Armor Type:  Armor plates

Brief Description:  Lames are individual overlapping strips of sheet metal used in historical armor construction. By riveting these plates together or connecting them via leather straps, armorers created flexible, articulated sections that allowed for critical joint movement while maintaining continuous, protective coverage.

Key Characteristics and Function:

Articulation: Lames are designed to slide over one another in a telescopic fashion. This mimics the biomechanics of the human body, allowing joints to bend without causing the armor to bind or lock.

Construction: They are typically narrow and rectangular. In classic European plate armor, multiple lames are often connected via internal leather straps or floating "sliding rivets" that allow for lateral and vertical shifting.

Materials: While primarily made of steel or iron in medieval Europe, similar concepts used smaller hard platelets (lamellae) laced together in Eastern, Byzantine, and Japanese armor.

Because fitting these articulated strips requires a precise understanding of a person's anatomical range of motion, poorly spaced lames can easily restrict movement or fail to protect gaps in the armor.