So it seems that the armour and arms race went from bronze cuirasses from the hoplite period to iron ones but then in the medieval period we have this surgence of chainmail before going back to plate type armor why?
I mean like shoulder and joints I understand why chain may be better, but it seems weird to use chainmail for body armor.
For all matters plate, we can turn to the inestimable u/WARitter. This thread is fairly short, but he does link back to a more comprehensive previous answer addressing the history of plate, which itself has links to even more answers on the matter of plate.