Medieval Chainmail Armor

Chainmail armor in the Middle Ages was achieved through a process of creating wire from steel. Once the wire portion of the process was complete, the blacksmith would form the wire into small interlocking rings through the use of a hand-cranked machine. The most common form of chaim mail armor utilized an overlapping ring system in which rows of rings were interlinked for combined strength. Flat rings were thinner in one direction than the other, which meant that they had less of a tendency to "open" when struck with the piercing tip or slicing side of a sword (blade). The chainmail metal was heated and cooled quickly while being constructed over an open flame.

Inserting the actual rings into the mail was a rather tedious, time consuming process usually requiring more than one specialist to complete. On average, some 40,000 individual interlocking rings were required to make one complete "shirt" of chainmail armor. Each single ring was connected to at least four others in the group at any one time, this across the entire garment. Ultimately, chainmail armor had to be supported underneath by padding for maximum comfort in deflecting blows to the body.

There were essentially two types of chainmail armor during the Medieval era - flat and round ring mail. Round rings proved adequate against sword strikes but less so against piercing arrowheads whereas flat rings excelled against the latter. Once 15th century came to be along with the new-fangled discovery of gunpowder in warfare and thusly the gun, chainmail became more or less obsolete. Some Turks, Persians and Indians still utilized chainmail armor as recently as 100 years ago.