Lorica Segmentata

Chainmail is very heavy though, so it has it's disadvantages too. I believe the auxialia wore the chainmail. How well would chain hold up against an arrow/spear?

I happened to read an article today by a German scholar who had actually tried shooting arrows at both a segmentata and Chain mails. The result was that the kinds of arrows we think about (flat shaped like a V, sort of) were useless - they couldn't penetrate neither chain mail nor segmentata (1,5 mm thick). Thin "needle" arrows weren't much more efficient, a few of them got through the chain mail but just barley and could not cause any real harm to the (doll) legionary. The Segmentata was just dented.

What rally surprised me was that a thicker type of needle arrow head (and I don't remember the name of it), almost pyramidal in shape, did penetrate the chain mail completely and would have killed the user, while just denting or very barely penetrating the segmentata.

Even if they didn't use the term I suspect at least one of the references will be to what is usually called a 'bodkin' style arrowhead. This is actually named after a long, very sharp but also very narrow medieval period dagger called a 'bodkin' although examples of such arrowheads do pre-date the medieval with several known Roman examples.

Comitatus has an interesting article on tests of various reproduction Roman style arrowheads here.

Even if they didn't use the term I suspect at least one of the references will be to what is usually called a 'bodkin' style arrowhead. This is actually named after a long, very sharp but also very narrow medieval period dagger called a 'bodkin' although examples of such arrowheads do pre-date the medieval with several known Roman examples.

Yep, that was exactly what they were talking about! Thanks!