Quote Originally Posted by Tobtor View Post
Well there are both hardening and tempering going on in the way the armour seem to be treated. Perhaps already the earlier steps had reduced the amount of impurities in the 'German' steel, thus making the steel harder AND easier to temper (you need both to make it springy, but if you cannot achieve that you might want it soft rather than glass-like which is what you can get with a wrong tempering)? One issue with tempering is that those colour schemes (blue for good swords etc) is relying on 1) relatively pure steel (other materials might colour at the wrong time). 2. A somewhat evenly and -fast- heating, as the colour is also reached at lower temperatures, if its heated for longer.

But definitely an interesting source. I will see if I can find it when I have some time.



That is one of the things I was also very disappointed about in the movie version of LotR. From the book it is quite clear that the main armour is mail, and the weapon technology is more like 11th-12thcentury (and for Rohan more like 8th-11th century: Vikings/Anglo-Saxon on horses). If you go through the books descriptions of weapons and armour, there is as far as I remember, only once where armour described in a way that could be interpreted as plate (I think it said that Gimli wore a cuirass or something like that - so perhaps dwarves is experimenting with plate).

So Peter Jackson and team really 'invented' the plate/lack of late medieval technology problem (no advanced poleweapons, no heavy windlass crosbows, no gunpowder guns (only the bombs Sarumans troops use at Helms deep).
nah, that was a thing well before the LOTR were made. watch pretty much any 50s King Arthur or Robin Hood flim and you'll see the same things.