Why no plate armor in the Islamic world?

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Uhm, there were no pursuit - neither case. At Mohács, the Hungarian heavy cavalry died amongst the turks - well, at least the right wing and without the ones who fled after the first charge - and the whole infantry died standing, in front of the turkish lines, unable to retreat. There were no pursuit, the main body of the turkish army waited on spot for days (3 days as far as i remember).

At Mezőkeresztes, there were no pursue at all. Well, for the record, the whole battle is more of a draw.

Strategically
 
I'm curious as to why neither the Mamluks nor the Ottomans adopted plate armor. This is especially puzzling for the Turks, since they had had ample opportunities and means to both poach European armorers (as they did with gunmakers) and reverse engineer it. Instead, they stuck with plated mail throughout the 15th - 16th centuries. What do you think?

As much of the Islamic world is arid and hot, the lifestyle meant maneuver, speed, and longevity. Plate is heavy, hot, and cumbersome. As Islam spread, and those states with it, they kept traditional systems of war and armament. Pretty much simple as that. I'm sure there were some banded plate or somesuch here or there, but why bother?
 
Hi, I made an account just so I can reply on this 5 years old thread lol.

So I'm from the middle east and I have a pretty good grasp on middle eastern martial arts.

To answer your question of why the Ottomans and Mamluks didn't wear full plate like the Germans or Italians did? Short answer: They didn't need to.

Note: I'm going to refer to Middle eastern, North African, Central Asian and North Indian Martial traditions as "Islamicate Traditons" for ease and generalization.

So let's debunk some inaccuracies first on this forum:
1- Middle easterners did wear armor; back in the old Sassanid Persian times, to Arabs, To Seljuks, to even as late as the 18th century. They do get you cooking on the hot arid deserts of Arabia and Persia, so Arabs and Persians ( and later the Turks ) developed a simple method of wearing cloths on the mail armor itself, and that's usually why Christian depictions of Muslims make them seem like they wear no armor.
2- Full plate was heavy, but not heavy enough to be a serious hurdle. Still, it could be a factor in why the Turks didn't like to copy this style. Since Islamicate traditions favor mobility and maneuverability.
3- There wasn't really a conservative force behind what the Muslims used to wear. In fact the Ottomans did a pretty good job of adapting their military tactics in accordance with the enemies they had to face. Hell the Sepahis themselves were a copy of the European knights. There are many examples I can give of how the Ottomans adapted and changed their tactics. In fact the Ottomans had military academies ( Kinda ) where they teach their nobles the arts of war.
4- No, it wasn't too expansive. In fact, What the Sepahis used to wear was considerably more expensive than European full plate armor, and the Sultan didn't favor numbers vs full body aromr, he had all the money and wealth in the world. In fact he had much more wealth to spend than soldiers in his ranks. Muslim armor was shiny and good looking, they carved Quran verses, Arabisc patters and even added jewels and precious stones. Thus, it was more expensive to make.

So now that we cleared misconceptions, how then were the Sepahis, in fact, equal to the knights?
Answer: Simple! Turkish martial arts focused more on horse back fighting. The Turks are people who migrated from central Asia, which there, people lived their entire life from child hood to adult hood on horse back. The central Asian horse was fast and agile. The Turkish warrior had incredible balance on his horse that it is much harder to knock him off his horse. Combine that with unit discipline and there you have a good picture of central Asian martial arts.
So why did the Turks not use full plate armor?
Answer: Also simple! They used a shield! It might sound ridiculous but the big rounded shield protected their entire upper body, and usually the limbs were protected with plated mail. The rounded shield is usually metallic so it serves the same role of plate armor in protecting from slashes and thrusts. It also serves a tactical advantage in parrying, where you diverge the enemy's weapon to the side and strike him. The knights abandoned their use of shields since they armored themselves with full plate which gave them a disadvantage against shielded opponents. The Sepahis were equipped with pike that in itself when charging has a pretty strong blunt ( if it was not able to penetrate ). If the Pike broke, they use a secondary weapon ( and now here it's really about how the knights used to deal with other knights ) which is usually a persian mace or a two sided Axe.
I would also like to point out that knights perhaps do have a better advantage when charging against the Sepahis; since the round shield wouldn't be the best protection against a charging pike. But when flanking or pushing the enemy they were both equal.

Finally perhaps in the end, the Ottomans would realize the advantages of full plate armor and adopt it. But the period from the 14th century to the late 17th century proved that there is a bigger threat the Ottomans needed to adapt to than pesky full plated tanks on horses; gun powder, which they adopted in Janissariy muskets and large cannons themselves. But they fell behind eventually until their eventual fall. With it armor pretty much disappeared to be replaced with much cheaper, more maneuverable, yet more amassed musketeer units.
 
I'm curious as to why neither the Mamluks nor the Ottomans adopted plate armor. This is especially puzzling for the Turks, since they had had ample opportunities and means to both poach European armorers (as they did with gunmakers) and reverse engineer it. Instead, they stuck with plated mail throughout the 15th - 16th centuries. What do you think?

Do you wanna wear dozens of pounds of iron that heats up in the deserts of Egypt or Syria?
 
Do you wanna wear dozens of pounds of iron that heats up in the deserts of Egypt or Syria?

But people absolutely did wear dozens of pounds of iron that heats up, in Syria and in Egypt. And European people wore plate in Mexico, and in Tunis, and in Morocco, and on the ships where they did just fine against the Turkish counterparts and didn't just all drop dead of heat exhaustion.

And while plate is absolutely horrid for circulation and not really part of the Levantine/North African repertoire, even as far back as the Crusades, the local Syrian and Egyptian armies wore the gambeson-like padded armour (which is basically the equivalent of an arming doublet that plate fixes to in terms of overheating you) over or under their mail, which while lighter than plate, isn't nothing, and usually a decent amount of clothes on top. Layers and layers of clothes, actually.

Not only that but you can take a look at the mounted-warrior classes in 18th and 19th c. Sahel (Sudan, Kanem, the Fulani etc.) to see that even in the southern Sahara, the suffocating combination of !gambeson, mail and !lots of clothes was normal. Because dying of an arrow is way more likely than dying of heatstroke.
 

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Hi, I made an account just so I can reply on this 5 years old thread lol.

So I'm from the middle east and I have a pretty good grasp on middle eastern martial arts.

To answer your question of why the Ottomans and Mamluks didn't wear full plate like the Germans or Italians did? Short answer: They didn't need to.

Note: I'm going to refer to Middle eastern, North African, Central Asian and North Indian Martial traditions as "Islamicate Traditons" for ease and generalization.

So let's debunk some inaccuracies first on this forum:
1- Middle easterners did wear armor; back in the old Sassanid Persian times, to Arabs, To Seljuks, to even as late as the 18th century. They do get you cooking on the hot arid deserts of Arabia and Persia, so Arabs and Persians ( and later the Turks ) developed a simple method of wearing cloths on the mail armor itself, and that's usually why Christian depictions of Muslims make them seem like they wear no armor.
2- Full plate was heavy, but not heavy enough to be a serious hurdle. Still, it could be a factor in why the Turks didn't like to copy this style. Since Islamicate traditions favor mobility and maneuverability.
3- There wasn't really a conservative force behind what the Muslims used to wear. In fact the Ottomans did a pretty good job of adapting their military tactics in accordance with the enemies they had to face. Hell the Sepahis themselves were a copy of the European knights. There are many examples I can give of how the Ottomans adapted and changed their tactics. In fact the Ottomans had military academies ( Kinda ) where they teach their nobles the arts of war.
4- No, it wasn't too expansive. In fact, What the Sepahis used to wear was considerably more expensive than European full plate armor, and the Sultan didn't favor numbers vs full body aromr, he had all the money and wealth in the world. In fact he had much more wealth to spend than soldiers in his ranks. Muslim armor was shiny and good looking, they carved Quran verses, Arabisc patters and even added jewels and precious stones. Thus, it was more expensive to make.

So now that we cleared misconceptions, how then were the Sepahis, in fact, equal to the knights?
Answer: Simple! Turkish martial arts focused more on horse back fighting. The Turks are people who migrated from central Asia, which there, people lived their entire life from child hood to adult hood on horse back. The central Asian horse was fast and agile. The Turkish warrior had incredible balance on his horse that it is much harder to knock him off his horse. Combine that with unit discipline and there you have a good picture of central Asian martial arts.
So why did the Turks not use full plate armor?
Answer: Also simple! They used a shield! It might sound ridiculous but the big rounded shield protected their entire upper body, and usually the limbs were protected with plated mail. The rounded shield is usually metallic so it serves the same role of plate armor in protecting from slashes and thrusts. It also serves a tactical advantage in parrying, where you diverge the enemy's weapon to the side and strike him. The knights abandoned their use of shields since they armored themselves with full plate which gave them a disadvantage against shielded opponents. The Sepahis were equipped with pike that in itself when charging has a pretty strong blunt ( if it was not able to penetrate ). If the Pike broke, they use a secondary weapon ( and now here it's really about how the knights used to deal with other knights ) which is usually a persian mace or a two sided Axe.
I would also like to point out that knights perhaps do have a better advantage when charging against the Sepahis; since the round shield wouldn't be the best protection against a charging pike. But when flanking or pushing the enemy they were both equal.

Finally perhaps in the end, the Ottomans would realize the advantages of full plate armor and adopt it. But the period from the 14th century to the late 17th century proved that there is a bigger threat the Ottomans needed to adapt to than pesky full plated tanks on horses; gun powder, which they adopted in Janissariy muskets and large cannons themselves. But they fell behind eventually until their eventual fall. With it armor pretty much disappeared to be replaced with much cheaper, more maneuverable, yet more amassed musketeer units.
Wait...

You JOINED specifically to necro a FIVE YEAR OLD THREAD? You then clicked through the warning telling you not to post?

Thanks for stopping by.

We Divorce you.

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