Why did the heaviest armor provide so little coverage before the proliferation of steel plate armor? Though it seems to me like they were capable of similar even during the bronze age, the heaviest suits were still extremely rare and far more open, often leaving the arms, face and legs exposed.I know that soldiers who would be considered better equipped than most would still only have a helmet, greaves, cuirass, or perhaps just a breastplate. I also know that the later plate armor was only worn by a small, well equipped minority.I don't know enough about material science and other relevant fields to know why nobles weren't already walking around in full plate(bronze) during the bronze age. I don't know why it took thousands of years after people figured out how to make armor plates to make them into suits with total or near-total coverage, or if it's that they simply decided not to.
>>62134348Mobility of the legs and arms.
>>62134353They figured it out later. What was stopping them from solving that problem with bronze?
Theoretically, if you had the design of a suit of plate mail in detail, and you had the amount of bronze required, is there anything actually stopping someone from making Bronze plate armor in the style of late medieval/renaissance plate armor?
>>62134348I guess chain is much harder to make from bronze than iron. Romans and Celts made it after discovering iron independently from each other.
>>62134866Cost. Steel/Iron is going to be cheaper.
>>62134348I don't see why they wouldn't have had greaves and vambraces to go with armor like the Dendra panoply. Keep in mind, that when plate armor started being used, shields had become a lot less common. Thus, the people using the Dendra panoply could have just had a shield to protect a lot of what wasn't covered by the armor
>>62135753Yeah, but those greaves and vambraces are relatively revealing compared to later plate.They still leave a not insignificant amount of flesh near the knees and elbows bare, then there's also the issue of protecting the feet and hands.
>>62134358>They figured it out later>why haven't they earlier?Are you genuinely that retarded?>>62134866>is there anything actually stopping someoneToday? No, not really. Figuring out the differences in metalcasting & forging like how it expands, what makes it brittle/tougher etc. would take some effort, but nothing nerd with a free time can't figure out. Back in the bronze age? lol no. You had to give them few millennia of metalworking advancement together with schematics.>>62135435Whole point of switching to iron was that it was incredibly cheaper and more available. Iron was discovered way the fuck before use of bronze but it was both harder to work with and way crappier. Bronze was, and even still is superior to regular iron. Making armor out of bronze would've been, first and foremost, prohibitively expensive, which is why it's so damn rare. Secondly, making armor that would actually offer you reasonable protection without simply making overincumbered in otherwise very exhausting fight would be completely out of crafting level of the time. Which is why earliest heavy armor was used exclusively by richest people and almost always in static roles, like chariot archer.
>>62135948It doesn't seem like a problem that should take three thousand years to solve when they already know how to make bronze suits of armor made of overlapping plates that shift with the movement of the body.The recreation and testing of the dendra panoply shows it was entirely suitable for mobile, prolonged combat on foot. It doesn't significantly impede the range of motion for the wearer, nor is it heavy enough to encumber him.
>>62136030>BUT MUH DENDRA SUCKMYBALLOPYjust shut the fuck up
>>62134348MetalurgyDue to Europes poor quality smelting of iron ore and the low temperature of furnaces they couldn't make a solid plate of iron the size of a human torso until the late 1300sSo people substituted segmented plate, or maille, or scaleBronze could be made into plates large enough at the temperatures they were capable of, but it was an alloy and hard to source and work with
>>62137108>Due to Europes poor quality smeltingEurope had best metallurgy in the world pretty much always though. At least as soon as iron age. Even celts and germans in decentralized mudhut communities were on par and sometimes even superior to mediterranean civilizations somehow.
>>62137148Doesn't change fact that Europeans couldn't make iron billets big enough to produce plate armor untill 1300s
>>62137217Am I a joke to you?
>>62137765That's notably not plate armor but segmented
>>62134348Most bronze age armour (as shown in pop culture) is from the medeteranian where its consistently fairly warm. Its also designed to be worn by soldiers fighting in massed formations with heavy shields that cover the arms and thighs, so cooling and mobility matter more than redundant extra armour. Its also the case that linothorax was comparable with bronze for its weight, and was cheaper and easier to maintain, so was more popular until iron became viable.Its also worth considering that authough possible, full body plate armour is too heavy if its made of bronze, especially when it can still be penetrated by iron weapons that were contemporary with the materials that replaced it. Its also the case that if you were a "noble" in most of greece you wouldnt be in a phalanx at all, you'd be captain of your own ship which is substantially more heavy than a suit of armourIf you really REALLY insist on early iron age full-body armour the normans did well with long maile hauberks, those come pretty close, and there's chinese lamellar suits that you could look at as well.
Predicting that you'll ask, bronze is 11% heavier than iron and as you can see is half as hard and half as strong. Strength is a bit abstract and complicated in material sciences and i am no engineer but im guessing its safe to say that if the lightest steel armour weighs 15kg, then the lightest viable bronze suit would weigh 33kg, which is 30% heavier than the heaviest plate armour reccomended to me by google (25kg). For reference this graph is referring to american construction steel, which is apparently low carbon mild steel
>>62137765Not a plate, retard
>>62137086That's not a convincing argument.
>>62137782>>62138379It's actually several plates of siginificant size, not too far off from plate.
>>62135915When the average guy is running around in a linen or leather linothorax, helmet and shield, facing off against a Minoan unit in dendra panoply is going to be a serious challenge.
>>62135915Could be a compromise with weight, having all that plate covering your core and neck in exchange for the limbs being less covered
>>62138898It is very far off from medieval plate armor.
