With the decline of armor in European warfare starting in the 16th and picking up in the 17th Century (so that by the mid-18th Century hardly anyone wore it on the battlefield besides some cavalry units) was there a corresponding increase in average battle casualties (as a percentage of army size)? Or did some other change in technology or tactical and operational procedure compensate for the decline of armor?
If proportional casualties didn't increase, was early modern ranged gunpowder combat inherently less deadly than a late medieval melee? Or to put it another way, did battles in the mid-18th Century have higher average casualty percentages than mid 15th Century battles, and if not, why?
It's kinda difficult to answer this, because there isn't as much information about numbers of troops in the medieval era, but from what I can gather, the ratio was relatively similar. The reason for the decline of armor is the invention of gunpowder. But it wasn't immediate. Plate armor coexisted with firearms for many years. For example, if you look up conquistadors, many are, in fact, wearing plate armor. Many attempts were made to make armor more effective at stopping bullets, but as firearms became more and more efficient, and it became clear that body armor couldn't catch up in terms of efficiency, armor slowly faded out of existence. However, it should be noted that there is modern body armor commonly used by militaries today