a little mythbusting about Roman Armor

[Archimonday]

When we talk about shields we have to take a step back and really examine how they were designed.

Its already a noted fact that most ancient shields had a central handle by which they were wielded. The important part comes from the direction the handle faces. A scutums handle is horizontal, which lends itself to rotations on an upward or downward plane. Where as, many round shields had handles which were vertical, which allowed rotation from side to side. This has a very big effect on how one engages a target with a shield. While this next video references more medieval fighting, it demonstrates why a vertical handle, and the concept of a round shield was effective in fighting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkhpqAGdZPc#t=235

So now lets take a moment to think about a shield such as a Thureos, a Scutum, or any other Oval shields which used horizontal grips and come to terms with how one could use that in a similar way. Hiding your sword, or in most likely case, spear, behind your shield, you wait for an attack, then you parry either up, or down, rotating the shield to push the enemies attack in a direction, and then at the exact same moment deliver an attack of your own.

A scutum also curiously reminds me of a Pavise. Its shape warranting the idea that it could probably stand up on its own. With a horizontal grip more pressure could be applied downward, and so its more than a possibility in my mind, that Scutum can be used (similarly to the riot picture above) to create a wall behind which other men could fight the enemy in relative safety. So if you create a wall of scutum, then cover it with more scutum, and from behind this throw all manner of missiles at the enemy, you get an interesting development.

Curiously enough, its interesting to note that Polybius says the Principes carried spears at some point early in the First Punic War. Thats interesting. Why when the Hastati were switching to the Gladius, would Triarii and Principes both be using spears? Well interestingly enough, the two man team of Spearman and swordsman is a well known battlefield team. The swordsman defends the spearman from attacks, and makes jabs at the enemy, while the spearman, who has longer reach works to deliver a successful strike. Though there may be no literary evidence to support this observation, it would seem to me that Hastati could have fallen back on the Principes, not to pass through the line and allow them to fight, but to make a wall of scutum behind which the Principes could thrust with their spears, pull enemies in, or like in the korean riot video, divide the enemy formation.

I'm a believer that there is a lot of missing understanding on how these weapon systems were used biomechanically with one another.

[JaM]

i think horizontal handle might have something to do with fatigue reduction. Scutum was relatively heavy shield, 7-10kg is quite a lot if you have to hold it for several hours during battle.. i spent some of my free time in fitness centers, so can tell that when doing biceps pullups, i can use much greater weight with horizontal grip, than i would do with vertical,but it would also depends on type of grip. Fingers up grip, is the grip ,you can hold quite heavy weight even for a bit longer time, yet fingers down, not so much...

Overall, your comparation to Pavise sounds right, Legionaries preferred to fight from lower posture, they supported their shields on the ground, Triarii even knelt to preserve their strength for time they will be needed.. i think if they were kept in ready state, holding their shields up, that would definitely reduce their strength before contact with enemy...


Anyway, regarding Principes using spears, i'm not so sure about that, as they were said to use them in both hands... which means they must have dropped the shield, which suggest it was most likely improvisation on the battlefield, than standard tactics..

Lots of people don't realize that spear was quite effective weapon, if used in initial clash.. much more effective than sword could ever be.. charging in formation, with spears lowered and fixed, is something that can literally destroy your opponent. I recently read a book that was investigating Hoplite fighting style from a completely new perspective, and this was something that was depicted quite extensively. Hoplite with spear levered and fixed in underarm grip with spear being over his shield rim, was in quite fixated form, sauroter was additionally fixed by shield of men behind. Spear was held like this in the back, which means Hoplite projected about 2m in front of him. If such formation moved forward, weight of men, together with his speed was transferred to the tip of his spear. Charge of such formation with let say light run/faster walk of 2m/s (let assume weight of men of 75kg, his armor and shield adds another 25kg), would give us 200 joules of kinetic energy delivered by the spear point.. that was quite enough to defeat shields and armors of the time..

Some might think that if you are moving and you thrust at the last second, spear speed would increase and so will impact energy, yet that is not the case, as your wrist wont be able to handle this increase, and will flex out reducing the impact energy. One handed thrusts with spears based on tests performed gave relatively low speed - 8.3m/s for underarm upper thrust (spear as high as your shoulders),7.5m/s underarm low thrust (spear same way as can be seen in R2) and just 6.5m/s for overarm thrust (similar to grip for throwing javelin) which means the most effective way how to use spear was the first one, thanks to which such thrust could deliver about 50+ joules (overarm grip about 30+, low grip 40+ joules)

Anyway back to Principes, with the heavy scutum in hand, its quite hard to imagine them using spear anyhow effectively for long time, if you have to hold the shield. It would make much more sense, lay the shield down on the ground, and fight from lower ground. This might even explain why spears were dropped completely later - oval Scutum was longer, therefore when on the ground, it gave more protection, while new Square Scutum would be too low to provide good enough of protection for a spearmen. it was not that big deal for Auxilia, as Thureos was much lighter, thus could be used in one hand a bit easier..

[JaM]

Some of you guys cited Dan Howard previously, here is what he said on topic of Segmentata:

How effective was Chainmail

This has all been covered before. Segmentata was munitions armour. There isn't a single depiction of an officer wearing it. Those who had the means seem to have preferred mail or scale or solid plate, rather than segmentata. Mail took longer to make and was more expensive than segmentata. Given the time required just to make wire (hundreds of meters for each hamata) and the purity of the iron required, its likely that mail was the most expensive type of armour available (apart from heavily decorated bronze plate).

Mail was just as protective as segmentata, covered more of the body, was more comfortable, more flexible, easier to transport, easier to maintain and repair, required far fewer tools and spare parts, and it lasted longer. Segmentata was cheaper and faster to produce, was a little lighter than mail, and better against blunt trauma. Strips of iron plate can be made by apprentices. There is no skill required. There is also a suggestion that at least some Roman plate was made with rolling mills.

Segmentata was phased out around the same time that the state took over the armour fabricas and had nothing to do with a "barbarianized" army.

We have no idea whether Romans wore a subarmalis under their mail. IMO their mail had an integrated padded liner and they just wore a regular tunic underneath.

http://www.romanarmytalk.com/17-roma...chainmail.html

[SD_Man]

Its hard to take it seriously when the source uses acronyms in its explanation. Lol, jk, Musculata FTW!!!

[HuangCaesar]

Segementa is more expensive than Hamata...

[SD_Man]

Segementa is more expensive than Hamata...

[JaM]

you guys are lost cause...

[daelin4]

It is interesting that segmentata is rarely depicted in anyone other than the average legionary. Centurions are most often depicted as wearing chainmail, among other things like discs for conspicuous display. If anything segmentata and it's use among legionaries certainly were not for the sole purpose of any superior protective qualities.

Speaking of which, it should be noted that changes to the army are not always for the best. Not unless you seriously think the US Army's transition to and out of UCP is a classic example of positive change.

Personally I think this is the best analogy we have on the matter: segmented armour may have been useful at some point, but not so for others, for which it fell out of use over time. Not to mention the far more prolific use of other armour types like mail that would have made its spread that much more difficult.

[JaM]

unit routing is not desertion... it happened all the time..its not like they routed and run all the way back to Italia... except few exceptions, every unit in the world would rout in case of unfavorable odds...


(you guys are funny.. its always one extreme against another.. no middle ground..)

[Anna_Gein]

(you guys are funny.. its always one extreme against another.. no middle ground..)

Why do you make generalization on everyone with a single user post as a basis ? His post was humorous by the way.

[Dunadd]

Really interesting OP and thread - thanks JaM

[JaM]

Dunadd: thanks

Anna_Gein: It was not meant against anybody in particular.. it was just my observation from several discussions here or on other forums (well except MyArmoury.com, those guys are golden exception.. probably because there is no anonymity, which always makes people to behave as they should), and from reading RomanArmyTalk posts of Dan Howard, he experienced same thing over and over... people tend to ignore the provided links, wont read the info you give them and usually keep posting same opinions over and over again, never accepting provided facts no matter what.. but hey, what would i want? some decency on the internet?

[SD_Man]

Well until real repeated tests are done to prove these "provided facts" than the "debates" will continue. We need the truth not the math, we need real-time experimentation with real people, not simple reenactors, to sacrifice the needs of the few for the needs of the many!

[JaM]

Well until real repeated tests are done to prove these "provided facts" than the "debates" will continue. We need the truth not the math, we need real-time experimentation with real people, not simple reenactors, to sacrifice the needs of the few for the needs of the many!

Dan Howard is not some kind of a reenactor... he is historian and published author who wrote several books specializing on ancient armor.. you can easily google him up...

[Archimonday]

I'm a firm believer that there is a vast amount of information we simply don't have, because evidence of it does not exist. We always like to sit on our high horse and revel in our modern industrial capacity, but I feel that the Ancient world, though it relied heavily on man-power, livestock, and other primitive energy sources, was just as industrial as our modern world. Why should we do the ancients a disservice by condescendingly belittling their societies? Obviously they had the capability to equip massive armies, we know that they did, so their industrial power must have existed in one capacity or another.

This is no where near truer than with armor. I'm a firm believer that there is a lot of missing information on the vast array of armor that would have been worn by the Roman army. Even after Marians time, there would have been noticeable differences between Legions, and probably to a lesser degree, Cohorts. A vast majority of Roman soldiers could have been wearing other types of lighter armor, perhaps something similar to Linothorax, and leather, maybe no armor at all!

I see everything from a soldiers perspective, so when I see the carvings in stone, and the mosaics, and the archaeological finds I have to take a step back and realize that these things are depicting not only an artists rendition of the Roman Army, but also a propagandized version of it. Now how fortunate are we that we have literary evidence as well about the Roman Army? Extremely, but even reading books written by Livy, or Caesars own accounts of Germania must be taken with a grain of salt. They are afterall describing the 'ideal' not the reality. Think about how great of a tale it must have been; Caesars troops return from a great northern land, where uncivilized, non-latin speaking people, with crazed homicidal battle tactics with no sense of honor, screaming and yelling at the top of their lungs, throwing themselves onto the Roman shields, running into battle completely naked, tattooed with demons all over, and YET, the vastly more civilized, Latin, imperial lock step of professionalism that is Rome and the Roman Army defeated these beasts with minimal casualties at all times! Yea, I think you get my point.

I think one of my favorite claims is that Lorica Segmentata must've been custom fit to every single man who wore it. That simply makes zero sense to me. There had to have been a way to adjust the size of the armor, or, the armor was produced in variable sizes from smallest to largest, so that it could be removed from soldiers who left the army either by death or by separation; and then given to another soldier mustered to replace him. There is no way I can sit back and believe that the Roman army would intentionally modify, or destroy every piece of armor every single time a new man joined the ranks, that is just ridiculous.

[SD_Man]

I dont think you know what I mean when I say: Sacrifice, Hardcore Reenacting, and Blood and Bones. At the very least, a pig in a suit ...

[JaM]

btw, here are some pictures of real Roman Hamata chainmail - it looks nothing like today's replicas imported from india or china..









look how thick these rings are...

[Dunadd]

The mail looks bloody heavy. I can see how it would provide better protection, but it'd also be exhausting to fight in. They must have been extremely fit - and they must not have moved that fast either.

[Kissaki]

The mail looks bloody heavy. I can see how it would provide better protection, but it'd also be exhausting to fight in. They must have been extremely fit - and they must not have moved that fast either.

"A helmet is usually thought to be very heavy, but when one is attacking a castle or something similar, and arrows, bullets,large rocks, great pieces of wood and the like are coming down, it will not seem the least bit so."
-Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure

[andrew881thebest]

probably that mail was for cavalry, so it could be heavy but mainly horse should carry it. I do not think the regular (fit, ok, but not "rambo-like") infantry man would carry that mail, then the heavy shield, that all the 30-40 kgs impedimenta while marching 30 miles a day. It would simply be inhuman. I think a modern athlete would have hard time doing that nowadays. And you must imagine that regular infantry man was just man of the folks, trained for some time, ok, but not an athlete.