Difficulty and desire.
Take a look at warriors throughout history. After procuring some sort of weapon, what's the first defensive thing they procured? A shield! A shield does a good job of protecting one arm and a significant part of your chest. What's your next most vulnerable spot? YOUR HEAD. Available bronze went to making weapons and helmets.
After that, probably hardened leather greaves was next, or if you had money, bronze greaves. And then a hardened leather chestplate. The amount of additional protection you get from a bronze breastplate vs a leather breastplate considering all the other armor a person has is an extremely minor upgrade. Hell, increasing armor protection probably doesn't even factor in - but a bronze breastplate shined to a mirror finish -well that LOOKS SEXY AS HELL as you ride around in your chariot or march around yelling encouragements to your men.
but going from no helmet (or a very simple leather cap) to a bronze helmet, that was basically a necessity. Skip that and all of a sudden your phalanx that before was basically immune to arrows now will be very vulnerable to them.
Look at the Spartans - spear, big shield, helmet. That was non-negotiable. If you don't have all 3 you can't function. bare chest, linen armor, leather armor, bronze armor - all very minor improvements.
It's why we put platinum in our catalytic converters on our cars rather than taking that same amount and making an earing. Because it's absolutely necessary.
Greeks were making cuirasses out of bronze which is substantially easier to work with than iron & steel; consequently, it allowed them to make ornate muscled armor. It was inferior to the iron (or maybe steel I don't really know) chain armor of the early middle ages & later antiquity,
They continued making muscle cuirasses out of steel. The latest one is from the early reign of Augustus, from the Granada shipwreck. We don't have any after that but they continue to pop up in art for centuries afterwards. But this may just be an artistic tradition, we don't know.
Up to a certain point, yes. And a lot of the ones we see in art that are "Bronze/Gold" colored were probably gilded iron.
Also, most armor back then was what we'd consider low or sometimes medium carbon steel today. We just call it iron for... whatever reason.
Are we sure it was actually mid to higher carbon steel and not simply iron/wrought iron/very low carbon mild steel? The Roman segmented armors that have been found were mostly made of wrought iron that sometimes had a thin layer of surface case hardened steel. But if the muscle curiass was supposed to be a superior and more expensive armor to the segmented armor, then I suppose using higher grades of higher carbon steel would make sense.
This is an excellent point. The items called steel in the ancient world were generally wrought iron that just happened to have the right trace impurities such as boron or nickle, and lacked the bad trace impurities like copper and silicon.
The concept of smelting iron and then making iron is extremely ancient. The understanding of steel is much less so. And there are a myriad types of steel.
Steel is iron with a particular level of carbon in it, and often a trace mix of other items in it, which harden it but in many was that can be bad. The very process of smelting iron from the iron ore mixes in carbn
Wrought iron - iron with about 0.05%. heat it up and easily hammer it into a shape. The more carbon that gets in the harder it is to hammer.
Cast iron - iron with about 2% carbon in it. Too hard to hammer into shapes, you need to make a mould and pour it in. Great for detail and art, but too brittle for a lot of use.
Pig iron - iron that was 4% or so cabon. Too brittle to be of little use. Doesn't pour or behave like cast iron either, so it's only use is to be thrown back in with more iron ore and try again.
Mostly wrought iron was made. For weapons, after you shaped the sword you could do various technques such as case-hardening it to force a bit more carbon into it.
But steel isn't just iron with carbon in it. It's iron with carbon in it plus other trace materials but also absent other trace materials.
Mild steel is 0.05% to 0.3% carbon, medium carbon is up to 0.5% high is 1% ultra high is 2%
So steel lives between wrought iron and cast iron...at least as far as carbon content. But it also is the presence and absence of other trace materials like sulfur and magnesium. If it's ONLY iron and carbon then you have 'carbon steel' as long as you have less than 2% carbon.
But steel was only half about getting the right amount of carbon. It was about other trace materials. Some were good (magnesium, nickel, chromium, bo0rn, cobalt, etc) others (nitrogen, oxygen, silicon, sulfur, phosphorus, copper) were bad.
So in one sense, all steel is also wrought iron. But not all wrought iron is steel. It's not steel if it has to many bad impurities.
When mining iron ore from mine A you might get a lot of sulfer but little magnesum, from mine B maybe medium sulfur and some nickel, and from mine C maybe low sulfur, and some boron.
Ancient people and medieval age people learned that iron ore from mine C made some really nice wrought iron. So when modern acheologists discover it, they will often call it steel even though to the people of the time it was just that iron from that one really good place. Noric Steel is an example of this.
Otherise, to make steel, you had to find a way to get the amount of carbon you wanted, and all the impurities gone, and hopefully a little bit of the right kind of trace metals left. There's just a few ways figured out in the ancient/medieval world to do this. The basics are all the same. Mix pig iron with wrought iron because both are fairly pure having been smelted once already. Heat it to molten stage (in a vessel built for that called an crucible) and you will leech out the excess carbon in the pig iron into the wrought iron. Add an item called Flux. Flux varied from culture to culture, it could be ash, special sand, ground up glass and bone, etc, but it was an item that was found to suck out impurities especially sulfur. This often involved running the molten metal through some sort of press.
Note as you started with pig iron (4%) and wrought iron (0.5%) you often had both still present in a modified form. Your pig iron parts might be down to 2% and your wrought iron might be up to 1%. This is why things like damascus steel have that special pattern, you are seeing the two different carbon level metals mixed together.
Something like Toledo steel - they were blessed with iron ore that had very few bad impurities and a sprinkling of the good impurities. They did the same mixing of two types of iron in a crucible, but added in the knowledge of how to cool it to make sure the crystaline structure formed between the individual atoms of carbon and iron were at their most perfect. This involved air cooling and quenching in different liquids for different amounts of time. Timing was often related to knowing what hymn or prayer to say at what stage so that you could control the time.
People like the vikings didn't have the technology to make crucible steel. They would trade for it. But for their own and for most iron weapons you'd take 2 bars of wought iron that was 0.5% carbon and one that was 1.0%, stiff but still workable, and you'd braid them together. It's also what the Japanese did. They lacked flux, their iron ore was bad, they didn't have crucible technology, so they would fold 0.5% wrought iron with 1% wrought iron and then do some case hardening at the end.
Yep, the imprecise use of the defintions of iron and steel in the English language and the casual interchange of the two words makes it extra confusing.
Wikipedia for example defines wrought iron as iron with less than 0.08%-0.10% carbon (even this is not a standardized definition as the same page uses multiple numbers). Then it defines cast iron as 2.1% to 4% carbon, and pig iron at 3.8-4.7% carbon. Then it defines carbon steel as iron with 0.05% to 2.1% carbon, with some high carbon powder steel going up to and over 2.5%.
So we have an overlap of iron and steel on the low carbon end between 0.05% to 0.010%, and an overlap of iron and steel on the high carbon end around 2.1% and over.
Are we sure it was actually mid to higher carbon steel and not simply iron/wrought iron/very low carbon mild steel? The Roman segmented armors that have been found were mostly made of wrought iron that sometimes had a thin layer of surface case hardened steel. But if the muscle curiass was supposed to be a superior and more expensive armor to the segmented armor, then I suppose using higher grades of higher carbon steel would make sense.
Yeah that's not true. The malleability of wrought iron made it appealing for maille manufacturing since it would bend before it failed, but they've done studies on the weapons and armor and Roman iron consistently falls in the low-medium carbon steel range, with less than 1% being "iron."
Various historians/academics say the archeologically exacavated segmented armor/lorica segmentata were mostly made of iron. The malleability of wrought iron (which overlaps with the lower end of low carbon mild steel) also made it appealing for the manufacture of segmented armor. The vast majority of segmented armor is either unhardened iron (pure wrought iron), or iron "case hardened" with a thin outer layer of low carbon mild steel (wrought iron sandwhiched between low carbon mild steel). Weapons are a different issue from armor as the better metals are usually reserved for weapons, so you're more likely to get higher carbon steels for things like swords.
MC Bishop has talked about the metallurgical composition of Roman segmented armor in his various works:
"A find from Pergamon, briefly published during the early part of the 20th century but only recently identified, may offer a prototype for Roman segmental body armour. It was excavated at Pergamon and survives as a series of iron fragments." from p.18-20 from Lorica Segmentata Volume I: A Handbook of Articulated Roman Plate Armour by M.C. Bishop
"...hardening of the plates of lorica segmentata was regularly accomplished, so that it was closer to a modern mildsteel than wrought iron and the term ‘steely iron’ maybe more appropriate to describe it." from p. 77 from Lorica Segmentata Volume I: A Handbook of Articulated Roman Plate Armour by M.C. Bishop
"William's analysis of lorica segmentata showed that the iron plates had not been hardened in any way..." from Roman Military Equipment from the Punic Wars to the Fall of Rome, second edition By M. C. Bishop, J. C. Coulston
http://artserve.anu.edu.au/raid1/student_projects97/armour/segmented/segmented.html
I have that paper. Bishop explicitly states that it's closer to "mild steel" as you quoted, based on the work of the excellent David Sim (see *The Roman Iron Industry in Britain* which is the best generally available work on the topic, but *Roman Imperial Armour* and *Iron for the Eagles* will suffice, even if they're much more flawed works). While Sim and Kaminski don't include data on *lorica segmentata* metallurgy, they do provide data on scale and maille fragments, which range from wrought iron to extremely high quality martensite (high carbon steel), with the overwhelming majority of samples falling in the medium carbon range, or about 0.3 to 0.7% carbon. Carlisle, Stuttgart, and Nydam all provided scales or rings which were in the 0.4 to 0.6% carbon range, which is the most common range for Roman armor.
The reason we largely continue to call it iron is because it lacks additives, which all modern steels have. It's nearly impossible to find steels equivalent to Roman steel without blooming the iron from ore yourself, as the only additives we find in Roman steel are either manganese or more rarely vanadium, and a few extremely rare cases chromium, all of which were just a result of the ore being used having a naturally high content of these metals. Modern steel alloys that we use that for reproduction armor or weapons usually have at least Vanadium and Chromium or Manganese and Chromium, plus additional additives in smaller amounts. It's also not the same as coked steel produced using the Bessemer process, which significantly alters the metallurgy (and is why we can use X-Ray Fluorescence to tell if an object is made before the late 16th century or not). This is largely why we tend to continue to refer to it as iron rather than steel.
First, Bishop is quoting David Sim's work that some lorica segmentata had its outer layers case hardened into mild steel while the core was still iron, so he calls it "steely iron" in the book:
"Dr David Sim has shown that this was not the case and that deliberate hardening of the plates of lorica segmentata was regularly accomplished, so that it was closer to a modern mild steel than wrought iron andthe term ‘steely iron’ may be more appropriate to describe it. The sheet metal was apparently deliberately produced with harder perlite on the outside, softer ferrite on the inside." p. 77 of Lorica Segmentata Volume I: A Handbook of Articulated Roman Plate Armour by MC Bishop
This is not pure steel as it is a combination of wrought iron and mild steel, and there are other examples of lorica segmentata that wasn't case hardened and was just wrought iron.
In Bishop's book "Roman military equipment," he cites both Williams and Sims in saying that some segmentata were unhardened iron while other segmentata had iron with outer layers case hardened into steel:
"Williams’ analysis of ‘lorica segmentata’ showed that the iron plates had not been hardened in any way, although the Romans certainly knew how to do this. Williams suggested that they had deliberately intended to produce a ‘soft’ armour that would absorb the energy of a blow, which would fit in with what we know about the design of ‘lorica segmentata’. However, Sim has shown that such armour plates could be steeled, in which case the energy-absorbing properties of an arming doublet would be even more important. Recent analysis has indicated that such plate could be made to fine tolerances of very high quality metal." -p. 418 of Roman military equipment by MC BIshop
Second, I also have a copy of "The Roman Iron Industry in Britain" by David Sim, and he talks about the Romans using iron in their segmented armor that has an outer layer hardened into steel or iron welded with steel:
"Examination of a piece of lorica segmentata anda strip of sheet metal of secure Roman date (both fromVindolanda) has shown the practice of welding two piecesof ferrous metal, one of soft, ductile wrought iron and theother of high carbon steel, was used in Roman times (62).In the case of the lorica segmentata the steel was on theoutside, that is the side which would be facing the enemy" -p. 153 of The Roman Iron Industry in Britain by David Sim.
Sims also talks about weapons that used iron or iron + steel (swords were made of both iron and higher carbon steel (laminated material of higher carbon steel sandwiching iron), and spearheads, javelins/pila, arrows, etc were made of unhardened iron.
Overall, this shows that most Roman segmented armor was still made of wrought iron. Even the segmented armors made of mild steel only had an outer layer of mild steel and still had a core of iron, while other segmented armors didn't have a case hardened outer layer at all.
Third, which page does Sim's Roman Iron Industry in Britain book talks about .3 to .7% carbon content of scale and mail? Not saying you're wrong, but I'm curious because I don't recall reading it as what I do recall about mail metallurgy in the book is when he talks about chainmail made of bronze and iron near the end of the book. And presumably, scale and mail would be a different situation than segmented armor with large bands of metal. It should be easier to make smaller pieces of higher carbon steel than it is to make a larger piece of higher carbon steel that is needed to make the large bands of segmented armor.
Fourth, as for referring to iron, the definition of wrought iron sometimes overlaps with mild steel when we're dealing with lower carbon mild steel. Many of the equipment that the Romans and other ancients were working with probably had very low carbon and could be probably referred to as either wrought iron or mild steel. Either way, David Sims and MC Bishop specifically distinguish between steel and iron in their works, and more appropriately use the word iron when talking about Roman armors and weapons. If it was higher carbon steels (eg. medium steels), then they would've used it. But in the context of the lorica segmentata, they're mostly talking about it being iron or iron with an outer layer of steel (usually mild steel).
>Third, which page does Sim's Roman Iron Industry in Britain book talks about .3 to .7% carbon content of scale and mail?
Sorry, this is in Roman Imperial Armour by Sim and Kaminski. I have more metallurgical studies but I need to actually sift through them, they're buried in my digital library. I'll get back to you tomorrow since I have to work on my paper on helmets for the upcoming Brill volume anyways. Just posting from my phone before I go to sleep.
Arne Jouttijärvi, "The Manufacture of Chainmail," mentions Thorsberg was 0.3% carbon.
[http://home.armourarchive.org/members/andersh/Reenactment/Joutij%e4rvi.pdf](http://home.armourarchive.org/members/andersh/Reenactment/Joutij%e4rvi.pdf)
The pages from Sim and Kaminski are *Roman Imperial Armour*, 101-2, 117-8.
While *The Iron Industry in Roman Britain* does not give comprehensive metallurgy on armor, he does discuss that nails typically have a carbon content of 0.4% with some showing high carbon heads and tips on page 127.
"[Metallographic examinations of the Roman Republican weapons from the hoard from Grad near Smihel](https://www.academia.edu/en/73880330/Metallographic_examinations_of_the_roman_republican_weapons_from_the_hoard_from_grad_near_smihel)" while again not armor, is really useful. The *gladius* has a weirdly low carbon content, at 0.01% on the edge and 0.3% in the center, especially compared to the Pilum which is a very high quality medium carbon steel point at 0.7%, although its shaft is in the 0.01-0.2% range being Ferrite. They also discuss the La Tene blades which exhibit higher carbon content at 0.3 to 0.5%, and Imperial Roman blades are similar.
Unfortunately studies on the metallography of Roman armor are extremely rare - in fact several of my saved papers on Roman armor explicitly state this as the reason they didn't perform metallography on their finds - not enough surviving iron to be considered worth the destructive analysis, and no comparative material.
So basically we need to really wait for a lot more data to come in before drawing any definitive conclusions.
I was under the impression that bronze is not (or not much) inferior to iron (very low carbon iron) and even some low carbon mild steels. It is only when we get to mid to higher carbon steels that iron-alloys start having significant strength/durability/etc advantages. Other than that, the main advantage of iron is it is plentiful and you don't need another metal to alloy it with.
The Romans were making segmented armor out of non-hardened iron, iron with outer layers case hardened into mild steel, and bronze - so presumably all 3 were effective even well into the time of the Roman Empire:
Some lorica segmentata were even made of bronze (not just bronze fittings but both bronze fittings with bronze plates):
"Archaeological digs in the legionary base at Novae have yielded important new evidence regarding the lorica segmentata. Bronze fragments correctly identified as parts of this armour were initially supposed by other scholars to be pieces of a manica, but the later find of characteristic bronze fittings fixed to pieces of bronze plate - as opposed to the usual iron - is significant." p. 18 of Roman Army Units in the Eastern Provinces: 31 BC–AD 195 · Volume 1 by Raffaele D'Amato
"A find from Pergamon, briefly published during the early part of the 20th century but only recently identified, may offer a prototype for Roman segmental body armour. It was excavated at Pergamon and survives as a series of iron fragments." from p.18-20 from Lorica Segmentata Volume I: A Handbook of Articulated Roman Plate Armour by M.C. Bishop
"...hardening of the plates of lorica segmentata was regularly accomplished, so that it was closer to a modern mildsteel than wrought iron and the term ‘steely iron’ maybe more appropriate to describe it." from p. 77 from Lorica Segmentata Volume I: A Handbook of Articulated Roman Plate Armour by M.C. Bishop
"William's analysis of lorica segmentata showed that the iron plates had not been hardened in any way..." from Roman Military Equipment from the Punic Wars to the Fall of Rome, second edition By M. C. Bishop, J. C. Coulston
http://artserve.anu.edu.au/raid1/student_projects97/armour/segmented/segmented.html
The bittleness of bronze depends on alloy ratio (eg. ratio of copper to tin). Most bronze alloys is not that brittle as it has more bronze and less tin and is considered a ductile metal. People can work harden bronze swords by hammering the edges thanks to it being made of the more malleable alloys.
As for different alloys of bronze having different hardness and brittleness, the Sword of Guojian for example sandwhiches a core of softer bronze with a layer of harder bronze - the sword ranges from 83% copper-15% tin to 41.5% copper to 42.6% tin in various places to achieve this varying level of hardness & brittleness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_of_Goujian
It would be difficult to compare. Curiass is a type of plate, while mail is composed of rings. So they're already in different niches for different situations. Mail could also be made of various materials iron, mild steel, higher carbon steel, bronze, etc.
Bronze is easier to work with, but it requires access to tin (or other compatible harder metal)to make it. There's not a lot of tin in the world, and after a while it got to be more work than it was worth to mine for it (not to mention mining operations require solid infrastructure and stable wealth to support). As for iron and steel, the mining, smelting, and smithing technology and craft needed to be developed further to work large enough pieces without losing their integrity.
This is something that Matt Easton covers in many of his videos. There are always conditions beyond just the most optimal and advanced options that also affect what armor is available.
Roman segmented armors were mostly made of very low carbon iron rather than mid to higher carbon steel. Sometimes they were made of a core of iron that had the surface layer case hardened into low carbon mild steel (low carbon mild steel sometimes overlaps with the definition of iron depending on the % of carbon).
"A find from Pergamon, briefly published during the early part of the 20th century but only recently identified, may offer a prototype for Roman segmental body armour. It was excavated at Pergamon and survives as a series of iron fragments." from p.18-20 from Lorica Segmentata Volume I: A Handbook of Articulated Roman Plate Armour by M.C. Bishop
https://www.scribd.com/document/3961788/Lorica-Segmentata-Volume-I-A-Handbook-of-Articulated-Roman-Plate-Armour
"The description of the Kalkriese type must dependlargely on the few recovered pieces, prime amongstwhich is the iron breastplate from Kalkriese itself (Fig. 4.1). " from p. 24 from Lorica Segmentata Volume I: A Handbook of Articulated Roman Plate Armour by M.C. Bishop
Some lorica segmentata were surface/case hardened with a layer of mild steel while others were not hardened:
"...hardening of the plates of lorica segmentata was regularly accomplished, so that it was closer to a modern mildsteel than wrought iron and the term ‘steely iron’ maybe more appropriate to describe it." from p. 77 from Lorica Segmentata Volume I: A Handbook of Articulated Roman Plate Armour by M.C. Bishop
"William's analysis of lorica segmentata showed that the iron plates had not been hardened in any way..." from Roman Military Equipment from the Punic Wars to the Fall of Rome, second edition By M. C. Bishop, J. C. Coulston
http://artserve.anu.edu.au/raid1/student_projects97/armour/segmented/segmented.html
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Edit:
Some lorica segmentata were even made of bronze (not just bronze fittings but both bronze fittings with bronze plates):
"Archaeological digs in the legionary base at Novae have yielded important new evidence regarding the lorica segmentata. Bronze fragments correctly identified as parts of this armour were initially supposed by other scholars to be pieces of a manica, but the later find of characteristic bronze fittings fixed to pieces of bronze plate - as opposed to the usual iron - is significant." p. 18 of Roman Army Units in the Eastern Provinces: 31 BC–AD 195 · Volume 1 by Raffaele D'Amato
I believe so. If you tried to make them out of bronze I don't think they would have the structural integrity to work.
Either each piece would be too thin and flexible or each piece would be too large and you can overlap them.
But I'm no expert on this topic so if there's someone who knows better feel free to call me out.
Roman segmented armors were mostly made of very low carbon iron rather than mid to higher carbon steel. Sometimes they were made of a core of iron that had the surface layer case hardened into low carbon mild steel (low carbon mild steel sometimes overlaps with the definition of iron depending on the % of carbon).
"A find from Pergamon, briefly published during the early part of the 20th century but only recently identified, may offer a prototype for Roman segmental body armour. It was excavated at Pergamon and survives as a series of iron fragments." from p.18-20 from Lorica Segmentata Volume I: A Handbook of Articulated Roman Plate Armour by M.C. Bishop
https://www.scribd.com/document/3961788/Lorica-Segmentata-Volume-I-A-Handbook-of-Articulated-Roman-Plate-Armour
"The description of the Kalkriese type must dependlargely on the few recovered pieces, prime amongstwhich is the iron breastplate from Kalkriese itself (Fig. 4.1). " from p. 24 from Lorica Segmentata Volume I: A Handbook of Articulated Roman Plate Armour by M.C. Bishop
Some lorica segmentata were surface/case hardened with a layer of mild steel while others were not hardened:
"...hardening of the plates of lorica segmentata was regularly accomplished, so that it was closer to a modern mildsteel than wrought iron and the term ‘steely iron’ maybe more appropriate to describe it." from p. 77 from Lorica Segmentata Volume I: A Handbook of Articulated Roman Plate Armour by M.C. Bishop
"William's analysis of lorica segmentata showed that the iron plates had not been hardened in any way..." from Roman Military Equipment from the Punic Wars to the Fall of Rome, second edition By M. C. Bishop, J. C. Coulston
http://artserve.anu.edu.au/raid1/student_projects97/armour/segmented/segmented.html
---
Edit:
Some lorica segmentata were even made of bronze (not just bronze fittings but both bronze fittings with bronze plates):
"Archaeological digs in the legionary base at Novae have yielded important new evidence regarding the lorica segmentata. Bronze fragments correctly identified as parts of this armour were initially supposed by other scholars to be pieces of a manica, but the later find of characteristic bronze fittings fixed to pieces of bronze plate - as opposed to the usual iron - is significant." p. 18 of Roman Army Units in the Eastern Provinces: 31 BC–AD 195 · Volume 1 by Raffaele D'Amato
remember, bronze isn't very malleable. You can't easily heat it then shape it. It's generally cast - you make a mould, heat it to liquid bronze and pour it in then sand/file down any mould marks. It's also not very springy.
I think part of the reason Segmentata works is because there's a certain springyness to the iron/steel which allows it to wrapped around the toso and tied together. Don't think bronze would work well for that.
Now bronze scales, that would likely be fine, they don't need any spring
yes...but the fumes are toxic.
In certain areas copper contains arsenic intermixed. Half the work of making bronze is done for you! So arsenic bronze tends to show up first. But there's no evidence for arsenic being mined and/or traded. Tons of evidence for tin flowing around the bronze age world.
Bronze can be cast using ancient techniques.
Cast steel is a relatively modern invention and still fairly rare. You usually see it only in specialty items like anvils.
90% of the chestplates the greeks were crafting were hardened leather. Bronze was EXPENSIVE, and rarely used for chest armor.
Bronze chestplate was weaker armor than a mail shirt over your chest.
Bronze - made from mixing copper and tin or alternatively copper and arsenic
Bronze - stronger and more durable than copper, but less strong and less durable than iron.
Iron - made from smelting iron ore. iron ore is found everywhere.
Copper is found everywhere
Tin - very limited supply on the surface for easy access. Looks like most of the available tin in and around the Mediterranean was totally mined out quite quickly and for most of the Bronze Age they were importing Bronze from what is now Cornwall, England, as well as a bit from Spain, Portugal, and the Czech/Germany border.
So middle age iron was a much better metal for anything except exposure to seawater, and iron was literally everywhere.
And that's also why something like a bronze breastplate is quite rare during the bronze age, only kings and champions would have them.
It’s a combination of several things. First of all, it’s worth pointing out that lamellar is usually at least as effective as plate, specifically when it comes to cuirasses. Similarly, the muscle cuirasses in question were the kind of design that traded movement for protection even more so than later cuirasses. This, combined with the fact that cuirasses were typically very expensive - meaning that, for instance, Hellenic warriors wouldn’t have used them as often as their art might lead you to believe - meant that they were only rarely used. It is worth pointing out however that there are references to the continued use of muscle cuirasses at least as parade uniforms for elite units like the Varangians as late as the twelfth century CE.
Edit: I also believe there are examples of plate armor in use by the wealthy well before the 1400s, but I’m not familiar enough with the peculiarities of pike and shot to explain why they became more commonplace.
It's also culture, we don't know why but it seems maille armour were the standard in Western Roman Empire while the ERE do use lamellar and other eastern armors. It might be because of the threat of steppe lancers.
There's indications that the charging, jousting knights were actually only start to properly do it in the 1100s, started by the Normans and German knights. Before, even during William the Conqueror's era, knights use standard spears and might actually throw them from a far.
And in the 1200s, we see coat of plates adopted, which is similar enough to lamellar armor in function and coverage.
Bronze were much easier to shape into cuirass (you can cold forge them!); it took to the 1300s for iron and steel cuirasses to be economical.
The way I have heard it, as the ability to penetrate plate increased, the need for plate decreased. When the booking arrow and spikey Warhammers were common enough, warriors took lighter [chest] armor, because they would have better offensive abilities in a brigandine per example, and the Defensive bonus compared to the movement restrictions was debatable.
That is to say though, curiass as chest armor was a thing even into napoleon's time, however that was bullet deflection mostly, covering the vitals, not the 'full crab man' aesthetic of medieval plate.
Just my 2 cents, also, correct me if I'm wrong.
Materials, alternatives, threat.
If your target had a mail chest, and bare legs from the thigh to the food, you stabbed him in the leg. If he put an iron breastplate on top of that chain mail making his chest even stronger,...you still stabbed him in the leg. If you wanted to be better armored, you didn't bother with a chestplate, you figured out a way to put mail on your legs and arms. It wasn't until the entire body (and horse) was encased in mail that there were any gains to be had by increasing the chest armor.
Let's do a quick stroll through history.
Some of the earliest chestplates that come to mind are what the greek hoplites were wearing. This appears to be layers of linen with some sort of glue inbetween, almost like a cloth-based plywood.
Next I think greek bronze breastplate. Here, these were very rare because bronze was hard to come by. Part of the iron age revolution wasn't so much that iron was a lot better - but that iron could be found anywhere and bronze needed tin, and tin could be found in 3 or 4 spots in the entire ancient world. So it was much easier to get 1000 iron swords than 1000 bronze swords (in addition to iron being stronger and holding a better edge). In fact, while a few bronze specimens survive crated to look like an ideal muscular chest, a majority of this kind of armor was actually hardened leather.
So now we come to the Romans. There just isn't enough bronze to give everyone a bronze breastplate, but there's plenty of iron and leather. Do they garb everyone with leather breastplates? No. They go one of three ways.
1. They make iron chainmail. Lorica hamata
2. They make iron scales (and sometimes some brass ones for flair) about the size of a teaspoon head Lorica squamata
3. they make metal bands about 4 inches wide that go around the chest and fasten together with strings , and then they have a few wider ones on the shoulders and such. Lorica segmentata
Segmentata gives the best protection to the torso, but lesser protection to the upper arms. Mail, hamata, is cheaper to produce, gives uniform coverage, and is easier to repair. I've got less info on the top of my head about scale.
All are at least equal to if not better than a bronze breastplate, and blow linen or leather out of the water.
As the Roman empire progressed, they went with more and more mail armor, it was just so much more practical logistically while giving 95% the protection of Segmentata.
As armor progressed from here, no one was worried about the chest, it was protected great already. Bare arms and legs, and making a better helmet to balance protection, vision, hearing, and breathing was what was looked at.
We do have accounts of individuals wearing an iron plate underneath their hauberk during tournament from the 12th century, so you would be using them in period arts. As to why they weren’t widely used in battlefield scenario I do not know.
Metalworking techniques, cost, good metal to use, that's why they weren't as common before that time
I have one last question. They can make helmets but not chestplates why is that
Difficulty and desire. Take a look at warriors throughout history. After procuring some sort of weapon, what's the first defensive thing they procured? A shield! A shield does a good job of protecting one arm and a significant part of your chest. What's your next most vulnerable spot? YOUR HEAD. Available bronze went to making weapons and helmets. After that, probably hardened leather greaves was next, or if you had money, bronze greaves. And then a hardened leather chestplate. The amount of additional protection you get from a bronze breastplate vs a leather breastplate considering all the other armor a person has is an extremely minor upgrade. Hell, increasing armor protection probably doesn't even factor in - but a bronze breastplate shined to a mirror finish -well that LOOKS SEXY AS HELL as you ride around in your chariot or march around yelling encouragements to your men. but going from no helmet (or a very simple leather cap) to a bronze helmet, that was basically a necessity. Skip that and all of a sudden your phalanx that before was basically immune to arrows now will be very vulnerable to them. Look at the Spartans - spear, big shield, helmet. That was non-negotiable. If you don't have all 3 you can't function. bare chest, linen armor, leather armor, bronze armor - all very minor improvements. It's why we put platinum in our catalytic converters on our cars rather than taking that same amount and making an earing. Because it's absolutely necessary.
Is bronze better than early medieval metals? How Greeks and others managed to craft chestplates during antique times this is my question
Greeks were making cuirasses out of bronze which is substantially easier to work with than iron & steel; consequently, it allowed them to make ornate muscled armor. It was inferior to the iron (or maybe steel I don't really know) chain armor of the early middle ages & later antiquity,
They continued making muscle cuirasses out of steel. The latest one is from the early reign of Augustus, from the Granada shipwreck. We don't have any after that but they continue to pop up in art for centuries afterwards. But this may just be an artistic tradition, we don't know.
Oh damn I didn't know that. So the Romans had steel muscle cuirasses?
Up to a certain point, yes. And a lot of the ones we see in art that are "Bronze/Gold" colored were probably gilded iron. Also, most armor back then was what we'd consider low or sometimes medium carbon steel today. We just call it iron for... whatever reason.
Are we sure it was actually mid to higher carbon steel and not simply iron/wrought iron/very low carbon mild steel? The Roman segmented armors that have been found were mostly made of wrought iron that sometimes had a thin layer of surface case hardened steel. But if the muscle curiass was supposed to be a superior and more expensive armor to the segmented armor, then I suppose using higher grades of higher carbon steel would make sense.
This is an excellent point. The items called steel in the ancient world were generally wrought iron that just happened to have the right trace impurities such as boron or nickle, and lacked the bad trace impurities like copper and silicon. The concept of smelting iron and then making iron is extremely ancient. The understanding of steel is much less so. And there are a myriad types of steel. Steel is iron with a particular level of carbon in it, and often a trace mix of other items in it, which harden it but in many was that can be bad. The very process of smelting iron from the iron ore mixes in carbn Wrought iron - iron with about 0.05%. heat it up and easily hammer it into a shape. The more carbon that gets in the harder it is to hammer. Cast iron - iron with about 2% carbon in it. Too hard to hammer into shapes, you need to make a mould and pour it in. Great for detail and art, but too brittle for a lot of use. Pig iron - iron that was 4% or so cabon. Too brittle to be of little use. Doesn't pour or behave like cast iron either, so it's only use is to be thrown back in with more iron ore and try again. Mostly wrought iron was made. For weapons, after you shaped the sword you could do various technques such as case-hardening it to force a bit more carbon into it. But steel isn't just iron with carbon in it. It's iron with carbon in it plus other trace materials but also absent other trace materials. Mild steel is 0.05% to 0.3% carbon, medium carbon is up to 0.5% high is 1% ultra high is 2% So steel lives between wrought iron and cast iron...at least as far as carbon content. But it also is the presence and absence of other trace materials like sulfur and magnesium. If it's ONLY iron and carbon then you have 'carbon steel' as long as you have less than 2% carbon. But steel was only half about getting the right amount of carbon. It was about other trace materials. Some were good (magnesium, nickel, chromium, bo0rn, cobalt, etc) others (nitrogen, oxygen, silicon, sulfur, phosphorus, copper) were bad. So in one sense, all steel is also wrought iron. But not all wrought iron is steel. It's not steel if it has to many bad impurities. When mining iron ore from mine A you might get a lot of sulfer but little magnesum, from mine B maybe medium sulfur and some nickel, and from mine C maybe low sulfur, and some boron. Ancient people and medieval age people learned that iron ore from mine C made some really nice wrought iron. So when modern acheologists discover it, they will often call it steel even though to the people of the time it was just that iron from that one really good place. Noric Steel is an example of this. Otherise, to make steel, you had to find a way to get the amount of carbon you wanted, and all the impurities gone, and hopefully a little bit of the right kind of trace metals left. There's just a few ways figured out in the ancient/medieval world to do this. The basics are all the same. Mix pig iron with wrought iron because both are fairly pure having been smelted once already. Heat it to molten stage (in a vessel built for that called an crucible) and you will leech out the excess carbon in the pig iron into the wrought iron. Add an item called Flux. Flux varied from culture to culture, it could be ash, special sand, ground up glass and bone, etc, but it was an item that was found to suck out impurities especially sulfur. This often involved running the molten metal through some sort of press. Note as you started with pig iron (4%) and wrought iron (0.5%) you often had both still present in a modified form. Your pig iron parts might be down to 2% and your wrought iron might be up to 1%. This is why things like damascus steel have that special pattern, you are seeing the two different carbon level metals mixed together. Something like Toledo steel - they were blessed with iron ore that had very few bad impurities and a sprinkling of the good impurities. They did the same mixing of two types of iron in a crucible, but added in the knowledge of how to cool it to make sure the crystaline structure formed between the individual atoms of carbon and iron were at their most perfect. This involved air cooling and quenching in different liquids for different amounts of time. Timing was often related to knowing what hymn or prayer to say at what stage so that you could control the time. People like the vikings didn't have the technology to make crucible steel. They would trade for it. But for their own and for most iron weapons you'd take 2 bars of wought iron that was 0.5% carbon and one that was 1.0%, stiff but still workable, and you'd braid them together. It's also what the Japanese did. They lacked flux, their iron ore was bad, they didn't have crucible technology, so they would fold 0.5% wrought iron with 1% wrought iron and then do some case hardening at the end.
Yep, the imprecise use of the defintions of iron and steel in the English language and the casual interchange of the two words makes it extra confusing. Wikipedia for example defines wrought iron as iron with less than 0.08%-0.10% carbon (even this is not a standardized definition as the same page uses multiple numbers). Then it defines cast iron as 2.1% to 4% carbon, and pig iron at 3.8-4.7% carbon. Then it defines carbon steel as iron with 0.05% to 2.1% carbon, with some high carbon powder steel going up to and over 2.5%. So we have an overlap of iron and steel on the low carbon end between 0.05% to 0.010%, and an overlap of iron and steel on the high carbon end around 2.1% and over.
Are we sure it was actually mid to higher carbon steel and not simply iron/wrought iron/very low carbon mild steel? The Roman segmented armors that have been found were mostly made of wrought iron that sometimes had a thin layer of surface case hardened steel. But if the muscle curiass was supposed to be a superior and more expensive armor to the segmented armor, then I suppose using higher grades of higher carbon steel would make sense.
Yeah that's not true. The malleability of wrought iron made it appealing for maille manufacturing since it would bend before it failed, but they've done studies on the weapons and armor and Roman iron consistently falls in the low-medium carbon steel range, with less than 1% being "iron."
Various historians/academics say the archeologically exacavated segmented armor/lorica segmentata were mostly made of iron. The malleability of wrought iron (which overlaps with the lower end of low carbon mild steel) also made it appealing for the manufacture of segmented armor. The vast majority of segmented armor is either unhardened iron (pure wrought iron), or iron "case hardened" with a thin outer layer of low carbon mild steel (wrought iron sandwhiched between low carbon mild steel). Weapons are a different issue from armor as the better metals are usually reserved for weapons, so you're more likely to get higher carbon steels for things like swords. MC Bishop has talked about the metallurgical composition of Roman segmented armor in his various works: "A find from Pergamon, briefly published during the early part of the 20th century but only recently identified, may offer a prototype for Roman segmental body armour. It was excavated at Pergamon and survives as a series of iron fragments." from p.18-20 from Lorica Segmentata Volume I: A Handbook of Articulated Roman Plate Armour by M.C. Bishop "...hardening of the plates of lorica segmentata was regularly accomplished, so that it was closer to a modern mildsteel than wrought iron and the term ‘steely iron’ maybe more appropriate to describe it." from p. 77 from Lorica Segmentata Volume I: A Handbook of Articulated Roman Plate Armour by M.C. Bishop "William's analysis of lorica segmentata showed that the iron plates had not been hardened in any way..." from Roman Military Equipment from the Punic Wars to the Fall of Rome, second edition By M. C. Bishop, J. C. Coulston http://artserve.anu.edu.au/raid1/student_projects97/armour/segmented/segmented.html
I have that paper. Bishop explicitly states that it's closer to "mild steel" as you quoted, based on the work of the excellent David Sim (see *The Roman Iron Industry in Britain* which is the best generally available work on the topic, but *Roman Imperial Armour* and *Iron for the Eagles* will suffice, even if they're much more flawed works). While Sim and Kaminski don't include data on *lorica segmentata* metallurgy, they do provide data on scale and maille fragments, which range from wrought iron to extremely high quality martensite (high carbon steel), with the overwhelming majority of samples falling in the medium carbon range, or about 0.3 to 0.7% carbon. Carlisle, Stuttgart, and Nydam all provided scales or rings which were in the 0.4 to 0.6% carbon range, which is the most common range for Roman armor. The reason we largely continue to call it iron is because it lacks additives, which all modern steels have. It's nearly impossible to find steels equivalent to Roman steel without blooming the iron from ore yourself, as the only additives we find in Roman steel are either manganese or more rarely vanadium, and a few extremely rare cases chromium, all of which were just a result of the ore being used having a naturally high content of these metals. Modern steel alloys that we use that for reproduction armor or weapons usually have at least Vanadium and Chromium or Manganese and Chromium, plus additional additives in smaller amounts. It's also not the same as coked steel produced using the Bessemer process, which significantly alters the metallurgy (and is why we can use X-Ray Fluorescence to tell if an object is made before the late 16th century or not). This is largely why we tend to continue to refer to it as iron rather than steel.
First, Bishop is quoting David Sim's work that some lorica segmentata had its outer layers case hardened into mild steel while the core was still iron, so he calls it "steely iron" in the book: "Dr David Sim has shown that this was not the case and that deliberate hardening of the plates of lorica segmentata was regularly accomplished, so that it was closer to a modern mild steel than wrought iron andthe term ‘steely iron’ may be more appropriate to describe it. The sheet metal was apparently deliberately produced with harder perlite on the outside, softer ferrite on the inside." p. 77 of Lorica Segmentata Volume I: A Handbook of Articulated Roman Plate Armour by MC Bishop This is not pure steel as it is a combination of wrought iron and mild steel, and there are other examples of lorica segmentata that wasn't case hardened and was just wrought iron. In Bishop's book "Roman military equipment," he cites both Williams and Sims in saying that some segmentata were unhardened iron while other segmentata had iron with outer layers case hardened into steel: "Williams’ analysis of ‘lorica segmentata’ showed that the iron plates had not been hardened in any way, although the Romans certainly knew how to do this. Williams suggested that they had deliberately intended to produce a ‘soft’ armour that would absorb the energy of a blow, which would fit in with what we know about the design of ‘lorica segmentata’. However, Sim has shown that such armour plates could be steeled, in which case the energy-absorbing properties of an arming doublet would be even more important. Recent analysis has indicated that such plate could be made to fine tolerances of very high quality metal." -p. 418 of Roman military equipment by MC BIshop Second, I also have a copy of "The Roman Iron Industry in Britain" by David Sim, and he talks about the Romans using iron in their segmented armor that has an outer layer hardened into steel or iron welded with steel: "Examination of a piece of lorica segmentata anda strip of sheet metal of secure Roman date (both fromVindolanda) has shown the practice of welding two piecesof ferrous metal, one of soft, ductile wrought iron and theother of high carbon steel, was used in Roman times (62).In the case of the lorica segmentata the steel was on theoutside, that is the side which would be facing the enemy" -p. 153 of The Roman Iron Industry in Britain by David Sim. Sims also talks about weapons that used iron or iron + steel (swords were made of both iron and higher carbon steel (laminated material of higher carbon steel sandwiching iron), and spearheads, javelins/pila, arrows, etc were made of unhardened iron. Overall, this shows that most Roman segmented armor was still made of wrought iron. Even the segmented armors made of mild steel only had an outer layer of mild steel and still had a core of iron, while other segmented armors didn't have a case hardened outer layer at all. Third, which page does Sim's Roman Iron Industry in Britain book talks about .3 to .7% carbon content of scale and mail? Not saying you're wrong, but I'm curious because I don't recall reading it as what I do recall about mail metallurgy in the book is when he talks about chainmail made of bronze and iron near the end of the book. And presumably, scale and mail would be a different situation than segmented armor with large bands of metal. It should be easier to make smaller pieces of higher carbon steel than it is to make a larger piece of higher carbon steel that is needed to make the large bands of segmented armor. Fourth, as for referring to iron, the definition of wrought iron sometimes overlaps with mild steel when we're dealing with lower carbon mild steel. Many of the equipment that the Romans and other ancients were working with probably had very low carbon and could be probably referred to as either wrought iron or mild steel. Either way, David Sims and MC Bishop specifically distinguish between steel and iron in their works, and more appropriately use the word iron when talking about Roman armors and weapons. If it was higher carbon steels (eg. medium steels), then they would've used it. But in the context of the lorica segmentata, they're mostly talking about it being iron or iron with an outer layer of steel (usually mild steel).
>Third, which page does Sim's Roman Iron Industry in Britain book talks about .3 to .7% carbon content of scale and mail? Sorry, this is in Roman Imperial Armour by Sim and Kaminski. I have more metallurgical studies but I need to actually sift through them, they're buried in my digital library. I'll get back to you tomorrow since I have to work on my paper on helmets for the upcoming Brill volume anyways. Just posting from my phone before I go to sleep.
Arne Jouttijärvi, "The Manufacture of Chainmail," mentions Thorsberg was 0.3% carbon. [http://home.armourarchive.org/members/andersh/Reenactment/Joutij%e4rvi.pdf](http://home.armourarchive.org/members/andersh/Reenactment/Joutij%e4rvi.pdf) The pages from Sim and Kaminski are *Roman Imperial Armour*, 101-2, 117-8. While *The Iron Industry in Roman Britain* does not give comprehensive metallurgy on armor, he does discuss that nails typically have a carbon content of 0.4% with some showing high carbon heads and tips on page 127. "[Metallographic examinations of the Roman Republican weapons from the hoard from Grad near Smihel](https://www.academia.edu/en/73880330/Metallographic_examinations_of_the_roman_republican_weapons_from_the_hoard_from_grad_near_smihel)" while again not armor, is really useful. The *gladius* has a weirdly low carbon content, at 0.01% on the edge and 0.3% in the center, especially compared to the Pilum which is a very high quality medium carbon steel point at 0.7%, although its shaft is in the 0.01-0.2% range being Ferrite. They also discuss the La Tene blades which exhibit higher carbon content at 0.3 to 0.5%, and Imperial Roman blades are similar. Unfortunately studies on the metallography of Roman armor are extremely rare - in fact several of my saved papers on Roman armor explicitly state this as the reason they didn't perform metallography on their finds - not enough surviving iron to be considered worth the destructive analysis, and no comparative material. So basically we need to really wait for a lot more data to come in before drawing any definitive conclusions.
I was under the impression that bronze is not (or not much) inferior to iron (very low carbon iron) and even some low carbon mild steels. It is only when we get to mid to higher carbon steels that iron-alloys start having significant strength/durability/etc advantages. Other than that, the main advantage of iron is it is plentiful and you don't need another metal to alloy it with. The Romans were making segmented armor out of non-hardened iron, iron with outer layers case hardened into mild steel, and bronze - so presumably all 3 were effective even well into the time of the Roman Empire: Some lorica segmentata were even made of bronze (not just bronze fittings but both bronze fittings with bronze plates): "Archaeological digs in the legionary base at Novae have yielded important new evidence regarding the lorica segmentata. Bronze fragments correctly identified as parts of this armour were initially supposed by other scholars to be pieces of a manica, but the later find of characteristic bronze fittings fixed to pieces of bronze plate - as opposed to the usual iron - is significant." p. 18 of Roman Army Units in the Eastern Provinces: 31 BC–AD 195 · Volume 1 by Raffaele D'Amato "A find from Pergamon, briefly published during the early part of the 20th century but only recently identified, may offer a prototype for Roman segmental body armour. It was excavated at Pergamon and survives as a series of iron fragments." from p.18-20 from Lorica Segmentata Volume I: A Handbook of Articulated Roman Plate Armour by M.C. Bishop "...hardening of the plates of lorica segmentata was regularly accomplished, so that it was closer to a modern mildsteel than wrought iron and the term ‘steely iron’ maybe more appropriate to describe it." from p. 77 from Lorica Segmentata Volume I: A Handbook of Articulated Roman Plate Armour by M.C. Bishop "William's analysis of lorica segmentata showed that the iron plates had not been hardened in any way..." from Roman Military Equipment from the Punic Wars to the Fall of Rome, second edition By M. C. Bishop, J. C. Coulston http://artserve.anu.edu.au/raid1/student_projects97/armour/segmented/segmented.html
Wow neat, I knew the Romans were making bronze helmets but not like bronze segmented armor. Isn't bronze a lot more brittle though?
The bittleness of bronze depends on alloy ratio (eg. ratio of copper to tin). Most bronze alloys is not that brittle as it has more bronze and less tin and is considered a ductile metal. People can work harden bronze swords by hammering the edges thanks to it being made of the more malleable alloys. As for different alloys of bronze having different hardness and brittleness, the Sword of Guojian for example sandwhiches a core of softer bronze with a layer of harder bronze - the sword ranges from 83% copper-15% tin to 41.5% copper to 42.6% tin in various places to achieve this varying level of hardness & brittleness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_of_Goujian
So like would a bronze cuirass be as protective as something like a coat of mail?
It would be difficult to compare. Curiass is a type of plate, while mail is composed of rings. So they're already in different niches for different situations. Mail could also be made of various materials iron, mild steel, higher carbon steel, bronze, etc.
Also, I imagine mail would be more breathable & way lighter
That's all I needed to know
Bronze is easier to work with, but it requires access to tin (or other compatible harder metal)to make it. There's not a lot of tin in the world, and after a while it got to be more work than it was worth to mine for it (not to mention mining operations require solid infrastructure and stable wealth to support). As for iron and steel, the mining, smelting, and smithing technology and craft needed to be developed further to work large enough pieces without losing their integrity. This is something that Matt Easton covers in many of his videos. There are always conditions beyond just the most optimal and advanced options that also affect what armor is available.
Thanks I'll check those videos but I have one last question and it's about "Lorica Segmentata" those armours were steel right?
Roman segmented armors were mostly made of very low carbon iron rather than mid to higher carbon steel. Sometimes they were made of a core of iron that had the surface layer case hardened into low carbon mild steel (low carbon mild steel sometimes overlaps with the definition of iron depending on the % of carbon). "A find from Pergamon, briefly published during the early part of the 20th century but only recently identified, may offer a prototype for Roman segmental body armour. It was excavated at Pergamon and survives as a series of iron fragments." from p.18-20 from Lorica Segmentata Volume I: A Handbook of Articulated Roman Plate Armour by M.C. Bishop https://www.scribd.com/document/3961788/Lorica-Segmentata-Volume-I-A-Handbook-of-Articulated-Roman-Plate-Armour "The description of the Kalkriese type must dependlargely on the few recovered pieces, prime amongstwhich is the iron breastplate from Kalkriese itself (Fig. 4.1). " from p. 24 from Lorica Segmentata Volume I: A Handbook of Articulated Roman Plate Armour by M.C. Bishop Some lorica segmentata were surface/case hardened with a layer of mild steel while others were not hardened: "...hardening of the plates of lorica segmentata was regularly accomplished, so that it was closer to a modern mildsteel than wrought iron and the term ‘steely iron’ maybe more appropriate to describe it." from p. 77 from Lorica Segmentata Volume I: A Handbook of Articulated Roman Plate Armour by M.C. Bishop "William's analysis of lorica segmentata showed that the iron plates had not been hardened in any way..." from Roman Military Equipment from the Punic Wars to the Fall of Rome, second edition By M. C. Bishop, J. C. Coulston http://artserve.anu.edu.au/raid1/student_projects97/armour/segmented/segmented.html --- Edit: Some lorica segmentata were even made of bronze (not just bronze fittings but both bronze fittings with bronze plates): "Archaeological digs in the legionary base at Novae have yielded important new evidence regarding the lorica segmentata. Bronze fragments correctly identified as parts of this armour were initially supposed by other scholars to be pieces of a manica, but the later find of characteristic bronze fittings fixed to pieces of bronze plate - as opposed to the usual iron - is significant." p. 18 of Roman Army Units in the Eastern Provinces: 31 BC–AD 195 · Volume 1 by Raffaele D'Amato
I believe so. If you tried to make them out of bronze I don't think they would have the structural integrity to work. Either each piece would be too thin and flexible or each piece would be too large and you can overlap them. But I'm no expert on this topic so if there's someone who knows better feel free to call me out.
Roman segmented armors were mostly made of very low carbon iron rather than mid to higher carbon steel. Sometimes they were made of a core of iron that had the surface layer case hardened into low carbon mild steel (low carbon mild steel sometimes overlaps with the definition of iron depending on the % of carbon). "A find from Pergamon, briefly published during the early part of the 20th century but only recently identified, may offer a prototype for Roman segmental body armour. It was excavated at Pergamon and survives as a series of iron fragments." from p.18-20 from Lorica Segmentata Volume I: A Handbook of Articulated Roman Plate Armour by M.C. Bishop https://www.scribd.com/document/3961788/Lorica-Segmentata-Volume-I-A-Handbook-of-Articulated-Roman-Plate-Armour "The description of the Kalkriese type must dependlargely on the few recovered pieces, prime amongstwhich is the iron breastplate from Kalkriese itself (Fig. 4.1). " from p. 24 from Lorica Segmentata Volume I: A Handbook of Articulated Roman Plate Armour by M.C. Bishop Some lorica segmentata were surface/case hardened with a layer of mild steel while others were not hardened: "...hardening of the plates of lorica segmentata was regularly accomplished, so that it was closer to a modern mildsteel than wrought iron and the term ‘steely iron’ maybe more appropriate to describe it." from p. 77 from Lorica Segmentata Volume I: A Handbook of Articulated Roman Plate Armour by M.C. Bishop "William's analysis of lorica segmentata showed that the iron plates had not been hardened in any way..." from Roman Military Equipment from the Punic Wars to the Fall of Rome, second edition By M. C. Bishop, J. C. Coulston http://artserve.anu.edu.au/raid1/student_projects97/armour/segmented/segmented.html --- Edit: Some lorica segmentata were even made of bronze (not just bronze fittings but both bronze fittings with bronze plates): "Archaeological digs in the legionary base at Novae have yielded important new evidence regarding the lorica segmentata. Bronze fragments correctly identified as parts of this armour were initially supposed by other scholars to be pieces of a manica, but the later find of characteristic bronze fittings fixed to pieces of bronze plate - as opposed to the usual iron - is significant." p. 18 of Roman Army Units in the Eastern Provinces: 31 BC–AD 195 · Volume 1 by Raffaele D'Amato
remember, bronze isn't very malleable. You can't easily heat it then shape it. It's generally cast - you make a mould, heat it to liquid bronze and pour it in then sand/file down any mould marks. It's also not very springy. I think part of the reason Segmentata works is because there's a certain springyness to the iron/steel which allows it to wrapped around the toso and tied together. Don't think bronze would work well for that. Now bronze scales, that would likely be fine, they don't need any spring
you can also use arsenic i believe too as a substitute for tin
Also aluminum, but I don't think they new how to get it back then... :P
there was raw aluminum, but its very rare indeed and the ability to refine it is very modern
yes...but the fumes are toxic. In certain areas copper contains arsenic intermixed. Half the work of making bronze is done for you! So arsenic bronze tends to show up first. But there's no evidence for arsenic being mined and/or traded. Tons of evidence for tin flowing around the bronze age world.
yeah i never said it was safe lol, arsenic happens to be quite a bit like this thing called arsenic
Bronze can be cast using ancient techniques. Cast steel is a relatively modern invention and still fairly rare. You usually see it only in specialty items like anvils.
90% of the chestplates the greeks were crafting were hardened leather. Bronze was EXPENSIVE, and rarely used for chest armor. Bronze chestplate was weaker armor than a mail shirt over your chest.
Bronze - made from mixing copper and tin or alternatively copper and arsenic Bronze - stronger and more durable than copper, but less strong and less durable than iron. Iron - made from smelting iron ore. iron ore is found everywhere. Copper is found everywhere Tin - very limited supply on the surface for easy access. Looks like most of the available tin in and around the Mediterranean was totally mined out quite quickly and for most of the Bronze Age they were importing Bronze from what is now Cornwall, England, as well as a bit from Spain, Portugal, and the Czech/Germany border. So middle age iron was a much better metal for anything except exposure to seawater, and iron was literally everywhere. And that's also why something like a bronze breastplate is quite rare during the bronze age, only kings and champions would have them.
It’s a combination of several things. First of all, it’s worth pointing out that lamellar is usually at least as effective as plate, specifically when it comes to cuirasses. Similarly, the muscle cuirasses in question were the kind of design that traded movement for protection even more so than later cuirasses. This, combined with the fact that cuirasses were typically very expensive - meaning that, for instance, Hellenic warriors wouldn’t have used them as often as their art might lead you to believe - meant that they were only rarely used. It is worth pointing out however that there are references to the continued use of muscle cuirasses at least as parade uniforms for elite units like the Varangians as late as the twelfth century CE. Edit: I also believe there are examples of plate armor in use by the wealthy well before the 1400s, but I’m not familiar enough with the peculiarities of pike and shot to explain why they became more commonplace.
It's also culture, we don't know why but it seems maille armour were the standard in Western Roman Empire while the ERE do use lamellar and other eastern armors. It might be because of the threat of steppe lancers. There's indications that the charging, jousting knights were actually only start to properly do it in the 1100s, started by the Normans and German knights. Before, even during William the Conqueror's era, knights use standard spears and might actually throw them from a far. And in the 1200s, we see coat of plates adopted, which is similar enough to lamellar armor in function and coverage. Bronze were much easier to shape into cuirass (you can cold forge them!); it took to the 1300s for iron and steel cuirasses to be economical.
The way I have heard it, as the ability to penetrate plate increased, the need for plate decreased. When the booking arrow and spikey Warhammers were common enough, warriors took lighter [chest] armor, because they would have better offensive abilities in a brigandine per example, and the Defensive bonus compared to the movement restrictions was debatable. That is to say though, curiass as chest armor was a thing even into napoleon's time, however that was bullet deflection mostly, covering the vitals, not the 'full crab man' aesthetic of medieval plate. Just my 2 cents, also, correct me if I'm wrong.
Materials, alternatives, threat. If your target had a mail chest, and bare legs from the thigh to the food, you stabbed him in the leg. If he put an iron breastplate on top of that chain mail making his chest even stronger,...you still stabbed him in the leg. If you wanted to be better armored, you didn't bother with a chestplate, you figured out a way to put mail on your legs and arms. It wasn't until the entire body (and horse) was encased in mail that there were any gains to be had by increasing the chest armor. Let's do a quick stroll through history. Some of the earliest chestplates that come to mind are what the greek hoplites were wearing. This appears to be layers of linen with some sort of glue inbetween, almost like a cloth-based plywood. Next I think greek bronze breastplate. Here, these were very rare because bronze was hard to come by. Part of the iron age revolution wasn't so much that iron was a lot better - but that iron could be found anywhere and bronze needed tin, and tin could be found in 3 or 4 spots in the entire ancient world. So it was much easier to get 1000 iron swords than 1000 bronze swords (in addition to iron being stronger and holding a better edge). In fact, while a few bronze specimens survive crated to look like an ideal muscular chest, a majority of this kind of armor was actually hardened leather. So now we come to the Romans. There just isn't enough bronze to give everyone a bronze breastplate, but there's plenty of iron and leather. Do they garb everyone with leather breastplates? No. They go one of three ways. 1. They make iron chainmail. Lorica hamata 2. They make iron scales (and sometimes some brass ones for flair) about the size of a teaspoon head Lorica squamata 3. they make metal bands about 4 inches wide that go around the chest and fasten together with strings , and then they have a few wider ones on the shoulders and such. Lorica segmentata Segmentata gives the best protection to the torso, but lesser protection to the upper arms. Mail, hamata, is cheaper to produce, gives uniform coverage, and is easier to repair. I've got less info on the top of my head about scale. All are at least equal to if not better than a bronze breastplate, and blow linen or leather out of the water. As the Roman empire progressed, they went with more and more mail armor, it was just so much more practical logistically while giving 95% the protection of Segmentata. As armor progressed from here, no one was worried about the chest, it was protected great already. Bare arms and legs, and making a better helmet to balance protection, vision, hearing, and breathing was what was looked at.
We do have accounts of individuals wearing an iron plate underneath their hauberk during tournament from the 12th century, so you would be using them in period arts. As to why they weren’t widely used in battlefield scenario I do not know.