[split] Phalanx warfare: use of the spear

[Dan Howard]

Dan, you repeatedly suggest that leather armour MUST provide the same level of protection as their metal equivalents. This is a wild speculation since it is nowhere written that this must be the case. It is obvious that metal armour of carious thicknesses, from crazily thin archaic cuirasses to catapult bolt proof cuirasses were in use by the Greeks, and probably at times simultaneously. There's nothing that prevents us consider that leather armour was used by the Greeks and provided less protection than most metal cuirasses.
The thickness of leather armour in other periods and cultures may be interesting, but none the less irrelevant, and as far as I am concerned, a leather spolas could provide anything from the best protection (thick, double, triple or reinforced) to the least protection, like a felt pilos, which seems to have been quite popular to hoplites by late fifth century.

Speculating the thickness of leather based on the level of protection that armour SHOULD provide is highly subjective and helps little to this discussion.

The primary danger on any battlefield for three thousand years was from spears and arrows. All extant examples of leather/hide armour are heavy enough to do this. Any costume that can't stop this basic level of threat is not armour.