What does Veeky Forums know about the development of armor?

If you ever seen a person get stabbed in the gut, its fucking horrifying. Imagine an iron spearhead penetrating eight inches into your gut and ripping out your intestines or puncturing your stomach and letting the acids eat you alive from the inside. If you ever gone hunting, you know a deer can survive a shot to the hindquarter or the forequarter and live. A shot to the vitals or the gut is almost certain death.
Vs. Losing a hand or a foot, I'll protect my guts thank you very much.

>but would it be different in single combat? Are there armor sets for single combat? Are they the same or different to rank and file military gear?
>I will maintain that a minor limb injury would effectively lead to death in single combat.

Single combat in a civilian context almost always happened when not wearing any armor at all. Fighting single combat for a trial or honor was almost always an arranged affair were both parties could don armor if their culture had it.

For the most part wounds to the limbs don't instantly disable the opponent either unless you literally cleave them off. In some famous battles of Julius Caesar he himself noted how not a single one of his soldiers was left unwounded which meant that despite being wounded they just kept fighting on.

If you read 19th century diaries and other primary sources on colonial warfare you'll also find that the author often states he had a few minor cuts on his arm or wrist and escaped or fought on nontheless.

It depends on who was fighting and what they were fighting against.
If you were a hoplite fighting in a phalanx you would hunch your back and put the shield in front of you right below your eyes. Those shields were big and sturdy meaning you wouldn't need arm protection, the top of the head was exposed so you'd wear a strong helmet, you were also exposed below the knees so you'd wear greaves. It makes sense you wouldn't focus on protecting your chest and abdomen in that scenario because the shield did all of that for you, and if the enemy managed to get around your shield you're probably dead anyway. The same thing goes for Germanic troops that used shieldwalls much like Greek phalanxes. The Romans exposed their forearm since they used short swords so they'd have protection for the arm, but otherwise pretty similar to Greek armor.

Now imagine you're a medieval knight in heavy plate atop an armored horse. You'd be armored up from top to bottom so there wouldn't be a big emphasis on the shield, you'd charge towards the enemy with a lance and after it breaks you'd pull out a mace or a sword and keep fighting. If your horse died and you lost your weapons you'd probably have a backup dagger and even if you didn't you could just tackle the enemy and fist fuck his face with your gauntlets. During most of the middle ages in Europe troops weren't organized in units that formed shieldwalls, so after the initial charge you'd just start brawling with everyone. Now you're quite hard to kill with all your armor and you'd be training since childhood so you'd have the technique to defeat most peasants and recruit mercenaries.

There are also lots of factors which make armor either useless or a burden during battles, such as persistent projectile volleys, strong blunt weapons, a pike line etc.

Have you ever heard of the saying, shoot for center mass? Our torso contains all of our vital organs kiddo.

>During most of the middle ages in Europe troops weren't organized in units that formed shieldwalls,

Where'd you get that idea?

A book on big battles throughout history, it's in Romanian and I don't think it's been translated but it really emphasised the point that knights, especially crusaders, would rarely follow their commander and just charge on their own for glory, loot and POWs. He talked about the battle of Battle of Nicopolis and how it was mostly lost because knights didn't obey orders and fell for the Ottoman trap. It did seem exaggerated though.
>pic related, the book

Gladiators didn't fight to death, they were fucking actors, slave actors at worst

It's somewhat true, knights weren't supposed to fight on foot and therefore they weren't as organised as men-at-arms or more professional troops when it came to melee. They mostly led their lances as officers or sticked together with other knights, not really engaging in dismounted combat. Also loot was always a number one reason for armies to fight - ruler has his goals, but the only reason his troops follow him is because they get loot and land ("wages" for troops were somewhat rare and low before modern times)

English knights were known to fight dismounted for some reason.

At Nicopolis they did charge in formation though.

I can recommend goodreads.com/book/show/2650867-the-art-of-warfare-in-western-europe-during-the-middle-ages-from-the-eig

It's old but collects a lot of source material that emphasis the training and cohesion.

Much appreciated, user. I'm always willing to learn I'l give it a read when I have time.
To protect their arches, maybe?

I personally wonder if the turks set up an ambush at Nicpolis or whether they just had the good sense the deploy their reserves at the right time.

IIRC did they succeed in smashing through three lines of Ottoman infantry and cavalry.

I have heard of gladiators and they're partly what inspired the question but like says they're actors/slaves putting on a show and I've heard they were denied armor to show off physiques rather than for practical reasons.
> in a 1on1 fight they had to be mobile and were better at defending attacks
I can imagine it being that.

>not wearing any armor at all
best protection of all

so eg. sword and buckler duel, buckler is effective defense without armor, guy in pic isn't a photo but has armored his hand rather than his chest or head. Is he practising with a friendly or fighting to the death though? I can't tell.
>wounds to the limbs don't instantly disable
yeah they will put you at a disadvantage though and from there you'll keep on losing until you die.

hoplites also inspire the question but are effectively the opposite to the answer there.

If armor was limited would you rather greaves and a shield or breastplate? Depends entirely on circumstance/objectives?

>and from there you'll keep on losing until you die.

Not necessarily. I've been reading quite a lot of primary sources and often you read people saying they were cut in the left arm before they plunged their sword into the enemies throat and killing them.

A wound doesn't even disable said limb all the time.

Google Machete wounds with safe search off if you like.

Gladiators generally didn't wear torso armor to show off how buff and jacked they were. It was sorta about >Muh Honor

>If armor was limited would you rather greaves and a shield or breastplate? Depends entirely on circumstance/objectives?
Of course it depends entirely on circumstance. During most of the antiquity, from what I heard, people would rely on shields&spears , even the noblemen who could afford heavier armor would be fucked if the enemy got around their shield because there are lots of weak spots and room for exploit. Feudalism changed the game: the strongest shieldwall couldn't withstand a heavy cavalry charge simply because the lances offered much more reach and the knight armor offered much more protection against pointy sticks. Heavy armor then became the norm and to defeat heavy troops you'd have to use blunt weapons which were expensive and heavy.

Then gunpowder turned armor obsolete, so people would wear lighter and lighter covers so that they could move around more. Arrows dealt great damage to US cavalry because they abandoned plate armor due to the circumstances.