lorica segmentata

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Well, like I said, I saw it. I was untwisting the bauldric at the time so that it didn't catch on the back plates.

[Watchman]

Ah, you meant the gaps around the joint and neck openings and so on. That's a different story of course, and over millenia there was always considerable amounts of armourer chutzpah dedicated to figuring out how to close those while still allowing for enough freedom of movement. Far as I know they still haven't worked out a solution that didn't compromise one thing or another...

Those also often tended to be very popular spots to aim for if your weapon couldn't actually penetrate the armour. I know a few interesting examples of this, but let's not digress too much.

What I meant was it was a cheap, reliable, and powerful weapon that every Welshman ans his sheep could afford. Rather like the AK being a cheap, reliable, and powerful weapon that every Afgan and his goat can afford. You dissagree?

Oh, in that sense. Yeah, wherever there was enough wilderness to hunt in (ie. that wasn't someone's private hunting reserve or somesuch) and even remotely suitable materials for crafting bows available the common folk more often than not both owned good bows a-plenty and were rather good shots with them. The northern forest belt was practically crawling with capable archers for nearly almost as long as humans dwelt there, and for example in Late Medieval if not even Early Modern Scandinavia the ability to draw a bow served as a mark of adulthood with all the associated rights and dues - it also long formed the basis for adminstrative census for taxation and so on.

The composite bow had a rather similar role wherever the prequisites for its manufacture were present, I understand.