07-08-2012, 08:32 AM
I gotta say you seem awfully fond of mail Howard ^^
I am very familiar with mail armour however, been doing medieval reenactment for years, and I own two shirts of riveted mail made of steel.
hock:
I gotta admit that, based on my own experiences with mail, I am very sceptical of that claim Howard. Maybe mail made from high quality steel like my own has a tiny chance, but even then I'd no doubt break bones and likely even die from internal damage if subjected to a heavy blow from an axe or a falx.
As for ancient iron mail even having a chance of stopping such weapons, sorry but that seems highly unlikely.
The metal plates of the segmentata however must have been more effective against such blows, esp. around the shoulder area where I understand the ferrous plates were thicker and overlapped each other.
As far as I can see the Segmentata offers great protection at the stomach area, definitely better than mail, so I'm abit baffled at you saying it offers no protection to that area at all ?
Hmm... I was under the impression that in terms of protection the segmentata indeed has been demonstrated to be superior to mail, seems pretty logical too seeing as plate effectively disperses the force of any impact over a wide area. Mail doesn't do this, and as such I've also been hurt quite a few times sparring wearing mine, and we're definitely not trying to kill each other either ^^
That's also one of the reasons a guy wearing plate armour is scary as heck to be up against, cause you know that every solid hit he gets on you is going to hurt whilst he's likely not even gonna feel most of the hits you get on him in the heat of things.
Also regarding mail being the prefered type of armour for elite fighters, that can't be right, atleast I know that in medieval times the elites prefered plate armour over mail
Even so mail was ofcourse more abundant because it was cheaper to make, seeing as opposed to plate armour you didn't need a skilled smith to make a shirt of mail, or a large furnace. You could have thousands of slaves make shirts of mail, you can't do the same with plate armour. I suspect this is main the reason that the Lorica Segmentata fell out use with the Romans in the end, plate armour simply proving too difficult and expensive to mass produce as the wealth of the empire started to decline.
Heck even in medieval times where the manufacture of plate armour was far in advance of anything the romans had, any form of plate armour was still more expensive to make than mail, so I can only imagine how expensive it must have been to manufacture plate armour for the romans many centuries earlier. To me it seems obvious that the Roman state's loss of wealth in the 4th century AD lowered the budget of the military and with it the means of supplying the troops with the most expensive equipment.
That seems to be the most logical explanation if you ask me atleast
I am very familiar with mail armour however, been doing medieval reenactment for years, and I own two shirts of riveted mail made of steel.
Quote:Mail is easily capable of stopping any weapon the Dacians had.
hock: I gotta admit that, based on my own experiences with mail, I am very sceptical of that claim Howard. Maybe mail made from high quality steel like my own has a tiny chance, but even then I'd no doubt break bones and likely even die from internal damage if subjected to a heavy blow from an axe or a falx.
As for ancient iron mail even having a chance of stopping such weapons, sorry but that seems highly unlikely.
The metal plates of the segmentata however must have been more effective against such blows, esp. around the shoulder area where I understand the ferrous plates were thicker and overlapped each other.
Quote:Segmentata is far from that since it offers no protection at all to the stomach, groin, armpit, etc.
As far as I can see the Segmentata offers great protection at the stomach area, definitely better than mail, so I'm abit baffled at you saying it offers no protection to that area at all ?
Quote:Your thesis depends on the assumption that segmentata was "superior" to mail. That hasn't been demonstrated. IMO mail is the superior armour. It saw continuous use by virtually every metal using culture on the planet for the best part of two thousand years and was preferred by elite fighters even when other types of armour, such as scale and lamellar, were available.
Hmm... I was under the impression that in terms of protection the segmentata indeed has been demonstrated to be superior to mail, seems pretty logical too seeing as plate effectively disperses the force of any impact over a wide area. Mail doesn't do this, and as such I've also been hurt quite a few times sparring wearing mine, and we're definitely not trying to kill each other either ^^
That's also one of the reasons a guy wearing plate armour is scary as heck to be up against, cause you know that every solid hit he gets on you is going to hurt whilst he's likely not even gonna feel most of the hits you get on him in the heat of things.
Also regarding mail being the prefered type of armour for elite fighters, that can't be right, atleast I know that in medieval times the elites prefered plate armour over mail
Even so mail was ofcourse more abundant because it was cheaper to make, seeing as opposed to plate armour you didn't need a skilled smith to make a shirt of mail, or a large furnace. You could have thousands of slaves make shirts of mail, you can't do the same with plate armour. I suspect this is main the reason that the Lorica Segmentata fell out use with the Romans in the end, plate armour simply proving too difficult and expensive to mass produce as the wealth of the empire started to decline.
Heck even in medieval times where the manufacture of plate armour was far in advance of anything the romans had, any form of plate armour was still more expensive to make than mail, so I can only imagine how expensive it must have been to manufacture plate armour for the romans many centuries earlier. To me it seems obvious that the Roman state's loss of wealth in the 4th century AD lowered the budget of the military and with it the means of supplying the troops with the most expensive equipment.
That seems to be the most logical explanation if you ask me atleast
