How protective would a silver or golden armor really be?

[Inhuman One]

I've tried to look for this online, but get overwhelmed with links to all kinds of videogame armor.

I'm just curious if an armor of gold or silver would actually offer good protection or if it would just be some way to flaunt wealth.

[Dude with the Food]

Realistically, no. Gold and silver are rarer, softer an heavier than iron/steel if you aren't comparing non-metallic armours. Not that they couldn't be used to flaunt wealth but if somebody's that rich, they could probably afford to buy practical steel armour and just plate/decorate it in gold/silver.

[River Lord]

With each hit to your armor, you'd die inside

[Sar1n]

First of all, it would be terribly heavy. While iron has density of 7.8 gram per cubic centimeter and various steel alloys are close to that value, silver has 10.49-which is significantly more than even bronze (which is, I think, somewhere in 8.5-8.9 range depending on actual composition), and gold is at 19.3. So full plate armour made of solid gold would weigh well over 50 kg.

And the protective qualities would be minimal. Gold is soft, malleable...at thickness comparable to steel used in full plate armour, it would be at best comparable to various kinds of of hardened leather, like boiled leather...maybe even worse. Silver fares a bit better, but it's still far from bronze or steel. If you want hard numbers...Vickers hardness value, which could be used for decent approximation, for pure iron is 608 MPa (and remember that it is lower value than actual hardened iron that was commonly used for armour from antiquity). Silver has value of 251 MPa, and gold is around 200 (was only able to find range of values on brief search).

[Inhuman One]

Well that's good to hear, I kind of suspected it was less dense yes.

So steel covered with gold plating or such would be the way to go for someone who wants to rub their wealth in everyone's faces.

[Sar1n]

Well that's good to hear, I kind of suspected it was less dense yes.

So steel covered with gold plating or such would be the way to go for someone who wants to rub their wealth in everyone's faces.

It would, athough silver or gold finish would be quickly scraped off in battle. Jewel in sword's pommel, golden thread extensively used in banners, horse caparisons, tents etc.., those were common ways to flaunt their wealth on battlefield.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

Gold Foil or Silver Foil or Gilding was common in the migration era. This is the Berkasovo-I helmet, which belonged to an officer in the Early 4th century AD. The Theodosian Code records a law which mandates that Barbaricarii in the Roman Fabricae covered these helmets in sheathes of gold and silver. In fact, the reason why Late Roman helmets survive so often is because the sheathes very often survive.



All soldiers, or at least the overwhelming majority of them, had gilded, silvered, or gold foil covered helmets. See the Koblenz or Intercisa Hoards, for example.