Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Mecheon" data-source="post: 8987941" data-attributes="member: 6801776">Honestly, from a realism perspective, iron weapons would exist but, as low quality weapons. Not technological marvels, not miraculous. Just low quality stuff that's way better than it has any right to beBronze was the preferred stuff at the time because it was easy to get a hold of, easy to work, and reliable. Iron was known and regarded as bad because, the stuff they had wasn't good, required significant work to get it in any good condition, was incredibly easy to get too brittle or too soft depending on carbon (which the folks at the time wouldn't have known about as ironworking was in its infancy and all smithing would have been focused on reliable bronze), all of the systems required to get good quality iron didn't exist, and if you didn't treat it perfectly it'd just rust. Iron only came into play because the trade routes that allowed for bronze to be widely circulated all collapsed, so people had to make do with inferior iron, leading to developments in ironworking that eventually allowed for it to be comparable, and then better than bronze</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mecheon, post: 8987941, member: 6801776"] Honestly, from a realism perspective, iron weapons would exist but, as low quality weapons. Not technological marvels, not miraculous. Just low quality stuff that's way better than it has any right to be Bronze was the preferred stuff at the time because it was easy to get a hold of, easy to work, and reliable. Iron was known and regarded as bad because, the stuff they had wasn't good, required significant work to get it in any good condition, was incredibly easy to get too brittle or too soft depending on carbon (which the folks at the time wouldn't have known about as ironworking was in its infancy and all smithing would have been focused on reliable bronze), all of the systems required to get good quality iron didn't exist, and if you didn't treat it perfectly it'd just rust. Iron only came into play because the trade routes that allowed for bronze to be widely circulated all collapsed, so people had to make do with inferior iron, leading to developments in ironworking that eventually allowed for it to be comparable, and then better than bronze [/QUOTE]

Verification