Could we ever see the return of men-at-arms and knights?
>>64641940If Ukraine lasts a few more years, sure?
>>64641940Only if armor develops to the point where it not only consistently protects against most calibers but doesn't need to be constantly replacedIt'd be expensive af so you'd only arm those worth it hence the return of a knightly elite class
The existence of knights (and a landed nobility in general) was brought on by a confluence of factors. Lets break them down from most important to least important. 1. Consolidation of territory larger than could be centrally managed:This one is by far the most important, but the main reason feudalism and knightly families persisted as self-perpetuating was because they were also expected to be managers of land on behalf of kings. This system encouraged systems of loyalty from knight to lord while also creating a clear pathway for knights to focus their ambition without resorting to rebellion or fragmentation.2. Displacement of regional powers and ritualization of violence. Feudal systems tend to take in recently pacified frontiers as well as in heartlands of kingdoms. In the case of the frontiers this is owed to the need of the sovereign to ensure that rebellion could be stamped out quickly, while in the core it provided a way to delineate who could wield violence and curb violent excess. Most feudal societies develop an obsession with honor as a way to create distinctions for where violence was justice.3. The existence of fortified structures as force multipliers:The key to the longevity of feudalism is the ability to project force over the entirety of a region from a central point that served as an administrative center, a resource extraction point, a defensible area, and a symbol of power. The castle transformed regional warlords into civilized knights who in turn came to be civilizing forces as order became the default, castles made this a possibility, then a certainty.4. Armor/Weaponry/combat as both practical tools and ritual symbolsSword and armor were both highly practical, and also highly symbolic. Even after swords and armor became easy to manufacture many kingdoms forbade the gentry from owning them because they understood the psychological effect it had. Other feudal societies developed their own markers for what set apart the nobility.
>>64642001The fuck is this chatgp response? Do people really just copy pasta chatgpt replies thinking nobody would notice?
>>64642006I spent a long time writing that and then parsing it down from the text limit anon, I'm sorry you didn't like it.
>>64642001thanks, chat.
>>64642007would have like it better with organic sentences :(
>>64641955It's theoretically possible to make a suit of armor out of currently extant materials that could provide perfect full-body protection against all small arms fire. There are already carbon nanotube composites that are 500 times stronger than steel, such that a suit of armor comparable in thickness to medieval armor would provide an effective protection against penetrating hits similar to that of a modern tank.The problem is that it would cost millions of dollars to make a single suit of armor, and it would ultimately still leave the wearer vulnerable to many of the threats on a modern battlefield. While you could make an impenetrable plate, nothing's going to stop transferred kinetic energy from crushing the wearer's ribcage if he's hit with a burst of .50 cal machine gun fire, nor is there any way to protect an infantryman against the overpressure effects of a high explosive shell or bomb going off nearby.
