As the sixteenth century drew to a close armor began to deteriorate. No
single influence was responsible. Do not think that firearms were
invented and armor was therefore suddenly made obsolete. As a matter of
fact, firearms were in use before plate armor really received general
acceptance, and firearms were in use all the time that plate armor was
being worn in Europe. But the gradual improvement in the efficiency of
firearms undoubtedly caused armor to be made heavier and heavier, and
thereby contributed greatly to its decline. For just when armor was thus
increasing in weight there developed a new school of cavalry tactics
based upon the use of lightly armed troopers on fast horses who, instead
of directly attacking the enemy, could dash around his flank and cut off
his supplies from the rear. The tendency was, therefore, to make the
armor light and very flexible, directly contrary to the need for solid,
bullet-stopping protection. Even fashion had a deteriorating effect on
armor. Fig. 20 shows a late suit of armor which has a multitude of small
plates to give extreme flexibility, and has extra wide leg protectors to
cover the extravagant wide-topped trousers which were then the vogue.
But what a clumsy suit this is compared to the Maximilian suit of Fig.
10!
[Illustration: _Fig. 20. “Three-quarter” suit of armor for a young
German of the early XVII century._]
During the seventeenth century armor shrank away piece by piece, much as
a tired soldier might have been tempted to discard it on a long march.
The choking face defenses vanished from the helmet. The sollerets went,
then the shin guards or _greaves_, then the thigh guards. The arm guards
were discarded, then the gauntlets. Finally the armored man was left
with only breastplate, backplate, and helmet, and even these
deteriorated in the following century into the decorative but
inefficient trappings of the cuirassier. The two world wars, with their
steel helmets and flak suits (the design of which was strongly
influenced by ancient models) have revived the use of armor, but it is a
machine-made product and, well-designed though it be, must be considered
a reproduction rather than an original work of art.