Was there any accuracy in Vanilla?

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

There's much controversy about LS and LH. I personally think LS was better in some aspects, even if quite unpleasant to wear and difficult to maintain.

But then again, how to can we guarantee the best quality LS survived? What if the examples we found of such armour, and the same applies for armor like Linothrax, are just an exception and not a rule? Poor quality armor would definetely survive more due to a less constant use by the military.

[NeoSpartan]

We need to remember that we're comparing chain to Lorica Segmentata, not medieval plate.

when discussing penetration... plate armor is plate armor

when discusssing mobility, cost, etc.... then is not.

[Oleander Ardens]

Having worn a reenactment plate and a reenactment chain (hauberk) extensively, I'll tell you my opinion. Both offer great protection. Both offer mobility. Chainmail though is a real pain on the long term. All the weight is on the shoulders and after a couple hours, it really hurts! Plate, surprisingly, is lighter and split the weight between the shoulders, the back, the hips, etc...

To debunk an other myth, you can fight on foot wearing plate. You can even wrestle! There are some martial arts compendiums from the XVe century (like le noble jeu de la hache) that explain how in detail.

Plate, once you have your patterns to hammer your pieces, is really easy to do. The problem is that you need to be able to forge a good grade steel in sheets. While to make a chain mail, you just need some iron rods and A LOT OF TIME!

Good post. Fits my view of armor gained from the fechtbucher perfectly. Medieval plate armor requires a certain knowhow and a cheap source of energy or labor. We reconstructed in our village a huge water-powered hammer, which is nothing but a huge hammer with a very long shaft (4-5m) attached to a Crankshaft driven by the water wheel. Thanks to its massive momentum it really makes it easy to hammer large metal plates. Smithing with it is a blast.

I personally wonder if the massive steel producing complex of the Noricum might not have sparked the mass producing of the LS. You have there great deal of knowledge, a massive production of steel, not so many people and a good deal of streams - ideal circumstances for the employment of water wheels. And the timeframe would fit nicely, given that it was occupied shortly before the mass use of the LS.

PS: Funny I found now that the terminus tecnicus is trip-hammer. It is first recorded from Styria - once a part of the Noricum.....

Cheers
OA

[Bellum]

when discussing penetration... plate armor is plate armor

when discusssing mobility, cost, etc.... then is not.

Now that's got to be an oversimplification. Thickness, material, quality of material, design and construction methods will all have an effect on the overall quality of the armor.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

when discussing penetration... plate armor is plate armor

when discusssing mobility, cost, etc.... then is not.

Flat out wrong, LS is half the thickness of mediaeval plate and made of a different material. Don't make statements which you can't back up. Further, a solid breastplate provides protection in a different way to the more flaxable laminate forms.

[Watchman]

Just for the record, Medieval armourers AFAIK tended to regard half-thickness plates (typically arranged as laminate for flexibility) as perfectly sufficient for protecting the limbs from most melee weapons.

[Oleander Ardens]

Just for the record, Medieval armourers AFAIK tended to regard half-thickness plates (typically arranged as laminate for flexibility) as perfectly sufficient for protecting the limbs from most melee weapons.

My thoughts about plate armor coverning the limbs:

a) 1. The rounded shape of the metal plates increased their stiffness
2. It helped to deflect many more hits

b) The natural flexibility of our limbs mitigates many hits, by giving way. Try to hack a freeswinging piece of wood.

c) Even when a) and b) failed a small penetration was still not so serious as the same one suffered into the abdomen or the chest.

So IMHO it makes perfect sense to use lighter plates to cover the limbs. It seems that we have a hard time to understand the motivation behind certain developments in the field of armor. It also shows how difficult it is to test armor in a meaningful way...

Cheers
OA

[Bellum]

Just for the record, Medieval armourers AFAIK tended to regard half-thickness plates (typically arranged as laminate for flexibility) as perfectly sufficient for protecting the limbs from most melee weapons.

You worry about your heart and lungs more than your arms and legs. Flexibility is more important with your arms.

[Watchman]

Well, obviously. And that's why the body armour might be up to two layers of 2-3mm steel plate even firearms had trouble getting through... at point-blank ranges.

But it's kinda beside the point, which was that the laminate of comparatively thin metal was found by and large sufficient for protecting the limbs against most weapons. Heck, the Persians and steppe folks and slightly later Hellenistics were doing it with bronze and leather and iron in the cheires and didn't seem to regret it, and the Romans issued front-rankers of legions in Dacia a derivative to cut down the number of falx-induced amputations...

In other words, if you make the stuff even halfway decently laminate serves you quite well enough even with period tech level. And I flatly refuse to believe the Romans only ever made the things wrong during those three or so centuries they now used the thing (in several successive versions to boot, which apparently at least tried to work out some of the over-engineering bugs); their armies weren't exactly idle then either, and given the highly Darwinian nature of the weapon-armour arms race it hardly seems credible to assume they splurged money and high-end industrial capacity on a body armour design that didn't do its job.

[Oleander Ardens]

A very interesting link about the medieval watermills with an excellent summery about the helleno-roman technology

http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/technology_.../46.1lucas.pdf

As an economist I prefer the simple solution of less costs for similar performance, made possible by the mass production thanks to technological advances


Cheers
OA

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Well, obviously. And that's why the body armour might be up to two layers of 2-3mm steel plate even firearms had trouble getting through... at point-blank ranges.

But it's kinda beside the point, which was that the laminate of comparatively thin metal was found by and large sufficient for protecting the limbs against most weapons. Heck, the Persians and steppe folks and slightly later Hellenistics were doing it with bronze and leather and iron in the cheires and didn't seem to regret it, and the Romans issued front-rankers of legions in Dacia a derivative to cut down the number of falx-induced amputations...

In other words, if you make the stuff even halfway decently laminate serves you quite well enough even with period tech level. And I flatly refuse to believe the Romans only ever made the things wrong during those three or so centuries they now used the thing (in several successive versions to boot, which apparently at least tried to work out some of the over-engineering bugs); their armies weren't exactly idle then either, and given the highly Darwinian nature of the weapon-armour arms race it hardly seems credible to assume they splurged money and high-end industrial capacity on a body armour design that didn't do its job.

Indeed, if LS was plainly uneffective, why would the Romans ever adopt it for 200 years? And win wars with it? Certainly tests disagree with that; LS might not have the quality of some other Ancient body plates, but it was certainly enough to protect along with the Scutum and the Imperial Gallic Helmet. It was uncomfortable and difficult to maintain, but better to be uncomfortable and protected that comfortable and exposed.

[Sakkura]

Indeed, if LS was plainly uneffective, why would the Romans ever adopt it for 200 years? And win wars with it? Certainly tests disagree with that; LS might not have the quality of some other Ancient body plates, but it was certainly enough to protect along with the Scutum and the Imperial Gallic Helmet. It was uncomfortable and difficult to maintain, but better to be uncomfortable and protected that comfortable and exposed.

I don't even know if LS would actually be more uncomfortable than mail. The latter does tend to be a bitch on the shoulders.

[dominique]

I agree with Sakkura. LS is confortable. I just tried one . You need to be in good shape though (less EB mor Jogging I guess) if you want to be able to get the most of it.

BUT I WONDER...

It seems it could be stretched quite easily. It could have been possible to wear a light-long chainmail beneath to get a plate mail effect. I tried to look ar some pictures of Trajan's column to see something but it was clear as a... Well, check the pictures yourself.

Is there any possibility my speculation could be true, or am I raving?

[Zaknafien]

Tajan's column is next to useless from a scholarly standpoint. Its an artists impression of an artists impression of state-sponsored propaganda.

its like watching Blackhawk Down 2000 years from now and using it as a basis for your American legionaries.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I don't even know if LS would actually be more uncomfortable than mail. The latter does tend to be a bitch on the shoulders.

Try wearing both for 12 hours or so. Hamata might way you down but an hour after you take it off you won't know you've worn it, not so LS.

To answer the affectiveness issue, one of our Postgrads has done some testing on various armours, properly constructed and metalurgically correct. His results for LS were, well, not too groovy.

You've certainly not surviving a Scorpian hit.

[lobf]

he 3 family model also represented the civil wars of Rome very well.

No it wasn't. To win a civil war it isn't necessary to hunt down and conquer every single city allied to the brutii or scipii...

[Sakkura]

Try wearing both for 12 hours or so. Hamata might way you down but an hour after you take it off you won't know you've worn it, not so LS.

To answer the affectiveness issue, one of our Postgrads has done some testing on various armours, properly constructed and metalurgically correct. His results for LS were, well, not too groovy.

You've certainly not surviving a Scorpian hit.

Like I said, I wouldn't know. My experience with carrying heavy stuff on the shoulders does tell me that you will definitely feel that even after you drop the load you were carrying.

I dunno why people keep talking about hits from scorpions and other ballistae. I don't think anyone ever counted on surviving that, at least not thanks to their armor alone. Besides, there were a lot more spears, arrows, javelins and swords to worry about.

[antiochus epiphanes]

Tajan's column is next to useless from a scholarly standpoint. Its an artists impression of an artists impression of state-sponsored propaganda.

its like watching Blackhawk Down 2000 years from now and using it as a basis for your American legionaries.

im suprised at that statement. so nonthing on it is worth any good?

[Zaknafien]

Its an excellent movie don't get me wrong. Its just inaccurate. Most of the stuff looks cool, and it passes the casual glance, but alot of the uniform items and pieces of equipment are out of place, and it makes connotations and inferences that arent accurate. That's all I'm saying. The uniforms, for example, are wrong for the time period they're portraying.

[Sarcasm]

Most of the stuff looks cool, and it passes the casual glance, but alot of the uniform items and pieces of equipment are out of place, and it makes connotations and inferences that arent accurate.

Curious. Such as?

[antiochus epiphanes]

Its an excellent movie don't get me wrong. Its just inaccurate. Most of the stuff looks cool, and it passes the casual glance, but alot of the uniform items and pieces of equipment are out of place, and it makes connotations and inferences that arent accurate. That's all I'm saying. The uniforms, for example, are wrong for the time period they're portraying.

i was refering to trajans coloum.

[Zaknafien]

The old school Roman scholars used stone sculptures as their biggest source for military equipment--so the big stone propaganda monuments in Rome (like Trajans column) stood out. These monuments were usually of generic scenes, along with alot of what the audience (romans) 'wanted to see' so to speak. Usually the architects were often trained in a Hellenic style, and their knowledge of military matters was largely restricted to the guard units they witnessed in Rome or elsewhere.

The groupings of soldiers are often composed in stereotypical ways that have more to do with religious groupings than military fact. THen you have some level of Greek equipment usually showing up in the sculptures, long after their use was finished.

Trajan's column specifically, the biggest problem its its sculptors were largely unfamillair with the subject matter. With such a big monument to carve, the artists inevitably fell into using 'standard models' to show officers, legionraies, and auxilliaries, etc. This leads to a view of uniformity in equipment that was not the case at all.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Then again that's the case with just about every movie depicting "the military" in some way or another. I doubt whether the casual passer by could even distinguish between officer and "ordinary" soldier.

[Zaknafien]

thats what I mean; it looks reasonable enough to the uninitiated; a pro will spot the mistakes instantly though. If a Roman centurion was around today, no doubt he'd whap us all with his vine rod for all the mistakes we roman scholars have made about their equipment and makeup.

[russia almighty]

Zak if that happens were screwing with the time line so bad .


First Anglo/Negro tag team in charge of the Roman Empire ?