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Originally Posted by Timo Nieminen
As for longbows beating plate armour, the thinner parts of plate armours could be penetrated at close enough range, while the thickest parts could not be penetrated at any range. "Thickest parts" tended to be chest and head, thinner parts the limbs where you prefer to carry less weight.
The numbers work out at about 70J of energy to put an arrow through 1mm of iron plate (which means that complete arrow-proof is attained at, at most, 2-3mm - don't trust iron or mild steel under 2mm to stop arrows at short range!), and about 1000J to put a pistol/musket ball through 3mm.
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This brings up the question of the 'quality' of the average armour. Many surviving full suits of European armour are the high end versions (which, likely, never saw battle) A number of these were 'heavier' gauge metal plate .... as they were designed for the 'joust' and not battle conditions.
I get the impression that, at the time, that the 'average' grade armour was of a lower quality iron/steel and that heat treatment of said metal plate was more 'hit and miss'. Top armourers were very, very secretive about their methods. Quality armour was incredibly expensive ....and not all knights had big bank balances.
All the best
David