On the Ottoman 'lack of interest' in full plate armour, I found this:



http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/isaa/hd_isaa.htm

More reading can be found on http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=4427

I was refering to prefering protection over speed

crusades until 14 cent eventhough the Battle of Varna was crusade

Plate mail? Mail is chainmail or scale...not plate. Unless you're talking about a combination of plate and mail.
Full plate armor was created by the 13th century, whereas the French did have whole armies of nobles with full plate.

In Europe, the later plate armors 15th onwards was actually created to resist the bolts of European crossbows, and many of the plate armors were also made to be "bullet proof" against early handguns. So against quality plate armor, crossbows and early guns were ineffective.




That armor/Gothic armor is armor from the late 15th-16th centuries. In the 13th century, rudimentary plate armor had juts been developed, and would not have looked like that.

Wow! This thread goes that long?!

I think Chinese army did not need to invent that kind of stuff. It is not because of weight that plate armour became a big problem, but heat exhaustion. The first charge of Mongol Heavy Cavalry upon Volhynian and Kievan forces during the overture of Battle of Kalka river proved this well.

Well, since China don't use plate armor against the northern army, how they deal with the northern army besides building a great wall. could someone tell me in details?

china does have plate armour but they were around earlier times when romans didnt exsist as an empire yet. the warring stats have very heavy and thick bronze plate armours and plate hose(leg protection). ones i saw in the mueseams are awfully heavy probably people were alot stronger back then, but im sure a modern person cannot bear the weight

northern people wear absolute no armour, they largely depend on light and fast cavalries equipted with bow and sabers, chinese normally wouldnt use a large number of foot soliders to deal with them, because once a regiment of foot soliders is surrounded by cavalry= no good, well chinese would use their own cavalry against them, plate armour for cavalries really isnt good as it is too heavy and does slow you down alot. it is impossible to say- destroy a tribe say eg huns back then because they are never stationary they move camps around and you never know where they are, so generally a large army of heavy soliders wont do against them. european knights would definately be a huns perfect bullzeye/target

chinese did have plate armour in the warring stats period, but stuff imporves thru time so then we preferred to wear scaled armour because our opponents are mostly ppl like the huns etc who you really gotta spend bit of time chasing them and if you were too heavy...ud pass out and never win the game lol

The details would fill a book. Most commonly, they responded by fighting cavalry with cavalry.

Why assume that plate armour is better protection from nomadic horse archery?



Which museum are you talking about? There is no specimen of Warring States plate armour anywhere, as far as I am aware.



False stereotype. Nomadic peoples could use heavy cavalry too; the more powerful ones even had armoured horses.



The proportion of Chinese warfare that was against nomads, rather than civil wars or rebellions, is much smaller than you think.

As far as I know the Nomads had leather armor with metal plates. It is true that the light archer cavalary had no armor but they had shield protecting there backs.


The heavy Xiongnu cavalary wore a sort of scale armor

Even though the Dian are not han chinese, they seemed to have used armour of plates. As far as one can tell from these miniatures at least.

Chinese physical appearance must be much more convenient than European imposing strength. Plate armour itself is not too heavy as we thought, but it is heat exhaustion that start killing off the person. Leather armour was much better in this r

maybe not heavy enough to stop them from running but heavy enough not to do kung fu tricks. before learning kung fu as in real fighting kung fu like jet lee...you must do 蹲馬步 (dwen ma bu) for about 9 months so that your body is centred and you will not fall backwards and unbalance when being struck by some force. if the knights learnt that then i wouldnt say anything about wearing heavy armour.

well things improve as time goes...you can also see that chinese people did wear heavy armour during the warring stats period and prior to that...those fully bronzed metallic men, you didnt believe that the warring stats people wore heavy armour than i might have to encourage you to get a better soruce of information. and no the proportion of warfare with the nomads arnt so small compared to civil wars...civil wars happen many times but in short periods as for war against nomads for example like the han dynasty they really got into fighting the huns...and the wars lasted very long...all the way to the Ming dynasty mongols and other nomadic tribes try to invade china...and your probably looking at this from ur small world perspective.

i wouldnt excatly know the minds of aincent chinese about not thinking of palte armour...but they did have thick layered breast plates and heavy armour...just becuase theres no "pictures" on the internet nor reading any "chinese" histroy books...alot of overseas people assum chinese never had them...also chinese have a habit of destrioing almost everything of their enemies, when ever they win...during war and chaotic times, and also the vast land and time voering the land...things like amrous are hard to preserve.

i found a pic of some replicas of some chinese armour...

The reason China never developed Platemail can be explained by looking at why Europe went from Chain to Plate.

Chainmail was used, and was very effective, against swords and slashing weapons. So long as the individual was stepping back from a sword-swipe, the chain would effectively deflect the slashing blow.

However, something happened when Mounted warfare became more common in Europe: Chivalric Knights and their Lances. Lances were designed to puncture the protective coat of Chainmail that the typical soldier wore. The effect was gruesome and lead to massive deaths in armies when facing a Cavalry Charge.

So, in response, heavier deflecting plates were needed. Platemail was developed. Hanging from a suite of chain, the metal plates still allowed for decent mobility while preventing the powerful lances from puncturing into their soft, sensitive organs.

It was less an issue of Mobility vrs. Less Mobility (Europeans love mobile armies, because they can conquer in further away lands, and the English Horse Archers were considered to be elite soldiers, as they were rich enough to afford Horses. So it isn't as if the concept of a mounted archer was foreign to the Europeans (though the mounted archers of Europe were not nearly as well trained as those of, say, Mongolia, because it wasn't as culturally important to them).

But I digress. The Chinese simply never had the need for Plate Mail arise as quickly and as gruesomely as it did in England and the rest of Europe. Even a Longbow can pierce Plate Mail from most eras (proven in laboratory tests), when fired from it's effective distance. The trick with archers is simply to keep moving and avoid being shot rather than try to keep the shot from hurting you (It wasn't until the Late Medieval Era, with the advent of Gothic Plate that Plate Mail ever managed to prevent ranged weapons from damaging, and even then Archers usually aimed for the Horses, not the soldiers. Bigger target, and this lets the melee soldiers in to cut the knights apart.) As such, the Chinese and other Asian cultures developed forms of armor that provided deflecting surfaces or surfaces that could damage the cutting blades, rather than simply heavy plates. Melee fighting styles were vastly different from Europeans. European weapons were never designed to do much more than basically bludgeon and maim, Asian weapons being designed with sharper cutting edges and far thinner.

This also stems from, as has been mentioned, the mindset of battle for Europeans was much more different than that of the Chinese. While in the early years, the Chinese were of course fighting one another to unify themselves into a singular empire rather than the collection of states they were earlier, later Chinese wars (the more prominent ones, anyways) were more about defending their homelands from Hostline invaders. You want to ruthlessly slaughter Hostile invaders, so that they don't come back.

In Europe, battles were more often about petty squabbles between angry monarchs (this does not include the Crusades: The Crusades were only a small part of Medieval History, the larger part is taken up by such things as the Hundred Years War, and the War of the Roses, or even the Norman Invasion of Anglo-Saxon England. Kings angry at one another over contested land, etc.)

Out of curiosity, do you have any verification on accuracy for these? They don't really look like anything I've seen in ancient figures or paintings, and the armor itself seems...strange to boot.

While it's true that King Henry did somersaults in armor, how are "kung fu tricks" relevant to the discussion? Also, where did you get the idea that first Jet Li does "real fighting kung fu" (he doesn't) and that soldiers are somehow expected to do the wire tricks that he does in films during the middle of a battle? That...is not a realistic expectation of soldiers. And how does the horse stance have anything to do with this discussion, beyond a typical blurb about not losing balance?

The problem here is that the use of lances by cavalry long predates the age of the knight in Europe. Chinese armies were using lance-armed cataphract cavalry by the 5th or 6th century, while the Sarmatians, Parthians, and Sassanian Persians used them even earlier. But all these peoples were satisfied with using lamellar armour against lances, and never felt a need for plate.

Yes, but consider how Lamellar was designed. From what I've seen, metal (and possibly even Leather) Lamellar is quite sturdy when compared along side a suit of Chainmail.

Lamellar, made up of small metal plates, was more than likely sufficient to defeat a lance. Chainmail wasn't, the lances were specifically designed to puncture into chainmail, as I stated. Chainmail was simply to deflect a sword blow when combined with stepping back from said blow, it wasn't designed with withstand a six foot wooden pole with a metal tip being shoved into it. Chaimail had been the mainstay armor in Europe since the Roman era, and it had served them quite well. Note that the Cataphracts were mostly found in the mediterranean to far east. This was not a technology that ever reached the Celtic and Germanic tribes. Chainmail, however, was something they uniquely developed and utilized up until the rise of the Chivalric Cavalry. Chainmail effectively deflected sword blows (The longsword was for centuries the most important weapon in European Warfare, and remained such even after this point), however it was ineffective against the puncturing force of the Lance.

Cavalry in Europe wasn't really used after the defeat of the Britonians by the Anglo Saxons, and it didn't see common use in Europe until after the Norman Cavalry successfuly defeated the Saxons in 1066, battle of Hastings (though the war was really won by the fact the Saxons never moved. At all.) Prior to this point, most fighting was on foot.

Seeing as Cataphract cavalry was more common in the east and the mediteranean, they likely needed to develope a suite of armor that could defeat an elite cavalry lance charge. Lamellar was likely this answer, and seeing as Leather Lamellar was likely comparatively inexpensive to make when compared to even Chainmail, let alone Plate armor, it was likely for that reason they went with it and why Plate armor was never really developed in China, whereas in most of Europe, Cavalry wasn't exactly common until the Chivalric Code became more widespread (and seeing as the Chivalric code was invented by the Normans and the French, it took the conquering of England in 1066 in order to bring about this change), and thus an armor that could withstand the charging of a Lance-wielding Cavalry was not really necessary until this time.

(Note: My knowledge of Chinese military history isn't as extensive as that of Europe, as if that isn't obvious. I am merely trying to extrapolate a possible answer from the information that I am aware of)

Whew. Why did the Chinese never develop Plate? Well, plain and simply, Plate armour is expensive. EXTREMELY expensive. And the Chinese routinely fielded armies that Europeans could only dream of in terms of raw numbers.
Plate, despite so many false "historical" writings from the Victorian Age, is not much of a hindrance to mobility. It doesn't even weigh that much. In fact, a god suit of chainmail weighs a great deal more. Plate is also comparable to Any other heavy armour in terms of ventilation and stamina issues. Unlike any other form of armour (with the possible exception of Shan wen kia), it is immeasurably costly to produce and maintain. Any individual piece could only survive so many fights before having to be melted down and reforged due to metal fatigue.
Yes, it was worn pretty much only by rich nobles, but keep in mind, in Europe, there were a LOT of rich nobles (which is rather curious. China had a richer economy and more history, why Didn't any of their rich ever wear full plate? Were they mineral poor?).

And whoever said "even a longbow" keep in mind that we're talking about a weapon that typically required 150-200 Lbs of force to draw. If not more. That's an awful lot of power behind a yard-long arrow tipped with a head designed to defeat whatever armour it was up against. Most crossbows didn't manage that kind of power, and None matched for range and accuracy.

@Whitefire, Chain was far more effective than that and Could, when properly made and padded, absorb and outright stop a lance or arrow or crossbow bolt far more effectively than could plate. It just had 2 major issues versus Plate: 1. Weight. It weighed, when properly made, more than twice what plate did and was Very constricting due to that weight (you should try some on sometime). 2. It was hard to make it look pretty. Not a real concern to most people these days, but keep in mind the mindset of the average person who could afford plate armour. Hell, look at some of the examples of plate armour.
Where plate tended to deflect the hit from a lance off an angled piece of solid metal, chain just absorbed the blow and sent it back along the lance, shattering it.

(theory, from studying history, and practice are often very different things)


And aoshima, find me the kung fu master who can take a blow from a 6 foot sword and not lose his balance and I'll show you someone who trains like a medieval knight.


Lastly, what is it about people thinking the Chinese ever fought the Huns? Last I checked no Chinese empire ever extened that far North or West. Mongols. They fought the Mongols.
(well, and the Japanese, the Vietnamese, the Koreans...)

Actually, that statement was based off of laboratory tests that were performed. The lance was designed to pierce the chain. (Look up "Weapons that Made Europe" for those tests). A lance didn't need to be effective more than once. After the initial charge, most knights would change over to their secondary arm (the sword/shield)

An interesting question you brought up, though, was why the rich nobles of china didn't become warriors in the same degree the Europeans did. The reason probably has to do with the Chivalric Code that became popular in the 11th and 12th Century AD (The Chivalric Code stated that a male son of a noble needed to either pursue a profession in the Clergy, or become a Knight. Their choices were quite limited).

And Europe also had a Rich History, it's just that most of that rich history was destroyed by the Catholic Church when they tried to wipe all the old Celtic teachings and practises from history, burning down all the Druidic Libraries (all of which contained almost the entirety of Celtic history, a the Druids were also their intellectuals), and the Germanic Tribes never really kept written records, they mostly kept verbal records, again many of which were lost with the rise of Christianity in Europe.

And actually, the chain Hauberks looked quite nice (consider that even when they wore plate armour, that plate was covered in a fabric Hauberk anyways).

The reason why they say so is that since the late 18th century, there's been this theory that the Huns were descended from a nomadic people called the Xiongnu (or 'Huna', in the probable original pronunciation), who dominated the Mongolian steppe from around 200 BC to AD 40. So lots of people use 'Huns' to translate the name 'Xiongnu', although I personally find that this causes more confusion than clarification.



Didn't the Carolingian empire use lance-armed cavalry extensively, with stirrups as well?

Yes. I've seen most of those lab tests. They were not realistic in any way. None of them included padding under the chain and I have never been able to find any documentation on the method of making the chain. Oh, and the average lance wasn't that sharp. Maintaining a point like that was not feasible, due to cost and time until far later and the development of better forging techniques and the use of steel lance points. A lance typically came to as sharp a point as an arrowhead (iow, not very).
For all you or I know, it was 18 Gg wire looped, twisted and pounded. Cheap junk as far as chain goes. Totally worthless as far as armour goes.
Chain looks good until it gets wet. Then it looks rusted. There was no polishing chain once it got a layer of rust on it. If a warrior could afford that, he could afford an entirely new hauberk. Chain's biggest cost was in the man-hours required to work it. Chain looks absolutely fabulous when it's new (or made of stainless steel ).

Cloth hauberks were worn primarily to prevent scratching the steel on the plate armour, wrecking the designs, or to hide old damage or cheaper metal or cheaper replacement part s. The latter being the same reason it was worn over scale a lot. Scale doesn't look so great when you have leather sections patching it cause you can't afford new metal plates. Plate is the same (hardened leather was often used to replace expensive metal plates).

And I'm not going to get into the "evils of the Catholic Church" here with you.

Yon, thx for the clarification. And considering that the Huns moved into the West because of the rising power of the Mongols, well...
Actually, that wasn't until after the birth of Christ, so that leaves 3,000 years or so that they might have actually fought the Chinese, now that I think about it...

Sorry for the second post, but I didn't notice this part earlier.
I'm not particularly familiar with the Carolingian Empire (or at least, if I am, not by that name) (edit: yep, that's Martel and Charlemagne and became the original Holy Roman Empire).

Charlemagne's grandfather, Charles Martel was able to end Muslim expansion into Europe via Spain primarily due to the new innovation of stirrups that made a heavy cav charge with lances practical. (then again, further research says this may have been merely mythology. Have to wonder about Charlemagne too, now. Looks like Martel won by reverting to the unwieldy, yet implacable and unbreakable Greek phalanx)
However, either this advance in warfighting technology was lost or the Normans didn't think it was important, because they clearly did not have stirrups or use heavy cav like Martel's and Charlemagne's empire did a couple hundred years earlier...
Another curiousity indeed.

The Mongols only emerged as a steppe power in the late 12th century AD. The Xiongnu were replaced on the steppe by the Xianbi, who may have spoken a proto-Mongolic language but should not be identified as Mongols. And at the time of the Hunnic invasion of Europe, the major power on the Mongolian steppe was the Rouran kaghanate, which some historians think was the ancestor of the Avars who later fought the East Romans/Byzantines and Carolingians.

No one knows why the Huns moved west from Central Asia. It's one of the big mysteries of history.

one possibility is the shockwave effect.

i.e, Han forcing the Xiong Nu to move west, who then in term forces their western nomadic neighbors to do the same due to increased new competition. and a wave effect continues until the Huns show up in Europe.

One can clearly see this effect later in history, the Seljiuk turks Migrated south/west probably because they were on the losing end of the stepp war against the Cuman / Kipchaks, who were later in turn driven west by the Mongols into Europe.

and possibily the combination of another obvious effect, simply seeking better pastures. until they ended up running into settled people, then realizing the potential gains in attacking.

I seem to recall mention of soldiers wearing cotton batting under bamboo slat and tube breastplates. Lightweight, insulating and very hard to penetrate. Has there been any mention of this?

I thought that was Japanese...

After reading all the posts so far, it seems like our reasonable explanations are:
1. Plate mail limits mobility (of foot or horse), and mobility was more important in battles in China than in Europe.
2. Plate mail is too costly compared to its benefits.
3. No one thought of it. (This seems unlikely)
...

With regards to effectiveness of plate versus mounted steppe archers, we have some examples from history. The clash Jebe's Mongolian forces with the armored knights of Georgia and Russia in the early 13th century provides a pretty good example of the problems with plate armor versus steppe armies. In numerous battles, the Mongols drew knights into attack, tired out their horses, and then returned to attack with bows that (like those of Europe) could penetrate their armor. The knights and foot soldiers alike were outmaneuvered; the strategies of the Mongol generals were explicitly to take advantage of the Europeans' lack of range and speed. According to Jack Weatherford in his book on Genghis Khan, the weight of heavily armored knights reduces the maneuverability of the horse (as it does for foot soldiers) and severely limits their stamina. The same tactics were not used as much in Europe because it necessitated having an army made up almost exclusively of well trained mounted archers who could travel without extensive supply trains. But this is what China faced for many hundreds of years.

This may not be a complete answer for all of China, but it does seem to be part of the picture. The remainder of the question is why wasn't plate armor well suited for the conflicts between kingdoms in China?
...
As for plate being infeasible for large numbers of troops, that answer doesn't seem to cut it: if plate were effective but just expensive, don't you think at least a few local kings or wealthy merchants would have used it? There are plenty of innovations that only worked for the wealthy, but were used anyhow.