Did Eastern Europeans wear full plate armor?

[OgreBattle]

I know that winged hussars eventually wore articulated plate armor, but that was in an era where armor was in a decline due to firearms.

Looking at Russian armor examples, I mostly see chain-and-plate combinations like this:

http://www.xenophon-mil.org/rushistory/ ... artiii.htm

From what I know though, plate armor was mostly worn in the more dense terrain of western Europe where battles revolved around seizing castles. The closer you get to the steppes though the less common plate armor becomes.

This question is also about the kind of environment where plate armor stops being viable.

[deaddmwalking]

It's not usually environment that makes plate armor non-viable (outside of fighting on the ice) - it's mostly the issue of cost versus utility.

[Whipstitch]

In an extreme example the Japanese actually moved away from plate-like armor and then back again as army sizes and weaponry changed.

[the_taken]

If you've got forty-six minutes: MEDIEVAL WEAPONS & COMBAT: Heavy Armour

[TheFlatline]

It's not usually environment that makes plate armor non-viable (outside of fighting on the ice) - it's mostly the issue of cost versus utility.

Tell the French that at Agincourt.

[OgreBattle]

If you've got forty-six minutes: MEDIEVAL WEAPONS & COMBAT: Heavy Armour

Thanks, that was really informative. Do you know if those hardening techniques used in Italy at the end of the 100's years war was also known in other parts of the world?

[Whipstitch]

Tell the French that at Agincourt.

I'm a bit skeptical as to how much a role the armor itself played in that whole fiasco given that charging through furrows isn't exactly easy in the best of times.

[FatR]

It's not usually environment that makes plate armor non-viable (outside of fighting on the ice) - it's mostly the issue of cost versus utility.

Incorrect. The plate armor was straightforwardly superior to everything else in every single reasonably common situation - lighter, better weight distribution and better protection. The cost was mostly relevant to how much of yourself you could afford to cover with plate armor. The reason why plate armor was only really widely used in Europe and Japan was simply inferior metallurgy, incapable of mastering mass production of curved plates. At least before spread of firearms made the heavy armor in general cost-inefficient.

As about Eastern Europe and Russia, answering the OP, it simply was (and is) constantly playing catch-up Western Europe in all ways, including military technologies, sometimes being close, but always behind in some aspects. In the time period relevant to the picture posted Russian armor, in particular, was not worse than the European armor, because plate armor did not really exist yet (but, say, siege and fortification technologies were).

[Antariuk]

Tell the French that at Agincourt.

I'm a bit skeptical as to how much a role the armor itself played in that whole fiasco given that charging through furrows isn't exactly easy in the best of times.

Well it certainly helped to de-mystify the 'invincible knight in his armor', who before was only seen in real danger when yanked from his horse and stabbed in the back, but now it was clear that archers were capable of doing that from the other side of the field. I guess this wan't exactly news to anyone actually fighting there, but now it became nows to everyone.

[Username17]

I live in Eastern Europe, and there is quite a bit of period plate armor in both original and recreation format to be seen if you tour the various chateaus and towers of Bohemia. The answer to your literal question is thus "yes." Slavs in Eastern Europe went all out in plate armor many times.

Now a slightly different question you seem to be asking is whether people East of the Holy Roman Empire used plate armor, and I don't actually know. The part of Eastern Europe I live in was in the Holy Roman Empire during the great plate armor development periods of Europe, and the Holy Roman Empire was pretty much ground zero for plate armor development. People in Bohemia got their plate armor before most people in Europe did.

But there's an even differenter question that you seem to want to ask about plate armor and guns. The truth is that classic plate armor was developed after guns. Plate armor happens in the 13th century, but it doesn't "look" like plate armor until the 15th century. Before that, we're talking about what is essentially hoplite armor or Roman armor with a surcoat on top. What we think of as "plate armor" is "white armor," which came out after the Dutch had the arquebus.

-Username17

[Kuri Näkk]

From what I know though, plate armor was mostly worn in the more dense terrain of western Europe where battles revolved around seizing castles. The closer you get to the steppes though the less common plate armor becomes.

You mean Ukraine, Hungary, modern Southern Russia etc? The term "Eastern Europe" is not terribly clear and nowadays often denotes former Soviet Block, with little regard to geographical accuracy: e.g. Greece and Austria are Western Europe, while Czech Republic is not.

Most of the Eastern part of Europe is no more steppes than Western Europe. Much of it was/is more dense terrain than Western Europe because of mountains, woodlands and swamps. The battles also revolved around sieging castles in the East....

Plate armor was definitely used east of Holy Roman Empire. For instance, in Estonia: http://linnamuuseum.ee/kok/en/gallery/? ... &gallery=1. However, some consider Estonia part of Northern Europe and it is not "close to steppes".

I am no expert but I suspect that plate mail availability was mostly dependent on economic factors (not enough skilled craftsman). Mongol tradition may also have an impact: the steppe areas in modern Ukraine and Russia were part of the Golden Horde until 16th century.

[8d8]

I'm pretty sure the definition of "Eastern Europe" is "the part of Europe where they didn't use much plate armor." I think I read that on the Internet.

This question is also about the kind of environment where plate armor stops being viable.

I get the general impression in looking through history that the easier a soldier is to replace, the less likely they are to wear good armor. Sending some Franks on a Crusade to liberate Jerusalem was a huge undertaking, and replacing any losses was next to impossible, so even a half-wit would have tried to suit them up like walking tanks. Someone defending against that kind of invasion would have to ship reinforcements a couple of miles, and probably outfit them with the equipment harvested from corpses, so treating each soldier as a precious resource seems pointless. Also, landed soldiers are important to the fabric of society, so knights and lords and such would be supported at least to an extent that helped ensure their survival. Samurai were probably in a similar position, socially. If your society is based on killing as many people as possible to appease the blood god then your macuahuitl-wielding soldiers are going into battle wearing wool and they can just handle getting killed as fast as possible on their own. I know steel plate armor wasn't an option for them, but their armor wasn't even good considering their technology level.

Exceptions of course exist. Mongols didn't invade with armor appreciably better than their victims, but while this might have something to do with philosophy it didn't really matter because they were simply too fast and deadly to have to deal with defending against very much. "If you never get hit you don't need armor" sort of thing. As a whole army of rogues with the Mounted Combat and Dodge feats, they probably had as good an AC as the knights they conquered.

All guesses though, I'm no scholar.

[Laertes]

Polish and Hungarian aristocrats were pretty enthusiastic about keeping up with western weapons tech during the medieval era. Individual lords would import horses and armour from Spain and Italy if need be. The non-aristocratic people didn't have as much, but then that's generally true of most things in feudal societies. Poland was an especially brutal place to be if you were a peasant.

In the mid 13th century a dude called Subudai rewrote the map of Europe east of the Dniepr, which somewhat put a damper on Russian military technology for a few centuries.

[Whipstitch]

I don't know where you draw the line between expense/maintenance vs terrain related factors with the Mongols. Those guys liked to travel fast and took a shit ton of horses with them. Acquiring a few new leather bits to lace into your damaged vest is going to be trivial compared to fucking around with plate armor. After all, it's not like the Mongols were really known for using mail either, since that shit is also well-known to be a gigantic pain in the ass.

[Laertes]

I don't know where you draw the line between expense/maintenance vs terrain related factors with the Mongols. Those guys liked to travel fast and took a shit ton of horses with them. Acquiring a few new leather bits to lace into your damaged vest is going to be trivial compared to fucking around with plate armor. After all, it's not like the Mongols were really known for using mail either, since that shit is also well-known to be a gigantic pain in the ass.

So this guy would like to disagree with you.

So would these guys:

Mongols who could afford it, used Chinese-style lamellar and brigandine armour. However, it would have varied wildly - elite units like chieftains' retainers would have excellent equipment, while impoverished steppe raiders would be unlikely to have anything more than cloth, hide and leather.

[Whipstitch]

I wasn't talking about lamellar or brigandine when I said plate. Mind you, I can understand where you're coming from since lames are basically small plates but that isn't what I meant, and I thought that would be moderately clear when I was talking about lace up armor.

[Laertes]

The stuff on those two museum pictures looks to me like splint, which is possibly the only thing more pain-in-the-ass to maintain than chain. This suggests that the maintenance difficulty isn't the issue here: it's probably going to be more an expenses matter.

But yeah, I agree that lamellar and brigandine are distinct from both plate and mail.