There is no evidence of any soldiers not being equipped with armor, from any source, during the Principate. At the very least, body armor of some type was available to them to use in battles. I've read that segmentata fragments are fairly common at Principate sites, but I'm not an archaeologist so that may just be hearsay. During the overwhelming majority of history, most soldiers were not able to afford, or given, metal armor of any type.
On the second point, mail folds up. Segmentata, while lighter, still takes up a large amount of space even when telescoped. Also, to repair armour the soldiers would only have to carry a bag of rings, and a limited amount of other things, instead of specialized plates, fittings, and segments of different sizes, and lengths.
Custom armor is extremely expensive is it not? The Romans might have been taking a lot of casualties, or not cared as much about the welfare of its soldiers due to them being barbarus. They probably reused most of the mail from the wounded and dead. I don't even want to take a guess at how long any given mail tunic might have been in continuous service for.
If the goal is to overturn the current consensus on this subject, maybe someone should right a book laying out all of the information regarding this theory. Until that happens, most people believe and probably will continue to believe that segmentata was superior protection, myself included. I doubt I would have any problems fitting into a segmentata tunic, and would choose to use it & a scutum over mail and the oval shield of the later periods, especially if I had similarly equipped friends next to me.
Nobody is saying that mail wasn't fantastic armor. It was. Armor is very underrated, and in Hollywood every single blow from a sword cuts straight through it like butter. This never happened, and people probably were hit too many times to count. There was one account from the Middle East of a knight riding around and looked like a porcupine with all of the arrows protruding from his armor. Robert de Bruce hit another knight so hard that his head was split in two. A blow that hard as to penetrate directly through armor was so uncommon it was immortalized.
http://willscommonplacebook.blogspot.com...bohun.html
Obviously, it's safe to assume that any metal armor, plate or mail, really worked.
Sorry, that this thread got so heated... I'm firmly in the opposing camp on this particular topic.
On the second point, mail folds up. Segmentata, while lighter, still takes up a large amount of space even when telescoped. Also, to repair armour the soldiers would only have to carry a bag of rings, and a limited amount of other things, instead of specialized plates, fittings, and segments of different sizes, and lengths.
Custom armor is extremely expensive is it not? The Romans might have been taking a lot of casualties, or not cared as much about the welfare of its soldiers due to them being barbarus. They probably reused most of the mail from the wounded and dead. I don't even want to take a guess at how long any given mail tunic might have been in continuous service for.
If the goal is to overturn the current consensus on this subject, maybe someone should right a book laying out all of the information regarding this theory. Until that happens, most people believe and probably will continue to believe that segmentata was superior protection, myself included. I doubt I would have any problems fitting into a segmentata tunic, and would choose to use it & a scutum over mail and the oval shield of the later periods, especially if I had similarly equipped friends next to me.
Nobody is saying that mail wasn't fantastic armor. It was. Armor is very underrated, and in Hollywood every single blow from a sword cuts straight through it like butter. This never happened, and people probably were hit too many times to count. There was one account from the Middle East of a knight riding around and looked like a porcupine with all of the arrows protruding from his armor. Robert de Bruce hit another knight so hard that his head was split in two. A blow that hard as to penetrate directly through armor was so uncommon it was immortalized.
http://willscommonplacebook.blogspot.com...bohun.html
Obviously, it's safe to assume that any metal armor, plate or mail, really worked.
Sorry, that this thread got so heated... I'm firmly in the opposing camp on this particular topic.
Christopher Vidrine, 30
