Youth Armoured Combat Draft:Armour Requirements

General

1. These are the rules for the armour that you must wear, but you can also wear more or better armour if that makes you feel safer.
2. We encourage you to make your armour look medieval, but you might need to use modern sports equipment for safety reasons.

Head - all divisions

1. Your helm must completely cover your head.
2. You can use a hockey helmet, lacrosse helmet, and other sports helmet with a rigid facemask, but the helmet might need to have parts added or be altered to fully enclose your head.
3. You are allowed to have a period-looking helm.
4. Depending on your size and development (how strong you are), the marshal-in-charge may not let you use a helmet that is too heavy for you to wear safely, as the weight becomes a problem rather than helping to protect you.
5. Your helmet must be constructed of a continuous rigid material.
6. Your helmet is not allowed to have "floating" segments that are only attached with straps.
7. Your helmet must have a grill, rigid mesh, or a face plate that keeps a weapon from making contact with your face.
   1. Your helmet must not have any gaps that are bigger than 50 mm in the area protecting your face.
8. Your helmet must have a chinstrap or something that does the same thing that will keep your helmet from coming off or touching your face during combat.
9. Your helmet and neck protection must work together so that a weapon cannot touch any part of your head or neck.
10. Your helmet must be padded inside so that the rigid parts of it cannot touch your head.
    1. The padding must be soft enough to be protective, but not so soft that you can squish it and feel the hard surface behind it.
11. Your helmet can have an aventail or camail (chainmail that hangs off it), or a bevor (rigid neck protection) to help protect your neck.

Neck

1. Division 1: You need to protect your throat and larynx with a minimum of light leather (at least 1.6mm thick), or something that provides the same or better protection.
2. Division 2: You need to cover your larynx, cervical vertebrae, and first thoracic vertebra with a gorget of at least 2.8mm thick leather with 6mm of padding.
3. Division 3: You need to cover your larynx, cervical vertebrae, and first thoracic vertebra with a gorget of rigid material or at least 4mm thick heavy leather, with 6mm of padding.
4. You can wear an aventail, camail, or maille coif instead of a gorget or as well as your gorget, as long as all the areas that have to be protected are covered.

Body

1. Division 1: You must have your torso, shoulders and armpits and upper legs covered with at least some cloth. Tunics, shirts, or bodices, and pants, shorts, or skirts are acceptable.
2. Division 2: In addition to what you need to wear for Division 1, you need to protect your kidneys with at least 2.8mm thick leather with at least 6mm of padding, or something that provides the same or better protection. We recommend that you wear chest protection of 2.8mm leather or heavy quilted material, or something that provides the same or better protection, but you don't have to.
3. Division 3: In addition to what you need to wear for Division 1 and Division 2, you need to protect your xyphoid process (this is at the bottom of your sternum) with at least 2.8mm thick leather over 6mm of padding, or something that provides the same or better protection. We recommend that you wear chest protection of 2.8mm leather or heavy quilted material, or something that provides the same or better protection, but you don't have to.

Groin

1. If you have testicles, you need to protect them with an athletic cup.
   1. If the cup has straps to hold it in place, you need to use them. If the cup doesn't have straps, you need to wear something that is designed to keep it in place.
2. If you don't have testicles, we recommend that you wear a padded skirt, 4mm leather or similar groin protection to cover your pubic bone area.

Elbow and knee joints

1. Division 1: You need to wear cloth over your elbows and knees. You could wear a long sleeve shirt and long pants, or a short sleeve shirt and shorts with elbow pad and kneepads.
2. Division 2: You need to protect your elbows and knees with at least soft pads.
3. Division 3: You need to protect your elbows and knees with rigid material over padding. You can wear hockey, motocross and other similar sports elbow and kneepads.

Hand and wrist protection

1. Division 1: You need to wear gloves made of cloth, canvas, or thin leather, or something that provides the same or better protection.
2. Division 2: You need to wear gloves with at least 6mm of padding on the back of your fingers, back of your hand, and your wrist. You can wear street hockey gloves, or if you use a basket hilt, you can wear a cloth or leather glove with extra wrist protection.
3. Division 3: You need to wear at least a sports glove with at least 12mm of padding protecting your fingers, back of your hand, and wrist, and extra thumb protection.
   1. You can use ice hockey or lacrosse goalie gloves, or something that provides the same or better protection.
   2. You can wear gauntlets of at least 4mm thick leather or rigid material padded with 6mm of closed cell foam or heavy padding.
   3. You can also wear lighter gloves with a basket hilt and additional wrist protection, such as a half gauntlet.
   4. You are not allowed to wear street hockey gloves on their own.

Feet: all divisions

1. You have to wear closed-toe shoes that fit your properly and keep you from slipping. You are not allowed to have open toes, wear sandals, toe shoes, flip-flops, Crocs, etc.

Shields: all divisions

1. Your shield is allowed to be made of wood, plastic, foam, aluminium, or something like those.
2. The edges of your shield have to be covered by plastic tubing, leather, or foam that is at least 12mm wide to stop it from damaging weapons or other fighters.
3. If your shield has any wires, bolts, screws, or other anything else that sticks out more than 6mm, it needs to be padded or taped. A rounded shield boss doesn't count.
4. Your shield needs to be a shape that they actually used in history.
5. Your shield needs to a size and weight that you can use safely.