Quote Originally Posted by Conners View Post
Were the Muslim and Christian armies that different, by the second Crusade? I was under the impression they both used a lot of the same equipment after the initial contact. I could be misremembering, but I thought aside from appearance (curved swords versus straight, different styles of mail armour), the main difference was the horse archers.
Curved swords didn't really kick in in the Islamic world during Crusades.

@awa: Armour and metallurgy usually get better as time goes on. The exception is when people started to find armour unnecessary and started decreasing it.
You've got to define "better" I guess.

It certainly got way better since around ~ 1400 but that's somehow 'fresh' and unique process.

Before, metallurgy was at somehow similar level in Iron Age, with a lot of regional and periodical differences, original achievements, innovations etc.