Explain to me like I'm 5 what made knights obsolete?

There came a point where mercenaries could do all the same work without the need for pesky things like land and privileges.

>Masses of trained peasants using long pole weapons

you just described all pre gunpowder era infantry what made those peasants more killy all of sudden?

>you just described all pre gunpowder era infantry what made those peasants more killy all of sudden?
The zenith of the knight was also a period of medieval history where peasant levies weren't very good, nor had good equipment, and mercenary bands of the period were much more mobile probably using swords rather than the later mercenary bands of trained organized infantry. In the main knights period the mercs were basically just bandits for hire and the levies were quite worthless.

>Widespread use of guns that could penetrate armour meant that armour was abandoned as it was all the weight with none of the protection.
Except it wasn't abandoned and they still used it in 20th century, and also are using it today. But well, it works as explanation to 5 year old child.

But why commoners suddenly got better training? Why it took so long for lords to realise it's better to have good soldiers rather than some 50hp, 10 armor rabble mobs?

Really? Who wore full plate harnesses lafter the 16th century?

Centralization allows for forming large armies of men who are trained and equipped well enough witghout being unpredicatable ashsoles like knights.

You have no fucking idea what you are talking about.

Nigga what?

Gunpowder.

Gunpowder ruined all nobilty and fairness in warfare.

He's probably being autistic and lumping 19th century cuirassiers and 21st century US Marines in with 14th century knights, because they're all wearing chest protection.

>moving the goal posts

Plate armour was still widely used during the age of gunpowder based weapons.

Napoleonic wars were pretty chique though, everyone was dressed nicely.

By knights, fulfilling their classic role as heavy cavalry or infantry?

No, but to claim that knights were made obsolete because their armour was made obsolete through widespread usage of guns is retarded. Gun armed infantry would be completely useless if not for the pike square protecting them from being overran by cavalry. Professional infantry is what made knights obsolete, not guns.

more like dressed like they are going on gay parade

Peace became more profitable for young noble men than war. Jobs like banking and things like your Daddy might do.

When War changed so much that they were actually likely to die in battle they sent others to do the fighting instead.

Cheap ways to kill them.

I think his point is valid though. It was never, "I'm wearing plate armor this year and next I'm wearing only a cloth uniform." at any point in history. It was more of something like, "I'm going to replace these heavy greaves with a lighter weight chain+leather setup, maybe ditch these gauntlets later on since my shield is protecting my hands anyway, and reduce the protection on my neck and jawline further down the road so I can turn my head more effectively."

These things didn't disappear overnight; instead, as warriors recognized various aspects of their armor not offering enough benefit to their cost in terms of mobility, they were done away with, all the way until you wound up with soldiers simply wearing a breastplate and helmet or even just a helm.

>He's probably being autistic and lumping 19th century cuirassiers and 21st century US Marines in with 14th century knights, because they're all wearing chest protection.

And what are 19th century cuirassases? Yup, that's right. Fucking armour.

Firearms making armour obsolete is some American History Channels tier bullshit. 15th century Black Army of Hungary had like 1/4 arquebusers, and plate armour is more like 16th century thing.
youtube.com/watch?v=aGj0M-NJDGA

Shooty bang bangs make knight dead =(

Shooty stick makes kinght dead.

Great minds think alike!

I'd say it was more like
>You're not seriously going into battle dressed like that. Your joints are exposed. What if you take a thrust through the foot.
>Look Grandad things have changed alright I'm not going to do any fighting on foo...
>You don't know that!
>Look no one else is wearing full plate so neither am I!

t. reddit

So you mean "explain it like you would to a 5 year old" tier?

>a breastplate and a helmet is the same thing as a fully enclosed exoskeleton

It varies a lot from country to country. In the reconquista the main armies consisted of town militas. In Scotland the common army never ceased to be important in the high middle ages. Same is true for Norway.

Only in the feudal parts of Europe, with the manor system becoming linked with vassals system, did a proper knight class emerge that would dominate warfare. Even in these countries, France, England, the main part of the army was not even knights. Knights was a military specilization and in large parts every army in the middle ages was made up for foot soliders, not knights riding cavalry.

And in the pike/shot/cavalry triangle where are knights? In amongst the others, dressed just like the others because by then they're just fancy officers, without a fuckton of armour to distinguish them into a specic battlefield role.

Knights riding horses*

Dare to explain, what's in your mind? By your logic medieval knights didn't wear armour, because the best form of full plate armour weren't yet a thing.

>But why commoners suddenly got better training?
Nations advanced, better infrastructure, and such. 11th-12th century western europe wasnt read to train up large bodies of men.
Nice argument you have there but i do.

>implying that fully enclosing plate armour wasnt a thing from the late 14th century onwards
>implying its not just aesthetic and stylistic differences and being able to fill in joints with more plate that differentiates 14th, 15th and 16th century full harnesses.

17th century had near full plate armour troops too but it was rich nobles playing war, they were actually effective but not really needed. Far better to just have more men in munitions quality breastplate and helmet ie harqubusiers.

The knights of the first crusade didn't wear full plate.

You are truly desperate
>its not just aesthetic and stylistic differences
And that's how you lost me. Go and bark at someone else, will not waste time playing with you.

The Napoleonic wars were perhaps the pinnacle of war being considered "honourable"

Go on then, enlighten me. How is a early 15th century harness worn by an English knight at Agincourt different to a early 16th century harness worn by an English knight at Flodden?

you know middle ages existed outside of western Europe as well right?

Europe was in the middle of the world. That is why they were called Middle Ages, user.

Yes but we're specifically talking about knights so this discussion is limited to Europe.

From around the 14th century and onwards, European monarchs began elevating members of the middle class to advisory positions based on merit rather than social status. Essentially beginning to erode the power of the nobility and the need for the chivalric code.

Examples include Guillaume de Nogaret and Enguerrand de Marigny during the reign of Phillip IV of France.

>eastern Europe didn't have knights

Only if you stretch the definition of a knight.

>Yes but we're specifically talking about knights so this discussion is limited to Europe.
>eastern Europe didn't have knights
>Europe
>Europe
See any mention of only western Europe?

Well in this thread apparently we're also stretching the definition of knight to "any fucker who wears any kind of bodily protection into battle" too, so why not?

The fuck are you on about? Poland, Bohemia and Lithuania had knights in the same sense as the west.

So did all the world by your loose definition, but a knight that this thread is about is the western European knight with chivalry and french names.

Rifle armor piercing made the metal cost of armor impragmatic.

Cuirias + pike were viable for a while, but once people got really good at rifling + bayonets, more peasants and rifles was just more viable than a super combat effective small force.

Guns n shit nigguh

What ''loose definition''? How are polish and bohemian knights not knights?

Increased centralization meant it was more advantageous for a ruler to mass conscript troops from all over the country instead of calling on nobles and knights with their household troops and tenant levies, which may or may not be loyal.

Gunpowder killing knights is a meme.
Politics killed knights.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zawisza_Czarny

kill yourself

Contrary to what most people here say, it had little to do with gunpowder. Knights became obsolete because of the changing power structure in European states. As the country moved towards centralization, the nobles found themselves less able to be constantly preparing themselves for war due to both economic reasons and societal obligations. The former because the costs of maintaining arms, armor, and horses was continuously increasing. The latter because the increasing centralized power required a larger pool of educated "elite" to manage the bureaucracy, siphoning off the more wealthy nobles that could afford the increasing costs of knighthood. The end result of the change in societal structure was that Kings and powerful lords could no longer field the necessary number of knights to effect military outcomes, it became necessary to recruit and outfit semi-professional soldiers from among the lower classes. Something also made possible thanks to the increased revenue of the state due to its centralization.

Don't confuse the abandonment of armor due to changing weapons technology to the abandonment of a social class due to changes of society.

Gunpowder made their Armour obsolete, if nothing else changed how would knights have adapted to these weapons? Would they go into battle with a huge wall gun mounted to their horse?

Like them.

guns.
Then better guns.

>all these people talking about guns making metal armor obsolete instead of the political aspect which im pretty sure OP might be asking about

all knights are men at arms but not all men at arms are knights.

If he wanted to know about the political aspects, he wouldnt have posted a picture of a guy in full harness and asked for a 5 year old explanation.

If you can't explain something to a 5 year old, you don't understand it yourself

they could still see the horse

yeah thats what i was going to say. feudalism and shit. professional armies instead.

They were using plate armor to block low velocity rounds in WW1

You can be a damn sure that a breastplate will block a musket ball at anything but extremely close range, there's a reason they kept using it until the 20th century

If they're so great and effective, why did every soldier wear them? Too expensive? So why didnt officers and the wealthier NCOs wear them?

>HRE and catholics
>Eastern Europe

Before the iron curtain Eastern Europe=orthodox Europe

nice try Maciej but none of the countries I listed were western just because someone isn't an orthodox christian gopnik writing in cyrilic doesn't mean he isn't fucking eastern european

So, Teutonic Order didn't have knights? Interesting.

Indeed user, the 16-17th century changes in warfare only made knights with a French name obsolete. That was the only dividing line. Few actually know that the great economic depression of the late 16th century spiraled outwards into Europe from France, where thousands of now-obsolete men in armour rushed government offices to change their names to something German, so as to regain their battlefield efficiency. The entire state administration was bogged down with registering the new names -they had to, the military might of France depended on it - and everything else they did not have time for gradually slipped out of their control.

United States Military.
It's called a plate carrier and it's top fucking notch.

>WW1
>Muskets

>teutonic ''order''
>bunch of glorified bandits
>knights

no, knights are chivalrous and have french names

>Pierre Terrail, seigneur de Bayard (1473 – 30 April 1524) was a French knight, generally known as the Chevalier de Bayard.

>Throughout the centuries since his death, he has been known as "the knight without fear and beyond reproach".

>Bayard was sent into Italy with Admiral Bonnivet, who, being defeated at Robecco and wounded in a combat during his retreat, implored Bayard to assume command and save the army. He repulsed the foremost pursuers, but in guarding the rear at the passage of the river Sesia between the towns of Romagnano Sesia and Gattinara, was mortally wounded by an arquebus ball, on 30 April 1524. [2]

Tl;dr: Firearms

So...France had a monopoly on knights?

Nope
England was full of people with French names in the Middle Age (thank to based William) and therefore had knights too
Guillaume Le Maréchal is a well known one (England's greatest knight)
Richard "Coeur de Lion" de Plantagenet can be considered a knight too

Why is Nationalist historiography always so hillarious?

So
Le Zawisza the Black will do?
Or Zawisza Le Black?

See

Quantity over quality for the most part. Large mercenary armies could overwhelm knights even if they were not really better equipped or trained. (Knights are not the same as heavy cavalry btw, which was important well into the 1600s.)

All black people are knights in england

keked

>sub

not sure if bait or
c l a s s c o n s c i o u s

>if nothing else changed how would knights have adapted to these weapons?
Considering that mounted charges played a decisive role in battlefields up until the early 20th century I'd they they didn't.

Infantry became more organised I would imagine. Knight are quite worthless against rows of halberds that didn't break instantly.

Professional soldiery, mercenaries, weapons that required little skill to really use (pike, arquebus, etc.), mass numbers of soldiers armed with said weapons. That sort of stuff.

Knights are overrated desu. Reiters are much more A E S T H E T I C and useful

explain to me like I'm 5 is a board on reddit you fucking cuck

>Too expensive?
Yes

>So why didnt officers and the wealthier NCOs wear them?
Some did. Armor manufacturers made a fucking fortune in ww1.

No, you really, really fucking don't. Go ahead and post your sources on "more mobile" mercenaries who were "probably using swords."

Then go read the azzise of arms, read about the shit the grand catalan and white companies got up to, and hang yourself.

Armor compromising mobility when it came to evading firearms.

They were so fucking brutal that the pope banned them and nobody dared to enlist them anymore. Pretty much like mustard gas after WW1.

So why did it take 300 or so years for people to start wearing breastplates again if they're so great, then immediately abandon them for 30 years?