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thegagis t1_izwoiwv wrote

If I remember correctly, of the 8000ish english in the battle of Agincourt some 1 to 2 thousand wore heavy armour, since it indeed was expensive troughout history.

However, it was also so damn effective, that it was a worthwhile investment to protect any warriors who have enough training to make them worth protecting, since all that training itself was an extremely valuable investment too. Modern testing indicates that armour was typically extremely effective at protecting against blows from all sorts of weapons and an armoured warrior had a tremendous advantage against any unarmoured or lightly armoured opponents.

Modern testing also shows that you can move fairly nimbly and fast in heavy armour, it doesn't weigh much more than the loadout of a modern soldier, and is distributed more evenly across your body after all. For cavalry this is even less of an issue, since you have a horse to carry yours and your equipment's weight with.

Main hindrance caused by armour is how it moves your center of gravity from your belly up to your chest, which takes practice to get used to and can make moving in very difficult terrain tricky.

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Snoo-81723 t1_izwp2zj wrote

battle of Grunwald there was circa 50 000 knights together on both sides . On battlefield knight in full armour was like tank - unstopabble .

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Hyphenated_Gorilla t1_izx3dus wrote

Estimates are incredibly high even at 40k, no where near that would have been fully armored, mass production simply did not exist.
The Teutonic were the better armored and probably about 10-15k .

People forget that life was generally meaningless to the common man and cannon fodder was common.

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Snoo-81723 t1_izxddi5 wrote

both sides uses probably same weapons and aromours . Teutonics must adapt to fight in Samogitia forests and using lightly armors and shorter pikes . Lithuanian and russian forces were using that same. Polish knights were armed in western way. As for mass production Teutonic have big manufacture were produce weapons on big scale - in Malborg castle were over 100000 crossbow tip in stock.

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TheLateHenry t1_izzg7lx wrote

There were about 66,000 combatants total in that battle. There is NO WAY that nearly all of them wore full plate armour. I agree with the previous poster - 10-15k is more likely.

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Imtiredcanistop t1_izy4tpp wrote

Say that to the English long bowman! They would beg to differ

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IBAZERKERI t1_izyzion wrote

the Battle of Agincourt, where the fable of longbowmen crushing armored french knights is massively overblown. in truth it was mud and a hill that won that battle. most of the knights killed were stabed to death with knives after having to slowly slog through mud and becoming exhausted.

theres plenty of youtube videos exposing this lie and showing that an arrow fired from a longbow would at the very very best, leave a small dent.

so sorry to have to tell you this. But you and your mythical english longbowmen are wrong.

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Imtiredcanistop t1_izz6xww wrote

Didn’t the French use horses? and didn’t the English target horses because a thrown knight was usually a useless knight? Add that to the quagmire that was the battlefield and i would say that the archers decimated the French nobility.

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IBAZERKERI t1_izz8oxo wrote

do some research dude. seriously theres a bunch of videos about this subject.

its a myth the english nobility used as propaganda.

much like carrots improving your eyesight.

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Imtiredcanistop t1_izz92sj wrote

You don’t get it, I’m aware the longbow themselves didn’t kill armored knights, but you don’t have to blow up a tank to render it a battlefield casualty. You wound a knight, get em stuck in the mud, make them advance on foot vs horseback so they’re exhausted, it effectively defeats them.

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IBAZERKERI t1_izza7qe wrote

yes. i do. you are the one thats displaying a complete lack of understanding here. not me

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Imtiredcanistop t1_izz9ada wrote

What you’re basically saying is the outnumbered English basically got lucky the inept French decided to fight up a hill in the mud and just kept marching like lemmings to their death. Arguably one of the supreme powers of the day was not that inept.

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IBAZERKERI t1_izz9mu0 wrote

yes. this is what im saying and its the truth. they were that inept. atleast in this battle. the mud absolutely hampered there ability to both advance and retreat

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Imtiredcanistop t1_izzb92u wrote

You realize you can go to the Wikipedia page and read the whole account of the battle right? Like…. It says that the English archer was very effective at wounding the unarmored horses and causing a rout of the Calvary which then tore threw their own infantry ranks, the armored foot soldiers had to keep their visors closed to protect from the lucky arrow finding the weakest part(eye and breathing holes) thus making it hard to see and breathe…by the time the French men-at-arms reached the archers they were mostly wounded or heavily fatigued, and the archers use knives, hatches, clubs, or short swords to decimate the French…. So….. my argument that the longbow would won that battle would hold water you pompous buffoon

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Imtiredcanistop t1_izzbhae wrote

Never mind that that single battle resulted in either the death or capture of half the French nobility… you can argue semantics i suppose, and say that the longbow didn’t kill the knights, but the archers tired em out then poked em with knives instead, but that’s just foolish

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IBAZERKERI t1_izzbo7s wrote

yes, ive read the wiki, ive also watched numerous other videos on youtube that go indepth into things such as weather, tactics, armorment, commanders and more.

your the one thats changing the goalposts after being called out for making fallacious claims and now resorting to name calling. i think you need a rag to whipe all that paint off your face you clown. grow up

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Imtiredcanistop t1_izzc82e wrote

I’ve changed no such argument, i stated the archers defeated the “tank-like” knights, and that is fact.

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Superb_Tiger_8376 t1_j0658yr wrote

Choosing the right battlefield is not luck, though. They might have taken position their intentionally, knowing it would be hard for the knights.

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funkmachine7 t1_j02zy91 wrote

The French got off an walked.
It was not the first time they had faced english archers.

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Sgt_Colon t1_izzwc7o wrote

> of the 8000ish english in the battle of Agincourt some 1 to 2 thousand wore heavy armour,

Part of the issue here is that the English fielded significant amounts of longbowmen as light infantry, as English doctrine of the time focused on heavy use of archers for ranged supremacy, contrast this with the French who were reverse in proportion and fielded primarily heavy cavalry/infantry (men-at-arms and knights dismounting to fight on foot for tactical reasons) with small numbers of lightly armoured specialists such as crossbowmen, cannoneers or pavisers.

It is also worth noting, that this is the point in western Europe where large scale manufacturing starts bringing down costs and that even common infantry were becoming better armoured than just a helmet and aketon.

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ud_patter t1_izwvaup wrote

Around Agincourt, was heavy armour typically bought by the wearer, or would it also have been provided to valuable enough combatants?

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Skinny-Fetus t1_izwvxhn wrote

I believe it was usually brought by the wearer. Armoured knights were usually members of the aristocracy who unlike a peasant had the time, connections and money to become a knight.

Although I guess there's nothing stoping a noble family from giving armour and equipment to a particularly skilled lower class warrior. Point being it was all very personal and private. The central government rarely provided it

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TheGreatOneSea t1_j05j0hf wrote

Generally speaking, each lord contributing soldiers had to meet a certain standard, and the soldiers in question usually had a high enough status to equip themselves. It's likely there was some form of subsidy by the lord, but that would be case-by-case, like a lord acting as a creditor for a bulk order if payment was in goods instead of coin.

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hughjass6939 t1_izynlpf wrote

>Modern testing indicates that armour was typically extremely effective at protecting against blows from all sorts of weapons and an armoured warrior had a tremendous advantage against any unarmoured or lightly armoured opponents.

This is cool to hear. I always wondered when watching movies - what the hell is the point of their armor if literally not once in my movie watching history have I ever seen armor actually stop or deflect a blow from anything?

Makes sense that it's not actually realistic.

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thegagis t1_izyo1t9 wrote

Yeah, unfair advantages make for bad stories or bad games.

Real life warfare is all about stacking up as many and as unfair advantages as you possibly can. This applies troughout history up to this day. Makes it hard to sometimes remember that its something that storytelling and game design deliberately get wrong.

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