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ajaxfetish t1_iryg94v wrote

Reply to comment by War_Hymn in Has metal ever been used in ancient/medieval fortifications or any equivalent by HDH2506

I was replying to this:

> There's a reason run-of-the-mill soldiers used at most chain-mail, because it was easier and cheaper to produce than plate armor

It's not like they weren't producing plate armor in the early middle ages because it cost too much. They weren't producing it because they couldn't. The necessary infrastructure just didn't exist yet. And then once it was developed, the resulting armor ended up becoming more affordable than chainmail. One type of armor requires a certain level of industrialization to build, the other requires lots of skill, patience, and time.

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War_Hymn t1_iryjk7s wrote

>It's not like they weren't producing plate armor in the early middle ages because it cost too much. They weren't producing it because they couldn't.

Not really, they could had taken smaller plates and forge welded them together into a larger plate by hand. At the extreme, you have smiths in 5th century India hand forging smaller pieces of iron into a 6 tonne iron pillar (see Iron Pillar of Delhi). But of course, doing it this way cost a premium in labour and fuel.

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