Just starting- C3rd Roman

[Robert Vermaat]

I read in Bishop & Coulston, or Simon James, how the Roman army adopted equipment piecemeal, locally, without any grand central equipment patterns or centrally planned logistics. But that's what seems to happen at the end of the 3rdC. Perplexing...

Not necessarily perplexing. After all, the last decades of the 3rd century saw a much-changed political reaction to the chaos of the previous half-century, which successfully tried to re-assert the power of the central government. This was going hand in hand with a military reorganisation that must have seen the rebuilding of a system wracked by decades of civil war. As anyone who plays strategy games knows, this presents a problem: a low tax yield combined with high expenses leads you into trouble. My games won’t let me lend with banks (thus while escaping a budget deficit it does lead to an immediate bankruptcy) but it teaches me to either patient or inventive about costs. When you have need of money you look elsewhere. I am thinking that this situation lead to a change in Roman production of arms and armour. The ridge helmets could, being produced in small parts that were assembled later, represent a much cheaper helmet that the Imperial Gallic types which were produced by one smith over a longer period of time.
It would have been a gradual process allowing the Augst helmet to date to the 280s without a need for a total introduction across the Empire.