>>8946486My point is that you're making a completely asinine statement with no basis in reality outside of misinformed pop-history.
The peasant soldiers of men like Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu were outfitted with copper, iron, and steel cuirasses and helmets, and samurai, especially from 1543 onwards, were typically armored with iron or steel plates with light chain protecting their extremities.
Even in the West, your average soldier wasn't decked up in full steel plate armor. Up until the 16th century, a peasant militiaman was likely to have a gambeson/padded jack and maybe some chain, while a man-at-arms was more likely to use something along the lines of half-plate or lamellar. Heavily armored knights were comparatively rare next to men in padded cloth, leather, and iron chain.
