When did the 'suit of armor' become obsolete?

Question

And why? Was it because it was so heavy? Or was mobility greatly impeded by it?

Answer 1

The suit of armor became obsolete during the French-English war and after the Battle of Crécy (1346) in particular.

The knights with the suit of armor were in fact a sort of medieval tanks. During the Battle of Crécy the English however abandonded all pretence of a war of chivalry and instead of making their knights attack the french knights they instead attacked the French horses. The French knights fell over and because of the enormous weight of their armors they were lying on the ground helplessly and unable to get up or move. This allowed the English soldiers to kill them. The English, although greatly outnumbered in this battle beat the French. After using the same tactics during later battles the armored Knight became part of the history books.

Answer 2

The Suit of Armor has always been vastly overrated and NO It is not obsolete. Huh? What? Modern soldiers wear body armor. It is not simply Kevlar vests and Helmets. Now it is Kevlar knee pads and elbow gaurds. Special fabrics that deflect bullets. Humankind has always had an itch to wage war yet the pain of injury can be oft putting. Body Armor during the Middle Ages was impressive but largely impractical. Mass numbers of men can always overcome men weighed down with armor. It is a mathmatical formula. One well armoured man on a horse can wallop the c r a p out of a dozen men but two dozen smart men can bring down an armored man on a horse and so on. Most of the Armor that one sees was actually made for Show-N-Tell, in actual combat the well padded jerken, a good helmet and a shield did just fine. Armor evolved. What many might see as a 'suit of armor,' articulated bits of metal covering foot to head became ridiculously reduntant after gun powder became common right about 1400 AD/CE - - - bullets punch through metal with even worse results - - - - Men still went into battle in armour - - - much like modern Kevlar - - - a breast plate - - a good helmet - - - perhaps gloves . In all the ways that humankind seeks to protect themselves the issue of hand garments is a story unto itself. Body armour weights have stayed the same for Centuries. Most people can handle thirty to sixty pounds with reasonable discomfort. Anyting over eigty is crippling and impractical.

Answer 3

Its not so much a question of when but how. Theres no exact date that armor simply stopped being used. As late as the Napoleonic wars heavy cavalry men were wearing breast plates. Two things caused armor to become obselete.First was the advent of large armies. When in its heyday war was often something fought by nobles who wore armor.As armies became larger it became impossible to equip more than a small percentage 0of ones troops with full armor.Secondly and most importantly was the firearm. The introduction and widespread use of handguns made it easy for even a semi trained soldier to kill a fullly armored knight. The english longbow and certain types of crossbows could also penetrate armor using metal tipped arrows and quarrels but it was the gun which spelt doom to armor.

Answer 4

It was heavy, but that wasn't the main reason. They went out of fashion about the time guns started to appear on the battlefield, because bullets could pierce them. Also, not many soldiers actually had armor in the first place--only those who were fairly wealthy.

Answer 5

When firearms became effective between the 15th and 16th centuries.
Armoured knights always had to be mounted on powerful horses because the armor was too heavy for them to function on foot.

Answer 6

Honestly, its metal that is encasing your body.. Do you honestly think that its going to be light and easy to maneuver in? Development of ideas in technology replaced armor. Weapons changed, battle tactics changed so thus the armor had to change.. Although in V for Vendetta, V had on a metal plate on his chest that withstood a whole lot of gun fire.. So maybe suits of armor really aren't outdated...

Answer 7

When the last knight was killed - don't know why - could have been 'cause it was so (too) heavy - and then again, it could have been 'cause mobility was greatly impeded by it. . .

It was probably economics, tho - metal became too expensive, and the whole project was way over cost, due to labor intensive requirements . . . all that etching and scrollwork!!!

Answer 8

" Armor is extremely heavy and renders its wearer immobile.—Wrong.
An entire suit of field armor (that is, armor for battle) usually weighs between 45 and 55 lbs. (20 to 25 kg), with the helmet weighing between 4 and 8 lbs. (2 to 4 kg)—less than the full equipment of a fireman with oxygen gear, or what most modern soldiers have carried into battle since the nineteenth century. Moreover, while most modern equipment is chiefly suspended from the shoulders or waist, the weight of a well-fitted armor is distributed all over the body. It was not until the seventeenth century that the weight of field armor was greatly increased in order to render it bulletproof against ever more accurate firearms. At the same time, however, full armor became increasingly rare and only vital parts of the body, such as the head, torso, and hands, remained protected by metal plate.

The notion that the development of plate armor (completed by about 1420–30) greatly impaired a wearer's mobility is also untrue. A harness of plate armor was made up of individual elements for each limb. Each element in turn consisted of lames (strips of metal) and plates, linked by movable rivets and leather straps, and thus allowing practically all of the body's movements without any impairment due to rigidity of material. The widely held view that a man in armor could hardly move, and, once he had fallen to the ground, was unable to rise again, is also without foundation. On the contrary, historical sources tell us of the famous French knight Jean de Maingre (ca. 1366–1421), known as Maréchal Boucicault, who, in full armor, was able to climb up the underside of a ladder using only his hands. Furthermore, there are several illustrations from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance depicting men-at-arms, squires, or knights, all in full armor, mounting horses without help or instruments such as ladders or cranes. Modern experiments with genuine fifteenth- and sixteenth-century armor as well as with accurate copies have shown that even an untrained man in a properly fitted armor can mount and dismount a horse, sit or lie on the ground, get up again, run, and generally move his limbs freely and without discomfort.
There are a few exceptional instances when armor was extremely heavy or did indeed render its wearer almost "locked" in a certain position, such as armor for certain types of tournaments. Tournament armor was made for very specific occasions and would have been worn only for limited periods of time. The man-at-arms would have mounted his steed with the aid of his squire or a small step, and the last pieces of his armor could then be donned after securely sitting in the saddle.

Armor became obsolete because of firearms.—In its broadest sense, true.
Generally speaking, the above statement is correct as long as it is stressed that it was the ever-increasing efficiency of firearms, not firearms as such, that led to an eventual decline of plate armor on the battlefield. Since the first firearms appear to have been in use in Europe as early as the third decade of the fourteenth century, and the gradual decline of armor is not noticed before the second half of the seventeenth century, firearms and plate armor coexisted for more than 300 years. During the sixteenth century, attempts had been made to render armor bulletproof, either by hardening the steel or, more commonly, by thickening the armor or adding separate reinforcing pieces on top of the normal field armor.

Finally, it should be noted that armor as such has never become entirely obsolete. The ubiquity of helmets worn by today's soldiers and police forces are proof that armor, although of different materials and having perhaps lost some of its earlier importance, is still an essential part of martial equipment around the world. Moreover, even body defenses have lived on in the shape of the experimental breastplates of the American Civil War, the breastplates of airplane gunners during World War II, and the bulletproof vests worn today."

Answer 9

It appeared to be obsolete in the 17th century but has now seen a resurgence. For example the stupid uniforms of NFL teams and more seriously, e.g., the amour worn by bomb disposal officers.

Answer 10

The advent of black powder weapons from the orient, the muskets brought the end to suits of armor.