a little mythbusting about Roman Armor

[andrew881thebest]

there were different body types for different roles in gladiators. Murmillo was usually big and probably fat, I remember of a Murmillo whose bones were found to refer to a guy 6 1 feet tall, quite impressive in that age. While others were probably more agile and skinny. I imagine many gladiators looking like rugby players, who are muscolar and massive but clearly overweight in some case. Cause a bigger amount of body mass can help in some cases where you need a bigger amount of body mass.

[JaM]

Sorry for rewiving old thread, yet since back then, some new information got to public about Roman Mail - there was a find in Denmark, what originally was thought to be medieval mail shirt, but after some examination it was discovered that the shirt is of much older age, while its construction is exactly same as what Roman mail construction process was.. Whats more, this mail shirt was actually shaped in the precise same form as Roman Tunic..



for more details, you can read the article here:

https://www.academia.edu/19694568/Th..._Mail_Garments

The resemblance between the cross-shaped tunic and the Vimose coat of mail is no coincidence.
It is very probable that in antiquity the coat of mail was not seen merely as a piece of
armour, but as a tunic in its own right, albeit one that offered protection to its wearer. There is
some literary support for this suggestion. Varro, who wrote in the 1st century BC, speaks of ex
anulis ferrea tunica, or the ‘iron tunic made of rings’, to refer to the mail coat when he is explaining
the etymological origin of the word for cuirass (lorica). This author, then, confirms
that the mail coat was perceived as a tunic. Varro, De lingua latina, V.24.

Interestingly enough, this armor had iron fasteners present where shoulder pieces were fitted in, which suggest this mail shirt is coming from 1.century BC or possibly older.. (around 2.c BC new shape of mail was used, similar to today's shirts, therefore shoulder doubling was no longer used, which means iron fasteners were no longer present.)

so it seems Vimose Mail Tunic might be very close to what Republican Legionarii actually used.

[JaM]

Also, it seems more and more works take into account the actual literal source of Polybius, who never said that Hastati was equipped worse than Principes or Triarii.

One especially interesting reconstruction of a Early Legionary wearing the Pectoral with the subarmalis over tunic:

[Frunk]

The image in the above post was removed incorrectly, and thus has now been restored.

[Intranetusa]

What costs more, interlocked (puzzle piece?) tin-foil armor or heavy duty chainmail rings? It aint easy to make circles.

Necro-thread revival.

There is a misconception that chainmail is hard to make - it's actually simple to make. Chainmail is made from looping long metal wires around a pole or cylinder.

It took a lot of manhours to link and rivet each chain by hand, but technologically speaking, it was easy to make and didn't require that much skill. That's why chainmail has been used since 5th century BCE, and why it was the most common metal armor during Roman times through medieval Europe.

On the other hand, making metal plates, especially larger bands of metal plates as seen in the segmentata, is technologically more difficult. Your average soldier might be able to rivet together pieces of chain for his chainmail armor, but there is no way he could forge a piece of metal plate by himself. You needed skilled blacksmiths for that.

I think we're also being influenced and misled by our modern conception of producing metal plate - today, with technology and automation, mass producing metal plates is simple and easy. Chainmail is still hard to produce today because we still need to rivet/weld/link and piece together each chain by hand. Plate armor of almost any variety is easier and less time consuming to make than chainmail in today's world thanks to the ease of machinery making metal plates. That's not true for the ancient world, where metal plates (especially large plates) had to be created by skilled blacksmith. Repairs for plates required forging and hammer as well, whereas repairs for chainmail would've been easier since you're replacing individual links that got damaged.

[Principe Alessandro]

I think that the main issue with plate armor is that it requires to surpass a technological threshold in order to achieve optimal performance like the other more traditional and well established armor types of that time, for example being capable to work with plates that are much more thicker and larger.

I think that segmentata was nothing more than an experiment that led to nothing because the technology wasn't yet there.

[betto]

I think that the main issue with plate armor is that it requires to surpass a technological threshold in order to achieve optimal performance like the other more traditional and well established armor types of that time, for example being capable to work with plates that are much more thicker and larger.

I think that segmentata was nothing more than an experiment that led to nothing because the technology wasn't yet there.

segmentata were abandoned on infantry but on cavalry it kept been used. warfare changed so the troops that receives better armor too. and segmentata reemerged on medieval .

[JaM]

actually, Segmented armor was not possible to use on horseback.. even breastplates had to be specifically shaped for sitting person, yet segmented armor didnt allowed that position well.

[daelin4]

I think that the main issue with plate armor is that it requires to surpass a technological threshold in order to achieve optimal performance like the other more traditional and well established armor types of that time, for example being capable to work with plates that are much more thicker and larger.

I think that segmentata was nothing more than an experiment that led to nothing because the technology wasn't yet there.

I think it is also possible that while there may be some cases of exceptional quality, the general trends were disfavourable to the point that it gained an unpopular reputation. For example, the foundries that made them "in quantity" turned out to be produce inferior products, thus earning a reputation (however unearned) among soldiers of unreliability relative to the more ubiquitous and frankly more accessible mail armour. New technologies sometimes require some time to mature, and segmented armour may have been just that- teething problems caused troops to ditch them. You don't want troublesome armour to be the reason for dying in battle, would you?
If someone makes a novel with the subject as a bit of a side plot, it would be plausible, though admittedly not probable, that segmented armour was an attempt to advance the evolution of armour but failed since the execution wasn't done properly. There are many examples of interesting ideas out there that simply didn't gain mainstream traction, and not necessarily because they sucked.

On the subject of rivets, I think another bad point (hur hur) of segmented armour was that fasteners and joints were much more vulnerable when broken; a few bad rings here and there isn't as big a deal for mail, but compare that with entire plates falling off because one rivet joint had been rusted. Romans didn't have welding technology, either, so that certainly didn't help with armour design. You can say that segmented armour suffered from having far more critical and vulnerable hardpoints, despite having overall fewer total parts, whereas you'd have to lose entire sections of rings to be in big trouble when wearing mail; but even then, you can still be wearing the bloody thing.
Plus, every plate needed such fittings, and likely none were standardized; archaeological samples indicate a diverse range of patterns, which then also points to a possible logistical issue; you'd either need a reliable and steady supply cache of replacement parts, or enough skilled local smiths to produce them on hand. Which then also means that soldiers probably thought it cheaper to just stick to the old stuff that everyone and their great grandfather knows how to make.

I mean if segmented armour was THAT great, why did they go back to mail?

[wermez]

Anybody considered that some of roman legionaries sometimes fought without armor, just with helmets, swords, javelins and shields?

[daelin4]

Yes

[wermez]

I dont have Velites on my mind. Hastati maybe, in times of crisis?

[JaM]

Hastati were equipped same as other Heavy infantry. They were chosen from youths of Middle class, which doesnt mean they didnt had good equipment if their family was rich enough. So if anything, there would be Hastati, Principes and Triarii that would not be able to afford any armor.. Also, Triarii were not always drafted.. there are plenty of examples when they were not even present on battlefields..especially during second Punnic war, when sometimes legions were formed from lowest classes or even freed slaves.

[KLAssurbanipal]

New Osprey book about Roman heavy cavalry will be release in this month.

"Roman Heavy Cavalry (1)
CATAPHRACTARII & CLIBANARII, 1ST CENTURY BC–5TH CENTURY AD"

• Author: Raffaele D’Amato, Andrey Evgenevich Negin
• Illustrator: Andrey Evgenevich Negin
• Publication Date: 29 Nov 2018

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: