The shadow of the knight Fitz-Urs darted through the gallery aisle, blocking the rays of the setting winter sun.
The knights thundered their armor against the stone slabs of Canterbury Cathedral, ignoring the crowd that had fled to the archbishop's defense. "They are killing our Father." The reverence for Becket was great. The boat in which the prelate had disembarked was carried by the people in their arms from the coast to Canterbury itself. Now their anger, it would seem, is immeasurable.
Thomas Becket emerged from the darkness, looking like an emaciated ethereal shadow.
A skirmish ensued, during which Reginald Fitz-Urs, William Thucy and Richard Brit drove their swords into the archbishop. The fourth knight, Hugh de Morville, single-handedly held back the onslaught of the angry mob.
Having performed the atrocity, the knights silently left the cathedral. People who threatened to tear apart the murderers, at the sight of them, fearfully huddled against the walls. Despite the numerical superiority, Becket's supporters did not dare to stand in the way of the Azrael, the merciless Angels of Death.
* * *
Murder of Thomas Becket, 1170
The main point of this story is that the mentioned four villains with the same demands and threats have already visited Becket on the morning of the fateful day. Alas, due to the presence of monks, servants and henchmen of the archbishop in the house, the execution of the sentence had to be postponed. Stripped of their armor, the knights felt unsafe and rushed to get out into the street. There, having made a halt under a fig tree, the four dressed in battle armor. From that moment on, the killers' tactics changed. The factor of surprise was lost, and they no longer thought about secrecy. Arriving in time for Vespers, the knights were not afraid to break into the cathedral, full of a crowd of adherents of the archbishop.
The killers in armor felt so invulnerable
Masterfully crafted (albeit primitive by today's standards) armor turned humans into walking tanks. Powerful, unpunished and invulnerable in most situations.
Despite the numerical superiority, the availability of weapons and suitable means of combat, the defenders of Thomas Becket moved back, not knowing which side to attack the armored monsters.
If you wish, you can find hundreds of similar examples from that era. The very concept of the knight was to be protected. The weapon was secondary. High-quality armor was worth a fortune and was an exclusive attribute of the nobility. Without them, engaging in close combat was considered pointless.
- Richard the Lionheart shouted to his opponent. He shouted, of course, in French, because the British ruler did not speak English.
The strength of the armor was so great that until the end of the XII centuries. knights fought in tournaments with sharply sharpened weapons without any consequences for each other. Entertainment for the nobility is no more dangerous than motorcycle racing or skydiving from a skyscraper.
For seven centuries, the "sword" absolutely lost to the "shield". The means of defense were superior to the means of attack.
Of course, there was no absolute security. Like a modern tank, the knight had a chance to meet with a special tool against which no protection could save. For many centuries before the advent of firearms, no armor could withstand the shot of the Welsh Longbow. However, they did not even think about giving up the armor. The range of threats in battle is not limited to one long bow.
Shining armor disappeared as a technical tool. But security as the most important principle of military science remained.
The temporary abandonment of heavy armor was due to the lack of a suitable mobile “platform” suitable for placing protection against firearms. Just as it was impossible for the armored knight to appear before the invention of stirrups (VIII century AD).
With the development of technical means, the concept of "highly protected combat unit" has acquired a new meaning. The knights were replaced by tanks, naval battleships, protected aircraft systems and other technical means, exploiting the idea of the trinity of mobility, security and firepower.
The first such opportunity presented itself to the navy. The introduction of the steam engine, coupled with the invention of the propeller, immediately increased the size of ships. From here there was only a step to the introduction of protection and the transformation of the ship into a combat platform, dominating everything that was encountered on the battlefield.
The battle of Lisse (1866) became a magnificent debut of the battleships, in which the impotence of artillery against ship armor was recorded. In total, the Italian and Austro-Hungarian fleets fired 6, 5 thousand shots at each other (most of them at close range), and failed to sink a single battleship by force of artillery fire.
Half a century later, the value of the armor was confirmed in the Battle of Tsushima. The sinking of the squadron battleships required an absolutely insane amount of hits from guns of a completely non-childish caliber.
A good example and a standard of survivability was the "Eagle", which was used to compile an atlas of damage after the battle. Over fifty hits with the main and medium caliber, not counting the "scratches" from small shells!
The sight of the "Eagle" after the battle does not give reason to doubt the conclusions of foreign experts.
But what is surprising … out of 900 members of its crew, 25 people became victims of the battle.
Such a simple and obvious fact, testifying to the importance of security.
Armored vehicles
The main road is the one on which the tank drives.
The introduction of armor on land was delayed until the advent of powerful and compact internal combustion engines. But as soon as such an opportunity presented itself - and they could not be stopped …
Masters of the battlefield. Since their first triumph in 1916, thousands of armored vehicles have blazed their mournful path on the battlefields. And, despite all the progress of anti-tank weapons, no reliable means has yet been found that can stop armored vehicles.
The multimillion-dollar Abrams can be knocked out of a penny RPG. But who counted how many grenade launchers would fly off to their Sharia paradise before that?
How many crawled with a grenade launcher on the burning ground, trying to take aim at the devilish "shaitan-arba"?
Advances in engines and transmissions are making it possible to provide even more impressive levels of protection. The whole history of the evolution of tanks is the continuous growth of the combat mass of vehicles.
BMP-2 - combat weight 14 tons.
T-15 "Armata" - combat weight 50 tons.
The "blurred" front line and the need to maintain a database in urbanized areas canceled all outdated requirements and canons for the creation of armored vehicles. The designers are trying to provide all-aspect protection, as a result, any model of the BTT (armored personnel carrier, BMP) approaches the mass and security of the main battle tanks. Indeed, who said that ten fighters locked inside an infantry fighting vehicle require less protection than an MBT crew of three. Considering that they are on the same street and have to confront the same threats?
The increase in the mass and protection of the main battle tanks is so obvious that it is not even a subject for discussion.
At the same time, neither the development of remote sensing nor the creation of an active "Afghanit" cancels the main principle of armored vehicles. The main line of defense is still a physical multilayer barrier made of steel, ceramics and depleted uranium. Slabs of this thickness were not known even by the "Royal Tigers".
Fans of all kinds of active defenses and "fields of fragments" thrown towards the ammunition, those who are trying to oppose them with physical protection, do not understand the very principle of operation of such systems.
Why did not a single oligarch think of installing reactive armor containers on his armored limousine? The answer is simple: when the remote control is activated, the containers with hexogen will destroy the limousine, “collapsing” it inside, like a tin can.
Just like large high-speed shrapnel from the ammunition intercepted by the Afghanit will pierce the car through and through.
All existing types of "active armor" require the direct use of physical protection and turn the protected object into … a tank.
No Afghanit works without classic armor.
Personal protective equipment
As for personal protective equipment, in this context, the mention of them looks frivolous.
A modern fighter in a bulletproof vest is not an analogue of a medieval knight in the sense that a knight in armor in the conditions of that era was a much more significant combat unit that dominates the battlefield.
Even being dressed in "Warrior" equipment and armed with the most powerful small arms, a modern soldier does not have the superiority that a knight had in relation to everyone who met him on the way.
Nowadays, a tank can be considered as an analogue of a knight, but not an individual person.
