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William P
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 Posted: Thu 29 Jan, 2015 2:06 am Post subject: |
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another thing that springs to mind is the cause for the phasing out of segmentata
as i understand around the 3rd and 4th century you see more of a reintroduction of larger amounts of scale armour and the change from hamata to more typical maille shirts with said shirts becoming standard armour of the comitantsenses with sleevs as well as early lamellar perhaps introduced by the huns and sassanians.
however it seems contrary to my earlier assumptions the phasing out of segmentata occured around 100 years prior to the Establishment of the large roman Fabricae
as an aside,with regard to spangenbyrna spangen means bands such as the bands on a spangenhelm, not small plates, so spangynbyrna literaly means banded shirt (since byrna means shirt) what that would look like is beyond me, (im TRYING to wipe the mental image of a viking wearing lorica segmentata from my mind because its a fairly rediculous notion to see laminar armour then,.
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Thu 29 Jan, 2015 4:31 am Post subject: |
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From what I've been told, the Icelandic word spangabyrnja means something like "armour of small plates". Perhaps one of our Norse members could clarify.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books
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Jóhann Malmquist
Location: Akureyri Joined: 19 Oct 2011
Posts: 12
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| Posted: Thu 29 Jan, 2015 4:59 am Post subject: |
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In modern Icelandic spöng (spanga) means a thin metal plate or a long object connecting some (two) things togeather.
I am not sure the persons who wrote the sagas had any idea what spangabrynja was supposed to be. The sagas are written down long after the events were supposed to have happened and it is very likely that some aspects of the story had been lost or been changed from the time it was first told.
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Matthew Amt
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| Posted: Thu 29 Jan, 2015 6:05 am Post subject: |
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All the previous discussions about the lorica segmentata giving way to mail seemed to assume that this was at the same time that the central fabricae were established. Was it not? As I recall, there is evidence for the segmentata being used to nearly 300 AD. But I don't recall when the fabricae were instituted--not my era!
I'd also be leery of using terms like "phased out", since that implies a deliberate action. We don't know that. Even if fabricae were designed from the start to produce only mail (and scale?), elimination of segmentata over time was more of a side-effect, not necessarily a *goal*.
Matthew
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Dan Howard
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Michael Beeching
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| Posted: Thu 29 Jan, 2015 7:04 pm Post subject: |
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Dan,
I have a question pertaining to scale/lamellar in general - both of these armors provide a healthy degree of flexibility for the wearer, while not being overly cumbersome. It seems to be well understood that commonplace scale armor offers very limited protection to thrusts from below, while lamellar armor does not seem to have this problem on comparable levels. Alternately, scale armor generally denies damage to the attachment points of individual plates - lamellar seems to have some problems with that. What I would therefore ask, is there any historical evidence for a scale armor system which, perhaps in a similar vein to lamellar, denies or strongly inhibits the thrust from below whilst preventing cuts made to the attachments between plates?
...Sorry for the tangent, by the way.
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Thu 29 Jan, 2015 9:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Michael Beeching wrote: | | I have a question pertaining to scale/lamellar in general - both of these armors provide a healthy degree of flexibility for the wearer, while not being overly cumbersome. It seems to be well understood that commonplace scale armor offers very limited protection to thrusts from below |
This is a myth. Scale doesn't seem to be any more susceptible from below than any other direction. The same fallacy is attributed to segmentata.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books
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William P
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| Posted: Fri 30 Jan, 2015 5:27 am Post subject: |
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| Dan Howard wrote: | | Michael Beeching wrote: | | I have a question pertaining to scale/lamellar in general - both of these armors provide a healthy degree of flexibility for the wearer, while not being overly cumbersome. It seems to be well understood that commonplace scale armor offers very limited protection to thrusts from below |
This is a myth. Scale doesn't seem to be any more susceptible from below than any other direction. The same fallacy is attributed to segmentata. |
you also mentioned during a discussion about lamellar over maille, something along the lines of that the plates can be pushed aside i think which was a big weakness of the armour compared to maille i believe you were saying, im curious if you could elaborate on that point, if you can remember making it since i think it was a little while back.
and from my brief research i believe the fabricae were 4th-5th century, during the tetrarchy i BELIEVE.
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Fri 30 Jan, 2015 6:06 am Post subject: |
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| William P wrote: | | you also mentioned during a discussion about lamellar over maille, something along the lines of that the plates can be pushed aside |
I don't recall saying that. The main problem with scale and lamellar is all of the lacing. Every lacing hole is a weak point in the plate. The weight of the armour increases significantly when the lacing gets wet. It is very difficult to maintain and keep clean. The lacing stretches over time which could mess around with how well it fits and possibly introduce gaps. The lacing degrades over time and will break when stressed. The Romans fixed most of those problems by using metal staples instead of lacing.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books
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William P
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| Posted: Sat 31 Jan, 2015 3:49 am Post subject: |
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| Dan Howard wrote: | | William P wrote: | | you also mentioned during a discussion about lamellar over maille, something along the lines of that the plates can be pushed aside |
I don't recall saying that. The main problem with scale and lamellar is all of the lacing. Every lacing hole is a weak point in the plate. The weight of the armour increases significantly when the lacing gets wet. It is very difficult to maintain and keep clean. The lacing stretches over time which could mess around with how well it fits and possibly introduce gaps. The lacing degrades over time and will break when stressed. The Romans fixed most of those problems by using metal staples instead of lacing. |
or. placing theplates within a maille fabric since maille cannot warp or be cut (japanese and arab armour) , or in the case of bringadine,(which is, arguably just a shirt of oddly shaped scales worn backwards) using rivets and.. ii loathe to highlight his research but the issues of lacing in lammelar are solved somewhat by using rivets as a fastener ala dawsons research.
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William P
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| Posted: Wed 03 Aug, 2016 2:36 am Post subject: |
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| Matthew Amt wrote: | I suspect that for the Romans, scale armor was sort of the worst of both worlds. It's about as labor-intensive as mail, with less flexibility and more need for a decent fit. And a big factor is going to be UPKEEP. Scales will chafe and cut their stitching with any movement, i.e., whenever it's worn. So you're constantly going to have rows of scales (wired together side-by-side) coming loose here and there. Plus the backing will collect sweat and grime, and it can't be readily washed like a separate padded garment could. Finally, if you try to store it, mice will eat the backing or it will get moldy or dry rot.
A segmentata will have a few of those problems with the internal leathers, but it's not as susceptible in general. Many of the brass fittings will bend and break, and over time the leathers can stretch or break or rot or get eaten. But it's a bit easier to put back together than a shirt of scales! And it does need to be reasonably fitted to the wearer.
Make a shirt of mail and it will fit probably half the guys in your army. It's better protection than mail and will never stretch or get eaten by mice. Through it in a barrel of oily straw and in a hundred years you can pull it out and it will still fit half the guys in your army and be ready to use.
Scale armor LOOKS GOOD. It works fine, too, don't get me wrong, but as an added bonus you can tin or silver the scales, either overall or forming a pattern with plain brass ones. That's good bling that would make it very appealing to officers, musicians, and standard bearers. Worth the maintenance problems for them, since they could hand it off to a slave to clean or fix.
Mind you, this is all just "practicality and conjecture"! The Romans never *said* why they prefered one type of armor over another, so we can never be sure what was going on in their heads.
Matthew |
i'm curious, could you elaborate what you mean by saying that scale is just as labour intensive as mail? does that also mean it was on par in terms of expense
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Juraj S
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| Posted: Wed 03 Aug, 2016 5:17 am Post subject: Slave economy |
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| Matthew Amt wrote: | The Romans had a slave economy, so they didn't have to force the labor cost down. Even if free men were doing much of the skilled work, mail-making involves a LOT of unskilled or semi-skilled drudgery. I don't think we can even say that wire-making was all that horrific--it really couldn't have been, considering how much they must have gone through.
And it should be noted that the Romans did not start centralized production of military equipment until the 3rd century AD, a good 500 years after they started using mail.
But yes, there is still a lot to be said for supply, demand, and efficient production.
Matthew |
Well, even if your slaves do your work, you still try to limit the cost of labour. You see, if your slave is pulling wire, your cost in that is that he isnīt ploughing your field and you have to buy and feed another slave to do that. A little bit like machines, only you have to feed them even when they donīt work. It is (sometimes) cheaper to have slaves but never is it free labour.
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Matthew Amt
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| Posted: Wed 03 Aug, 2016 5:29 am Post subject: |
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| William P wrote: | | i'm curious, could you elaborate what you mean by saying that scale is just as labour intensive as mail? does that also mean it was on par in terms of expense |
Well, just that, really. You have to keep in mind that all armor started out as billets of metal, while we just buy the sheet or wire in the size and thickness we want. Scales were typically thinner than the sheet used for segmentata or even for the punched rings of mail, which means that much more effort to thin out the metal before cutting scales. And that's getting to the point of diminishing returns for hand-made sheet metal, so it's very tedious. THEN you can start cutting scales. And probably filing all the edges, depending on how you cut. Then stamping any ridges or bosses or slight dome-shaping, and punching the holes. On every scale.
Remember, those scales can be the size of your fingernail, and you'll need 40,000 of them at that size. Sure, mail rings are smaller, but there are more things you need to do on each scale than on a mail ring.
Oh, and you also have to make all the wire for the staples, and cut all of those. Though they can be just strips of thin sheet, they don't have to be drawn wire.
Once you have all that done, THEN you can start wiring rows together, and eventually even start stitching the rows to the backing.
I don't think we know enough to try to calculate actual man-hours and production costs for any of these armor types. Aside from the fact that very subtle differences in something like metal thickness or scale size might have a significant effect on the equation. It's possible that scale armor was seen as cheaper than mail. But both had their advantages and disadvantages, and cost alone was not the only factor.
Matthew
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Matthew Amt
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| Posted: Wed 03 Aug, 2016 5:40 am Post subject: Re: Slave economy |
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| Juraj S wrote: | | Matthew Amt wrote: | The Romans had a slave economy, so they didn't have to force the labor cost down. Even if free men were doing much of the skilled work, mail-making involves a LOT of unskilled or semi-skilled drudgery. I don't think we can even say that wire-making was all that horrific--it really couldn't have been, considering how much they must have gone through.
And it should be noted that the Romans did not start centralized production of military equipment until the 3rd century AD, a good 500 years after they started using mail.
But yes, there is still a lot to be said for supply, demand, and efficient production.
Matthew |
Well, even if your slaves do your work, you still try to limit the cost of labour. You see, if your slave is pulling wire, your cost in that is that he isnīt ploughing your field and you have to buy and feed another slave to do that. A little bit like machines, only you have to feed them even when they donīt work. It is (sometimes) cheaper to have slaves but never is it free labour. |
Well, it's true that you don't generally get slaves for free, and yes, they have to be fed. But a man running a wire-drawing shop isn't concerned about ploughing, since he doesn't have a farm. Or if he owns both a farm and a workshop, he simply buys the slaves he needs to operate both. Most people who own a home today don't see buying a phone as having to give up on tableware. They're just different tools for different purposes.
It should be pointed out that using slave labor must have been profitable, since the Romans used a LOT of it! There is no getting around the fact that the Romans had MANY slaves, and produced huge amounts of armor. So the system worked for them.
Matthew
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Wed 03 Aug, 2016 4:24 pm Post subject: |
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| William P wrote: | | ii loathe to highlight his research but the issues of lacing in lammelar are solved somewhat by using rivets as a fastener ala dawsons research. |
Except that Dawson hasn't produced anything to demonstrate that his riveted lamellar ever existed. All he has is a few illustrations that could be interpreted in many different ways. His argument seems remarkably similar to Meyrick when he invented all of his mail variants. The problem with lamellar lacing wasn't solved with rivets, it was solved with the "plated mail" (mail and plates) construction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plated_mail
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books
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William P
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| Posted: Thu 04 Aug, 2016 7:55 am Post subject: |
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| Matthew Amt wrote: | | William P wrote: | | i'm curious, could you elaborate what you mean by saying that scale is just as labour intensive as mail? does that also mean it was on par in terms of expense |
Well, just that, really. You have to keep in mind that all armor started out as billets of metal, while we just buy the sheet or wire in the size and thickness we want. Scales were typically thinner than the sheet used for segmentata or even for the punched rings of mail, which means that much more effort to thin out the metal before cutting scales. And that's getting to the point of diminishing returns for hand-made sheet metal, so it's very tedious. THEN you can start cutting scales. And probably filing all the edges, depending on how you cut. Then stamping any ridges or bosses or slight dome-shaping, and punching the holes. On every scale.
Remember, those scales can be the size of your fingernail, and you'll need 40,000 of them at that size. Sure, mail rings are smaller, but there are more things you need to do on each scale than on a mail ring.
Oh, and you also have to make all the wire for the staples, and cut all of those. Though they can be just strips of thin sheet, they don't have to be drawn wire.
Once you have all that done, THEN you can start wiring rows together, and eventually even start stitching the rows to the backing.
I don't think we know enough to try to calculate actual man-hours and production costs for any of these armor types. Aside from the fact that very subtle differences in something like metal thickness or scale size might have a significant effect on the equation. It's possible that scale armor was seen as cheaper than mail. But both had their advantages and disadvantages, and cost alone was not the only factor.
Matthew |
now.. heres the real tricky one
do we have any data at all from roman sources describing how much it cost for any piece of armour in the roman army, a letter from home to a soldier, military documents, inventories etc
same goes for weapons and helmets, even the scuta..
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Matthew Amt
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| Posted: Thu 04 Aug, 2016 8:08 am Post subject: |
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| William P wrote: | now.. heres the real tricky one
do we have any data at all from roman sources describing how much it cost for any piece of armour in the roman army, a letter from home to a soldier, military documents, inventories etc
same goes for weapons and helmets, even the scuta.. |
Sure, there are pay records surviving in places like Egypt with deductions recorded for clothing and equipment. Mind you, it's often very fragmentary, and you have to remember that a listed amount may be just a partial payment. And unfortunately I don't recall any exact numbers! I do remember that there is enough information to tell that soldiers go through one or two pairs of shoes or sandals per year, and from 6 to 12 tunics. I'm not sure if we have information for the actual cost of a helmet or cuirass.
You can probably find those listed in later sources like Diocletian's decrees. Those won't necessarily be a lot of help for earlier eras, though.
It's possible there's a good book that brings that all together, maybe something by Goldsworthy? I honestly haven't kept up in the last few years. And I never tended to bother with economics!
Matthew
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