OK, so I know steel weapons are superior for many reasons, but I was wondering if anyone here can outline the main differences between these metals, from a gaming perspective. Mainly I'm looking at pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses, that sort of thing to compare Bronze Age weapons and armor against Iron Age weapons and armor.

Thanks!

Pete

Copper is basically worthless as a weapon, and not much better as armour. Its main virtue was that it was better than stone, and saw most of its service in the production of maces. Arrows too, since you wouldn't be using them more than once in a battle. Bronze was originally superior to iron in fact, but it was much harder and more expensive to produce in Europe at the time. Over time iron then steel became far more effective at taking and holding an edge, and hence was the iron age born.

In real history, the only reason people moved to iron from Bronze was a tin shortage.  Bronze is softer so it doesn't hold an edge as well, but before reliable steel smelting (staring around the fifteenth century I believe), Iron was a lot more brittle.

Copper is, I believe, soft like bronze while still being more brittle (like iron), which is why it wasn't used after bronze was invented (and as an alloy, it realy was invented and refined...).

Copper may be harder than bronze, but not as hard as Iron. To be honest, the copper age was very short and I don't know much about it from a weapon-smithing point of view.

Interestingly, Gold was used by the egyptians in ceremonial (sacrficial) knives. Obviously, however, it was unsuitable for military use at all.

The Panoply of a Greek warrior was a very tanklike suit of bronze armor, not what you normally see in artwork. From pictures of real suits, it was ungainly as hell, but more or less impervious.

If you want more on bronze, I can give you a rough overview of how smiths worked around its bendyness.  A properly polished bronze sword didn't look yellowish, either, but shone like steel.

Bronze is good stuff, hard and tough, don't let anyone tell you different.  I recently saw a demo of cutting down trees with a bronze axe, it worked fine and wasn't dulled at all.

The problem with bronze is it needs tin, and tin is rare, so bronze is expensive. Iron, when available, is much cheaper.

OK, so there would likely be some in-game mechanical differences between bronze weapons/armor and iron or steel weapons/armor. Thanks.

Quote from: Spike;557646If you want more on bronze, I can give you a rough overview of how smiths worked around its bendyness.  A properly polished bronze sword didn't look yellowish, either, but shone like steel.

Yes, from what I've been reading the largest tin and copper deposits were separated by great distances and that when the trade routes broke down (due to war, plague, natural disasters, etc.), the use of bronze diminished and iron increased.

One big question I've been trying to answer is after the ores were mined, how were they transported? So say you mined a lot of copper and tin and wanted to send them to another city for trade. What form did they take? Chunks? Bars? Sheets? Rods?

Quote from: pspahn;557650One big question I've been trying to answer is after the ores were mined, how were they transported? So say you mined a lot of copper and tin and wanted to send them to another city for trade. What form did they take? Chunks? Bars? Sheets? Rods?

Ingots.

Frequently called "pigs", as the roughly rounded oblong ingots resembled piglets suckling a mother sow when stacked side by side.

Pig iron/copper is ore that's been through a very quick-and-dirty smelting process.  It still has lots of impurities in it, and it would be smelted and refined further by the blacksmith.  Ore mines would typically have a smelter on premises or close by to produce the pigs for transport.

Quote from: pspahn;557650OK, so there would likely be some in-game mechanical differences between bronze weapons/armor and iron or steel weapons/armor. Thanks.

Don't confuse iron and steel.  Steel is superior to bronze but iron really isn't.

Quote from: pspahn;557650Yes, from what I've been reading the largest tin and copper deposits were separated by great distances and that when the trade routes broke down (due to war, plague, natural disasters, etc.), the use of bronze diminished and iron increased.

Well, they also had to learn how to get high enough temperatures to smelt iron.  It's easier to turn copper ore into copper than it is to turn iron ore into iron because the latter requires a higher temperature.  Look up smelting if you are unfamiliar with that step.

Quote from: pspahn;557650One big question I've been trying to answer is after the ores were mined, how were they transported? So say you mined a lot of copper and tin and wanted to send them to another city for trade. What form did they take? Chunks? Bars? Sheets? Rods?

Do some Google searches on these two famous shipwrecks, both of which contained copper and tin ingots in the standard oxhide form used in the Bronze Age.

Quote from: John Morrow;557662Do some Google searches on these two famous shipwrecks, both of which contained copper and tin ingots in the standard oxhide form used in the Bronze Age.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxhide_ingot

Bronze was the equal of iron, and possibly even superior, until well into the iron age, but as other have pointed out it became hard to come by. Bronze is made by uniting copper with tin (about 90%/10%). Another, less durable kind of bronze was made from uniting copper with arsenic (usually called Arsenical Bronze or Arsenical copper). This was most popular common in the bronze age c.3000-2900 BC. Arsenic is poisonous, of course, and the existence of mythical dwarf smiths like Hephaestus in myth is thought to be related to Arsenical bronze.

Ores were usually refined at the source and transported in ingots of smelted metal. Those that have been found resemble the skin of an animal and give credence to the idea of a 'golden fleece'. The ores themselves were mineral clusters, like Malachite or Haematite and would have resembled coloured rocks.

One big difference between bronze and iron that hasn't been touches on is that bronze had to be cast into shape and then sharpened, whereas iron could be forged. A broken bronze sword had to be recast, but a broken iron sword could be re-forged.

Not all iron is the same, either. Meteoric iron (from fallen meteors) was known since very early days and was used as a decorative metal or for light tools. But it didn't have enough carbon in it to give it strength, so it was brittle. Smelted iron had more carbon and was much more durable but still nowhere near steel. Better methods for dealing with iron were developed c.300BC in Sri Lanka, leading eventually to Damascus steel. From what I've read, anyway.

All in all, I would suggest (assuming a Bronze Age setting) that bronze weapons work as the baseline but are expensive (and not available everywhere), while iron weapons are cheaper and work the same, but - in D&D terms - take a penalty to saves against damage and become damaged on a natural attack roll of 1. Perhaps a cumulative -1 to attacks and damage until -3, then it breaks.

Quote from: S'mon;557648Bronze is good stuff, hard and tough, don't let anyone tell you different.  I recently saw a demo of cutting down trees with a bronze axe, it worked fine and wasn't dulled at all.

The problem with bronze is it needs tin, and tin is rare, so bronze is expensive. Iron, when available, is much cheaper.

The way I put this (and some info in a couple other comments) into useful gaming terms is:

• Copper: cheap, but soft; damage roll of 5+ blunts
• Bronze = Copper + Tin: hard, expensive, easy to make
• Iron: hard, cheap, hard to make
• Steel: hard and flexible, harder to make

Hard armor or a parry with a hard weapon automatically blunts copper knives. Bronze blunts on damage 5+ against bronze/iron/steel weapon or armor. Iron breaks on 5+ when parried by bronze/iron/steel.

(This is all assuming a d6-based D&D-like damage roll. You may need to fiddle numbers for other systems.)

See also this thread and the sources that I suggested in that thread, including the Bronze Age reenactment pages.

Thanks all! Very much appreciated and I believe I have some of my questions answered.

What I've got basically is an isolated kingdom that is stuck in a sort of Bronze Age that is about to clash with a more typical fantasy medieval culture. I needed to include some basic commerce details and I wanted to make sure to account for any discrepancy in weapon/armor durability.

Thanks for all the help. Some of these links have actually inspired me to add a few elements I hadn't thought of.

Pete

I know its a silly geek show but in the "Deadliest Warrior" Matchup, they had the Ninja vs Spartan and later Samurai vs Spartan. The Tetsubo? Made of iron? Lost--against that bronze layered over wood over bronze shield?

The Spartan's effectiveness in their computer matchups is pretty significant, even against the later ages of weapons.

They wouldn't use IIRC a katana on the shield, because it was "to precious' to risk against that big Spartan shield.


Bronze wins, in many ways.


Modern Steel, MIGHT be a match. Still, I am not sure I'd bet on it.