Armor Question

So, in a lot of anime/manga, the main character always to have some big plate of material strapped to their thigh as protection. Is there any historical basis to this? Would it actually work? Wouldn't you want protection on the inside of your thigh instead, where a very important vein is?

Can you post more examples?

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Here. This guy's from The Last Story, for example.

And Basche from Final Fantasy 12.

Front of your thigh is probably more likely to get smacked than the inside of it in a battle. I mean, anime/jrpg armor is always ridiculous, but there's nothing wrong with wearing some thigh protection.

It's just bad design. Armor doesn't look like that. People during medieval ages tried to cover their entire body in armor. And you don't really waste your money on a thigh-guard, when your chest is exposed.

They are called grieves in western armor and the often wrapped around the l leg, often with maille chauses underneath and padding ( 3 layers of protecting)

Inside thigh has a horse there.

t. Someone who knows nothing of armor

A lot of European combat manuals have sections on attacking the thighs and lower legs.

>People during medieval ages tried to cover their entire body in armor.
Knights tried that. Most others could not afford such complete protection and had to prioritize.

The human body is also complicated, im not on one side of this or the other, but you get hit with a sword in the legs those are artery super highways and your in for a bad time if you don't get medical treatment ASAP

It's harder to armor the inside; and yes, it's where the arteries are; so a lot of deaths for not-fully-armored people occurred from hits there.

I don't know shit about armor or historical accuracy but if I had to guess (beyond popular artistic design), it would be that the femoral artery is located there and is fairly easy to nick.
And if you're living in a time period where you still need to protect your femoral artery from a sword attack, the wound will kill you sooner or later.

People in full armor were generally cavalrymen.

Cavalrymen don't need to protect the inside of their thighs, because they have an entire horse there.

Armoring the inside of your thigh gives you less contact with the horse, making it harder to tell what it's doing, and harder to control it in general.

Occasionally we see thigh protection that wraps around fully. Mostly in England, because their knights fought more on foot than others.

An infantryman can catch shit with his thigh of course. But he'll have less money to buy armor with. And in a one on one duel, especially with swords or other not so long weapons, the thigh isn't a primary target. You have best reach at shoulder level, so if someone attacks your thigh, move back and whack him in the head. Beware of archers.

>often with maille chauses underneath and padding ( 3 layers of protecting)

Splinted or plate legs would basically never have mail chausses underneath them. Plate over mail over light padding is for your torso only really, and even then it was only a brief thing. Too heavy. So people cut away all the mail except just at the gaps. After a while they gave up on that too.

Thanks for the answers, folks. So reading up on posts, being mostly unarmored except for the thigh is more of a horseman thing, isn't it? Most folks would buy helmet or chest armor first?

>So reading up on posts, being mostly unarmored except for the thigh is more of a horseman thing, isn't it? Most folks would buy helmet or chest armor first?
Pretty sure even cavalrymen would go for a helmet first, chest/torso armor second and everything else third.

Medieval and Ancient man weren't stupid. They realized a blow to the head is the most likely to be lethal or have severe consequences, and they realized most of your squishy organs are in your chest and torso. An arrow to the thigh MIGHT cause fatal bleeding, an arrow to the face WILL kill you most of the time.

The only ones who would go into battle without a helmet, other than the suicidal or crazy celtic nakedfags, would be Hollywood protagonists who are invulnerable as long as their face is visible, unless the plot requires their highly dramatic death.

Japan is a very fashion conscious society so they prefer style over substance when it comes to character art.

You don't see the thigh plate half as often as the pecs-only plate.

I think half armour has some historical examples, but it's plate, not leather.