Leather Cuirass

[Paullus Scipio]

To Magnus: Have you any more factual evidence regarding the performance of leather armour, other than your un-supported opinion so far that "it sucks" ?? Evidence would allow readers to make up their own minds.
I have solid scientific evidence that Greek bronze corselets ( or rather the few surviving fragments ) were around 1mm thick, and that a leather corselet 5mm thick would offer better protection, or a linen one 10 mm thick. The bronze coreslet would weigh around 3.5 kg, the leather or linen one would be around 2kg (c.f the American nylon bullet/shrapnel vest T52 at 3.5 k )

For Dan H. :- I am reluctant to trawl through all the literature, although another example of armour failure is Brasidas wounded through his shield/armour (?), but maybe I can do better ( maybe this should be shifted to the new armour pentration post)
An examination of hundreds of helmets/fragmentary helmets dedicated at Olympia showed the following (ignoring those with square holes which might be butt- spike 'coup de gras' or nail holes to hang up the trophy):-

1. About 150 helmets showed dents of various sorts ( but not certain because many had missing sections due to corrosion)
2. 40-50 have small indentations consistent with slingstone/stone damage
3. 3 have obvious perforations due to battle damage
4. 17 have slash/stab damage which would have been unlikely to inflict fatal wounds.

There are few/no literary references to helmet perforation from the Persian war period, and nothing to match the Homeric frequent descriptions of helmet failure.
The fact that helmets could be easily punctured by spear-butts (with kinetic energy of around 60J) or nails, but could resist hand-blows/arrows with 30-40 J kinetic energy shows the armourers were walking a fine tightrope between lightness and resistance.