First off,
I'm going to completely ignore the actual in-game stats of the armors. Not only
would I say they are rather misleading compared to the designs of the armors(at
least when putting similar quality armor up against one another), but they are
also primarily used to determine some sort of path for equipment advancement.
Instead I intend to look at the actual design of the armors. And on that note...
... I'm also
going to overlook the widespread use of bare arms that inexpliably permiates
the Nordic and Imperial armor designs. It seems to me that this was likely a
result of 1) the developers wanting to showcase the new arm designs, since in Skyrim
we can choose how big and muscled arms we have, or 2) the armors were
originally designed to allow for clothing underneath, but this feature wasn't
implemented, yet the armor design stayed the same. Since both the Imperials and
Nords have armor designs in previous games that do not show that much skin, I'm
assuming both races would mostly use that.
For the
Nordic Hold armors, we have a few things of note. With the exception of
Haafingar, all the Hold Guards use Fur Gloves and Fur Boots (or just the boots,
for whatever reason, in Whiterun. I'm guessing oversight), all Hold Guards uses
the same full helm and there are two main designs for how the body armor is
constructed. Both types use chainmail shirts, but one design uses a gambeson
and the other uses scale armor. Eastmarch/Stormcloak, Hjaalmarch, the Pale and
the Reach uses gambeson, while Haafingar, Whiterun, Falkreath, the Rift and
Winterhld uses scale.
On a side
note here, it seems odd that they wear the gambeson on the outside of the
armor. I think this is another stylistic choice, more than anything, to let the
player see the armor combination. This is also a problem with the Imperial
Studded Armor.
Now, are
these armors good? I would say mostly yes.
Something
that is important to note is that a lot of "historically accurate
tests" of chainmail armor are not historically accurate at all and, often,
don't even construct the parameters of the test correctly. Taking a subpar
piece of chainmail (explaining that one in a bit) and putting it against
something hard and immobile does not produce accurate results as for how
effective these armors were. You need something to simulate the reaction from a
human body to being attacked in such a fashion to begin with. Second point is
that you need to test it with gambeson underneath, because that is how it was
used, which also improves it quite a bit.
The most
problematic flaw in many of these tests is that they don't construct proper
chainmail, but a subpar version. Now, I'm no expert, so I don't know of any
professional terms for these different types of chainmail, but the layman names
for the main types seem to be "butted" and "riveted".
Butted chainmail would be this waste of metal, time and effort, where about
2/3 of the rings have a significant structural flaw; it isn't a full ring. This
makes it very weak, since most of the armor have a structural defect, and makes
it weak to piercing by arrows, spears and such.
Riveted
chainmail, on the other hand, would be this; what the metal, time and effort of the butted version should've gone
into making in the first place. In this type of chainmail, the structural
problem is solved by riveting the rings, making it far, far stronger. Now,
these pictures themselves are not meant to be historical examples or anything,
just a general idea of how the rings in each style look like. For historical
riveted chainmail, it could look something like this, though i think there were several styles.
Main point,
"proper" chainmail was much better than a lot of "historically
accurate tests" show. So if you see a test, keep these things in mind.
Another
point is that, if it was that bad, it wouldn't be used. If it doesn't save your
life against a modeicum of piercing power, the elite warriors would get the
smiths to make something better. Yet the chainmail remained in use for a long
time.
Gambesons
(often called "padded armor" in many RPGs like Pillars of Eternity)
is also usually misrepresented. While nowhere near as good as chainmail, it is
a decent armor that could stop some types of arrows and cuts and thrusts. And,
of course, scaled armor is another layer of metal armor, though that would
probably be rather heavy to wear.
In short?
The Hold Guards and Stormcloaks in Skyrim would be pretty well protected. Not
good equipment compared to the standard issue plate armors of the Legion in the
3rd Era, but, then again, the Legion armor by the time of Skyrim also wouldn't
compare to that either. So let's look at the Legion armors.
Getting one
thing out of the way right away; the heavy Imperial armor that seemingly is
reserved for officers of the Legion is the best armor in use by soldiers we see
during the civil war questline. But it is also rather rare and only one
non-officer is seen wearing it (Hadvar if you sided with him in the intro)
unless the player (who can wear whatever they like during the questline) also
uses one. From this, I think it is reasonable to conclude that the Imperial
Light Armor and Studded Armor are the most common armors in use in the Legion
in 4E201. So how does those compare?
The Imperial
Light Armor would be the least defensive armor in use during this civil war. It
is leather and could charitably be compared to gambeson in usefulness, meaning
it would be outclassed significantly by the armor worn by all Hold Guards and
Stormcloaks. And since the Jarls and Stormcloaks can keep their soldiers with
proper chainmail, I'm going to be charitable to the Legion and assume the
studded armor is the "default" Legionnaire armor. Otherwise, I don't
see how they'd not be massacred when engaging the Stormcloaks, given the profound
advantage chainmail would give them. Especially since the Legion mostly uses
one-handed swords, which are strongly disfavored against metal armor. So I'm
taking Belrand's word for it mainly being armor for scouts.
Imperial
Studded Armor looks like Imperial Light Armor with a bit of chainmail added
around the shoulder and neck areas, which would barely make it more useful than
regular Imperial Light Armor. As such, I'm going to work off the assumption
that there is a chainmail shirt underneath the leather. And, as such, you could
expect it to perform very similarly to the chainmail/gambeson combination used
by Hold Guards and Stormcloaks, though probably worse than the chainmail/scaled
combination.
In the end?
The Haafingar Guards would be the best outfitted among the guards, because
their chainmail/scale combination, steel bracers and boots. Most Legionnaires
compare pretty much one for one with Stormcloaks in terms of equipment and
Legion officers are the best protected soldiers in the war.
