# Armor from the dead



## Xan (Oct 29, 2014)

This has been surprisingly difficult to research. Who stripped dead enemies of weapons and armor for use by their own people? Did medieval France? What about ancient Babylonians? Feudal Japan?

What I'm asking is, what nations and cultures from what ages actively used equipment taken from dead warriors (their own, or their enemies)?


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## InstituteMan (Oct 29, 2014)

I can't claim to know for sure, but I would guess that in war scavenging everything you can from the dead, especially the enemy's dead, is a pretty universal practice.


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## ppsage (Oct 29, 2014)

Another thing to remember is that in almost all places and all times, this stuff is quite valuable. Often the most valuable objects existing in these societies. Nobody left it just laying around. The stronger you are, the more valuable the chunks you got, but very little weaponry is left on battlefields for archaeologists to find.


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## Morkonan (Nov 4, 2014)

Xan said:


> ...What I'm asking is, what nations and cultures from what ages actively used equipment taken from dead warriors (their own, or their enemies)?



Everyone.

When someone is trying to kill you, you're not likely to quibble over what you're going to use to defend yourself with.

As far as any "regimented" stripping of the dead, just about everyone has had some means in place of doing that. In some cases, combatants would order a temporary cessation of hostilities (truce) for this very purpose. However, this was usually more focused on claiming and dealing with the dead bodies, since they will encourage disease and their physical presences also make further fighting difficult, rather than claiming war materiel.

Camp followers and "corpse pickers" would sometimes try to haunt large battlefields after combat. In some cases, guards would be posted to discourage these people from attempting to loot or otherwise "desecrate" the dead.

Also, almost every military force has had some form of "booty" system in place that allowed soldiers to keep items taken from enemy combatants. Before the dawn of the "professional" military, this was the only way to pay the many fighters that would flock to a banner. This practice still carries on, today, but in a more reserved form. In the Empire era, navies held onto a more radical version of this practice, allowing ship's captains and their crews to claim the enemy ships that they captured, returning them to friendly ports for "prize" money. This was a way to incentivize crews, since many of them were conscripts. It also helped to give officers a bit of a morale boost, since they retained a larger share of prize money. A war-time Captain of a fighting ship could make himself quite wealthy and earn enough to retire in luxury.


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## Theglasshouse (Nov 5, 2014)

Japanese history was full of war tactics and scheming generals  and was a unique culture and history periods were too unlike anything I have read.  A history book in feudal times, could help you glimpse at how they held for example the enemy's family hostage. If strategies and tactics is your research area you could look over this political branch in war times. It's much easier to understand the perspective unlike war war 2 and others wars which have focused in the use at least on understanding it not from a strategy point of view because of the times we live in now. It is well worth the read, on the "heartless" antics they used. Maybe then you can glimpse their own diverse war culture If youdecide to do so. Influential wars will always be a topic, but I think you probably know a few things from their culture which was different, in how they viewed their warriors.


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