Castle Quest - Reply to Topic

Forum:	Medieval Life And Culture
Topic:	Boiling Water?

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T O P I C R E V I E W
toughguy12 When attackers attacked a castle, sometimes the defenders would pour boiling water on them. If the attackers had armor on, how would the water hurt them?
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toughguy12

Erik Schmidt Well it certainly wouldn't be as bad as it could be, but armour is a defence against cutting and slicing, but is not waterproof.
Even on the better full suits the boiling water would be enough to badly scald in unprotected areas or places where the armour joins, such as the face, neck, elbows and wrists.
I don't know how often boiling water was used, as most methods of seige relied on throwing missiles, seige towers, mining(sapping) below the walls or starving them out. It could only be used against direct attacks on the walls, which were not so common, and usually made use of a protective roof, such as when battering or picking the walls or gates.
Peter Men with full armour would not normally attack a castle. That would be left to the cannon/arrow fodder.
For even a slight fall might kill a man in armour, or result in him not being able to remove it fully.