Were plate armor and straight swords ever used in the Middle East? If not - why?

It suits better when on a horse i guess.

No they got it from the Turks

Fighting style of the area favored it and works better with round shields

Yes.

Concept of cataphracts existed before the Parthians, even the early Assyrian Empire had proto-cataphracts.

europeans also used round shields and obviously cavalry yet they used straight swords why is that so?

>scale mail = plate armor
>

>scale mail
Imagine saying this and pretending to know anything about armor

Are you being obstinate? Why are you comparing Achaemenid era Persian/Median infantry with fucking cataphracts from the Arsacid and Sassanian periods cataphracts? Are you honestly retarded enough to think Persian/Iranian cataphracts at that point used scale mail? We know the shock units used plated armor.

>"...all the companies were clad in iron, and all parts of their bodies were covered with thick plates, so fitted that the stiff-joints conformed with those of their limbs; and the forms of human faces were so skillfully fitted to their heads, that since their entire body was covered with metal, arrows that fell upon them could lodge only where they could see a little through tiny openings opposite the pupil of the eye, or where through the tip of their nose they were able to get a little breath. Of these some, who were armed with pikes, stood so motionless that you would think them held fast by clamps of bronze."
(You)

The weapons often used with European round shields were made for cutting. Curved swords existed in Europe but they just never became popular as shields quickly fell out of favor and were replaced with plate. At that point thrusting weapons became more practical. The middle east never got to full plate on a common basis, still relying mostly on chain, and thus a cutting weapon and smaller round shield used for offense as well as defense worked well for them.

I know there were straight swords used in Sudan in the middle ages. Not sure if that counts as "Middle East".

Can anyone post examples of iranian plate?

...

Military history was more style and culture than science until modern times. Curved swords were a thing in the Turkic dominated Middle East because Turko-Mongol tribes defined what it meant to be a soldier for centuries in the region.

Europeans adopted curved sabres when East European cavalry, influenced by steppe and Ottoman military customs themselves, became highly regarded.

When it comes to armor, having a straight or curved sword doesn't make much practical difference. You'd need the force and leverage of a larger, heavier weapon than a one-handed sword to pierce chain, but on horseback the blow from a curved sword can do good damage even to armor.

Most curved swords were good for stabbing anyway, they didn't curve that hard. And shields fell out of favor in the Middle East as well because on horseback they were seen as cumbersome given the popularity of bows and two-handed lances. That's really why they fell out of favor in Europe, too, to make the use of heavier weapons more feasible as armies moved away from warbands built around personal tribal arms.

but chainmail protects from slashes more than from thrusts so if anything a straight sword would be better answer

Weapons and armor weren't made for such scientifically tested reasons. Instead smiths made what they knew, what they were taught, not much differently from any other craft.

Curved swords were used in the Middle East because the smiths and the soldiers were mostly tribal Turks and their imitators. Europeans used straight swords because their smiths had been making straight swords since Roman times and handed down their art generation after generation. The Middle East would have kept using straight swords if Arabs had remained the dominant martial culture - we see them continue to use straight swords in Western North Africa and Spain for example.

I think the fact that Europeans eventually adopted sabres and the US marines use the mamluk sword to this day proves that middle-eastern swords are objectively superior

Chainmail is a lot more durable than you think. You'd need to be mounted on a horse with a spear or lance or use a crossbow to penetrate riveted mail.
Still, the practice of a smaller shield and short reaching weapon such as an arming sword, mace, axe or a curved sword such as that like a scimitar is a good combination. This comes from my HEMA practice, so it could be more scientific than based on historical evidence. Still, it works quite well. Like you've mentioned previously the prevalence of horses in middle eastern culture meant that weapons usable on horseback as well as on foot were going to be necessary. The scimitar works well with a small portable shield and lighter armor, as wearing a full European style of armor with thick padding underneath full mail wasn't the best idea in the desert. Like how knights influenced the gear of the foot soldiers, the cavalry of the middle east influenced what their foot soldiers would use, and if curved swords were inferior they'd have switched over to straight swords since they often used both but preferred the scimitar style.

Did middle easterners use axes?

Middle Easterners used practically every single weapon that the Europeans used since many worked well against who they were fighting. The mamluks are an excellent example for a late medieval middle eastern civilization exposed to all sorts of different enemies.

But what about the final cavalry sword of the U.S.? You know, the straight one Patton made

In the end it's not so much a question of straight vs curved as it is one-handed balancing. There were plenty of sabers and scimitars that were unfit for use with a shield, just as arming swords were perfectly fine weapons for use with a shield.

When shields get dropped, that opens up new ways to use a sword so long as the balance is just right, and that's really what ends up changing when smiths take practicality into mind. Length, weight, etc all tie in to balance.

They loved axes. But cavalry saddle axes were distinct from those used on foot with a shield. Mamluks and other Middle Eastern turkic style horsemen didn't really use shields and mostly wore them slung around their shoulder or back so they could use these weapons while also controlling their horses.

Napoleonic straight sword doctrine basically used these kinds of swords as small spears.

Most curved swords were curved because they gave more of a surface area in the cutting part, not necessarily because they wanted a more Falchion style chopping weapon which relies on weight. By running the curved part along the spot you strike you're going to make a bigger wound. Your standard scimitars would have been just as well balanced as an arming sword and thus could hold their own without a shield. However that's not to say that the design doesn't work well for a smaller round shield oriented more around cavalry. Curved swords worked for them because they made them work by adapting their gear and combat style around it.

There's not really a thing as well-balanced, only a sword balanced for a different purpose and style. For scimitars you had both infantry and cavalry swords, and the two were balanced differently and thus used differently. You're thinking of an infantry sword when you're thinking of a scimitar that's balanced like an arming sword. Those could and would be weight-reliant - Indian tulwars were especially gruesome on foot for that reason - but cavalry swords were more concerned about the cutting area in contrast.

If you are interested in the subject you could check out The Armies of the Caliphs by Hugh Kennedy, covers the arab period up until around the 11th century very thoroughly, might however require a bit of prerequisite knowledge of the political history of that period to be fully comprehensive however.

It always triggers me when people associate curved swords with arabs. I don't even know why. Stupid wh*te education I guess.

Curved swords were introduced by Turks. Arabs used straight swords before the Turks came around.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabar_(axe)

Both were used during the bronze age and IIRC curved swords didn't become dominant in the area untill the turkish invasions during the middle ages.

>lamellar = plate armor

This, curved swords are better suited to cavalry which the Turks popularized. Pic related i Muhhamads sword.

whoops

>If i'm not mistaken the Arabs adopted their iconic curved swords from Byzantines and Persians.
They got it from the Turks.

Who, in turn, got it from the Chinks. The single edged sword, I mean. Turks gave Chinese Dao a curve, birthing the curved saber.

>Marine swords
>anything other than ceremonial
It's part of the dress uniform

As for armor, the only thing resembling plate armor in the middle east was shit like plated mail or separate cuirasses worn over mail like the Chahar-aina.

Not for lack of technical knowledge though: the Ottoman Padishah possessed suits of Italian plate armor in addition to armorers working within the European domains of the Ottomans. I guess didn't really suit their style.

Atleast they had dick looking prostate stimulaters for hilts/pommels. What a bunch of fags

Asian armies focused more on cavalry and archers, and in general had less focus on well armed heavy infantry. So there is very little in the way of plate armour (especially for infantry) anywhere in Asia.

Ottoman has the best aesthetics, pretty much the perfect blend between the east and the west

>Were plate armor
no
>and straight swords
yes

Plate armor was a strictly Euro thing, a blast furnace technology is needed to produce sufficient quantities of quality steel for full plate. Also, likely fighting styles and climate made a lighter armor preferable.