It just seems strange that plate armor never came to be in China. With a huge lead in metal working technology compared to Europe, why didn't any smith ever go 'hey, solid plates are great at resisting damage!' ?

This question is a rather odd one to ask, when I think about it. But... I'd think China would've had more reasons to have created plate armor before europe. In China, composite bows and crossbows were around for a looong while. In europe, plate armor was made as a response to better penetrating crossbows and longbows coming around. (well, not the sole reasons, but I've read accounts of plate suits which could resist crossbow bolts).

Or was the brigandine/lamellar/star-scale armours around strong enough ?

Maybe since the army was largely professionalized and government controlled, there just wasn't the atmosphere to expend alot of money on one person, while in Europe all those knights had their suits custom made and paid for.
Maybe since the europeans were very quick to kill each other all the time, they just had more motivation for researching new armor?

But I would still think top officials would have the money and time to have a fitted suit of plate armour.

well.. you see.. the problem with plate armor is that they are too heavy and bulky to wear. In combating against the northern nomads cavalry, a major requirement is mobility and convenience in maneovre in fighting. Having heavy plate armor prevents mobility from taking place, making it ineffective against fighting the nomadics cavalry.

For this reason, chinese armor usually used leather armor sewed with small iron plates. They helped to protect against arrows and are also light to wear.

Had the chinese used large plate armor, they would have been easily defeated by the XiongNu and Turks of the north.

A good example of the ineffectiveness of plate armor is demonstrated by the Mongol's light cavalry against the Russian heavy cavalry (with plate armor). The Mongols' mobility easily defeated the heavy inmobile heavy cavalry of the russian.

I think like Herr General Zhaoyun sez, mobility was the buzz word for eastern armies.

It's kinda like the difference between red and black ants. Has anyone see the usual red and black variety of house ants? The red ants are slower but heavily armoured. They can take a lot of punishment and one bite from them is immediately felt as a sting. The black ants on the other hand are very, very fast but squash easily. Their bite can hardly be felt.

I was very young when I saw something I've never, ever been fortunate to see again. It happened underneath a washbasin in the dining room of my old house. There was this great battle between a colony of red ants and a colony of black ants. Man, was it fascinating to watch. I remember staring at them for hours. They were really going at it with a growing heap of dead ants around the battle. I also remember stopping my mom from pouring hot water on them just so I could continue watching.

The point here is, neither side could win. The red ants were tough and killed with every bite, snapping legs, spines and stuff whenever they caught a black ant. But they had difficulty catching the fast black ants. The black ants on the other hand were fast but it took a lot of bites to kill a red ant which they did by darting in and out between the snapping red pincers.

I tell you, nothing up till then could have been more cool to a young kid like me then, watching this major battle between two different styles.

I guess the western knight went the way of the red ant. Built like a tank, they are meant to take punishment but they wield huge weapons which kill in a single blow. Just look at the size of their two handed swords or battle axes! They were not bothered with how sharp the weapon was. The weight of the weapon was enough to crush and snap bones. If you watch western boxing, you'll realise this mentality is still there. They expect to be hit, and the aim is to weather hits and come back with power knockout punches of their own.

The eastern concept favoured the way of the black ant. Fast and mobile, sacrificing offensive power with lighter weapons. The typical middle eastern sword during the time of the crusades was like that. It was a relatively short curved blade which was razor sharp to slice through unarmoured joints and through light chain mail. Thai kick boxers are featherweight compared to the typical western boxer. They relie on speed to avoid punches and kicks, and launch into fast shart jabs of their own.

This probably explains the reason why China didn't develop full plate armour. It was a difference concept of fighting. In Sun Tze Ping Fa, mobility and fast strikes are favoured. A portracted fight to wear down an opponent is considered a failure in generalship.

Jieming
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DragonSeedLegacy

Very good point. I agree with most of it.

However, I don't agree that Eastern offensive power, although generally lighter than their Western counterparts, were necessarily "weaker".

From what i've read/seen, plate mails isn't really that heavy at all... the documentary i saw showed real people manuvering almost prefectly in fullplate, and from disscusing about the subjects in other forums draw the same conclusion with inputs from people that's into historical reinactment and acturally wore a fullplate before... he claim that with a little get use to you can even do cartwheels in fullplate.

I'm no expert in armor though so i have little to really say about this subject... however from what i see the fact that medeval western warfare tend to be in much smaller scales compare to the east might have something to do with the mentality behind armor designs.

And also that the image of fullplates we hold today really came in very late medieval times (1400-1500 and beyond really) the crusaders did not generally wear such armors.... they wore chainmails mostly but even then from what i've read on the battle of Hattin (the end of the kingdom of Jerusalem) very few knights acturally fell or perished from wounds despite the crusader ending up crushed. almost all of the notable knights servived the encounter.

plate armor isn't really that heavy or bulky. They're not bulky at all, being form fitting. As for weight, it's well distributed across the body. I guess it's still more weight for the horse though

and then there's 'half-plate' suits worn around the advent of guns, which is a solid torsoe guard, with segmented shoulder and thigh guards. I see that worn in alot of naval battle paintings from... the 1600's ?




This guy up there, a winged hussar, is wearing plate. He just doesn't look very encumbered or bulky. I think the winged hussars were known for being very quick (and mobile too? not sure)



! I just thought of something
plate-arm guards would get in the way of archery
That's too obvious! Nuts. Well, that solves one question for me.

hmmm, I wouldn't say the redvsblack comparison is too great an example, as Asian warfare wasn't really any 'weaker' nor more dependant on force of numbers.

I'm writing a paper on the Mongol invasion of europe, so I know what happens when head bashing knights take on mobile horse archers!

Thanks for the help so far guys.



*I think in the 1st crusade, the Middle East used straight swords. not sure, just heard it somewhere. Slashing swords were phased in later.

Hyarmendacil and I discussed this question before on AE, with regard to the steppe nomads, and I'd like to quote his reply here. TMPikachu's conclusion about plate armour hindering mounted archery is exactly one of Hyarmendacil's major arguments.

Thus to summed up some of the reasons:

1. Wearing plate armor is hot as ventilation is less

2. Plate Armor hinders archery (esp. on horse)

3. Plate armor is too costly and time-consuming to maintain

Just some observations:

This was not a problem for China.



Chinese army was not a stepp army, even they fought against stepp people, their army was still an agrarian army.
Also, what was the percantage of skirmishers in a Chinese army? Was it the backbone or just auxiliary?

So, those 2 reasons didn't seem to explain the question as why didn't China ever 'invent' plate armor.

Probably didn't see the need to for various reasons; limb mobility, weight or maybe they just believed that plate armour was inferior to what they already had?

Jieming
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DragonSeedLegacy

I believe the had many, many different types of armour including paper armour which was as tough!

Jieming
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DragonSeedLegacy

Plate mail was darned expensive, and to be honest, few soldiers actually wore full-armoured plate. We have all these images of noble knights dressed in full-plated armour doing battle, but these images were... not true. The vast majority of plated armour you see in museums were commissioned by nobles and done as display items rather than items to wear. That's not saying knights didn't wear full plate, but I doubt every knight gets a standard sub-issue full plate armour as part of their war gear. There were probably armour of different quality, weight and effectiveness, depending on who the smithys were.

As for Chinese armies not being full-plate armoured... I just don't see the point of it. Theoretically-speaking, full-plate DOES offer better protection, but against what? Crossbows will still penetrate it, and so would bullets.

"A good example of the ineffectiveness of plate armor is demonstrated by the Mongol's light cavalry against the Russian heavy cavalry (with plate armor). "

The Russians didn't wear plates at all, they wore mails, no European country wore plates until the very end of the 13th century 20 years after the mongol onslaught.

As for not inveting it, I don't know why everyone is assuming China could but just didn't. China simply didn't think of it, the European simply had better developed armours due to superior skill in that area by the 15th century. Even 18th century samurai armou were influenced and modeified after them.

You're right. Eastern offensive power was not necessarily weaker but the fundamental philosophy of Eastern warfare or fighting has always favoured speed, nimble-ness and brains over strength, grit and bulk. Brute strength seems to be the norm for many western fighting philosophies. Even hollywood movies glorify the gritty never say die fighting hero who takes a pounding but comes right back out fighting. Of course exceptions to the norm abound but the Art of War is quite opposite to the concept of Total War so favoured by the Europeans of the 1700-1900s. The whole western philosophy of tank-like formations were so ingrained into the fighting culture that despite the introduction of guns, they still stood in facing lines and pounded each other to see who would break first and flee.

To this day, some western parents still cheer their male children on when they proudly show their bruises from a fight. An eastern parent would have freaked and berated the stupidity of their kid for even getting in a fight.

Jieming

That depends...

More likely, they'll scold him for missing his violin lesson while in the scuffle

or piano lessons, or ballet lessons, or math tuition, or karate class, or singing class, or art lessons, or ....

Well, if he does karate...

I agreed.

"You're right. Eastern offensive power was not necessarily weaker but the fundamental philosophy of Eastern warfare or fighting has always favoured speed, nimble-ness and brains over strength, grit and bulk. Brute strength seems to be the norm for many western fighting philosophies. Even hollywood movies glorify the gritty never say die fighting hero who takes a pounding but comes right back out fighting. Of course exceptions to the norm abound but the Art of War is quite opposite to the concept of Total War so favoured by the Europeans of the 1700-1900s. The whole western philosophy of tank-like formations were so ingrained into the fighting culture that despite the introduction of guns, they still stood in facing lines and pounded each other to see who would break first and flee. "


The concept of total war is much earlier in China then in the west, warring state armies were fighting complete total wars when the Greek states are only massing citizen armies. Art of War isn't only something that China emphasize, Byzantine Manuals emphasize it all the time. In fact they are even more cuastious to avoid battle then China since they say that if certain battles are unclear, don't fight it at all. Probably due to the reason that Byzantine is under constant threat and does not want to risk anything.


"To this day, some western parents still cheer their male children on when they proudly show their bruises from a fight. An eastern parent would have freaked and berated the stupidity of their kid for even getting in a fight.
"

Umm, not quite. Only wacked parents actually like to see their kids getting into fights whether it be eastern or western. Perhaps you've never been to Northeastern China like Shen Yang which i stayed for 3 years of my childhood. The people here loves fighting, its part of their live. Gang fights are common and many brawls are crippling in effect, nothing I've seen in the U.S. match anything like that type of fighting. We use beer bottles and Cooking knifes, we use magazine to wrap around our hands to prevent cutting. I have a friend who is nasty in fighting, as early as first grade when a higher grade student took away his money by force, he took on revenge by picking up a brick and smashing it against his head when the higher grade student is not paying attention. That guy end up with stiches on the back. The people here are very loyal to friends but does ugly things to enemies. When I get into fights I'm not as bold in using weapons, I usually just use bricks, beer bottles and twice with cooking knifes at the highest level. I could never use weapons some of the others use like axe and sharp impaling objects. But my friend has bitten someone's finger off once and knocked other's teeth out. Broke their shin.. stuff like these are quite common, and because Chinese law aren't as strict on these matters, they occur frequently. There is some Manchurian tradition that we keep alive.

Hahaha, man that's violent. No wonder, with that kind of martial traditions they kicked the Ming dynasty out.

Jieming

Does China ban gun ownernship? I imagine they would. That leads to more knife fights though.

Or in Australia, machete/katana brawls :0!

During the Culture Revolution, the warring Red Guard factions got creative and wielded cashmier wool and steel plates onto local farmer's tractors and use them as tanks. A lot of hand gun in private hands in China are counterfeits, some of them work well, however most of them is more dangerous to the user than the intended target.

Well come to think of it...China never invented plate armor for it will break one of the rules of war which is speed of operations. Guns weren't really that much in use for some if not plenty will backfire. The plate armor requires a person more stamina to don and they definitely move slower. The time and energy required to make plate armor offsets the protection that the armor gives. It's also horrible to roast to death if ur caught in a fire attack, and what's worse is that you are slow and can't move as fast. I almost think that the metal refining at that time wasn't as good as Europe's. Chinese used iron if i'm not mistaken and not steel.

Well some guy on AE (forgot his name, Landsknecht Doppelsoldner?) mentiond that plate armour was not as slow and clumsy as many thought it was. He also mentioned that some sources said you could even do cartwheels in full plate armour so it would seem to be pretty flexible.



I don't think the metallurgy of China during that time was worse off than Europe's, if not better. By the time the full plate started appearing in Europe, somewhere around the 14th century, China had already developed two processes to make steel weapons from cast iron, one developed during the Western Han which involved melting the cast iron into ingots and extracting enough carbon from the cast iron to make steel (not all, since it would then become wrought iron), and another, developed in the 5th century AD, that involved melting wrought iron and cast iron together to form steel. And cast iron was not widely available in Europe until 1380 AD.

Plate armor wasn't as cumbersone as most people thought. Even so, it doesn't have to be full plate, it could just be a torsoe guard, shoulder guards, and thigh guards.

For example... full plate weigns 70 lbs, a US soldier carries 70lbs of equipment on his back, while the armor would be distributed.

But full plate was also tiring to wear, and got hot. Still, it doesn't have to be full plate, but partial like what I mentioned above.

My theory... innovation was discouraged in the place of ordered efficiency. Imperial foundaries manufactured time tested designs, there probably wasn't too much oppertunity to tinker around with new ideas. Trying to get one big sheet of metal to work with, as oppose to the smaller scales used to make Chinese armor, would've probably required some changes to be done.

"I don't think the metallurgy of China during that time was worse off than Europe's, if not better. By the time the full plate started appearing in Europe, somewhere around the 14th century, China had already developed two processes to make steel weapons from cast iron, one developed during the Western Han which involved melting the cast iron into ingots and extracting enough carbon from the cast iron to make steel (not all, since it would then become wrought iron), and another, developed in the 5th century AD, that involved melting wrought iron and cast iron together to form steel. And cast iron was not widely available in Europe until 1380 AD. "


Yes, in general, however there was a general decline in steel industry during the Yuan dynasty for reasons that are still not clear today, Chinese swords after this period became shorter and less quality to the extent that the Katana swords of Japan had surpassed China in forging Swords on general level.

Could it be neo-confucian attitudes of denouncing warfare and the military? From what I believe, the opinion of the elite swung towards believing that the military (along with merchants) were parasites of society or only stood for harmful values. Somewhat off targetting, but the anti military and anti merchant values, I see has having gone hand in hand with China's self imposed exile and stagnation.

Personally I think it was the same rejection of modernisation and invention as being barbaric, an extreme swing reaction against their mongol overlords that caused chinese science to take a step backward.

In my other post on the Yuan dynasty I mentioned innovations like the submarine etc which were abandonned because of this reaction.

Jieming

The Chinese *DID* have an increadibly brilliant form of armor though, the mountain-pattern scale armor, shan wen kia ( I think)

scale armor is flexible, but scales can be bypassed with a thrust in the direction they point away from.
Lamellar does not have this weakness, but its strings are exposed.

shan wen kia had the flexibility of lamellar without exposed strings.

link to PDF explaining here http://www.armourarchive.org/essays/Shanwenkia.pdf

What is lamellar?

I think, it's a kind of armour whereby you sewed metal plates together onto leather

An example of a bronze lamellar armour from Qin dynasty Terrocotta warrior:

Lamellar is the style of where metal scales, usually in a square-rectangular shape, is tied to one another with cords, threads. Think 'Samurai armor'. With the bright colored cords. That's lamellar

Reviving an old thread here. No one mentioned that the horses used to carry someone wearing plate-mail are different. They have to have the strength and stamina to gallop while carrying someone wearing that amount of metal. While it's true that plate-mail was not really that cumbersome, being articulated and with the weight distributed over the whole body (it would have been a lot more cumbersome, say, if an equivalent weight had been placed in a pack on the soldier's back), the horse was basically in the unenviable postion of having a man + plate-armour on his back.

I also disgree that the decrease in offensive power is a sacrifice. The European two-handed broadswords were used more like sledgehammers, to have enough weight to transmit the force of impact through the armour and cause damage within. Since China's forces did not wear such armour, developing such heavy and unwieldy weapons would have been useless.

Two handed swords were never heavy and unwieldy, at most they weighed 5 lbs.
They weren't any heavier or more unwieldy than Chinese zhanmadao or Japanese nodachi's. They're well made, well balanced swords.
Polearms, hammers, picks, and strong bows/crossbows would've been more common to use against heavy armor though.



On platemail, true that it wasn't that cumbersome. The drawback was still that it became tiring to wear, as there was no ventilation.


A theory I have right now... I imagine armor production was standardized. With a large, stable empire, deviating from the norm would be unlikely. I imagine armorers then would be more focused on production than innovation. I've still heard of innovations in armor design though.
The last one I had heard of was during the Tang, which set the standard for armor up to the Ming and brigandine. Accounts said the armor was comfortable to wear, easy to move in, and capable of running in.

I've also heard another reason being that simply only scales of iron were produced for armor, not sheets. Not that sheets were impossible to produce, but just didn't happen.
Anyone know about how plate armor is produced, as opposed to lamellar, what kind of supplies you'd need? I imagine it certainly wasn't out of the ability of the Chinese, but just not practiced.

I'll have to disagree about two-handed swords not being heavy and unwieldy. Consider two opponents with similar skill, without plate-mail, one using a one-handed sword and the other a two-handed sword. The one-handed sword user has a tremendous advantage over the other. While the two-handed sword user has the advantage in range and power, the weight of his sword means that it is very difficult to vary a cut in mid-swing, and that the momentum would leave him very open to attack if he misses.

Furthermore, there were definitely two-handed swords heavier than 5 lbs. In fact, 5.5 lbs is given as the *minimum* range of weight for an ideal two-handed sword. See The Origins of the Two-Handed Sword

I don't know much about the zhanmadao, but isn't it a bit unfair to compare a two-handed sword to a nodachi? Not only were they pretty rare weapons (not to say that two-handed swords were very common), they were also known for their unusually huge size, and were even claimed to be able to cleave a horse and rider in two. I don't think the two-handed sword is in its league, frankly. Furthermore, while the zhanmadao and the nodachi were primarily anti-cavalry weapons, the two-handed sword was more of an "anti-platemail" weapon.

Gotta nitpick a little bit,
Technically, nothing really existed called "Plate mail"
It's either plate...or its mail.

But to say that two handed swords fought like hammers is a stereotype many seem to have...its like the belief European swords were dull hammers.
Not very true.

Yes, you're right. However, platemail is such a common term that I have a bad habit of using the two interchangeably. Maybe it's due to playing too many fantasy RPGs.

When I mentioned that the two-handed swords were used like sledgehammers, I was referring to the fact that it was the massive force of the impact that did the damage (of course, the fact that the blade concentrates the impact to a very small area is an integral part), rather than relying on the blade itself. I believe two-handed sword blades were also not as keen as blades meant to be used against unarmoured or lightly armoued foes. Impacts against plate armour would cause massive damage to the blade edge if it was very sharp. Similarly, katana users often tried their best not to take their opponents blade in a parry as this could severely damage their own blade over time.

In other words, two-handed swords were not designed to slice through plate armour, but to cause injury despite of the armour.

Just as there are perceptions the Katana steel might be the best blade to come out of Asia and others can point to the skill of earlier Chinese steel swordsmiths there is a perception that is lamented on the sword forum that European knights were bashing each other with heavy sharpened crowbars.
The information on the SFI has shown researched medieval longsword were not the monstrous unweildly blades they might be made out to be.
Again like the Chinese model these swords were more of a back-up weapon for a knight.
Whether or not even the best of swords can penetrate plate is a topic of fiery debate with those that love their swords unwilling, it seems, to accept the ability of armour to stop even heavy blows! The effectiveness of plate seems pretty conclusive on the weight of current experiment however.
The idea that a knight can be injured or stunned/knocked down by weapons is valid....and there seemed to be an interest in capturing knights alive for ransom as they often represented a smaller part of the medieval army but with wealthy patronage.

I am sure those longswords would work wonders on the regular soldiers and archers with their cloth shirts, helmets or incomplete armour however as not everyone gets to own a suit of plate and a strong steed to gallop around on.

http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.ph...&threadid=36433
a good thread on Chinese armour by the armour buffs......feel free to post on the site if you need to correct anything they said! They seem to rarely mention Chinese comparisons so any extra info is just good for the discussion.


http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.ph...&threadid=27946

RE; Swords & arrows cutting/puncturing plate;

Bob Reed was the original moderator there but quit because of this very thread!
Rather a loss as he was knowledgable and must of reached some people (ie me) but just abandoning the role in frustration didnt help things.......quite a heated argument!....although not as heated as some I have seen on other forums.(cough)
...and like certain topics this one seems to pop up again (to the groans of those that went through the last time).

''''''Every test so far done under supervision and with scientific controlls has shown armour (of any sort) to be a very good defence against weapons it is likely to come up against. {{{{{ ....obviously he means here once contemporary technology equilibrium/parity has been reached, and not a Zulu skin shield against a British rifle...} Kenneth}}}
The likelyhood of actually cutting through plate harness with a single handed European sword contemporary to it is so unlikely to be statistically insignificant.

What most people ignore is that the majority of combatants on a Medieval battlefield are not completely armoured - {{{{like a Chinese army}}}}nevermind that the sword itself was a secondary weapon - not a primary one. Were the sword an efficiant weapon against plate harness, there would have been little need to develop hafted mass weapons such as pollaxes, maces, warhammers, and the like.''''''

Has anyone seen those European warhammers? Like an enormous geologist pick, and a heavy focused spike as opposed to a blade can puncture an armour plate (or helmet). Ouch.
I have seen a documentary where they excavated a battle site in England and amongst other things found a broken point from a war hammer spike. The medieval warrior must have been disapointed if he swung his pick into somebody and it snapped....but this is also what I have seen happen to the so-called armour piercing bodkins hitting plate. The arrow smashes, but even front-on can't get in.
A short sturdy solid triangular point (much like those from the Qin buried army crossbows!) can pierce plate armour better than a long thin bodkin point. This was demonstrated on filmed experiments.

THis idea that most contemporary armour to the weapon can make a difference should apply equally to Chinese scale armour, as they remark on pre-plate when chain and padding armour allowed European knights to be walking the battlefield with dozens of arrows sticking out of them (to the fustration of the Arabs).
Even if a scale shirt might not stop a powerful Chinese crossbow bolt everytime, I sure think you would be better off than a cloth shirt made of hemp like the unarmoured warriors had, and perhaps comparible experiments might show that anything other than an optimum angle a bronze bolt will deflect too, or the shaft split, if it hits a bronze of iron armour scale plate.
Any experimants been done like this in China?

The bronze arrow heads I have seen from Warring States period to Han are narrow and lethal looking, and people I show them to often comment 'armour piercing'.
I am now not quite so sure. The Antique dealer said 'for deeper penetration' and I now doubt they would punch through a metal plate on a scale shirt, but don't doubt they would enter the body more deeply on an unarmoured location like the dealer said. They really do feel deadly in the hand compared to earlier Western Zhou styles. They are much like the bodkin so are likely to buckle on scale armour also.
The arrow bodkin was then suggested as just a design/production simplification rather than armour piercer. The Chinese arrows like this are NOT simple however as they are made from 3 piece mold, and still have 3 barbs along the mold lines and have more complex cross sections than the early Zhou style. The English bodkin is a much simpler shape.
I can only assume that the narrow Chinese points were made to be more lethal against light armoured/unarmoured troops (or horses) as it seems that there have always been signifigant unarmoured/light armoured parts of Chinese armies at this date. Even Chinese heavy infantry would not be as protected as an articulated full plate armour as arms, or face, or parts of the legs are still vulnerable. European knights might be slain after a helmet is knocked off (whack! to the head) or when a visor is lifted/or provides a small gap (English Kings and Princes seemed to have a thing for catching lance splinters or arrows in the face) that is were wounds occur.
Chinese armour must have been effective enough for the battlefields needs to provide protection to torsos, or the upper arms,or helmets or metal leg splits, and provide a bit of survivability, but in a shower of arrows I would expect the missiles would have a habit of sticking into the unarmoured locations of these infantry also. The, say, 60%armour 40% unarmoured locations of heavy infantry during the early dynasties (I don't comment on later era more complete styles) would not allow them to totally disregard the massed crossbows of an enemy unfortunately.
I would rather be in Qin scale, than not, if I were facing such things though!

Indeed, there's a common perception that katana steel (Damascus steel) is some kind of uber-steel. As you pointed out, it's not. The same steel is used in other weapons as well (kukris, for instance). However, it is the design of a good katana (rather than the steel) that makes it such a deadly weapon. The blade is curved in such a way that it has an extremely small point of impact, giving it great cutting power. The chinese longsword is a very different weapon, so I won't try to compare the two (a pointless and potentially flammable exercise). That said, I believe that the katana is a fantastic design for the style in which it is used. Just as you wouldn't practice qi men jian with a katana, you would not use a chinese longsword to practice kenjutsu.

And I believe we were discussing two-handed swords, not long-swords.

Perhaps the misconception on European knights is due to most people not knowing that both two-handed swords and plate armour were not as commonly used as movies would like us to believe. What's more, I assume that the two rarely go together, since most knights in plate armour would be mounted, and if you're sitting on a horse brandishing a two-handed sword (not an easy thing to do), then who's controlling the horse? While there are cultures who ride horses without reins (or saddles, for that matter, such as the Numidians), I don't think the europeans did this.

Katanas are great for cleaving through flesh and bone, yep.


That link to the armor debate seemed to have degenerated pretty fast to 'armor vs arrows' and really didn't cover much on Chinese armor. The mention that 'star scale' could've spread impact force was interesting though. Star scale, invented by the Tang perhaps was 'good enough' to last for the rest of Chinese armor history?

The original form, from what I've read in "Oriental Armour", states that the style of armor was called "Lion armor". It consisted of star scale for shoulder guards (which hang down to around chest level too, and the upper back) and lamellar for the torsoe and skirt. Banded vambraces seemed to have been worn often too.

wow. that last post made my day. lol, thanks tmpikachu

there are yet more links in that thread which go to reconstructions btw - not much experience but it looks indeed like it 'shock-hardens'

well..no matter how 'strong' an armor was, the arrow can still penetrate the armor.. plate armor was too bulky and heavy for chinese troops to use..it's also too expensive I guess..

Newbie wanna add few things.

First, the main driving force behind plate armor was not the widespread deployment of the crossbow. The original 13th century crossbow that the church issued an edict against was strong enough to go through mail, but not the combination of mail, leather, padded shirt, and brigandine that was worn near the mid-14th century. There was a study made by the British Armory, IIRC, on how effective bolts were at penetrating the composite armor, that found that the primary effect would have been shock trauma to the knight; the bolt wouldn't penetrate. The major reason behind plate armor was the widespread deployment of pikes. A medieval knight wearing the composite armor would have been protected enough against crossbow bolts, but a pike would still have impaled him, or at least dropped him from his horse. The strange bulging stomach of plate armor was designed to deflect pikes upwards (same reason horse armor had the bow shape), thereby changing the angle at which force is transferred to the knight. This not only protected him from impalement, but also made sure he stayed on his steed. The resulting long pikes were actually meant not to keep the knight at bay but to allow several ranks of pikemen to project their pikes forward, ensuring that the knight would at least be stopped by the wall of pikes. As an added bonus the longer pikes prevented the knight's steed from trampling the pikemen. The horse itself is too often forgotten in these discussions, but anyone who's ever ridden a horse knows how scary it would be to end up under one of these great animals.

Second, the knee-to-knee charge favored by the West was a rarity in the East. Riders in the West relied on the charge; in the East, it was a last resort. Most cavalry east of the Caucasus practiced horse archery, the main tenet of which is to never close with the enemy. In such a situation, powerful crossbow bolts would have been useless against the cavalry as a whole, since they could actually shoot back from about the same distance. Mass archery would have been a greater threat, but mass archery by its very nature was inaccurate. So long as the riders avoided the target area, they would have been okay.

Third, with the exception of pre-Mongol invasion samurai, Eastern horse archers attacked in small groups of three to five at a time, then rotated back to allow the rest of the group to release their arrows in a continuous hail, instead of one huge volley. The traditional mode of samurai warfare is actually a perfect, albeit also perfectly extreme, example of the advantage of this tactic. In that style, a single man would charge at the enemy line, give a detailed description of his reputation and family history, then release his arrow and start riding back. The whole enemy line would respond by either sending their own champion to take him out or release a volley of arrows at him. It must be noted that the majority of samurai survived the latter, showing the inherent ineffectiveness of massed archery against cavalry attacking in sparse formation. Of course, the traditional Samurai warrior was a special (and rather moronic) example, but it does illustrate the point.

Fourth, getting back to the samurai, his traditional mode of combat illustrates another point. After releasing an arrow, he would start riding back. If an opposing samurai decided to take his head, he would have to give chase. This is the important distinction. Cavalry battles in the East were fought as chases, not charges. One side would retreat to an advantageous position, the other would try to prevent him from getting there. As a result, Eastern cavalry preferred the use of polearms over lances. The latter was optimized for charges and thrusts, which only worked if the opponent would actually stand still to be charged (or is charging back, as in a joust), the former could do many more things, not the least useful of which was to drag the opposing rider off his horse. Even mounted spearfighting in the East, as illustrated by Chinese and Korean manuals on the art, never relied on the lance thrust, preferring instead the use of stabs and quarterstaff-style pushes. The primary weakness of this tactic is the reliance on the user's arm for penetration power, very much inferior to the Western knight's charge momentum, combining the weight of man and horse on a single point at the tip of the lance. A horse archer simply never needed to charge, unless badly cornered.

In conclusion, the Chinese never developed plate armor simply because their cavalry never needed it. People who almost never charged never needed armor optimized for charging. Since the cavalry didn't get plate, there was no way lowly infantry would've been issued any, and by the time they did need any, muskets had ruled the battlefield.

As an aside, Qing musketeers operated in rigid formations too. And this was before Europeans introduced their style of warfare to China. The reason behind musket formations had nothing to do with the philosophy of violence. The majority of musketeers in many armies before the 19th century were never actually taught to aim. To teach soldiers to use firearms effectively, you had to issue them gunpowder for training. Well, pound-for-pound, gunpowder used to be more expensive than the muskets themselves, so with the exception of elite troops armies only had the amount of gunpowder they needed to fight. To compensate, they needed barrages by tight formations against similarly tight formations. Battles in that era were not between soldiers shooting at each other, they were between officers directing barrages at each other's formations.

Chinese did have plate armour.
It was in the form of the Mingguangjia invented back during the 3 kingdoms period. This form of armour was reliable enough to last right up until the Ming dynasty.

Mingguang jia armour was lamellar with reinforcing iron plates on the chest, one on either side (a little like a brassiere). There is some discussion of mingguang in our thread on liangdang and tongxiu armour in this section: http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php...opic=3224&st=15 .

What we're referring to by plate armour is not armour that has some added plate in it, but rather an armour made fully of metal plates.

China never developped full plate armour of the European style because they never developped the advanced metalworking techniques required to produce it. This seems to have been primaraly due it not being seen as a priority.

As an aside, plate armour is lighter, gives better protection and is far less tireing to wear than chain or lammelar armour. It allows you to move more freely and plate horse armour was a massive improvement over earlier types. It came to prominance because battlefield tactics in NorthWest Europe were dominated by effective infantry (forcing cavalry to dismount to fight, this was too tiring for men in full chain/lamella type armour).

Men in full plate could run and jump quite freely, the holywood image of knights being hoisted onto horses seems to stem from much later 'triple thick' jousting armour.

rgds.
Tom..

No, look at the Arabs, Europeans crusaders constantly talked of the high quality of Arabian swords, and the Arabs never had much plate armor. No one had a decisive advantage in metalworking at this time.



Were did you get that? Yes, plate armor is exxagerated in its heaviness, but its weight is still far heavier than lamenar/chain(Of course there's different varieties of armor, and some only includes the breastplate, so there are exceptions).

Again this is not the case. The reason so few archers wear plate armor is exactly because it impedes movement, not letting them draw the bow to its max advantage.


Plate armor prevents heat from escaping, so a dismounted knight equals a fried one(literally), which is why it's so emphasized for a European knight to stay on his horse, so that their movement will be lessened, thus causing less heat creation from his body.

The reason is the non-European nations never developed the concept of a knighthood. At periods you can see that they had something similar to a knighthood(like Zhou), and then you can see some ****** armor, but regretably those periods don't have the metallurgy technology available for heavy duty plate armor.

So I'm beginning to get the idea that...


1) Chinese army is a government one. Soldiers and officers are equipped according to issue, while in Europe a noble has plenty of peons to slave over his armor

2) Emphasis on shock cavalry charges increases armor, makes operation time short (relatively). On the other hand light cavalry forces are known to travel very far and need to last through.

now... if the plate armor was in response to the crossbow...
and if Chinese always had the crossbow, it seems strange that plate wasn't achieved.

There's also lighter suits of plate, half suits and 2/3rds suits.
Though the mirror guards on a lamellar suit kinda amounts to the same protection as those suits.

Still, it seems very strange. These were the people with advanced steel manufacturing techniques and casting technology (lookit all them big cast pots in museums!)

Only the soldiers. Although there are no direct evidence for this point, the elaborate designs of certain armour types suggests that the rich and power officers could have their own armour custom made. In addition, local provincial governments also had a partial responsibility for the upkeep of the garrison in their area. So that would mean they had some influence over their equipment.


I would guess because lamella armour even during the 3K period were enough to stop crossbow bolts. According to Zhuge Liang, the armour he upgraded, the Tongxiujia, was strong enough to stop a 25 stone crossbow bolt