Lorica hamata / segmentata

[Magnus]

If you mean the girdle plates it'd be hard...the angle you'd have to have to get in between them would mean the weapon would almost have to come straight up. As for the upper shoulder guards and breast plates...they still overlap...getting a stab in up there between the plates would be a hard sell.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Well, just going by my own, and I will say I once thought along that line too about being able to get between the lames, but when worn over a good subarmaliss, it would take a great deal of effort to get a blade in between the overlapping plate, assuming you got past the wearers scuta and gladius....

The plates on the torso are held quite tightly against each other, while still allowing quite abit of flexibility for bending and twisting.

[Wander]

Well, the place where the gapping seems most open is usually the shoulders. A simple, one-piece medieval-style pauldron would provide coverage without the gaps, but also interferes with freedom of movement where it looks like the segmentata would allow an easy range of motion -- in short, the segmentata looks easier to fight in. Yet I guess the curving overlap of the lames would go a long way toward keeping all but a straight thrust from getting between.

Combine that with a big-ol' scutum, and the fact that you're usually shoulder-to-shoulder with a 79 of your best friends, and the protection starts to look pretty good.

(One thing any SCA fighter can tell you about the closely-overlapped ariculated Late Middle Ages-style plate armor is that it only takes one good whack with an impact weapon to mess up the working of an articulated joint. The looseness of a segmentata probably neutralizes that problem before it can even happen. Kinda like the way the looser tolerances on a Kalashnikov rifle mean it can work in mud and dust more reliably than a closely-machined M16...)

Lacking any experience in this, I'll defer to the judgement of those who've been there. Thanks for your indulgence.

[Caratacus]

Erik: quick question!

I've seen so many references to the weight of the armour (of various types), perhaps you can give me a more definitive figure based on your experience. What would the weight of a full suit of hamata be (including the shoulder doubling)?

It seems to me that the arguement/discussion concerning which type of armour would be favoured may crucially hang on the weight factor. The reproduction segmentata suit we use in the museum at Caerleon weighs in at around 5 kilo (11 lbs, roughly). It's probably lighter than the ones you normally see re-enactors using because it's made from thinner thickness metal (around 1-1.5mm) than seems to be the norm. (We have another suit, which is an ex-re-enactor's gear - where the plate thickness is around 2mm and that is much heavier). However, the hamata suit is incomplete (no shoulder doubling), Even with that caveat, it's still heavier than the plate armour sets.

Caratacus/Mike Thomas

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Sorry, I'm not Erik, but --

My Seg is made of thinner plate, which is apparently quite accurate, and there is a big difference in weight from that to my hamata with full doubling. Not sure what my seg weighs, but the hamata is approximately 12kg. Hope it helps?

[Tarbicus]

My Corbridge C is also made of three different thickness plates, with the girth hoops the thinnest and the upper shoulder guards the thickest. It makes a big difference to how it feels when worn, and there's none of the feeling of being dragged down by the middle, with the centre of gravity higher up making it much easier to wear.

[Matt Lukes]

But... I don't have a lorica segmentata, and I've never worn one. It just looks to me like it wouldn't be too hard for a blade tip (or spearhead, or arrowhead, etc.) to get between the lames and find the flesh underneath. From what I can see, mail provides much more complete coverage -- even if it is heavier and harder to make.

Am I wrong? Am I missing something? Or is that probably one of the reasons why mail, in the form of the lorica hamata, never really went away, even after centuries of segmentata usage in the legions?

Consider the insanity of close combat- even if there were a small gap, is it likely in the heat of fighting that an opponent could so accurately 'aim' a blow? Probably not so much. The Corbridge B/C had a more 'plunging' neckline that wasn't considered a significant flaw. The plates of the girth section are very closely held together by the internal leathering so no stab up to the body is really possible, and sure there are larger openings at the shoulders but stabbing from the front into them while the wearer is moving, seems to me to be unlikely to easily result in a killer blow. Arrows might find the neck opening but nowhere else since the plates are such that a plunging attack has no gap to exploit.

It doesn't seem logical that the segmentata was discarded due to any inherent flaw(s)- or it wouldn't have been in use for some 250+ years, and actually evolve only really in its method of closures...

[Matt Lukes]

The reproduction segmentata suit we use in the museum at Caerleon weighs in at around 5 kilo (11 lbs, roughly). It's probably lighter than the ones you normally see re-enactors using because it's made from thinner thickness metal (around 1-1.5mm) than seems to be the norm. (We have another suit, which is an ex-re-enactor's gear - where the plate thickness is around 2mm and that is much heavier).

That's quite surprising since the segmentatae I've made of late, using multiple thicknesses of steel plates, as close as modern materials would allow to the thicknesses of segmentata plates quoted by Mike Bishop, (about 0.7mm for the girth section and as much as 1.3mm for the breast and upper shoulders) weigh in between roughly 8.75 and 9.5kg, depending on the size- even if a real 'Roman-sized' cuirass were somewhat smaller, 5kg sounds amazingly light.

[Caratacus]

5kg sounds amazingly light.

Ah well - depends on the size, of course! I can't get into this one, so it's on the small size, which probably accounts for the lower weight. We have an incomplete hamata suit as well (no shoulder doubling) - but this looks rather short to me and may approximate more to a cavalry soldier's gear. Either way, the ring-mail suit is much heavier than the plate armour one, even without the shoulder doubling.

Our other segmentata suit is a lot heavier and has some peculiar features - for example, the frets on the lobate shoulder hinges are filled with red enamel - which I've never seen before in practice! Very Hollywood! It was donated to the museum by a re-enactor who was also a priest/monk (whatever - religious) and who was giving up the 'sport', presumably to study his bible more closely. He must have been a big bloke, because his suit is really heavy - but the metal thickness is noticeably thicker than the other one.

Caratacus/Mike Thomas

[Dan Howard]

How accurate is the hamata? Is it made of alternating rows of riveted and punched rings or is it made of butted links? IMO Roman mail definitely weighs more than segmented plate but not as much as people think - especially if we are talking about equal coverage.

[Theodosius the Great]

I keep hearing about how a segmentata is supposed to be bad on horseback, but how can that be? It only comes down to the waist, and doesn't get anywhere near the legs.

Is one of the riders wearing seg shoulder pieces on mail or scale armour? It had something to do with the extreme discomfort of a full seg on horseback IIRC. Mail and scale are far more flexible than seg, and when you use your body and legs to control a horse with your legs spread out, the seg ends up digging into your hips continually.

If we're to believe the Trajanic frieze in this photo (high resolution) the cavalry certainly did wear segmented armor. The two cavalrymen in the extreme right of the panel are definately wearing segs (I've seen it from a different angle). And the two cavalymen behind them in the center of the frieze are wearing hamata and scale.

But this may just be a device by the sculptor to differentiate the Legionary or Praetorian cavalry from the Auxiliary cavalry.

~Theo

[mcbishop]

If we're to believe the Trajanic frieze in this photo (high resolution) the cavalry certainly did wear segmented armor. The two cavalrymen in the extreme right of the panel are definately wearing segs (I've seen it from a different angle). And the two cavalymen behind them in the center of the frieze are wearing hamata and scale.

But this may just be a device by the sculptor to differentiate the Legionary or Praetorian cavalry from the Auxiliary cavalry.

~Theo

So far as I'm aware there is no lorica seg being worn by horsemen on any of the surviving fragments of the GTF, but I could be wrong (probably, not though ;-) The men in this shot are wearing mail (foreground) and scale (background).

Mike Bishop

[Theodosius the Great]

The men in this shot are wearing mail (foreground) and scale (background).

Yes, those are the cavalrymen in the center. Look to the right of those and you should see two more horsemen who are both wearing segs, at least they look like segs to me :?

Here's the frieze from a different angle.

:?:

~Theo

[mcbishop]

Yes, those are the cavalrymen in the center. Look to the right of those and you should see two more horsemen who are both wearing segs, at least they look like segs to me :?

Here's the frieze from a different angle.

:?:

~Theo

Those are infantrymen - the one in the front has his knee emerging from behind the head of the guy below him whilst his shield passes behind the barbarian to the lower and but his knee is in front of him. Ouch! There are no bits of horse evident for the bloke behind so not easy to claim him as cavalry.

Mike Bishop

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Well, they appear to be on the same level as the horsemen, compared to the enemy in front of them, or the infantry behind them...but then again it looks like you are right, ......... :?