tzor wrote:
But once again, we encounter the fallicy of the fall of armor. Guns did not cause the fall of armor. Most very well designed armor was proof against most shots of the day.
Lolno. Muskets blew through any armor a normal man could reasonably wear. More importantly, arquebuses and hand pistols did the same to all but the best armor, and often stunned the victim when they didn't.
tzor wrote:
Armor declined for one simple reason, the decline of the "knight" as a military officer. The military officer retained his position on horseback but became a more mobile force. The breaking of the old probition of only a knight (officer) could attack a knight (officer) meant that mobility was vital on the battlefield.
It is impossible to break something that never ever existed. The reasons for decline of armor, in no particular order of importance were:
1)Availability of relatively cheap hand pistols allowed a poor nobleman with poor equipment riding on a fleabag to have a fighting chance against a well-off nobleman lancer with best-grade armor on an expensive destrier, if only by shooting the latter's horse a second before getting impaled. This allowed to raise much more cheap and numerous cavalry, which also was generally more useful outside of major battles (which were exceptional events in warfare).
2)Defense in general lost to offense (see above). It is notable, that on the outskirts of Europe where commonly encountered firearms were less advanced, armored (if not quite to the standards of 15-16th century western-european knights) lancers survived for almost a century after falling out of use in more advanced countries.
3)Massive increase in army numbers and general shift towards quantity over quality, particularly noticeable during 17th century, which made armoring everyone, even partially, increasingly economically unfeasible. And this was only possible because firearms (to lesser extent, wide adoption of long pike) greatly simplified requirements for training and mental conditioning of soliders.
