Problem is spears are not slashing type weapons and more primitive peoples will use alot of pointy sticks to fight with as they are easy to make and require less training.
There were trade-offs. Clearly, at some point the better protection offered by this type of armour was judged not worth the greater bother - whether because of changes in tactics, organization, etc., I dunno.
Interesting observation: in the early Middle Ages, knights and footsoldiers wore chainmail. As the Middle Ages advanced, the advantage shifted to plate armor.
My understanding was that plate armor is less tiring to wear, than chainmail-wearing plate, the weight is evenly distributed over the arms, shoulders, and legs.
With chainmail, all of the weight falls on the shoulders-which exhausts a man wearing it.
Field tests of chain v. segmentata suggests that segmentata wasn’t that much of an improvement, and while seg is arguably easier to craft it is more difficult to repair in the field. In any event, chainmail never fell entirely out of favor anyway. As for how and why changes in personal equipment occur in the legions, it can be a mistake to think there was an actual, good combat-related reason. Troops got equipped upon enlistment which meant you needed 5,000 suits of armor now. If you could find 5,000 suits of chainmail (representing something like a bajillion man hours of skilled labor) lying around on the Italian peninsula, you’d take it and worry about if all your legions matched later. Hell they probably mixed and matched as necessary, even to the Romans a suit of good armor was worth a fortune. Simple issues of supply and convenience probably did more to change their kits over the centuries than anything else. But yeah, LS isn’t that great. It looks really effing impressive though, which is a great reason to wear it (not kidding, battlefield psychology was very important to them). But when push comes to shove it’s about the same as chainmail.
Decline may be measured by siege capability. Siege was the power to project force in the ancient world, stuff took real education and skill to make and maintain, and a decent logistical system to get it where it needed to go. 1st Century legions were superior siege layers and had been since the Punic Wars, 4th century not so much. Unfortunately delicate siege weapons haven’t survived the ravages of time very well, so it’s hard to say for certain, but it’s a good guess that by 4th century the Romans had begun to think far more defensively.
I know. I’ve been to Masada.
Well, I would. A great part of that was Ceasar, though. I mean, the man was a ludicrous military genius. and the troops under his command were ridiculously skilled and endowed with extremely high morale. You really can’t separate leadership, experience, and dedication from outright performance. People try, but how can you compare a “generic” soldier from another?
That’s true enough as far as it goes, but you are leaving out the huge differences between Lorica Segmentata and later European plate armor. The latter is about as closely related to the former as King Crabs are to beetles.
I don’t think there is sufficient evidence to say that chainmail fell totally out of favor. Altogether way too many depictions of Roman gear seem to boil down to Trajan’s column, no doubt an accurate picture of the particular troops of that campaign. The stuff we find might be skewed in some way so maybe we can only say that the Romans sure used both.
The way I see Segmentata is a sort of one size fits it all smithwork. While it is important that it fits the fighter well, all metallurgy can be done without seeing the recruit. (Can people who know re-enactments confirm this?) In this sense I really like Grossbottom’s idea that they are new recruit’s armor. And obviously related question, how tight fit do the chainmails need to be? From what I’ve understood about armor is that the weight is no problem, but if an iron shirt doesn’t fit you it’s a lot worse than if a cotton shirt doesn’t fit you.
Late medieval full plate iron is something much more advanced, strong and light at the same time.
All armies are built against some perceived enemy. The 100AD Roman army originated in external conflicts in Italy and was modified along the campaigns outside it. But the biggest problem of the Imperial Rome was that so much of the resources were used in internal fighting and the primary function of any legion became to either defend the Emperor or kill the Emperor and be rewarded in cash. In 100AD there had been civil wars for two centuries.
The army of 400AD was a result of long evolution and much of that was civil war. Truly few Roman emperors died in bed and most who didn’t had lost a civil war. Since the later army had been much more built to fight a Roman army, I would give it an edge over the early one.
Of course there is a counter argument, maybe the army had been weakened so it would not kill the emperor? This brings us back to the limitanei/comitatenses question. Althou I can’t see insinde any emperor’s head, I’m pretty sure the comitatenses were particularly designed as the fist that would break any rebellions and therefore would crush any other Roman army. The limitanei would have a lot of technological improvements against earlier troops, but would be designed not to have an independent role in a mobile campaign. I don’t know.
Legionary against legionary a 1st century one was better protected.
The helmet gives better protection to the neck, the shield is more curved so you can “hide” inside it better, the segmentata gives better protection than mail against thrusting weapons and better protection to the shoulders against hacking attacks.
The pilum would still be better against enemy shields than the spiculum, which would be more handy to fend off cavalry.
The improvements/changes in equipment in the 5th century army were aimed at enemies that had more cavalry, but little armour. Against those the Martiobarbuli, the increase in archers and light troops were very effective. Against well protected troops these would be less advantageous.
If the opposing armies were equal in number then, proportianally, the 5th century army would have big troubles matching the numbers of heavy infantry. Even to just to tie them up and allow the cavalry to come into play.
IMHO the general’s best bet to defeat the 1st century army would be to hold off on the decisive battle and try to weaken them first by harassing it with cavalry attacks, mainly to knock out their cavalry by feigned retreats and ambushes. Hopefully this will also thin the ranks of the Auxilia a bit, making it easier to break into the flanks and rear of the heavy legionaries, later on in the main battle.
No, plate is better. Shields were still rather big but round, ast to better form a defensive wall against cavalry.
You forget the 3rd century crisis when barbarians swarmed through the limes.
It took an extreme effort to expell the barbarians and it proved the weakeness of having all your troops defending the border.
Having armies to the rear to deal with breakthroughs was good sense.
Ok, Latro maybe right the comitatenses were introduced because of the 3rd century crisis. Also, it is clear that they were supposed to play the leading role in fending off anybody and were therefore not just specialists. On the other hand, Wikipedia says “Their primary function was to deter usurpations”. Of course, the writer of that has not been inside Diocletians head, either.
I think the 5th century cavalry (largely Sarmatian?) would have a significant edge over Gaul and German ones. But the Wikipedia article seems to dump that idea definitely.
But my main point is not technical. I’m more like hiding behind the backs of the experts, the emperors. The biggest threat to them were the military coups. Not only because they were so frequent, but also because the inevitable goal was to kill them as opposed to the much more restricted goals of barbarians or Persians. The emperors (many of them were smart) would not have chosen a system where the troops they were personally commanding would be beaten by a more archaic Roman army.
I’m not quite following what you mean. Mainly because usurpers would most likely be commanders of a commitatenses army. There were several reserve armies after all.
Must adress this as well.
Although it was normal to hire (sometimes) large numbers of foreigners, known as foederati, this had always been done before. During the early republic there had been the Italic allies and Ceasar employed as much Gaul cavalry as he could lay his hands on. Germans would be even better.
What is usually meant with ‘barbaristation of the late Roman army’ is the number of regular soldiers and officers that were of germanic or other barbarian origin.
There is, however, absolutely no indication that this led to less discipline or lower morale. To the contrary.
Meanwhile conscription went on as usual, even heavier.
With fewer good armies, there are fewer important commanders. And there is increased safety in these commanders being loyal. Also, having larger segregation between elite troops and common troops makes the elite ones less motivated to take risks. Then you of course form the palatinae from the best comitatenses.
This is by no means a 100% safety guarantee. Granted the problems during Diocletian’s life-time I don’t even know if it worked. But now you now only need to watch the commanders of the reserve armies so it looks like a logical improvement to me.
It is not ‘quite heavy’. My chain shirt is about 7 lbs or 3 kg. I’d be surprised if proper padding added another 3 to that. Trying to find it to weigh it.
Its steel, though not exactly traditional in that rings are welded instead of riveted.
The first one I made was 25 lbs because I doubled every ring(the ends were butted) and the gauge of the wire was larger.
I hope that clarifies your clarification.
3 kg is rather light, I think. What’s the ring diameter?
Nic Field and Adam Hook’s “Roman Auxiliary Cavalrymen, AD 14-193” gives the weight of lorica hamata as 10-15kg (22-33lb)
Yes, an hamata with shoulder doubling would certainly be over 10 kg.
And all this weight hangs on your shoulders, mostly. A segmentata is largely supported from the hip. Another advantage of the segmentata over chainmail.