Armor and Weapon Effectiveness

[arklore70]

Does anyone know what the latest or best, or most complete testing on the effectiveness of Roman Arms and Armor can be found, or what is considered to be the best so testing?

I know there have been studies in the past, but with more and more accurate reproductions, I was curious what now might be published.

[Dan Howard]

Williams has the only research that involved a decent reconstruction of mail - but his test pieces were lighter than a typical Roman hamata. So one should expect Roman mail to provide even better protection against weapons.

Williams book has by far the best data on iron and steel plate performance.

My book summarised all of the best tests against bronze plate.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

What about leather musculata? I've been trying to disprove Phil Barker's theory that the Late Roman Army wore it for a while now but haven't been able to find test results of the stuff.

[Dan Howard]

How can it be tested? If there is nothing to suggest that it even existed how can we even attempt a reconstruction? You don't need to disprove Phil's theory. He has nothing to support it except baseless speculation. The only evidence for Roman leather armour is scale/lamellar, not musculata. Tom Hulit did some testing of leather armour in his PhD, which was also summarised in my book. Mike Loades tested an excellent reconstruction of rawhide scale made by Todd Feinman in his recent Egyptian chariot documentary - but they were Egyptian scales and lacing, not Roman. Todd's reconstructions are probably the closest we'll ever get to actual Egyptian armour.

[Robert]

What you need to consider when reviewing a test of effectiveness, is how and over what the armor or mail was placed or mounted. The best result would be had from a fully clad pig carcass wearing both a tunic and a subarmalis beneath the mail or armor. Also, the carcas should be free swinging or mounted on an upright spring like a punching bag. Yes, that sounds both hilarious and gruesome, but in weapon systems, it needs all the components right to test effectiveness. The mail (or armor) will take the impact, but the way the body is shielded also depends on how the force of the impact is spread. Draping a section of mail over a hard target will effectively create the effect of placing it between hammer and anvil, causing it to be pierced more easily, this would IMHO invalidate any comments on effectiveness of either the weapon or the armor. For blunt trauma, best put pressure sensors on the carcass.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

How can it be tested? If there is nothing to suggest that it even existed how can we even attempt a reconstruction? You don't need to disprove Phil's theory. He has nothing to support it except baseless speculation. The only evidence for Roman leather armour is scale/lamellar, not musculata. Tom Hulit did some testing of leather armour in his PhD, which was also summarised in my book. Mike Loades tested an excellent reconstruction of rawhide scale made by Todd Feinman in his recent Egyptian chariot documentary - but they were Egyptian scales and lacing, not Roman. Todd's reconstructions are probably the closest we'll ever get to actual Egyptian armour.

His theory seems mostly to be based on the extremely heavy use of Musculata in Late Roman depictions of soldiers. In fact there's only maybe 2-3 depictions i can think of where the Romans aren't clad in Musculata, one being my Avatar.

[Dan Howard]

There are hundreds of posts about this on RAT. It is impossible to tell the difference between a sculpture depicting rigid leather and one depicting metal. One would also have to demonstrate that the sculptures are depicting armour that was actually worn by the subject and was not some stylistic artistic convention that was in fashion at the time.

[Marja]

Roman armor never covered the whole body, so studying hit locations and wound locations is probably also important here.

[Valerian Pertinax]

Concerning leather musculata: might I play Devil's Advocate for a moment?

It seems to me that testing the effectiveness of a leather muscle cuirass might not be a total waste of time. If nothing else, an accurate test would at least inform us as to if it was even worth wearing.

A test result either way isn't evidence of existence, but would certainly help us hypothesize the odds of a spoiled young Tribune trusting Hollywood to protect him in battle!

[M. Demetrius]

I heard anecdotal information that perhaps Marines wore hardened leather body armor. Clearly, falling overboard wearing any kind of metal armor is a terminal mistake. Hardened leather armor actually has some buoyancy for a few minutes, at least. I would not swear that to be truth, though, until I could find a better source than sitting around a campfire and talking with my elders.

[Dan Howard]

Concerning leather musculata: might I play Devil's Advocate for a moment?

It seems to me that testing the effectiveness of a leather muscle cuirass might not be a total waste of time. If nothing else, an accurate test would at least inform us as to if it was even worth wearing.

A test result either way isn't evidence of existence, but would certainly help us hypothesize the odds of a spoiled young Tribune trusting Hollywood to protect him in battle!

A breastplate made of thick enough leather will stop a spear or arrow, but it wil be heavier than a bronze breastplate that does the same thing. That is the whole point of using metal. Pound for pound it provides better protection than any other material.

[Dan D'Silva]

Yes, that sounds both hilarious and gruesome...

Indeed... If anyone does it, kindly take videos :woot:

[Frank]

Is it confirmed that all tribunes have worn musculata? I guess not. In the context of supply and pay of roman soldiers (Speidel, Breeze, Dobson, Stauner, not sure who said it), I have read that some young praefects bought their equipment from the army like everybody else and had to pay it back by installments. I guess they got someting like centurion armor, which looked a bit different, but was mail.

The most interesting question for me is, if arrows really could penetrate mail and on what distance a deadly shot was secure. It surely depends on the kind of mail used, the subarmalis and as mentioned, what material is used to simulate a body. Also what kind of bow, arrow (weight) and arrowhead.

I doubt there is a final conclusion amongst scholars in the meantime. All experiments I know of are criticised about doing something wrong e.g. using immobile, hard targets or cheap reenactor mail from India.

e.g. would a Hun be able to oneshot a roman legionary wearing hamata from 50m? I guess most propably yes. Would a cretan archer be able to do the same on a 150m distance? Perhaps, but with a much lower propability. Is there any chance to fully penetrate proper roman mail and subarmalis on a 300m distance?

[Flavivs Aetivs]

I heard anecdotal information that perhaps Marines wore hardened leather body armor. Clearly, falling overboard wearing any kind of metal armor is a terminal mistake. Hardened leather armor actually has some buoyancy for a few minutes, at least. I would not swear that to be truth, though, until I could find a better source than sitting around a campfire and talking with my elders.

I know the guy who theorized this actually, he was down at the Italian Fest a few years back and we discussed it. It certainly has some legitimacy to it.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

e.g. would a Hun be able to oneshot a roman legionary wearing hamata from 50m? I guess most propably yes. Would a cretan archer be able to do the same on a 150m distance? Perhaps, but with a much lower propability. Is there any chance to fully penetrate proper roman mail and subarmalis on a 300m distance?

I heard the reason they beat the sarmatians is because they could take down cataphracts before the Alans could close the distance. So a hun could punch mail from over 100 meters, that's for sure.