Quote Originally Posted by russia almighty
How was Lino-thorax armor an effective form of armor ? Has there been some experimental archeology to prove that it could take a beating?
From "The Effectiveness of Classical Armour" by John Gerson, from Slingshot 102, July 1982. I've quoted the portions relevant to linothorax effectiveness.

The thicknesses of bronze and steel armour required to just stop some ancient weapons have been calculated and are shown in the Table below. The kinetic energies of the weapons were estimated from several factors, such as their weight and range and the performance of modern athletes in tests .

Arrow - radius of 3 mm, energy of 200 joules for 23.5 mm thick bronze or 14.4 mm thick iron.

Small catapult bolt - Radius of 5 mm, energy of 400 joules for 17.0 mm thick or 10.4 mm thick iron.

Javelin - radius of 10 mm, energy of 200 joules for 2.2 mm thick bronze or 1.3 mm thick iron.

Sling-shot - radius of 8 mm, energy of 100 joules for 1.7 mm thick bronze or 1.0 mm thick iron.

The armour thicknesses obtained above are slightly larger than the actual values that would be obtained from the experiment. From 5% to 40% of the projectile's initial kinetic energy will be lost by air resistance, metal-to-metal friction at impact and be deforming the projectile itself. This last factor, which was important in an age in which the sword blades were made of soft-wrought iron, could be minimized by the use of harder materials for weapons. The Greeks' bronze arrowheads contain much more of the hardening element lead than their armour, whcih implies that Greek arrows were intended to be armour-piercing.

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A missile penetrates padding or other low density materials [i.e. the linen of the linothorax] by pushing material out of its path. This is a momentum transfer process and experiments have shown that the penetrating power of a projectile is proportional to its momentum, rather than its kinetic energy. Because the momentum of a missile of given kinetic energy decreases with lower mass, padded armour stops light projectiles, such as arrows or slingshots, particularly effectively. Padding also offers good protection against sword cuts. The use of the sword as a primary weapon by Romans and Celts may have encourages the late Etruscans' experiments with quilted armour as a substitute for mail.

But woven textile armour and laminates of cloth and glue display a property known as the limiting velocity, which was described by Jaskowski in 1964. If a textile armour is struck by a projectile travelling faster than the limiting velocity (the speed corresponding to the momentum required to pierce it), the projectile will perforate the armour with virtually no loss of kinetic energy.

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The largest energy that the linen [in a linothorax] can absorb in an impact is 100 joules.

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At a guess, a long slashing sword could probably dispose of 150 joules, which is twice the energy required to shatter a man's skull. Felt, which was commonly used to line the inside of helmets, is described by the Shock and Vibration Handbook as being too elastic properly to absorb a blow.
This is the only source I have ever found for such information, though I'm sure many reenactors have put linothoraxes to the test in the past.