Roman helmets: Imperial Gallic/Italic and Ridge - comparisons and sources

[Crispianus]

Yes, I know, but there are people that do this on youtube and a similar test would be great

For the logic, romans abandoned progressively the ballista, for what read for a progressive decay of the organization. The same could have been happened for the helmet.

If you have a budget that is roughly constant, and you increase significantly the number of the men you have to equip, it makes sense that a decay in quality is possible and consistent with the scenario.

For the thickness, any source? Instead, it could be true the opposite. The greater thickness could be required because the ridge helmet is easier to break (rivets), so it needs to be more thicker to provide a sufficient strength.

Here we have an example of Ridge helmet (http://www.romancoins.info/MilitaryEquip...html#Ridge):



Are we able to get some information about the thickness and the weight, comparing with the one of an Italic one?

Unfortunatly the provenance for the helmet is lacking: "German Private Collection, acquired in the early 1970s"
I would want to see a metal analysis, as far as I know theres nothing further known about it....
Any well made helmet of suitable material if robust enough should work fine against a range of weapons (this doesn't mean it wont take damage).

Since there are hundreds of surviving helmets you'd think it wouldn't be that difficult to get accurate data such as thicknesses but unfortunatly that isnt the case...
Because it hasn't been recorded sufficiently, the materials used are different qualitys, helmets were hand made by different craftsmen/fabrica so thicknesses vary(no standards),  the iron has severly corroded, and helmets no doubt vary a good deal in detail, also edgings for example dont tell how thick the metal is elsewhere....
So its somewhat of a problem.

You could make two replica helmets out of the same type and thickness of steel but what would it prove? that the one piece shell will end up thinner, thus proving weaker then the less stretched and therefore thicker metal of the overlapping plates of the rivetted helmet!.

Some thoughts not written in stone....