In addition to what others have already mentioned, muskets have certain advantages that bows and crossbows don’t have:
They’re practically one-dimensional. A musket is a stick that, when pointed forwards, occupies very little lateral space. You can deploy musketeers shoulder to shoulder without diminishing their rate of fire or accuracy. You can even deploy a second rank behind them, at no cost to rate of fire and accuracy. Archers and crossbowmen cannot be deployed in such dense formations, because their weapons require more space to operate.
Unlike bows and crossbows, muskets are very effective clubs, giving their wielders adequate melee capabilities. Later, with the invention of the bayonet, they even evolved into effective spears.
Musket balls are more convenient to carry around than arrows and quarrels.
A loaded musket can stay loaded for as long as you like, and still be discharged instantly. You can hold your fire until the target gets into optimal range. This is impossible with a bow (though possible with a crossbow).
Unlike bows, all ranks of muskets can shoot in a flat trajectory. Reducing (though not eliminating) the risk of overshooting or undershooting your target.
The production of muskets doesn’t require rare materials, and the quality of the materials is if subordinate importance. Bows require special kinds of woods, and must be put together by specialised craftsmen. Muskets can be mass-produced and stored indefinitely.
The production of muskets requires an industrial infrastructure. Kings can have them, feudal lords cannot. This forces the rural nobility to either rally behind the king voluntarily, or be subjugated by him. While wars could previously only be waged for as long as the knighthood was willing to cooperate, the age of musket allows wars to be waged for as long as the government can afford to pay for them.
Generally, full plate weighed about the same as mail (“chain mail” is redundant). Yes, the mail is full of holes - it’s also up to three layers thick where the links overlap. But more importantly, the weight on plate was much better distributed, so it was in fact less tiring to wear than mail.
And nuts to this idea that you can’t get up after a fall from your horse…
There are any number of videos on Youtube that demonstrate mobility in full plate armor. Here’s one: Le combat en armure au XVe siècle - YouTube. Note how easily the knight can get up from full prone and supine positions. He can easily go up and down ladders, do jumping jacks, calisthenics. The video concludes with a demonstration of some fighting techniques of knight vs knight.
A longer video showing some more fighting techniques: Le combat en armure au moyen âge - YouTube. It’s in French, but it’s pretty clear what they’re demonstrating. You can’t just whack at a knight with your sword, but rather try to get into the little crevices between the plates. Again, note how easily the modern-day reenactors move around (and get up off the ground) in full armor.
Here’s a dude in full armor running an obstacle course compared to a fully-kitted out modern-day firefighter and solder: Obstacle Run in Armour - a short film by Daniel Jaquet - YouTube. The three all carry about the same amount of additional weight, and they all ran the course in comparable times.
The turned-turtle attitude of a knight on the ground is a myth.
The tapestries show soldiers with light armor and high mobility.
I notice the guy in the first one is using an axe to attack the brown horse that is trampling troops.
The reenactment is interesting. But, it’s knight against knight in modern armor on a hard, smooth surface. It would be interesting to see a reenactment where the knight falls from a horse (freeing himself from the tack) to a natural dirt surface and defends himself against four infantrymen armed with pikes. The reenactors wore armor that sacrificed all rear protection for mobility. Perhaps it’s the only way you can sit on a horse in armor.
The Mongols would have ignored the knights and killed their mounts. If Genghis Kahn had not died when he did, our world history would be very different.
This kind of armor wasn’t in any sort of wide use in the early-mid 13th centuries though was it? And it also says something that you posit one knight v4 4 armed with pikes. I guess a man in armor IS worth more?
I think to beat a Mongol army you probably needed to rely more on foot archers. You needed lots of them and with bows that could outrange their archer cavalry. Strong infantry and solid tactics that includes making sure your men aren’t going to try to chase after fleeing mongols.
And not only are you positing four infantrymen, you’re positing that they’re going after a knight who was already unhorsed, which was also difficult. Disciplined infantry could still do it, but disciplined infantry have historically been very rare. By far the more common result was that a handful of heavy cavalry charged an infantry force with ten times as many men, and the infantry all panicked and ran, possibly soiling themselves in the process, leaving them easy targets for the cavalry to pick off individually if they wanted. Or just leave them fleeing; that’s usually nearly as good anyway.
Especially rare in the medieval period when anybody who was of the ruling class had to be a professional fighter. Being able to equip yourself as a heavy cavalryman was proof of your membership in the ruling class and vice versa. And so the best fighters trained themselves to be heavy cavalry, and so heavy cavalry were the best fighters. Troops of disciplined heavy infantry could have stood up to the knights, but the social structure of feudal Europe meant that disciplined heavy infantry was rare.
As for guys on foot killing a knight knocked off his horse, of course that’s the point. Knock him off his horse and he’s no longer worth 20 lightly armed and untrained foot sloggers, he’s just a guy with much better armor, weapons, training, physical conditioning, and social investment in the outcome of the fight. A peasant dropping his spear and running away isn’t bringing shame to his family, he’s being smart. A knight showing cowardice has made himself contemptible to his social class. Anyway, that dismounted and wounded knight on his own against a bunch of peasants with spears could easily end up dead. Or he could make them run away, because why exactly are the peasants fighting?
As to why the mounted knight is worth 20 foot sloggers, it’s not that one knight rides up to 20 of those guys and defeats them all, like Bruce Lee beating the crap out of a street gang. It’s that if 100 knights charge 2000 foot soldiers, the foot soldiers can’t get into a hundred separate 20 vs 1 battles. Instead it’s very likely that the knights will crush the guys they attack, and the other guys outside that point of impact can’t help. And so when the guys see the knights charging, they know they’re dead. So what next? Run away. So the point of the charge is not to kill the guys you’re charging, it’s to break the lines and cause a rout.
And again, I agree with the idea that Mongol light cavalry was very successful against the Europeans. But the Mongols didn’t easily defeat every European army. And of course, it wasn’t the death of Genghis Khan, but the death of his son Ogedei Khan that caused the Mongols to head back to Asia to take part in the succession.
There were, though not necessarily insurmountable ones.
But this wasn’t one of them. The Mongols didn’t bother much with stone fortifications when they entered Europe because it wasn’t worth their while to waste time on that initial push*. However they were quite well-versed in siege warfare, with large complements of engineers and artillerists ( most often drawn from subject peoples ). Stone castles were time sinks, but once all the major armies has been crushed in the field they could have more leisurely gone about digesting bypassed fortresses and their isolated garrisons. Their little trick of horribly massacring those who resisted, while giving good terms to those who instantly submitted I’m sure would have proved just as effective in Europe as it had elsewhere.
A much bigger issue was the lack of good pasturage in central and western Europe. The Hungarian plain was the last good chunk of army-size grazing land as you move west and Mongol ponies didn’t eat fodder. There are little islands of good grazing land here and there, so it didn’t rule out further penetration. But it was penetration that could be predicted and channeled. It was exactly that predictability that had allowed western Europeans to ambush and otherwise intercept the Magyars when they were launching their razzias.
Of course the Mongols weren’t the Magyars. I can’t imagine King Louis IX ( not a notably great general, despite his crusading reputation ) or HRE Frederick II ( ditto ) badly beating Subedei on the battlefield. But long-term control, probably enforced from Hungary, might have been difficult. And in close-quarters the lightly armored Mongols on there little, passive ponies were at a disadvantage. All accounts were they unsurprisingly suffered significant casualties in melee with European forces. Not enough to keep them from kicking everybody’s ass - but enough to be noted. I suspect mounting losses and the difficulty of maintaining iron control from a distance would have eventually eroded control over western Europe. The Balkans however would have been another kettle of fish.
wooden fortifications on the other hand, like most of those in Hungary at the time, were quickly torched.
Not only was a full suit of mail ( i.e. including a full coif and hanging to the knees )roughly comparable in weight to at least lighter plate set-ups, it also was not as well balanced. In mail most of that weight rests on the shoulders, which considering soldiers were making heavy use of their arms( weapons, shields ) was pretty damn wearing. Plate by contrast more evenly distributed the weight because of the multiple points of attachement.
Mail maybe had slightly better flexibility, but it was just about as heavy, likely more of a burden to wear for long periods and less protective against penetrating or concussive force. Which is why it declined in favor of plate among the elite as time went on. It’s chief advantages was easier manufacture and it was relatively cheaper to produce( though still not cheap in absolute terms ).
ETA: Truly light armor was stuff like quilted gambesons.
- but enough to be noted. I suspect mounting losses and the difficulty of maintaining iron control from a distance would have eventually eroded control over western Europe. The Balkans however would have been another kettle of fish.