Reconstructing Ancient Linen Body Armor - New Book

[Dan Howard]

Sure, I agree.  Obviously the leather can be thinner if you are going to put scales over it.  But I can tell you that if we found a corselet of glued linen with scales over top this debate would be over.  So why not give leather that same respect?

I give both if these ideas exactly the same respect - none. Leather armour is 1-2 cm thick. Leather backing for scale armour is a few mm. The function of the leather in both of these instances is completely unrelated. The same difference can be noted when comparing linen armour and linen backing. You can't take a leather spolas and retro-fit it with metal scales. You need to design it to take scales from the start - the manner of construction is completely different.