From Glenrowan to Greece: a comparison of ancient Spartan armour with Ned Kelly's iconic DIY creation

Ned Kelly vs an ancient Spartan hoplite. Whose armour would you prefer to fight in?

Ancient Greek arms and armour at the National Archaeological Museum. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Two last stands 2400 years and 15,000 kilometres apart: Victorian outlaw Ned Kelly against the Victorian Police at the siege at Glenrowan, Victoria, or one of the 300 Spartan hoplites against the invading Persians at The Battle of Thermopylae. Whose armour would you prefer to fight in? We pitch both head-to-head in several categories.

STRENGTH

The power of a projectile is measured in joules. Ned Kelly’s armour was made from steel up to 6 millimetres thick, able to resist nearly 3000 joules of force generated from police Martini-Henry rifles as evidenced by the bullet dents left on its plates.

The cuirasses of the Spartans were made from the softer bronze as steel wasn’t invented yet and were only around 1 mm thick. However, it could withstand the approximately 30 joules of force imparted by a Persian bow, perhaps unless shot at from closer ranges.

Winner: Ned Kelly.

COMFORT

Hoplites were middle-upper class citizens who had to fund their own equipment, subsequently their armour was usually customised to fit their individual body shapes.

Ned Kelly armour, located at the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

Ned was an outlaw whose armour was likely improvised in the bush from steel ploughshares to avoid police attention. Interestingly, both appeared to utilise cloth skullcaps to increase comfort of helmet wear.

Winner: Hoplite.

Soldiers arranged as a phalanx. An EDSITEment-reconstructed archive copy at the Wayback Machine Greek phalanx based on sources from The Perseus Project. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

MOBILITY

Ned Kelly’s armour weighed a staggering 44 kilograms, whilst a hoplite helmet, cuirass and shield would total approximately 16 kilograms. Famously, Ned was brought down with shots to his unprotected legs, so to make it fair we will assume the hoplite could not afford shin greaves.

Winner: Hoplite.

Corinthian helmet from the tomb of Denda. From a Greek workshop in South Italy, 500–490 BC. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

VISION

Whilst the almond-shaped eyelets of Corinthian helmets limited the hoplite to 30-40% of visual circumference around him, Ned’s narrow eye-slits would have limited virtually all peripheral vision. 

Winner: Hoplite.

TACTICAL

Suppose the roles were reversed. Ned’s heavy armour would have rendered him unable to keep up in a hoplite phalanx formation and, lacking a shield to protect himself and the hoplite to his left, he would likely fall and create a gap in the ranks for the enemy to exploit and destroy the phalanx with.

A hoplite at the siege where Ned made his last stand would have had his shield and armour shredded by firearms that had long rendered plate armour obsolete by the 16th-19th centuries. Both examples prove that throughout history the effectiveness of armour is tied to its specific tactical context.

This round is a tie.

ACCESSIBILITY

Ned Kelly’s armour can be viewed at The Redmond Barry room of the State Library of Victoria, and a replica can be tried on at The Melbourne Gaol. Hoplite armour can be viewed just down the road from both at the Hellenic Museum’s Heroes and Hoplites exhibition. Both winners.

The totally, ahem, unbiased winner is Hoplite armour 4:2. Hooray!

Until next time,

λεῖος πλόος!

Written by Albert Tseng

Hellenic Museum Intern and Volunteer

Hellenic Museum

---