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

[Dan Howard]

Solid bowl helmets do provide better protection than a multi-piece helmet of similar weight - if they are made to the same standard. But they also require substantial more work and skill to create and they are much harder to repair. If you want similar protection from a multi-piece helmet, all you need to do is increase the weight by a fraction. I'm not sure how replacing a (say) 2.5 pound helmet with a 3 pound helmet is evidence of some kind of collapse - especially if the multi-piece process allows the factory to turn out two-three times more helmets for the same cost and production time as a solid-bowl helmet. It suggests to me that they streamlined the process to enable them to equip far more men than previously with more uniform and standardised gear, which is the opposite of a collapse. Enforcing standards and having strict quality control will result in a better multi-piece helmet than a single-bowl helmet that was made without those procedures in place. Sticking with single-bowl helmets would slow down production, increase costs, and make helmets harder to repair, for nothing more substantial than a tiny reduction in a soldier's load.