" Scale stops arrows and such pretty well by all accounts, and isn't half bad against most other weapons (although mail is on the average better it has some inherent issues with pointy things). Plus it's relatively cheap and simple to manufacture and maintain, which is always useful."

(NoScript has some issue, quotes etc are not working right now) Good mail with thick padding is almost arrowproof, at least Dan Howard writes that a heavy warbow (over 130lbs iirc) was not able to penetrate it with historic bodkins from a close distance (~ 10m).

But rightly the point is: Multilayered padding is excellent at absorbing the momentum of an projectile and a blow, but stops also the rare blunted arrowheads which were able to pierce the mail. The linothorax employs exactly the same mechanism to resist blunt, sharp and pointed force. So what is the essential difference between a scale-covered linothorax and a thickly padded scalearmor?

Both employ practically the same mechanism to stop an attack. The scales deflect it or deform both themselves and the blade/arrowhead, spreading out the force while pressing against the absorbing multilayered fabric. The fabric in turn spreads out the force even further and reflects the blunted arrowhead/spearhead while transfering the force into the fat and muscles which too absorb the impact.

So even if there are big differences in the construction the work rather in the same way, only that once has a thicker outer metalskin and a thinner inner clothlayers and viceversa. In fact every metalarmor makes good use of an inner mulitlayered fabric called padding which is of immense importance.

So we have a standalone linen armor but also metal armor making use of its characteristics in the thinner form of padding.

OA