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

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

It's important to remember that iron is an immensely abundant material in the mediaeval era even the smallest villages would have had the local blacksmith. and while the high-end plate armour of the best quality Steel would certainly been quite expensive there are many forms of armour like chainmail and brigandine that are relatively cheap and easy to make even for a relatively low skill low experience blacksmith.

If you look at something like the Hastings tapestry you'll find that pretty much everyone in a tapestry even the Archers are wearing at least full-body chainmail.

Long story short for a proper military army in the mediaeval period the majority of Regular troops would have been wearing full armour. It probably would have been of a highly varying quality and type but still it's only really more spontaneous peasant or civilian forces that would have had partial armour even then they probably had more of than you might expect.

As for effectiveness most armour allows for fairly normal mobility, you will tend to get tired more quickly compared to not wearing armour but it doesn't substantially slow you down and not enough to be a downside in that aspect. on the other hand it will make sure that anything short of a strong Direct blow isn't going to injure you and is especially useful for surviving arrows. The more extreme cases like full plate armour you're basically a tank that's nearly impossible to kill.

One of the best Testament to how effective full plate is is that they often stopped carrying Shields.

The only case where armour makes a big difference in mobility is cavalry. the heavy weight of all of the armour requires a more muscular horses end especially if the horse also has armour will drain the horses' stamina very rapidly causing lighter Calvary to be dramatically faster over distances greater than 100m. This has led to real cases in history of light Calvary outperforming heavy Calvary usually by being able to attack them in the fanks after wearing them down, at least before full plate

The guys practiced quite a lot so we're very fit. Agility was key or they'd be injured or worse. According to https://m.armstreet.com/news/the-cost-of-plate-armor-in-modern-money the armoring for common footsoldiers was about a month's wages. For nobility around Lamborghini range. Kitting out a horse goes from 500k and up. All of which can be undone by a commoner with a crossbow or a dagger in a joint.

All comment are actually accurate. But a would add that the majority was in fact cannon meat with nothing but clothes.

The real number of knights in armor would depend on the amount of nobility in the empire, since only sons of dukes and the like would wear such armor.

And actually, killing a knight would be bad, since they had the money to pay ransom. Thats why the dead count was lower.

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The more manpower you have, the more likely you will consider them as cannon fodders. For example, the Manchus conducted a census at 1649, and there were only 55330 adult males(yes) found from the entire Manchus population. So they would certainly care more about the qualities of their soldier’s equipments, otherwise they as a people won’t last very long.

For OP if they want to learn more about what you've mentioned in your excellent comment:

https://youtube.com/@tods_workshop

Impossible to know for sure but effective use of musketry by the Japanese made a huge impression on Korean and Ming soldiers during the Imjin Wars in Korea. Dedicated musketeer units were formed in both countries (although Ming most likely already possessed some musketeers even before the war), however Japanese muskets were works of art, well made by master sword blacksmiths and well appreciated. China and Korea tried to imitate the Japanese use of muskets but corruption ensured that most muskets were useless on the battlefield as they were not well maintained nor constantly practiced with. The worse thing for a soldier is to have an unreliable weapon.

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

The term "best museum" is extremely subjective and highly debatable. It's not a question for which any sort of definitive answer can be provided.

I think these records about ill-equipped Chinese army could only be found in Manchu literary sources though. Contemporary Chinese and later Manchu sponsored Chinese literary sources have seemingly omitted these anecdotes.

But of course any writer would write that Matilda actually wanted to marry him but she couldn't say yes because of social conventions, and William had to stage a scene to broke the conventionalism and dulfill their mutual love

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.

Most likely rusted out muskets brought from some dinky storehouse with mishaped musket balls and poor quality gunpowder etc. Even well maintained muskets were notoriously inaccurate with soldiers firing over the heads of their enemies even during the American Civil War. So, I can imagine even worse issues with the Ming forces which were pretty much just cannon fodder by the 16th century. Doubt they had any proper musket training nor was combined arms a concept understood in China at the time.

Never quite understood why Chinese and Korean armor quality seemed to deteriorate by the 15th and 16th centuries to the point that normal foot soldiers barely wore any armor. Ive heard armor was rendered ineffective by guns but guns were expensive and most armies wouldnt have been equipped with them, especially the Manchus or Mongolians etc. Also, Japan still used high quality armor even though they spearheaded volley tactics in Asia at the time. Seems more like the institutions in both China and Korea were so eroded by corruption and incompetence that soldiers were regarded as expendable and thus werent provided with armor. I read that by the 18th century, most Qing brigandine armor didnt even have any real iron plates inserted between the cloth and was basically just cloth with metal studs for show.

Brigandine armor also seems to have become most popular sometime during the 14th to 15th century in East Asia, but brigandine also seems like the cheapest armor option between plate, chainmail, lamellar, and laminar. Ive wondered if doubling as a coat made it more popular or if it was just the cheapest option since its easier to maintain than the other armor types and less obvious if the metal plates were missing or of bad quality.

Dang all the Eagles fans comin out this year!!

Thanks for the information. It is awesome!

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You still haven't narrowed down the range of the question in the slightest.

"Bolas" is a very broad term. What kind of style of bolas are you thinking of? Portugeuse types, Inuit types, or some other sort? How many weights does the bolas have? What kind of materials is it made out of? Nobody can even begin to describe the "average bolas" or a "long-ranged optimized bolas" for you, when such terms drastically change in meaning without specific parameters. The "average bolas" made with modern day materials and technology would significantly differ from the "average bolas" made by a Portugeuse gaucho in the 1800s.

What context is there for the throwing? Would the throw be considered from a person standing level to the ground, or would it be considered from a person riding horseback (which is/was a common context for bolas throwing)?

This is a history subreddit. If none of these considerations matter to you (or if you only care about the modern context), that makes this question unsuitable for this subreddit.

Well, apparently during this battle the guns of Chinese could not work properly for some reason, their artillery couldn’t even make any sounds. Perceived that, the Manchu khan decided to charge directly to the the Chinese line and they were wiped out very quickly and easily since they had neither functioning weapons nor armours.

Where is the best museum in the world?

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"the Chinese guns failed; this was perceived"

Is written somewhere above.

I know that gun shipments to china were often in disrepair "the devil soldier" highlighting the life of Frederick t ward mentions this alot.

Would be interested to know the culture around guns for this battle

(Sorry for phrasing sick and stoned)

Where the hell are the pictures?