Animal Armor

Full-body armor for the war elephant

Elephant armor is the suit of armor made to cover the great body of the elephant led out to war, and it is the largest of the armors put on a beast, grown from the Persian and Indian bargustavan. On the head was set a mask-like chanfron of metal or leather, on the back a covering of mail and plates against arrows and spears, and over chest and flanks a single great layer of mail set close with small plates. On the back was placed a small turret called the howdah, in which two or three archers or spearmen shot from above, and at the end of the trunk a short blade was tied that struck the foot soldier and broke his line. It was rare for the hand of man to set armor on a beast of such bulk, and the weaving of a single suit of elephant armor cost as much as a city ruler's whole yearly war budget, and so the same suit stood at once as a field weapon and as a great symbol of the prestige of the royal house.

Protective armor for military canines

War dog armor is the small set of armor made after the harness of a man for the large dog that was led out to war, and stands as one of the oldest pieces of war gear that the human hand ever laid on the body of a beast. The most common form is the spiked iron collar bound together with a body plate of mail or hardened leather over chest and back, and small cloth-faced panels at the shoulder and flank. The spiked collar served not one but two ends, for it covered the dog's thick neck against the point of an enemy's sword and the teeth of a wolf, and as the dog charged in, the spikes themselves did the work of a weapon. The same form ran from the Molossus of ancient Rome to the alaunt and the mastiff of medieval Europe, and on to the Spanish mastiff of the New World conquest of the 16th century, and the same line lives on today in the bulletproof vests of the war dogs of the United States Naval Special Warfare and the police dogs of many lands, and so makes the rare line in which an armor of a beast outlived an armor of a man.

Japanese horse armor of the samurai era

The uma-yoroi (umayoroi, horse armor) is the armor made to guard the warhorse of the Japanese samurai, a distinctive defense applying Japan's own armor-making technique to the horse. Three parts form its core: the bamen covering the head, the kubi-yoroi wrapping the neck, and the muna-ate covering the chest, and it is light and simple compared to the Western barding that encased the whole horse. The way of making it by lacing small scales (kozane) with cords is the same as the samurai's o-yoroi, so it kept the flexibility and ease of repair distinctive of Japanese armor while still giving ample defense. The bamen was often decorated splendidly and menacingly, modeled on the face of a dragon or beast beyond a mere cover, showing that the aesthetic of armor craft reached even to the horse. As mounted combat grew in importance in the Sengoku period, the use of uma-yoroi expanded, but it never spread as widely as Western barding.

Full-body armor for the war horse

Horse barding is the full-body armor made to guard the warhorse of the medieval European knight, a top-grade piece of war gear famed for craft and cost no less than the knight's own harness. Five parts come together to wrap the horse completely: the chanfron over the head, the crinet over the neck, the peytral over the chest, the flanchard over the flanks, and the crupper over the haunches. It began in the 12th century as a mail trapper laid over a cloth caparison, and by the 15th century a full plate barding of two smooth shells wrapping chest and rump was complete, its weight reaching 30 to 40 kilograms. Together with the knight's own armor it meant that one horse had to carry more than 100 kilograms, so the barding was usually put on only just before battle and stripped off on the march to be carried by another horse. Its price matched a knight's harness, so only the highest nobility could afford it, and so the barding stood as a symbol of both the splendor and the limits of medieval mounted war.

Protective equipment for war camels

Camel armor is the armor made to cover the beast of the camel cavalry that rode the deserts of the Middle East, North Africa, and India. Its mark is that it is smaller, lighter, and more open in grain than the horse armor of the same age. It was woven of leather, felt, small mail, and small plates joined in panels that covered the chest, the long neck, and the flanks, and the back, with its two great humps rising upward, was naturally left bare, so that on it a saddle or a small howdah could be set. Where the horse armor sought to wrap one face firmly, camel armor placed greater weight on keeping the beast's breath alive under the hot desert sun and the sand, and so an open grain through which the wind could pass between mail and small plate was common. Above all, the body of the camel itself served as a weapon, for the smell of the beast troubled the enemy's horses and broke their ranks, and so camel armor stood as a tool to keep this beast-weapon alive as long as possible.

Fortified riding platform atop a war elephant

The howdah is the small turret set on the back of the war elephant, a piece of war gear that was itself a single small fortress placed on the back of a single beast. On a floor of thick wooden planks and iron bands, side walls of breast height were raised, and within sat two or three, sometimes as many as four, archers and spearmen, who shot bow and spear, and in the side walls small loopholes were cut, so that arrows could pour out to one side while turning aside the arrows of the enemy. The single great mark of that seat was its height: the howdah set on the back stood some three to four meters above the ground, and the archers above it looked down at once on the whole formation of the enemy's foot. In India and Southeast Asia the same turret was also the seat of the king and the general, and a single howdah stood as a single point at the center of the enemy host, and from it commands went to every part of the army by banner and gesture. The Mughal court and the royal houses of Rajasthan also set aside a splendid ceremonial howdah, the ambari, adorned with gold and silver and silken hangings, as a moving throne, and so the same turret moved back and forth between a piece of war gear and a piece of the throne.