lobster-tailed pot

plural lobster-tailed pots

1. A European combat helmet, worn especially from the 1600s into the 1700s, consisting of a rounded skull-piece, often cheek guards and a nasal or face-guard, and a laminated defence (or single plate ridged to imitate lames) to protect the back of the neck that resembled a lobster's tail.

   The close helmet shown in the illustration was by this time giving place to the pot, the familiar lobster-tailed pot with side-pieces or cheeks and a barred, open face protection.

   2002, Philip Burton, Martin Marix Evans, M Westaway, Naseby-June 1645: English Civil War, Pen and Sword, →ISBN, page 24

   5 more examples

   They wore a back-and-front breastplate over a buff leather coat, which itself gave some protection against sword cuts, and normally a "lobster-tailed pot" helmet with a movable three-barred visor, and a bridle gauntlet on the left hand.

   1987, New Model Army

   During sieges, those sapeurs working in the entrenchments closest to the enemy's position would wear heavy cuirasses and pâts en tête (a helmet resembling the “lobster-tailed pot” worn by Cromwell's Ironsides), both painted black.

   2009, John R. Elting, Swords Around A Throne: Napoleon's Grande Armée, Da Capo Press, →ISBN, page 276

   Clad in the famous buff leather coat, breastplate and 'lobster-tailed pot' helmet, the New Model soldier is instantly recognizable to us. The disadvantage of using professional soldiers is that they have to be paid, and dissatisfaction ...

   2015, David Clark, A Brief Guide To British Battlefields: From the Roman Occupation to Culloden, Robinson, →ISBN

   He jammed his own helmet onto his head. It was nowhere close to being as fancy a helmet as the one the woman had removed, just the common sort of lobster-tailed pot helmet known as a zischagge.

   2017, Eric Flint, 1636: The Ottoman Onslaught, Baen Books, →ISBN

   “Because I don't think that is a seventeenth-century helmet.” There was something odd about the smoothness of the crown. The skull of the lobster-tailed pot helmet was often fluted. Generally, they were made in two sections joined by a ...

   2017, Hannah Dennison, Murderous Mayhem at Honeychurch Hall: A Honeychurch Hall Mystery, Minotaur Books, →ISBN, page 13

   Synonyms: lobster pot, zischägge, harquebusier's pot, horseman's pot