Lorica Segmentata vs Lorica Hamata - Ancient Roman Armor

I am very very happy with this armour. As you know I've had a Lorica Segmentata for a while now, in fact this is my third Lorica Segmentata. I started with the typical cheap low quality sort of Lorica Segmentata that I usually get off the shelf from all sorts of online stores. I then eventually progressed to my first Fabrica Cacti made Lorica Segmentata which was a Coolbridge and then finally I decided to order another Lorica Segmentata and this time I have to say this is really the best one of the three. This is a Lorica Segmentata Coolbridge based on the historical archaeological finding at Coolbridge in England and it's a type A because as you can see here in the front the pectoral plates are connected to the rest of the armour through these leather straps and that's the same in the back although in the back you can't really see it because they're underneath the plates but you've got actually four more leather straps connecting those so in a similar way to how the pectoral plates are connected horizontally the rest of the armour is connected vertically. When it comes to the Lorica Segmentata Coolbridge type B instead you would still have a leather strap up here but you would have as connectors between the plates and the rest of the armour you would have metal hooks basically so a hoop and a hook made of copper connecting it in a similar way but it kind of works different. I personally prefer the type A because I find it easier to put on simply because with the hooks one thing that I've noticed myself is that the armour is kind of difficult when you pick it up sometimes the hooks go outside the loop and then you have to sort of... it's more fiddly whereas with this once it's connected it's connected and all you need to do is open up the front and wear it like a jacket. Of course the other one you can do that too but I noticed that I needed more help in order not to waste I don't know a few minutes just trying to get the hooks in the right position so that's why I personally now prefer I've sold my type B and I now have this type A but that's not the only difference and a new thing about this set of armour. The next thing we're going to look at are the actual shoulder plates. If you notice they are much more anatomically shaped they are in fact dished out and that's a new thing a new service that Fabrica Cacti provides and I very much like them. I think they are more aesthetically pleasing they work better and they are more similar to the actual historical examples where the plates do tend not to be flat but they do tend to sort of come around and follow the contour of the human body. Ultimately another characteristic of this armour is the fact that it's being covered entirely in liquid tin which means that it is rust proof and what's interesting is that differently from roamed steel or stainless steel it's historically accurate. We have findings in the archaeological maxima that show that some of the Roman armour contained traces of tin and not only on the armour but also in jewellery so we know that the Romans used tin or tinning as a form of rust prevention. This of course increased the cost of this armour but now I don't have to worry about maintenance anymore which is lovely because the other armour as you know if you have checked this video on the channel I've had some trouble with rust particularly when I lent it to a friend who didn't really take care of it. Fourth and most important point this is it fits me better and I think you can see that immediately I'm wearing it over my subarmalis or toracomachus for a historical term which is this padded undergarment that I'm wearing underneath the armour and really that helps cushion the weight of the armour given the armour still has a significant weight it's not like super heavy of course but I can move I can jump I can do my job as a Roman soldier but the armour does have a significant weight and even with the subarmalis I can feel it. It does require a little training to be honest to wear this for a long period of time and it's never going to be the segmentata it's never going to be as comfortable as the hamata or mail however it being my favourite the fact that I can wear a subarmalis now with this one I couldn't with the previous one I'll tell you in a second why already makes it easier it's not easy but it is easier it's more comfortable because some of the weight is cushioned and particularly on the shoulders which have got some extra padding and again my subarmalis was produced by Fabrica Cacti together with this tunic but most importantly it's fitting me better in fact my second lorica segmentata the first one I got from Fabrica Cacti there was a little miscommunication because of a mistake I made not them and at the end of the day it was a little tight without a subarmalis I could wear it no problem but with a subarmalis I couldn't close it so I had to wear lorica segmentata in all of my videos without any padding underneath and it was heavier to wear so now I'm happy this is bigger and I think it's it's better it fits me better also because I believe I've gained a little weight unfortunately not only muscle but hey pasta is good what can I say but I've recently started working out again so I'll take care of that and hopefully I'll be able to turn that extra fat into muscle all in all it really fits my frame properly now and I can't stress enough how important it is to get your armor correctly fitted for you which is why I was more than happy to get a new order since a few years have passed I've made a lot of videos with that lorica segmentata so it was about time to invest into a new armor that can fit me better and I think that this one is really perfect when I first saw it out of the box I thought it looks wonderful but is it a little too big it's not it really fits well and now that I've added also my new cingulum militaris I think it looks spectacular the only thing is that one one thing that can help a little bit is to try and get your cingulum militaris as tight as possible in order to push a little bit of place but it's never going to do it's never going to equal the comfort that full plate of the late medieval period can achieve when you manage to get a proper hourglass waist or even wasp waist the straps are made of leather the rivets are made of copper pure copper and the rest of the hardware on the armor is made of brass now I've noticed some people commenting on my facebook where I showed these pictures cop your copper rivets don't sound very strong but that's the purpose that's why they were made so that they could be removed in case you needed in case the they could be removed easily with iron or steel tools if you make steel rivets or iron rivets then they would be harder to remove when you needed to replace the plate and they being so small the fact that they are pure copper is not going to compromise the overall structure and defense capability of the armor at all good luck hitting perfectly every single pure copper rivet in combat not going to happen and again this is consistent with the archaeological examples excellent examples that show all hardware and rivets pure copper or brass so now I'm going to show you how to assemble it and disassemble it so I'm going to disassemble it first of course and it's also going to be an opportunity for me to show you the inside of the armor so I think that that's actually quite interesting to begin with when you receive the armor you will receive it into four pieces and what's important to do is to disconnect them and the lower part here it's and there is a way to understand which one is the front and the back I'll show you in a second and these are both the pectoral pectoral and shoulder plates or defenses again I'll show you how to differentiate between the front and the back although it's quite simple actually I'll show you immediately so this is the front because you can see that there is a horizontal leather strap and single one vertical instead the back has got two and you well one at the top here horizontal so it's the same but you've got two behind this plate and that's how you can understand if it's the right or the left shoulder very very simple now we are going to look at how to differentiate front and back here so the front has only got of course two in order to match with the leather strap it's only got one hoop here buckle and here instead you've got two and it's in the inside so this way you know that this is the back okay and then what I want you to do now and I think for me this is the easiest way to work on the on this assembly of the armor is to actually turn them around so as you can see I've done it here I'm going to do it here now they've been turned around and very important to make sure that they are very close that makes it easier and then you've got these two buckles here and and then again the two buckles here so now you know that the armor is ready to be assembled and what we're going to do is we're going to work on the one side and the other this is the left side I'm going to show you first a mistake okay so normally you need to attach the two leather straps and they need to go through the brass buckles this is quite obvious but a mistake you might make is with the alignment of the plate so I'm going to do it wrong first okay so as you can see I'm just going on and by the way I suggest you to go for the second hole but this is erroneous here because the plate the shoulder part is going underneath and you can see it better here it's going underneath instead it's supposed to overlap this is correct here so as you can see from the back and I'll show you a better a better image in a second but this plate needs to go over this plate and I didn't do it the first time around so I'm going to show you how to do that very quickly and that's important because otherwise when you wear it it's going to look weird as you can see now it's placed properly and it's the shoulder plate is behind and here is the okay if that's correct and that's if that's clear so I'm going to attach the right side now and this time I'm going to be careful and make sure that there is a proper overlapping so again the upper part the shoulder part is going to go it's going to overlap it's going to go over the girth hoops that is going to make the torso and I've sped it up a little bit here so I don't bore you to death and then we're going to attach the front and I didn't show you how I attached the front and the side but it's really really easy attach it this way and again make sure there is proper overlapping so the shoulder goes over and I choose the second hole here personal preference you can choose whatever you like depending on on your personal build okay so for the next part we're gonna I think it's a lot easier if you have somewhere you can put your armor on like an armor stand in this case or you have someone that can do this for you it makes it a lot easier what you're going to do is you're going to connect the pectoral plates first and with this leather strap here so that the two sides of the armor are actually connected then I'm going to turn it around there you go this is the back and I'm going to attach again the horizontal and of course there has to be a certain level of overlap here as well but I don't go too tight particularly when I'm not wearing it so I don't wear it out okay so next part what I'm going to do now this is the back I'm going to use this single string and basically I'm going to connect everything the same way you do when you lace up shoes given is this historically accurate probably not but it's great for when you just put the armor for show okay on display but make sure that the part that you overlap the parts correctly so the the part with more space needs to go underneath and I'll show you better when I when I do it again from the front if you wanted to connect them in an historically accurate way you would need a separate string for each girth hoops hoop probably we don't know 100 but that's more probable but this works if you're lazy if you don't care if you're just wearing it a little bit or you're just doing display that's fine that's what I usually do anyways now I'm going to show you from the front now I'm going to do the same thing but again notice that there is a symmetry this is short this is long there is more space the longer part goes underneath okay this way they will align properly if you don't do this it's going to look weird you're not going to be able to close it shut properly so again for display purposes this is the easiest and quickest way to close the armor shut okay and then again if you want to wear it like this I personally don't have a problem with it since we don't exactly know how they did it but if you want to be more historically coherent then again I would suggest to use one smaller string for each girth hoop and then of course that takes longer but it's more secure that way anyways this is the assembly of the armor I hope everything was easily followed and understood and if you have any questions feel free to ask me in the comments below okay so first off I'd like to show you the full armor so just let me show it to you very quickly and then we will discuss and why did I call you citizen of the empire if I'm wearing a republican armor because I'm not wearing a republican armor and what do I mean by that well you see lorica hamata true it was used during the republic as lorica segmentata or laminata was not available at the time but the fact that I'm wearing an imperial gallic helmet and I was using an imperial shield and every everything else I have is imperial this means that I am an imperial soldier who is now wearing a lorica hamata absolutely plausible and possible setup but as I told you I would like to go for the full republican set so how do I change this into a republican set I've got to change the helmet I've got to change the scutum and the gladius everything needs to change but the armor the armor will stay the same so I will get the full republican set again thanks to your donations for my armor up campaign and but the fact that today I am wearing imperial stuff with it it's absolutely not anachronistic it's a different possible setup that we can have on this channel now so my first impression on the armor first off it feels light well sort of meaning that yes of course it has some weight but compared to both other kinds of mail that I have worn in the past which would represent more like medieval mail and the sort of lorica segmentata that I own I've got to say that this is definitely lighter and the fact that I wear the tight belt around it also makes a difference particularly on my shoulder and we do need to keep in mind one thing I am not wearing a super malice I'm not wearing padding underneath why because the only super malice I have is suited for segmentata but it's not good for hamata for hamata I will have a specific super malice made which will be padded all the way through differently from the one for segmentata which is only padded at the shoulders so at the moment I'm wearing it with no padding and still I can already feel that it's lighter and more comfortable to wear probably with the I will say definitely with the appropriate super malice underneath it and the actual padding it will be even more comfortable to wear so I must say that lorica hamata at the moment for the information that I have now and the data experiential data that I have now lorica hamata is definitely the most comfortable choice as far as room and reenactment is concerned now of course as far as comparison with segmentata well the lorica segmentata I have is a cheap one it's not a properly made one so I think it's fair to wait for my real lorica segmentata to be made as soon as that one arrives I will wear both and we will test and give it justice and we will test both but I can say that compared to the cheap one this feels a lot more comfortable arm mobility is around the same but I can definitely wear this one for longer amount of times and I think that on the march if I had to choose I would prefer to wear this so what is my impression as far as the protection that how much this protects well I do feel very protected please keep in mind this the rings are steel they are half riveted half riveted round rings and half solid punched flat rings and this is exactly how they were in archaeological and archaeological finds although I do I do have to say that the flat rings that we produce in our day and age most of the times they are completely flat whereas flat rings in medieval and roman times they weren't completely flat they were sort of a little bit flattened by a hammer but they weren't completely flat so that is one thing there is difference but I think different but I think that this is already close enough and it's a riveted it's very resistive much better than a buttered male armor so I tested a little bit and I noticed that I tried cutting it with a sharp edge I tried cutting it with a blunt edge I felt absolutely nothing so it doesn't cut through it protects very well against cutting but I gotta say that I do feel the impact and I think that that's because I have no padding so I think that it's dramatically important for me to wear padding because otherwise if someone punches me now I would feel the punch he would probably break his fist but I would still feel the punch maybe not 100% but it doesn't really give me much blunt protection although I noticed that I tried flat hitting here and then hitting here and where I have double protection with with these ones here I feel it a lot less very interesting so I do now understand why they I could already imagine it but I do have to say that it does make the difference already and I think that with proper padding this will become a complete armor very protective so as I have promised I will try marching on this I will try performing all the duties and the things that a Roman legionary would have been expected to do it feels comfortable it feels really good and I think it's an excellent armor what about the looks I'm absolutely in love with it I gotta say I still prefer a little bit more the Lorica segmentata because that is my favorite armor as far as the looks are concerned but I really do like this one and I think it's a fantastic addition to my personal collection and also to the things that we have here on this channel for for the sake of knowledge and for the sake of research historical research I wish to thank you all for your support for your help and I thank you of course as always for watching thank you very much and remember the Metatron has spread his wings if you're enjoying this video so far please take a moment to check out my Patreon page with as little as a five dollar support you can help us ensure that we can continue to produce high 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