The breastplate of cuirassier 23 years old Antoine Fraveau, struck and killed by a canonball. June, 1815, serving Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo

He was just 23 when a deadly cannonball struck him during one of the Waterloo skirmishes. He served as a of Napoleon's heavy cavalrymen during "The Hundred Days."  The Waterloo campaign is referred to as The Hundred Days, because such is the amount of time between Napoleon's return to France after his escape from the island of Elba and his final  defeat near the small town of Waterloo, Belgium.  Heavy calvarymen, such as Antoine Favreau, played a significant role in Napoleon's victories.  They would be wasted in the defeat which ended the Napoleonic Wars.


Favreau served as a Carabinier a Cheval -- a heavy cavalryman who wore armour on the battlefield.  Specifically, Favreau would have worn a helmet made of brass and iron with a red horsehair crest.  On his chest and back he wore  a brass and iron breast and backplate over his white tunic.  As a mounted man, he wore white leather riding pants and black riding boots that extended past the knee.  His primary weapon was a long, straight bladed sword, but he would also have carried a pair of pistols in holsters mounted on his saddle and a carbine.   The Carabiniers a Cheveaux must have been something to see with the sun shining off of their brass armour.

Napoleon was a master of battlefield tactics.  Many of his victories involved flanking maneuvers and deception   rather that brute force to win the day.  Waterloo was different.  At Waterloo, Napoleon would attempt brute strength to push Wellington and his multi-national army off of the field.   Much like Robert E. Lee, Napoleon attempted to defeat his enemy with massed  assaults on the flanks as well as the center. 

Napoleon was not well at Waterloo and the fates took advantage of his predicament.   In the afternoon when by chance Napoleon was indisposed, Wellington issued an order for his entire line to redeploy several yards to the rear.  Michel Ney, Napoleon's second in command, misinterpreted the redeployment to be a retreat.  As any good commander seeing a retreating enemy would,  Ney ordered the French cavalry to charge and rout the Anglo-Allied army. 

The night of June 17, 1815 was marked by torrential rain.  Thus, the ground was saturated when Ney's charge took place.  The French cavalrymen charged down the ridge, across the valley and up the opposite ridge to a plateau where they met the enemy infantry formed in squares.  In the days of linear tactics,  infantry  threatened by cavalry formed square.  The defensive position required the men in the  front rank of each side of the square to kneel with the butts of their muskets grounded and the bayonets angled upwards and out.  The remaining men faced out and fired at the cavalry.  Horses will not charge into the line of bayonets.  Thus, the charge is broken and the cavalrymen are picked off.  To defeat infantry in square,  either  infantry or artillery were brought up with the cavalry.  The infantry in square either stayed in square and were blown apart by musket or  cannon fire or the broke square and were run down and sabred by the cavalry. Because of the wet soil, the French cavalry could barely get above a gallop. They were under artillery fire the whole way and upon cresting the hill found infantry not retreating, but in square.  Looking behind, a French cavalryman saw neither supporting infantry or artillery.  No one had his back.  One charge and Ney should have known everything -- the soil is too wet to reach a charge,  British artillery is effective and, most importantly, the British are not retreating, but rather are formed in square.   While the initial charge was not improper, the successive charges ordered by Ney were.  Again and again the French cavalry were sent against the British squares.  Ney could have sent infantry and artillery support, but he didn't.  Ney could have ordered the British cannon hauled off or spiked (the British artillery man serviced their guns until the last second and then ran to the safety of the squares), but he didn't.  Rather, he wasted a valuable asset of Napoleon's army.  Ney failed his commander. While the French defeat cannot be blamed solely upon poor old Ney, he shares a good portion of the blame. The battlefield at Waterloo was roughly a mile deep by 2 miles wide, held nearly 200,000 men over the course of the day and and estimated 41,000 cannonballs we’re fired over the course of the battle.

But what about Antione Favreau?  Well, he died at Waterloo.  He suffered a mortal would when a cannon ball pierced his gleaming breast plate. A recent recruit, Fauveau’s height of 1.79 metres gave him the ideal stature for a heavy cavalry regiment. These, after all, were intended to be big men on big horses, riding down the enemy by the weight of their charge. The young man’s service papers also record that he had a “long, freckled face with a large forehead, blue eyes, hooked nose, and a small mouth”. Family legend has it that when his call-up papers arrived, François-Antoine was on the point of getting married, so his brother joined up, and died, in his place. Yet whoever was wearing it on 18 June 1815, this cuirass serves to emphasise the brutality of Napoleonic warfare at a most personal level.

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Hitler's stealth fighter and first flying wing - Ho 229

It was supposed to be undetectable for British and American radars. Small aircraft with 1000 kilograms of bombs flying 1000 km per hour. Hitler's last chance.

In the early 1930s, when Germany was slowly regaining it's strength, the Horten brothers had become interested in the flying wing design as a method of improving the performance of gliders. The German government was funding glider clubs at the time because production of military was forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles after World War I. But when the war started, Luftwaffe focused on mass production of standard fighters like Messerschmitt Bf 109.

4 years later everything changed. 1943 was a breakthrough year - first German defeats in Stalingrad and Kursk, Alied invasion of Italy. Hitler started to lose, especially in the air. Therefore Reichsmarschall Göring issued a request for design proposals to produce a bomber that was capable of carrying a 1,000 kilograms (2,200 lb) load over 1,000 kilometers (620 mi) at 1,000 kilometers per hour (620 mph); the so-called "3×1000 project". Conventional German bombers could reach Allied command centers in Great Britain, but were suffering devastating losses from Allied fighters. He gave 500 000 reichmarks to Reimar and Walter Horten to build some prototypes that will change the war in the air.

Walter Horten came to believe that the Luftwaffe needed a new fighter designed with performance superior to the Supermarine Spitfire, Britain's most advanced fighter. The new airplane required sufficient range to fly to England, the capability to loiter for a useful length of time and engage in combat, and then to return safely to base. He believed that a twin-engine aircraft enhanced all of these attributes. The Hortens concluded that the low-drag flying wing design could meet all of the goals: by reducing the drag, cruise power could be lowered to the point where the range requirement could be met. They put forward their private project, the H.IX, as the basis for the bomber. The Government Air Ministry approved the Horten proposal, but ordered the addition of two 30 mm cannons, as they felt the aircraft would also be useful as a fighter due to its estimated top speed being significantly higher than that of any Allied aircraft.


 After many tests and prototypes they built what they wanted - Ho 229 with efficient jet engines. First flight took place in march 1944. The H.IX V1 was followed in December 1944 by the Junkers Jumo 004-powered second prototype H.IX V2. The H.IX V2 reportedly displayed very good handling qualities. There are reports that during one of these test flights, the H.IX V2 undertook a simulated "dog-fight" with a Messerschmitt Me 262, the first operational jet fighter, and that the H.IX V2 outperformed the Me 262 then the best aircraft in the war. A jet-powered flying wing design such as the Horten Ho 229 had a smaller radar cross-section than conventional contemporary twin-engine aircraft because the wings blended into the fuselage and there are no large propeller disks or vertical and horizontal tail surfaces to provide a typical identifiable radar signature. Mixed charcoal dust in with the wood glue absorbed electromagnetic waves (radar) When combined with the speed of the H.IX, after detection by British homeland defense radar, the Royal Air Force would have had 8 minutes from the time of spotting the aircraft before it reached England, instead of the usual 19 minutes.

But it was too late, war was almost over, Germany had no  resources and time to build such a complicated machine.  The U. S. VIII Army of General Patton's Third Army found the Ho 229 prototypes V3 through V6 at Friedrichroda, Germany, in April 1945.  A Horten glider and the Ho 229 V3, which was undergoing final assembly, were secured for sending to the United States for evaluation

The only surviving Ho 229 air-frame, the V3—and indeed, the only surviving World War II-era German jet prototype still in existence is currently under restoration. 

40 years after the war American engineers from Northrop-Grumman Corporation took some tests with the Ho 229 to study the V3 air-frame, in the context of developing the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit.

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Polish winged hussars - the best cavalry in the world.

The early Polish Hussars wore no armour and were armed only with the lance, sabre and shield. It gave them greater maneuverability and speed in battle - unlike that of the heavy, lumbering knights. By the mid-16th-century, the Polish King and Lithuanian Grand Duke, Stefan Batory reorganized the Polish and Lithuanian cavalry. He included armor, yet ensured that the Hussars would remain a fast, albeit heavy cavalry.  They were made the standard of the Polish army, and were very-well trained and well-equipped.

Just 18 months after the reform 1400 winged hussars stood in the front of 12 000 rebelling soldiers of Gdansk (3100 landsknechts, 400 mercenary reiter cavalry, 400 city cavalry, and 6,000–8,000 militiamen). Hussars charge in the flank crushed rebelling forces. That night Danzig's losses amounted to 4400 dead and 5000 taken prisoner, while the Polish's army suffered 88 deaths.

Few years later, the battle of Kircholm was decided in 20 minutes by the devastating charge of polish cavalry. The Swedish defeat was utter and complete. The army of Charles IX had lost at least half, perhaps as much as two-thirds, of its original strength (8000-9000 dead). The Polish-Lithuanian losses numbered only about 100 dead.

In 1610 five thousand hussars fought with 30 000 russian accompanied with 5000 mercenaries from western Europe. Russians retreated after losing 5000 men ( Poles lost 100 hussars). That allowed polish king Władysław IV Waza became the new Tsar of Russia. Napoleon and Hitler tried that too, but without success. Do not forget the Battle of Khotyn, when the charge of 600 cavalry crushed advancing 10 000 Ottoman troops. When sultan Osman II saw that he bursted into tears.

The battle of Vienna ended expansion of Ottomans, it saved Europe. Some say that the ending of Tolkien's battle of Helms Deep was inspired by their charge.

A typical charge was staged at gradually accelerated intervals; for the first 75 meters, the hussar, mounted on his steed, would advance at a normal walk, the next 150 meters would be at a trot, then a canter, breaking into a gallop.  The charge would be completed by a canter for the last 30 meters. This method was imperative in order to preserve the horse's stamina, especially in the event that the hussars had to engage in multiple charges, or final pursuit of the enemy. Incidentally, a trot is a two-beat gait with averages of about 8 mph (13 kph). A canter is a three-beat gait that averages 10-17 mph (16-27 kph).  A gallop is like a canter but much faster at a four-beat gait averaging 25-30 mph (40-48 kph).

The most distinctive feature of the Polish Hussars were the pair of huge wings attached to their backs, each constructed of high wooden frames upon which eagle feathers were attached, although ostrich, swan and goose feathers had also been used. It is believed that the Polish Hussars wore these wings for the purposes intimidating the enemy,  and they have often been depicted in battle wearing wings. This is the image that has long promoted by painters through the ages and more recently by film productions. The reality however may be that the Polish Hussars donned these wings only for the ceremonial purposes and victory parades.

The most deadly part of Hussars equipment was a 4.5m to 6.2m lance. Because of its length the lance had to be considerably light and easy to maneuver.  They were constructed from fir-wood, though aspen was used in the fore part of the lance to make it lighter. The lance point was made of steel and reinforced with additional metal straps around the shaft. This also protected the wood just below from any saber cuts. It was often richly gilded.

The armour of the Polish Hussar consisted of breast and backplates, a pair of pauldrons and a pair of arm-guards, and was a splendid example of decorative design and superb craftsmanship. Many of the designs were inspired by earlier Roman armoury. But until 1570 the armour consisted only of mail coat, helmet, shield, lance and saber, although many had implemented breastplates.  King Stefan Batory (1576-1586) had specific ideas about the type of armour worn by his men and insisted that they follow the Hungarian style. By 1600 the Hussars breastplates had been modified to take on the "half-lobster" design with several bands or lames from the lower chest to the bottom. he armour was much lighter, about 15kg, and permitted the hussar to ride quickly. The lighter, Turkish-style saddle allowed for more armour to be used by both the horses and the warriors. Moreover, the horses were bred to run very fast with a heavy load and to recover quickly. These were hybrids of old, Polish equine lineage and eastern horses, usually from Tatar tribes. As a result, a horse could walk hundreds of kilometres loaded with over 100 kilograms (warrior plus armour and weaponry) and instantly charge.

Polish King Sobieski battle armour from the battle of Vienna. 

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Death at Trafalgar

Shortly before noon on October 21, 1805, a fleet of 27 Royal Navy warships sliced through the seas near the southern coast of Spain. Onboard the flagship HMS Victory, Lord Horatio Nelson paced the main deck, his gazed fixed on the 33 French and Spanish ships floating on the horizon. 

Traditionally, enemy fleets would face each other in parallel lines. Nelson’s strategy was to arrange his ships in two smaller squadrons at right angles to the enemy – one column lead by Nelson in HMS Victory, captained by Thomas Hardy; the other by Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood in HMS Royal Sovereign. That way, Nelson hoped to get in among the enemy and spread confusion from the outset. It left them vulnerable to enemy fire as they approached, but allowed them to rake the enemy – fire along the length of the ships, causing huge damage. Unable to return fire during their approach, Victory’s 820 crewmen could only grit their teeth and take cover as iron shot ripped through their decks and rigging. One blast hewed Nelson’s personal secretary clean in half. Another tore through a group of marines, killing eight men and mauling several more. Seemingly ignoring the mayhem, Nelson continued to stroll the deck alongside Victory’s captain, Thomas Hardy. “This is too warm work to last long,” he mused. 

This shot entered the bow of the Victory at the glorious battle of Trafalgar on the 21st October 1805 and lodged in the piece of timber in which it now lies

As their twin columns inched toward the Combined Fleet, Nelson’s 18,000 sailors readied themselves for a fight. They ate a hearty breakfast, stowed wooden objects that might splinter during battle, and stuffed bandages and handkerchiefs into their ears to dull the roar of cannon fire. Similar scenes had already unfolded on the decks of the 33 Franco-Spanish vessels, which had formed a traditional battle line that stretched several miles. On the French flagship Bucentaure, Admiral Villeneuve displayed a bronze Imperial Eagle to his crewmen, who responded with patriotic cries of “Long live the Emperor!” At half past noon, Victory finally advanced within firing range of the Combined Fleet. The British vessel immediately steered toward the stern of Villeneuve’s Bucentaure and unleashed a blast from a carronade, a 68-pound gun packed with both a single cannonball and a hive of 500 musket rounds. They followed it with a withering broadside from their 50 portside guns. After only a few minutes, 20 of Villeneuve’s cannons were disabled and some 200 French crewmen lay dead.

Having struck a ferocious blow against the enemy flagship, the badly damaged Victory continued its rampage by confronting the 74-gun French vessel Redoubtable. The two vessels soon rammed into one another and became entangled. As the ships shuddered from broadsides fired at point blank range, French marines tried to clear the British decks with musket fire and hand grenades. Around 1:15 p.m., a sniper on Redoubtable’s mizzen top took aim at Nelson and shot him in the shoulder. The musket ball passed through the Admiral’s back, severing an artery and smashing part of his spine. “They have done for me at last, Hardy,” Nelson cried as he collapsed in agony. He died later that day.

Around 1:45 p.m., Villeneuve’s flagship Bucentaure became the first French vessel to strike its colors in surrender. Redoubtable followed suit a few minutes later, having been pummeled into submission by repeated broadsides from both Victory and the British HMS Temeraire. More French and Spanish ships gave up over the next few hours, and following an abortive assault by their long overdue vanguard, the remaining vessels of the Combined Fleet hoisted their sails and took flight. By then, 19 French and Spanish ships had been captured or destroyed and some 6,000 of their sailors were dead or wounded. Despite suffering some 1,700 casualties of their own, the British hadn’t lost a single ship.

Top image: Flag of Spanish warship San Ildenfonso, which fought against the British fleet led by Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar. Later it was hung at Admiral Nelson's funeral at St. Paul’s Cathedral alongside a similar French flag.

Sketches made by Nelson just before the battle

Epaulet on Admiral Nelson's coat and the bullet hole that killed him

The only surviving Union Jack Flag from the Battle of Trafalgar 

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War elephants

It was the arrival of the cannon in the 16th century that finally heralded the end of elephants being used as an instrument of war. Until that time, from as early as 1000BC, they trampled across battlefields around the globe, through wars in places as far flung as Yemen and Sri Lanka. 

The use of elephants in battle spread from India to Persia, and the first encounter between European forces and pachyderms took place in what is now Northern Iraq, with Alexander the Great winning a decisive victory against Darius III of Persia.

Evidently, the fifteen elephants deployed by the Persian forces were not enough to secure victory – Alexander left the battlefield having conquered Babylon and most of Persia.

The impact of the giant beasts of war did not go unnoticed by the legendary Macedonian king, who took them into his own army. The terror that the unfamiliar smell and sight of the elephants had on the cavalry proved to be a useful tool for Alexander in further battles, and he went on to control as many as 100 war elephants.

War elephants were introduced to the Mediterranean by King Pyrrhus of Epirus. He brought twenty to attack the Romans at the battle of Heraclea in 280BC and won decisively because the Roman’s were unprepared for the war elephants. 

An elephant sword, these were attached to the tusks of war elephants. India 15-17th C.

Widely acknowledged as one of the greatest military leaders in history, the Carthaginian general Hannibal famously invaded Italy from the north in 218 B.C., crossing the Alps from Gaul with an army of foot-soldiers, cavalry and a handful of north African forest elephants, smaller than the Asian and African elephants familiar to today’s zoo-goers. Of the six elephants that survived the arduous mountain trek, five died the following winter. The sixth, a one-tusked elephant named Surus, became Hannibal’s mount and mobile viewing platform in the marshes of the Arno. Over the next 15 years, Hannibal won significant battles and occupied much of Italy, sometimes with reinforcement elephants shipped directly from Africa. In a 209 B.C. battle with the Roman consul Marcellus, Hannibal’s war elephants created havoc until the Romans managed to wound one, touching off a cascade of panic among the pachyderms.

The Delhi Sultanate used war elephants against the Mongol hoards led by Timur Khan in 1398; however the Indian forces were defeated. It is unknown exactly how Timur managed to solve the problems caused by the 120 elephants he encountered; one legend states that he attached straw to his camels so that when the giants of the animal kingdom got close, he could set the straw on fire, causing the camels to run forward. 

From the sixteenth century, the use of gun powder in battle made it considerably easier to bring down the animals, diminishing their effectiveness and bringing an end to their use on the battlefield. However they continued to be used for transportation and logistics in warfare right up to the Second World War, where they were used by Indian and Burma forces to transport guns and supplies, and to assist in engineering projects such as road and bridge building in remote areas where vehicles could not be used.

Illustration of a lion, leopard, rabbit, and elephant from memory/description,
taken from Tractatus de Herbis (Italy ca. 1440)

Ancient roman bed decoration depicting war elephant. 1st century AD 

This fabulous 17th century armour is composed of 5,840 plates and weighs 118kg, some plates are missing and originally the total number would be 8,439 and weigh 159kg! The tusk swords that accompany this armour (not on display) weigh in at 10kg.

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Tolkien's war: Webley Mk VI pistol.

During the dark days of the First World War, 2nd Lieutenant JRR Tolkien kept his revolver close to him at all times as he fought to survive the front-line trenches.

Tolkien served on the frontline as a signals officer for the Lancashire Fusiliers from June to October 1916, when he contracted trench fever and was sent to a hospital in Birmingham. There he began writing stories which became The Silmarillion, the legendary history of Middle-earth which underlies The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Debate still continues regarding the extent to which Tolkien's war experiences influenced his literary work, however the impact of the battle remained with him for the rest of his life and fans say its influence can clearly be seen in his writing. Effects of World War I Tolkien’s experiences on the Western Front shaped his later books, with episodes such as Frodo Baggins’ experience in the dead marshes in The Lord of the Rings, where he sees dead warriors in pools amid a desolate landscape, a reminder of the realities of the Somme and Ypres. The writer also said that Sam Gamgee, Frodo’s dependable and heroic servant in The Lord of the Rings, was ‘a reflexion of the English soldier, of the privates and batmen I knew in the 1914 war, and recognised as so far superior to myself’

Few kilometers from Tolkien, in German trenches, a young Adolf Hitler was wounded in the left thigh when a shell exploded at the entrance to the dispatch runners' dugout. He begged not to be evacuated,[20] but was sent for almost two months to the Red Cross hospital at Beelitz.

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Corinthian helmet from the Battle of Marathon (490 BC) found with the warrior's skull inside.

The Corinthian helmet type is one of the most immediately recognisable types of helmet, romantically associated with the great heroes of Ancient Greece, even by the Ancient Greeks themselves who rapidly moved to helmet types with better visibility, but still depicted their heroes in these helmets. In modern portrayals of Ancient Greek warriors, it is always the Corinthian type that is depicted, although often modified to suit the look desired - for instance in one movie the helmet was modified to expose more of the face of the actor.

 It was a helmet made of bronze which in its later styles covered the entire head and neck, with slits for the eyes and mouth. A large curved projection protected the nape of the neck. Out of combat, a Greek hoplite would wear the helmet tipped upward for comfort. This practice gave rise to a series of variant forms in Italy, where the slits were almost closed, since the helmet was no longer pulled over the face but worn cap-like. Although the classical Corinthian helmet fell out of use among the Greeks in favour of more open types, the Italo-Corinthian types remained in use until the 1st century AD, being used, among others, by the Roman army.

This helmet was excavated by George Nugent-Grenville, 2nd Baron Nugent of Carlanstown, on the Plain of Marathon in 1834, according to letters from Sutton dated to 2 & 20 August 1826.

2500 years earlier, on the morning of September 17, 490 BC, some 10,000 Greeks stood assembled on the plain of Marathon, preparing to fight to the last man. Behind them lay everything they held dear: their city, their homes, their families. In front of the outnumbered Greeks stood the assembled forces of the Persian empire, a seemingly invincible army with revenge, pillage and plunder on its mind. The two sides faced each another directly, waiting for the fight to start. The Athenians stalled for days, anticipating reinforcements promised by Sparta. But they knew they could not wait for long. The Persians, expecting as easy a victory as they had won against enemies so many times before, were in no hurry.

The Greeks, knowing the time for battle had come, began to move forward. Ostensibly, they advanced with focus and purpose, but beneath this firm veneer, as they looked on a vastly larger enemy — at least twice their number — many must have been fearful of what was to come. The Persian archers sat with their bows drawn, ready to loose a barrage of arrows that would send fear and confusion through the Greek ranks .Eventually, though, the infantry on both sides engaged in battle. Moving towards each other and perhaps with the Greeks running the final 400 metres whilst undoubtedly under fire from the Persian archers, the two armies clashed.

Few hours later the bloody battle ended. Herodotus records that 6,400 Persian bodies were counted on the battlefield, and it is unknown how many more perished in the swamps. The Athenians lost 192 men and the Plataeans 11.

Pheidippides giving word of victory at the Battle of Marathon
Luc-Olivier Merson

One final legend of Marathon and one which has carried its name up to the present day is Herodotus’ account of a long-distance messenger (hēmerodromos) named Phidippides. He was sent to enlist the help of the Spartans before the battle and he ran to Sparta, first stopping at Athens, a total distance of 240 km (a feat repeated by an athlete in 1983 CE). Later sources, starting with Plutarch in the 1st century CE, confuse this story with another messenger sent from Marathon after the battle to announce victory and warn of the Persian fleet’s imminent arrival in Athens. In any case, it was from this second legend that a race - covering the same distance as the 42 kilometres between Marathon and Athens - was established in the first revival of the Olympic Games in 1896 CE to commemorate ancient Greek sporting ideals and the original games at Olympia. Fittingly, the first marathon race was won by a Greek, Spiridon Louis.

Mound (soros) in which the Athenian dead were buried after the battle

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Roman scutum shield. This is the only known surviving example of this kind of shields.

This is the only known surviving example of the semicylindrical shield known as a scutum, used by Roman legionaries and known from literary sources. Found flattened, in thirteen pieces, and missing its umbo (central boss). The painted decoration reflects Roman iconography of victory, including an eagle with a laurel wreath, winged Victories, and a lion.

Scutum was famous for the Testudo (tortoise) formation, used commonly by the Roman Legions during battles, particularly sieges.

In the testudo formation, the men would align their shields to form a packed formation covered with shields on the front and top. The first row of men, possibly excluding the men on the flanks, would hold their shields from about the height of their shins to their eyes, so as to cover the formation’s front. The shields would be held in such a way that they presented a shield wall to all sides.

The scutum was a 10-kilogram (22 lb) large rectangle curved shield made from three sheets of wood glued together and covered with canvas and leather, usually with a spindle shaped boss along the vertical length of the shield. The only surviving example, from Dura-Europos in Syria, was 105.5 centimetres (41.5 in) high, 41 centimetres (16 in) across, and 30 centimetres (12 in) deep (due to its semicylindrical nature), with an unknown thickness. It was well made and extremely sturdy.

Speaking of Roman Legionaries there is also a very rare artifact: remains of their famous armour called lorica segmentata. The plates of lorica segmentata armour were soft iron inside and (some at least) were mild steel on the outside, making the plates hardened against damage without becoming brittle. This was a deliberate act, called case hardening, and is carried out by enriching the surface iron with carbon from organic materials packed tightly around the piece which is then heated in a forge. The strips were arranged horizontally on the body, overlapping downwards, and they surrounded the torso in two halves, being fastened at the front and back. The upper body and shoulders were protected by additional strips ("shoulder guards") and breast- and backplates. The form of the armour allowed it to be stored very compactly, since it was possible to separate it into four sections each of which would collapse on itself into a compact mass. The fitments that closed the various plate sections together (buckles, lobate hinges, hinged straps, tie-hooks, tie-rings, etc.) were made of brass. In later variants dating from around 75–80 A.D., the fastenings of the armour were simplified. Bronze hinges were removed in favour of simple rivets, belt fastenings utilised small hooks, and the lowest two girdle plates were replaced by one broad plate.

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Joseph Enouy’s 8-cylinder, 48-shot percussion revolver, dated 1855

The Enouy revolver was a design patented by Joseph Enouy of Middlesex, England, who received British patent #1359 in 1855. The basic revolver was based on a transitional revolver design made by Charles Osborne in 1845. The innovative part of Enouy's design was the compound magazine design. In this particular example, each revolver cylinder is capable of holding 6 shots and there are 8 different revolver cylinders attached to the compound magazine wheel, thereby giving this weapon a capacity of 48 shots.


As you may have guessed, this weapon is very heavy, unbalanced and unwieldy at the same time. Due to the magazine wheel in front, the user can't carry this revolver is his pocket or in a holster either. This firearm design was not a success and Joseph Enouy didn't seem to manufacture many of them either. In fact, most of the pictures of this firearm available on the web are from one particular revolver made by Enouy, which was once owned by a Mr. Vokes. As there are no records of this revolver being manufactured and sold commercially, it is possible that the above example is literally the only one that was ever made. It is fortunate that we have a record of Mr. Enouy's patent application available.

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