Is the only reason articulated full plate armor of the same coverage and quality as renaissance plate armor wasn't produced by anyone anywhere prior that they just didn't know how to articulate the armor to such a degree back then?From the roman empire to the ancient greeks 2000 years earlier, multiple cultures demonstrated they were capable of producing suitable metal plates and bronze did have suitable material properties, but never did they assemble the plates in such a way that they were equivalent to later full plate, the limbs and face almost always being unprotected by even the heaviest suits.It seems like a simple problem to overcome but if they did have knowledge then at least one person would have been rich enough to commission such a suit for themselves.
They had articulated armor before then, but I imagine that making a full suit of the stuff would have been prohibitively expensive.
>>65229806Yes but those are simple, relatively loose articulations. It's not like the kind of thing you'd see over the joints in later full plate.Emperors had their own armor made for them, many of them were frivolous with their expenses, they would have had full plate made for them if it was an option.
>>65229426It's a combination of several things, anon. Steel wasn't there yet, actually making armor that complex took centuries to figure out, the economic, military, and social incentives didn't quite exist, and more importantly, technology developed in the middle ages made producing large sheets of steel MUCH faster, cheaper, and more consistent, to the point where new made export armor could be cheaper than mail.
>>65229868To put this in perspective getting sleeves on chain shirts took a fairly long time because there are tricks to it. Technology moves very slowly when nothing is written down, and craftspeople have equivalent to copyright law, so if they DO figure something out, they tell their three apprentices and kill anyone else who doesn't fuck off after being told they're not sharing. Also, horses. Medieval horses were significantly bigger, stronger animals and could support a man in that kind of armor much better. You could DO this before then, but ancient heavy cavalry were either much lighter, or much slower. Like nothing above a trot or canter slower.
>>65229834>but those are simple, relatively loose articulationsIt's the same idea. The more elaborate articulations seen on 15th-century knight armor would have simply taken more time and effort to make, time and effort that wasn't seen as necessary. In fact, now that I think about it, such elaborate armor coincided with the rising use of crossbows, if I'm not mistaken.
>>65229878The rich were often not motivated to acquire the things they did by necessity.>>65229868From what I've seen bronze was still a capable alternative material to create full plate armor. More armor coverage is the obvious next step if you want more protection than what you have available, and having armor that is practical for use and as protective as possible is always an incentive.There would have been people for whom cost was no concern and they would have had access to smiths that would attempt to fulfill personal orders.It seems to me that literally nobody ever made something resembling full plate mainly because nobody had figured out the complex articulations required to do so. There were very heavy suits of bronze plates made long prior.Even as just a vanity project, it seems likely there would have been someone rich enough to commission such a suit if it was possible at the time.
>>65229878It wasn't for crossbows, it was for tournaments. They would wear different field armor pieces with less coverage for actual battles because the ones with fully armored articulated joints would be too heavy and cumbersome.
>>65229993>because the ones with fully armored articulated joints would be too heavy and cumbersomeFull suits of steel plate armor weighed less than what roman legionaries were expected to march around with out of combat, the stuff modern soldiers carry around in combat is at least as heavy. Plate armor isn't significantly encumbering and it's not that heavy unless you're trying to swim.
