Metallurgy

[trentonian7]

Why is it, for example, that places like Japan, the Islamic Caliphates, and India were able to forge long swords and other such things yet never developed the plate armor of late medieval europe?

Also, is it feasible for a culture to wear mail and Greek style armor, but made of steel? Steel greaves, steel gauntlets, a steel cuirass, helm, yet not a full suit of plate? If not, why did the Greeks have the same style of armor yet never develop full suits of bronze plate?

 

[Vandor]

Some of what they developed, such as the early Islamic nations, depended heavily on fighting style. The middle east favored light cavalry mixed with infantry, and in the hot climate, a plate was impracticle, as the crusaders later found. Heavy armor would have slowed them down and reduced the endurance of both mount and rider in such conditions. India likely had similar environmental issues, but had less to do with mounted soldiers. I'm sure someone else can elaborate.

The Greeks and Japanese faced their own hurddles with bronze and iron (and therefore steel) respectively; there was a recent thread here that detailed how little iron was locally available in Japan, which was a contributing factor to the style of armor and high regard for swords and crafting. For the Greeks, whose armies were largely infantry, full plate is again impractacle. Even their cuirasses were mostly hardened leather. Even the Romans, who were close to your desired steel infantry, used a combination of chain mail or leather under lorica segmenta, though they didn't always use geives. With infantry, there's a lot of marching and the more weight on your legs, the faster you tire. Overall weight can be managed, but keeping the legs free and mobile was paramount (though these guys did fight in sandals, so they might be the extreme of this).

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that while bronze is more flexible and holds a better edge than iron, if not steel, it is more expensive and the metals that compose the alloy are far less common than iron. The decision to go with iron was more of an economic choice.

 

[K.S. Crooks]

It is also more difficult to have the perfect proportion of nickel and copper to make bronze. If there is too little nickel the alloy will be too flexible/soft and if too much nickel the bronze will be too brittle. The best example of having too much nickel is the Liberty Bell in the United State, which cracked when being rung.

 

[Pythagoras]

Technology develops fastest when the need is there. That's why, historically speaking, more inventions that ultimately benefited civilians began as military innovations during wartime rather than peacetime.

Need is the primary factor; resources and environmental factors are also very important. At the end of the day though, trying to figure out why one culture developed one thing while another did not is a futile endeavor. We can speculate all we want, but we'll never know for sure, and in my opinion, I think that to focus on something like what a particular culture didn't or couldn't do is to focus on the wrong thing. It's easy for us with the benefit of hindsight to criticize people of the past for what they didn't know. But people all over the world and all through time are and have been incredibly adaptable and resourceful creatures, and given the knowledge of the time, I think that most people were cutting-edge in their technology.

 

[skip.knox]

I agree with Pythagoras. I drive this point home to my students constantly: history is not the study of what didn't happen.