Why did no orthodox kingdom ever use plated armor even decades after its proliferation in the west, and them encountering it during battles with catholic powers(byzantine-venetian wars, hungarians vs balkan kingdoms, livonian wars, muscovy vs commonwealth)?
>inb4 it was too expensive
Bulgaria or Muscovy werent poorer than, say Flanders or Thuringen.
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Did the invention of plate armor suddenly make western Europeans better at war.
cossacks used breastplates, I saw some on the kremlin museum
yes, it offered much better flexibility and protection.
You overestimate how much use plate saw, and how impactful it was.
The most powerful knight cavalry in the west always used plated armor after 1300. Pikemen wore breastplates. Men at arms prioritized to buy breastplates, archers and crossbowmen tried to buy breastplates and many(like in the italian city states) succeeded in doing so,etc. So yeah it was pretty impactful if everyone in the west was desperate to buy them.
No I mean werected there battles between east and western forces were the introduction of plate armor was decisive.
The armor in your picture is objectively more sexy.
>everyone
A minority on every battlefield. Plate armor coexisted with gunpowder, mind you. Its a late technology.
And there are other military traditions that created the impact, not plate armor. It was not used much, and not for long, before abandoned. Thats also why it didn't spread - it wasn't successful enough, for long enough.
Poland pretty much won all wars against muscovy, and it had plated armor, the russians only used mail. Same for venetians vs byzantines.
They've used them, it's just that they thought more traditional armours were more fashionable, I kid you not. Winged hussars for example at some point replaced plate armour with scale because it was more expensive and therefore better for showing off.
How could that be known? Anyway the Orthodox kingdoms weren't only fighting westerners.
That doesnt answer the question. The west tried it out. Why didnt the orthodox powers touch it?
Yeah man, I am sure that high quality venetian armor won the day against the byzantines.
About as likely as the polish invading the failed russian state.
Because it wasn't that good. You are applying video game logic to history. Plate armor isn't a straight upgrade to your armor class.
Wow, thx that actually cleared things up a bit.
Can you link where you learned about it so I can get a better picture?
>ignore the answers that don't fit your head canon
>praise the first answer you get that does
Sasuga, Veeky Forums.
By that logic plate armor would be used as little by the west as in the east and that simply isnt true.
It was used little by the west, thats the point. You are greatly exaggerating or overestimating its use.
What makes you say that plate armour is not better than mail? Everything I have ever read or seen about it would say the opposite. Plate is far more protective of penetration. Did you ever wonder why maces and war hammers became common in the late medieval era?
It was good, but, by the time it was really widespread, Byzantium was a shell of its former self, and Muscovy was never really an industrial powerhouse.
Source? The majority didn't use it because they couldn't afford it.
>pikemen
>men at arms
>crossbowmen
>minority on the battlefield
Superior protection is only worthwhile if you are being assaulted by superior weapons.
Lets list the weapons that a simple padded cloth and chain mail won't defend well against:
>crossbows at close range
>couched lances in a charge
>poleaxes and other heavy polearms
>early firearms
Now consider how many of these assaults a plate armor would protect you well against.
Thing is, plate armor protects well against things that cloth&chain already defend you from, and not as well against the other, superior assault weapons.
The question why plate armor didn't spread is similar to the question why very heavy tanks didn't spread and replace small and medium tanks in WWII.
They cost more, took longer to make, and their extra armor and firepower didn't translate to more success - they were effective against things that medium tanks were already effective against, and didn't beat things medium tanks weren't effective against.
In simple video game terms, its like the difference between doing 6 damage per hit and dealing 8 damage per hit, when all enemies have 10 hit points. None whatsoever.
Still doesnt answer the question. This isnt about the plate armor's tactical worth, its about cultural proliferation.
Even if it was used a little in the west why wasnt itt used also a little in the orthodox world, instead of not at all?
Those didn't favor plate at the same time, in the same regions.
You are taking numbers between 13th and 17th century, from Spain to Italy to Germany to France, and you are acting as if at some point everyone was wearing a bucket as a shirt.
>Now consider how many of these assaults a plate armor would protect you well against.
All of these things were fairly commonplace in the late medieval era on the eastern battlefield.
>Plate is far more protective of penetration.
It's also quite restrictive of the user and maces, war hammers, picks and shot all render it useless.
Much like the dirigible and the air plane, the gleam of plate armor was quickly out shined by the flash of gunpowder.
Reread the post, or rephrase your response. As is, you don't make sense.
So werent the HRE or scotland. Yet they managed to acquire plate armor.
Plate armor was perfectly capable of protecting you against everything you listed though.
You claim these dangers that mail couldnt protect against were rare.
They werent and were common in eastern europe,.
Youre derailing the topic, as I said earlier, this isnt about how truly good plate armor was or how it fell out of use. This is about why one cultural area of europe tried it out, while the other didnt touch it even when the were fighting each other during the same time.
This thread isnt about how good gunpowder is.
Plate armor certainly existed in these countries, but it wasn't widespread. Hell, Byzantium was gone by 1453 entirely, and was mostly gone by the mid 1330's, they weren't going to be buying plate armor en-masse. Plus, their enemies used fewer poleweapons compared to what Western armies faced.
Comparatively, the HRE had some of the more advanced parts of Christendom.
Absolutely not.
Plate armor is perfectly capable of protecting you from things that cloth&chain already protect you from, and perfectly incapable of protecting you from things that cloth&chain can't.
I claim that the things that padded cloth and mail can't protect you against are also things plate can't protect you against.
It doesn't offer more protection on the battlefield, only on paper. All weapons that beat chain also beat plate, and all weapons that plate is good against are also weak against chain.
It's relevant to the topic.
The point is that it was not worth adopting.
You're a fucking autist chainmail doesn't protect against bodkin points or thrusts from pointy swords or spears and plate does. That's why western knights started using warhammers after plate became more common. Why the fuck are you talking about videogames it's not a good analogy at all.
See
...
Is this a ruse? You argue that gunpowder rendered it useless, but that implies Orthodox states had a premonition that gunpowder would take over. You argue that maces rendered is useless, but if blunt weapons were just as good as edged, why even develop the sword? We could have stuck with the club. Obviously having to bash someone to death is not ideal. I'm trying to imagine why someone would become a mailaboo but I simply can't.
So every single orthdox power knew that plate armor was never worth it all along?
Also
My question
>Why did area A use plate armor while area B did not?
Your reply
>Plate armor is bad because X
Ive already known what you're saying. Your answer doesnt clear anything it up.
If plate armor was so useless, then by that logic catholic powers also wouldnt touch it, and that simply isnt what happened.
because it's haram as fuck
>Bulgaria or Muscovy werent poorer than, say Flanders
They absolutely fucking were.
They never developed the industry to produce it.
They already had equipment that was tried and true. They had no interest in switching.
Did you misquote or are you just overloading on strawmen?
Horse Archery seems to be the running theme of everyone who didn't use plate despite knowledge of it.
>but if blunt weapons were just as good as edged, why even develop the sword?
Swords have their uses, but spears were more common.
Blunt weapons are pretty effective, though. Have you ever seen what a strike from a blunt object can do to a person? Maces were designed to maximize that effect.
>the gleam of plate armor was quickly out shined by the flash of gunpowder.
>maces, war hammers, picks and shot all render it useless
not rlly m8. Unless I'm arguing with 2 mail evangelists.
Bulgaria was one of wealthiest kingdoms in the east due to very good climate and agricultural lands. Muscovy wwas far larger than flanders and had a lot more resources like timber and furs, so yes they were richer.
But thats derailing the topic.
Indeed, but spears are not a blunt weapon. In fact they are a very good example of a the type of penetrating weapon that was more effective against mail than plate.
I am not saying blunt weapons aren't effective, they obviously are. The fact is though, that before plate became common, weapons designers focussed on increasing the penetrative power of their weapons. It was only plate became common that blunt weapons became common. Blunt weapons are at least as effective on mail as on plate. Therefore, I am arguing that the reason blunt weapons were adopted is because plate was so resistant to penetration. This is a commonly accepted view and is pretty much self evident anyway.
Yes, there are probably at least 2 rational people taking a hot steaming shit over your theory crafting.
>poorer industry
>citation needed
>They already had equipment that was tried and true.
So did the west.
> They had no interest in switching.
Of course you could see they werent interested. They didnt use it.
By that logic the west also shouldnt've been interested. Are you implying orthodoxy gives better strategic prioritisation?
>If I keep telling him how good I am at arguing, I will never have to argue
I already argued. What plate is good against, mail is also good against. What mail is bad against, plate is also bad against.
You're actually theory crafting. If your claims were true then there shouldnt have been a trend for medieval armires to be more heavily armored, since pads and mail so gud and that simply isnt what happened.
If mail was so superior, plate armor would never become a trend.
>>poorer industry
That's a misquote and a strawman.
They already had an established industry directed at producing something that worked. They had no desire to change it.
The decision to adopt it was simply never made. We cannot know what the reasoning exactly was unless we have some writings of the officials of the time. Until we do, everything we say in this thread is all purely speculation.
It wasn't superior. It was just as good.
Also, your argument is that people never make mistakes, and nothing is ever done for the sake of vanity, or prestige, or fashion, or any other such non-military reason.
(You)
Arguing is more than stating your position repeatedly. Perhaps you should relax and re-read the thread. Or go to another board.
Perhaps you should stop thinking in terms of a steel spike being driven into a napkin sized chain placed on a hard brick, and start thinking in terms of soldiers.
As far as I know, soldiers don't like being stabbed. Obviously the plate-loving establishment has led me astray. Enlighten me, oh chained one.
As far as I know, in military tradition at the time swords aren't used for stabbing.
When they are, you have padding, you have a man who can give one way, you have the attacker's arm that can give the other way, and you have the terrible committal that is a stab with a short weapon, placing your hand in a way where it can, and will, be chopped.
Go watch youtube videos and theory craft some more, I'll check the thread again tomorrow.
>
again, so did the west, yet they uniformly began producing plate armor.
>The decision to adopt it was simply never made.
Youre acting like medieval kingdoms operated like in the 20th century
Most war purchases were private.
Also the orthodox world has-
Serbia
Wallachia
Moldova
Bulgaria
Rus kingdoms
Byzantium
plus vasals
its hard to imagine every single one of these kingdoms made such a uniform decision and that almost none of the warriors in them decided to buy plated armor.
Possible reasons:
>They were poorer
not true until mid 15th century. Plate armor existed since the 14th
> they were more primitive
not true
>different battlefield conditions
not true
>isolation
not true
>they were smarter
not true
What else? Orthodox pragmatism?
even if any of those is true, this involved also many catholic kingdoms yet they still used plate armor.
But you basically implied that you dont know why, so I guess someone else might.
>not true
Prove it.
>not true
Prove it.
>not true
Prove it.
>not true
Prove it.
>not true
Prove it.
Oh your argument is that medieval soldiers did not stab one another. Why didn't you say that earlier? I promise you I would have stopped arguing with you earlier if I knew that was the basis of your argument.
Oh look, a type of stabbing that plate doesn't protect from. Its almost as if you have no ground to stand on.
And my post explicitly says "short". Look at those shirt white boi swords, must be daggers, eh?
They absolutely did what the fuck are you talking about.
I don't know what you mean but I'm not really interested. Bye m8.
I hope you and your family dies in a car accident
Flanders was immensely rich because of trade, they're different kinds of wealth and one of them allows for a far larger percentage of rich people that can buy armor
For the love of fuck this thread is fucking painful.
Except for Poland and their Hussars most of eastern europe was cucked by horse nomads whether they be Turks, Mongols or Tatars.
Subsequently we adapted their fighting style which consisted of mobile cavalry and units, feints, traps, scorched earth and ambushes.
These required troops that could move around fast enough to do sneaky shit.
Heavy charges just didn't work against horse niggery. So plate wasn't adopted.
You're not gonna invest in something as expensive as plate Armour just so that random fuckwad nr.27 won't die if you don't get some serious benefits from it.
That's why you mostly see the kings and high ranking boiars wearing it
All these fucking idiots debating over plate vs mail or some other stupid shit, knowing jack shit about history.
Fuck.
Took a while but someone finally posted the most likely reason.
Also, OP. The Rus managed to fend off e.g. the Teutons by drowning them in a lake instead of straight up brawling with them. The Rus lost plenty of battles but they won plenty too. So, if your armour is sufficient for the task on the Western front and advantageous versus all the horsemen in the East. What are you going to do?
he didn't say pikemen, men at arms and crossbowmen were a minorty in the battlefield. he said a minority of them wore plated armor
>Bulgaria or Muscovy werent poorer than, say Flanders
In the sense that Romania is not that much poorer than Switzerland...
No but to be honest the ability to consistently produce good quality steel, pound them into sheets and then hammer our a body fitting multi-jointed piece of armor was not present everywhere. On top of that the difference in quality between good mail and a set of plate armor is certainly there but not something skill could not make up for.
I know the Poles used plate armor. They are mostly catholic now, but the commonwealth was far from homogeneous. By the time Muscovy really got going, guns were a thing.
Besides, didn't mail hauberks go over other armor? It's like the saracens during the crusades. They had armor, actually with damascene steel they had better armor than the crusaders, but you just couldn't see it, which began the meme that the saracens don't wear armor.
The Spanish had the best plate armor in the world, but they abandoned it after realizing it was worthless in the New World.
Plate armor has been used from the bronze age to ww1, plate armor as you're thinking of existed in 14th century and saw use up into the 17th century, and became more and more widespread
Are you mental?
Plate armour requires blast furnaces and oxidisation ovens, which are only economic under certain circumstances. That is why plate armour was mostly made in the cities of Northern Italy and Southern Germany.
>plate armor as you're thinking of
And as every person in the thread is talking of.
Look up almain rivet and then kill yourself.
>It's also quite restrictive of the user
No it isn't.
>maces, war hammers, picks and shot all render it useless.
No they don't.
>gleam of plate armor was quickly out shined by the flash of gunpowder.
They coexisted for thousands of years, you fuck, with munitions grade armor being handed out for a damned pittance being able to stop muskets at intermediate range.
>Plate armor is perfectly capable of protecting you from things that cloth&chain already protect you from, and perfectly incapable of protecting you from things that cloth&chain can't.
Fucking. Prove. it.
It's more an inability to make it. Smiths did not share secrets. And germans fucking LOVED mounted crossbowmen, so it wasn't some lack of mounted skirmishers that made them love plate.
Prove. Your. Claims.
Bear in mind, weKNOW a coat of plates can deflect a strike from a couched lance. Mail will not.
We KNOW, by dint of physic, that plate will better defend against blunt impact. Mail cannot.
We KNOW, by the writings of the day, that plate shit on guns for some time.
Mail did not.
>As far as I know, in military tradition at the time swords aren't used for stabbing.
Then you are profoundly ignorant.
Yeah, no. Eastern Europe doubled down on westernization after mongol attacks, raising more armored cavalry, building more castles, and giving away rights to get MORE KNIGHTS.
Try not being retarded.
and
>MUH SPEEEDZ
MAIL IS NOT GOING TO MAKE CAVALRY FASTER THAN FUCKING PLATE.
No they didn't.
>tells people to prove their claims
>half his arguments are "no it isnt" and nothing else
Hang yourself, my good man.
Burden of proof is on the person making a claim.
>plate is better than mail
Prove it.
>plate was very common in the west
Prove it.
>plate wasnnt common in the east
Prove it.
>mail doesnt increase the running speed of horses
Prove it.
>plate shits on guns
Prove it.
>plate armor is unrestrictive of the user
Prove it.
>plate armor isnt a huge heater boiling you alive
Prove it.
>plate armor is effective against maces, hammers, picks, shots
Prove it.
>plate better defends against blunt impact
Prove it.
>plate can defend a couched lance
Prove it.
>germans loved mounted crossbowmen
Prove it.
>smiths did not share secrets
Prove it.
>eastern smiths were incapable of making plate
Prove it.
>plate and guns coexisted for thousands of years
lol. I'd love to see you prove that.
>munitions grade armor being handed out for a damned pittance being able to stop muskets at intermediate range
I quit.
Weather maybe? Lack of resources?
>Plate armor isn't a straight upgrade to your armor class.
But it literally is. You wear it over mail and cloth, it's literally a direct improvement
>Did you ever wonder why maces and war hammers became common in the late medieval era?
because mail became so common that basically every soldier on the field was clad in it?
If you cannot source your wild claims, why did you make them?
>It's more an inability to make it. Smiths did not share secrets.
>Ottomans and Ruskies can literally buy off smiths to do shit for them.
>Did so for guns, cannons, n shiet,
>Still not chose to opt for plate.
Hmmm....
If you cannot source your wild claims, why did you make a thread to spam them in?
I'm not the op. I'm just incredulous that there's a person claiming a solid piece of metal offers no greater protection than a pliable mesh of it.
This flies in the face of all period claims, physics, and modern testing.
>This flies in the face of all period claims, physics, and modern testing.
Prove this wild claim.
myarmoury.com
Have fun. Plate will protect you against weaponry that would prove horribly lethal against mail. Guns, in particular, were not effective against plate unjtil the heavy musket came about. Mail is inferior armor, unless you need something that can be hidden.
>Guns, in particular, were not effective against plate
Prove it.
Walk into any museum and look at the proofing marks on breastplates.
There's also the (well recorded) deeds of Jacques de Lalaing, who fought a LOT of fucking duels in plate, with records showing men taking upwards of twenty blows from poleaxes and STILL having the ability to move.
Anybody who thinks mail is equal ot plate in protective quality is fucking retarded. It isn't, and nobody living at the time thought it was.
I've actually seen plate in museums. With huge holes in it. Pierced.
Those were made by pistols, not standard muskets.
Pistol and arquebuses, which were absolutely standard for several centuries.
Mail cannot defeat either. Even heavy muskets are not guaranteed to defeat plate at medium to long range.
The entire concept of mail being just as protective as plate is ludicrous. There has been ZERO evidence put fort to defend it. None.