Lorica Musculata made of Metal or leather?

[Robert]

Well Urselius made a point about musculata offering only light protection even when made of metal, so perhaps the easy way out is to call musculata just musculata and stop regarding them as armour, but as an ornamental item worn by high officers, be it of metal or of leather. However, when made of leather, it would be good to assume these were ornate to reflect the high standing, not some cheap replacement.

[Vitruvius]

Robert.
"Amen,Amen, A-A-A-A-Men!!!!!!!!!! "nough Said"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Larry (Vitruvius Aurelio Filletius) Mager

[Dan Howard]

Well Urselius made a point about musculata offering only light protection even when made of metal,.

A point that is demonstrably wrong. We have already gone over all the tests and analyses that show how effective bronze plate is against swords, spears, and arrows. The chances of a contemporary weapon penetrating a metal musculata far enough to incapacitate the wearer is so low as to be statistically negilgible.

[Charlie]

Just as a side note, why would you bother with making a cuirass in leather anyway? My personal opinion is that they were only used by officers (like Robert said Tibunes, Legates) and in ceremonial occasions. You would think the skilled artisans back then surely would have preferred to use bronze etc. to skilfully craft a cuirass with magnificent repousse' and chasing decorations....gilded etc.I know some Italian artisans that make cuirass's with .6mm brass and decorate them with repousse' etc. These are absolutely spectacular and what I would imagine the real deal would have resembled. There is something special about a single sheet of metal been hammered in repousse' and chasing, compared to braising or fixing ornaments to it. A highly decorated, ornamental metal cuirass would win hands down over leather IMHO.

[Urselius]

Well Urselius made a point about musculata offering only light protection even when made of metal,.

A point that is demonstrably wrong. We have already gone over all the tests and analyses that show how effective bronze plate is against swords, spears, and arrows. The chances of a contemporary weapon penetrating a metal musculata far enough to incapacitate the wearer is so low as to be statistically negilgible.

Could you possibly post a link to this data?

I have a Luristan bronze dagger/shortsword, the blade of which is about 5 mm thick along the central raised rib, it is bendable - don't ask me how I know this, it was an accident. Bronze is quite ductile, how thick does bronze armour need to be to offer reasonable resistance to edged weapons?

[Dan Howard]

Bronze of an alloy that was actually made into armour can be as hard as medium carbon steel. For relevant data, read anything written by Tylecote. For a decent analysis of the protective capacity of bronze armour, Blythe's PhD is the easiest to find.
P. H. Blythe, The Effectiveness of Greek Armour Against Arrows in the Persian War (490-479 B. C.), PhD, University of Reading (1977).

All of the most useful tests and studies are summarised in my book.
http://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Bronze-Ag...nt/p/3272/

1mm is enough to stop an arrow or spear thrust from penetrating far enough to do serious injury.

[Dan Howard]

Has anyone ever produced evidence that the Romans actually had ceremonial armour? This would need to be done before entertaining the possibility of it being made from leather.

[Robert]

Don't get me wrong, I am not advocating leather "armor", far from it, just observing that were ceremonial "armor" used, it could perhaps have been made from other materials then sheet bronze and still fulfill it's purpose of making a spectacular display. Personaly, I think metal was prefered for a musculata for a lot of reasons already stated by other posters.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

I have to agree with Robert. I have thought that A Leather Musculata would make excellent ceremonial and parade armor, as it can be dyed and gilded.

However I would think an officer would not wear it on campaign/duty, they'd likely wear something like Lorica Plumata IMO.

[Urselius]

Reconstructing Ancient Linen Body Armor:
Unraveling the Linothorax Mystery Gregory S. Aldrete, Scott Bartell, Alicia Aldrete, JHU Press, 2013.

The above book sugests that there is a very great difference in protection between bronze plate of 0.8mm thickness and that of 1.8mm. The thinner plate offered virtually no resistance to arrow penetration, whereas the thicker plate gave considerably more protection with about 72 joules required to pierce it using replica arrowheads. A 2mm thick cuirass would weigh about 10kg.

Their linothorax reconstructions performed differently but a reasonable thickness (wearable) of laminated textile gave similar levels of protection to the thicker bronze plate. I don't think leather or leather/textile samples were tested.

[Dan D'Silva]

I have a Luristan bronze dagger/shortsword, the blade of which is about 5 mm thick along the central raised rib, it is bendable - don't ask me how I know this, it was an accident. Bronze is quite ductile, how thick does bronze armour need to be to offer reasonable resistance to edged weapons?

Bronze can be pretty soft, but bronze is a category of alloys, not a single one, and there are other factors like how it's been cast and forged that will affect its physical properties. Unless you know exactly what you're looking at, it's not really a good indicator.

[Dan Howard]

I have to agree with Robert. I have thought that A Leather Musculata would make excellent ceremonial and parade armor, as it can be dyed and gilded..

So how do we know that the Romans even had ceremonial armour? I've started a new thread so as not to derail this one any further.
http://www.romanarmytalk.com/17-roman-mi...tml#342663

[Dan Howard]

Reconstructing Ancient Linen Body Armor:
Unraveling the Linothorax Mystery Gregory S. Aldrete, Scott Bartell, Alicia Aldrete, JHU Press, 2013.

The above book sugests that there is a very great difference in protection between bronze plate of 0.8mm thickness and that of 1.8mm. The thinner plate offered virtually no resistance to arrow penetration, whereas the thicker plate gave considerably more protection with about 72 joules required to pierce it using replica arrowheads. A 2mm thick cuirass would weigh about 10kg.

Their linothorax reconstructions performed differently but a reasonable thickness (wearable) of laminated textile gave similar levels of protection to the thicker bronze plate. I don't think leather or leather/textile samples were tested.

There are a lot of problems with their research. The superficial analysis of extant armour is but one of them. Blythe should be read before even starting on this topic.

[Urselius]

They did note the metal content of ancient bronze and that it was worked hardened - presumably their test bronze plate was similarly produced - at least.

[caiusbeerquitius]

I assume the Metal Content was very very very close to 100%.