kind of cavalry. He fought in a deep squadron, fired his pair of pistols, such as the Wheellock Pistol, at close range, and then fell on the enemy with a heavy sword like the Pappenheimer Rapier. Imperial and Catholic League armies of the Thirty Years War fielded many cuirassier regiments. At the Battle of Breitenfeld in 1631 Pappenheim's cavalry charged the Swedish right repeatedly but were driven off by the fire of Swedish musketeers placed among the horse, and in the end by Swedish cavalry. By the 1630s the cost and weight of the armor, and its limited value against musket fire, led many armies to replace cuirassiers with harquebusiers, who wore only a back and breast, a buff coat and an open helmet such as the Lobster-Pot Helmet. In the English Civil War the most famous cuirassier unit was the Parliamentarian regiment of Sir Arthur Haselrig, nicknamed the "Lobsters", which was routed at Roundway Down in July 1643.

Legacy

The three-quarter armor faded from general use in the 1640s and 1650s. Armies kept the cuirass, however, and heavy cavalry regiments called cuirassiers wore breastplates through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. French cuirassiers still wore them in 1914. Many surviving cuirassier harnesses are held in the arsenal at Graz in Austria, in the Royal Armouries in England and in other European collections. They are among the most complete records of how the soldier of the early seventeenth century was equipped, and a late chapter in the long story of Body Armor.