Question about lethality on Roman units

[Sarcasm]

This is AFAIK correct. And makes you wonder what the uproar was, given that one of the more popular instruments among Hellenic cavalrymen for smiting down thine neighbour was the kopis/machaira, which is pretty much designed for messily dismembering people.

There's a theory that the Romans just kept at it when they were dead already, so they'd not be exactly shocked at the weapons effects, but rather on how the systematic Roman soldier looked at killing. As in, butcher-work.

[Sarcasm]

Bronze would just spring back into shape wouldn't it ? Soft iron is an entirely another issue.

That all depends on how the sword was made. Simply put, soft iron doesn't store as much energy as a bronze alloy, but most of these weapons had a decent amount of steel in their cutting edges, so it's not a linear thing we're discussing here.

Generally speaking, bronze is superior to iron in every way until it becomes worked steel. Oh and it's also more expensive.

@Maeran:

Steel making was far more advanced in the oppida of central Europe and Iberia than in Roman and Greek worlds.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Generally speaking, bronze is superior to iron in every way until it becomes worked steel.

An army equipted with iron would decimate an army equipted with bronze.

[Sarcasm]

I'm afraid you're wrong, if we're applying strict terms. Every single physical property of Bronze is superior to Iron. It is the process of making a weapon that *may* make iron superior bronze by mechanical processes.

It's more a matter of the technique involved in the making of the weapon, rather than the material itself.

[Watchman]

An army equipted with iron would decimate an army equipted with bronze.

That's not actually so cut and dried. Take an army from the very end of the bronze-weapon period, when the technical know-how of how to make nice killy tools out of it had reached its peak (the Chinese apparently really pushed the envelope for example), and put it up against an equivalent one equipped with early, crappy iron weaponry and my money'd be on the former hands down. Iron is admirably plentiful all things considered and hence cheap, and once you figure out the tricks you can do things with it bronze can't even hope to achieve; but before you've figured out the tricky metallurgy and craftsmanship involved highly advanced bronze goods will remain competitive (in terms of quality if not quantity and price) for a good while.

Remember also that people kept making armour out of bronze long after iron weaponry became the norm.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Sure you take a chunk of iron ore up against a bronze sword, the bronze will win. But if you put equal quality into both (iron, admititedly, will require greater heat and probably longer time), the iron will win.

[Sarcasm]

That's not actually so cut and dried. Take an army from the very end of the bronze-weapon period, when the technical know-how of how to make nice killy tools out of it had reached its peak (the Chinese apparently really pushed the envelope for example), and put it up against an equivalent one equipped with early, crappy iron weaponry and my money'd be on the former hands down. Iron is admirably plentiful all things considered and hence cheap, and once you figure out the tricks you can do things with it bronze can't even hope to achieve; but before you've figured out the tricky metallurgy and craftsmanship involved highly advanced bronze goods will remain competitive (in terms of quality if not quantity and price) for a good while.

Indeed, and that period you speak of was probably very long, as you can find both types of weapons co-existing for a couple hundred years before bronze is phased out as a weapon's material. Heck at the time of the Romans there were still tribes equipped with locally made bronze spearheads.

Iron is blissfully plentyfull, and that was it's main strength before any of it's physical characteristics, and why it gained such prominence at a time the main ingredients of bronze become scarce. You could then become a military power by yourself, instead of having to submit to those cultures that controlled the trade routes of bronze making.

Remember also that people kept making armour out of bronze long after iron weaponry became the norm.

Bronze has this magnificent property you know. There's *much* less metal-on-metal friction than other metals, so let's say you hit a guy with a bronze helmet in his head with a sword, chances are, it'll glance off and hit your shoulders, which are hopefully protected by the then [what you know, it actually makes sense] very common shoulder-reinforcements most armour had, linen or mail.

[Sarcasm]

Sure you take a chunk of iron ore up against a bronze sword, the bronze will win. But if you put equal quality into both (iron, admititedly, will require greater heat and probably longer time), the iron will win.

Thing is, it is no longer iron by the time it gets better than bronze. Not entirely anyway.