The Weirdest and Fiercest Helmets from the Age of Armored Combat

The enemy's sword buries itself into your lower abdomen. You begin to choke as the blood exits your body.

Realizing defeat, you slowly fall to the ground, lying there as fragile as the day you were born.

Darkness spreads across the battlefield as the light begins to shine from above.

As you struggle to take your last breath, your opponent steps over your body, points his finger and laughs.


MY HELMET IS COOLER THAN YOURS!

Anyways...This is war, not a beauty contest right?

Below is a collection of wild and wacky helmets from various points in history. They are as purposeful as they are beautiful. I hope you guys enjoy the pictures!


Toothface helm by an unknown Italian artist from the 17th century



Frog-mouth helm (or Stechhelm) - It was used by mounted knights between the 14th and 17th centuries.



Bascinet from the 14th and 15th century




Sallet in the Shape of a Lion's Head, c. 1475-1480 - The earliest surviving example of a Renaissance armor all'antica. The outer shell of the steel helmet was made of embossed and gilt copper.



An oil-painted sallet from Germany, c. 1500 - Worn by lower class men-at-arms.



Bird Man Helmet from the early 16th century



The Horned Helmet, Innsbruck, Austria, 1511-1514



Closed helmet with mask visor, by Kolman Helmschmid in Augsburg, Germany, c. 1515 - Grotesque human mask-like visors were really popular in Germany and Austria in the early 16th century.




Grotesque ones from the early 16th century




Dark Helmet - From a galaxy far, far away...(wait, how did this get in there!)



The Maximilian armour - These early 16th century German plate armours were first made for the Emperor Maximilian I.





Burgonet of Guidobaldo II della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, Milan, c. 1532-35



The ceremonial and parade helmets of Charles V - Desiderius Helmschmid, c. 1540

Desiderius Helmschmid, c. 1540

Filippo Negroli, 1533

Kolman Helmschmid, c. 1530

Filippo and Francesco Negroli, 1545

Filippo and Francesco Negroli, 1545



Burgonet with Falling Buffe and scenes of battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs, c. 1555 - Probably made for Henry II of France, but passed as a gift to the Medicis.



Burgonet, created in a Venetian workshop in the late 1550s



Helmet in the form of a sea conch shell, 1618, Japan



A German or Italian Savoyard Helmet, c. 1620-1630




A French face-protecting expermiental helmet from the WWI, invented by Dr. Pollack, a medical officer - Based on the M15 Adrian helmet, used by the French Army during the war.




Close helmet from Augsburg 1530



1500 Burgonet



Filippo Negroli burgonet 1532-1535



Griffin-shaped Helmet Steel embossed and gilt and silvered italy (Milan or Brescia) about 1550.



Musée del armée



Burgonet-ja, cc 1530, Real Armería, Madrid



Burgonet for parade armor. Desiderius Helmschmid. German (Augsburg) about 1550-1555 CE



oops...



This shaffron forms part of an important garniture of armor for field and tournament use made for Nicolas "the Black" Radziwill (1515–1565)



Helmet Italian 1550 CE



A "Garde du Corps" troopers helmet, Germany 1900



Helmet in the Classical Style, French Paris probably about 1760-70




1529, by Hans Seusenhofer of Innsbruck, Austria, for King Ferdinand I (1503-1564). wolf faced visor


Grotesque visor 1550




Grotesque helmet Innsbruck 1520 - 1530


Musée de l'Armée



Mustached visored helmet



Wooden Ekoi mask helmet



19th century vintage grotesque helmet



Can anybody figure this one out?

Please feel free to elaborate on anything you see here. Post one of your own creations or simply add to the list of historical head pieces. I will try to add more information if I have time.


Have a nice day!

Amazing collection, isn't it? There's some truly beautiful art work in some of them, however some others are simply grotesque. As for the last one you posted, the watermelon helmet is for the Saskatchewan Rough Riders. Go riders!

The Reginald Von Guinea Pig III

How did they go bathroom with that kind of armor on. I wouldn't want to be wearing that when it was eighty degrees and sunny.

a reply to: rickymouse
#1, the codpiece was removable.
They had to be let out of their armor for #2

a reply to: eisegesis

Awesome thread S&F you did a great job of compiling those.

I wonder have you run across any like this.


I am fairly sure this is someone creation from present day but just imagine if those were on the battle field. Shivers....

I have armor for careless kitteh.... and maybe Domo...







And for the meeces...







You can't let your furry children go around unprotected!

I also found one for BFFT...



And we can't leave Beezzer and Wrabbit out...



S&F OP - Great thread!

a reply to: eisegesis

Great thread! Loved the pictures, there are a lot of those I've never seen before. Very cool.

originally posted by: aboutface
Amazing collection, isn't it? There's some truly beautiful art work in some of them, however some others are simply grotesque. As for the last one you posted, the watermelon helmet is for the Saskatchewan Rough Riders. Go riders!

Saskatchewan Rough Riders have vast knowledge when it comes to helmets.

Go Riders!

Thank you for posting this !!!
Some of these are exquisite !!
Love the humorous ones also , Dark Helmet always cracked me up
Just goes to show the diversity of the mind and cultures , absolutely wonderful !

a reply to: eisegesis

I went through your OP slowly, to take in the pictures, and then after a long time I came to the ones with huge areas around the eyes totally unprotected. At that point those looked like they would have been worn by some really stupid people, or at least those who had pretty bad eyesight. Great thread, thanks!

a reply to: Kangaruex4Ewe

Awesome pictures!


With armor on the mouse probably couldn't move and got eaten anyway. lol

There are certainly a lot of fancy helmets but I think the Greek Corinthian style is popular for a reason. Simple, clean and fierce:




Helmets say a lot about the warrior — these say, "I'm here to kill you."


image source - History Bunker

The Japanese sea conch helmet is my favorite!

originally posted by: Charizard
The Japanese sea conch helmet is my favorite!

Helmet in the form of a Sea Conch Shell
Nagasone Tojiro Mitsumasa
1618
iron with traces of lacquer and textiles
22.9 x 30.5 x 26.7 cm (9 x 12 x 10 1/2 in.)
The John Woodman Higgins Collection
2014.89

Late sixteenth-century warlords and powerful generals wore flamboyant “extraordinary helmets” (kawari-kabuto) to distinguish themselves amidst uniformly armored footmen and brilliantly attired samurai. This masterpiece of metalwork must have belonged to one of the most important men in Japan at the time of the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu. It was so greatly admired that several derivative copies were made during the 1600s.

The helmet is sculpted like a sea-conch shell with a brim textured like ray-skin. The conch-shell is a symbol of worldly and religious authority. It was sounded by generals to marshal troops. It was also a symbol of Buddha’s voice and the preaching of Buddhist Law.

a reply to: eisegesis

Here's my contribution:






Some of those helmets are very bizarre.

Not so much a helmet, but still terrifying nonetheless:







The above images depicts the uniforms of a Taiwanese special forces unit. The mask in question is a ballistic mask, capable of stopping anything up to a .357 Magnum slug.

gizmodo.com...

a reply to: eisegesis

There's not much in this world that really "gets me going" so to speak as armor does. I love it all, past, present, and future. Thank you for your thread.

Here's my favorite armor

CLICK ME!

**Edit**
a reply to: Kratos40

Beat me to it!

Reply to Allister

I was thinking it might be for someone who needed more than a tiny slit to see out of, like an archer perhaps, and I kept in mind nearly all helmets shown were used in parades or show tournaments and never actual battle. But I like your explanation much better lol.... Buncha freakin morons wasting a hundred hours to make suicidal armor for blind as bat Don Quixote out there swinging his sword at the windmills

a reply to: eisegesis

Improvised "helmets" from the Cairo riots: