"Instant antique for stainless-steel warriors!"

[ambrosius]

When the Romans received their swords and kit, it probably didn't look like an antique. :wink:

Agreed. And you can just imagine the dressing-down any legionary
would get for letting his armour get into such a shocking state. For one
thing the recruit in the early Empire would be having to pay for his
armour through stopages in his pay, in any case, which is the best way
to get the men to look after their equipment. And for another, the whole point of rust-proofing the armour is not to make it look shiney - that's
just a bonus as a side-effect. The point of keeping rust off the armour is to stop it from pitting and scratching. Fairly obviously, once those pits
and scratches are allowed to get too deep, then the armour is severely compromised, and will fail under stress (ie someone taking sword or spear to it with you inside it). hock:

It's the same as the shine on shoes (or, in an analogous modern military
context, army boots). The polish isn't put on to make the shoes look nice
and shiney. It's put on to make the damned things water-proof and make
the leather last longer! And the shiney effect is just the evidence for your officers that the boots have been sufficiently water-proofed. 8)

You can imagine the Centurion lecturing the probatios on how essential
it was to keep rust off their helmets and body armour *at all costs*. Why else do Roman helmets have brass (early) or rawhide (late) edging on them? To allow you to put them on and off without getting your sweaty,
salty paw-marks all over the iron body of the helmet, which would turn
to instant rust :lol: Why else the carrying handles on the neck-guards
of helmets? So that you can carry them by the (brass, bronze or leather)
handles without touching the iron body of the helmet

Ambrosius