After doing some research of medieval plate armour, I believe it peaked during the 14th and 15th century, before diminishing from the rise of gunpowder. Note that I am not asking how mobile knights are, I know they the weight is spread quite well on all parts of the body, so they are able to run without anything lagging behind.
I geuss what am asking is how did the armour on joints look like and functioned (more specifically for the lames). Often times i've seen chainmail where the joints or armpits where, sometimes just plain gamberson. Other times ive seen sectioned lames, though I do not know how those wouldve functioned in comparison to the lames on feet, shoulders, thighs, and buttocks. Speaking of feet, where sabatons commonly fully covering the feet, or where they half full leaving the boot sole hanging, and while I understand this depends on how the knights were fighting in battle (with sabatons being for horse back and ordinary boots being common on foot), Im wondering how heavily armoured knights functioned, and if it was possible for a knight to be fully plated (meaning every part is covered in either sectioned steel lames, and the large unvmovable armour peices).
Heres what im talking about:
Chainmail joints
Gamberson?
empty example
You can absolutely cover every single part of the body in steel plate if you wanted, and could pay the price. E.g. in Osprey Warrior 104 - Tudor Knight by Christopher Gravett, they depict a splendid example of foot armour made for Henry VIII for the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520 that wasn't final detailed or used as the rules for the tournament was changed. The picture of it shows it from the rear and there's even a plate shaped like his buttocks and contains essentially no gaps. You could quite literally fondle his bare steel ass. If you were tired of living at any rate. This is a pic form the Royal Armouries , front only though. Unfortunately I can't just post a rip of the book. How I wish the Royal Armouries had a 360 view available.
Basically the plates with lames were designed with rivets (pivoting and sliding ones) and leather-backing, carefully shaped so as to pass over each other in certain ways. You won't have absolutely all the free movement of your joints, but you don't necessarily need it for the business of fighting either. You can see the basic idea on any lobster-tail in action the shell plates overlap or not as you flex it it. Incidentally a later type of armour was so named.
Now there is a lot of variation. I mentioned above about cost, and as history went on the cost decrease and methods improved, it was quite possible even at modest means to get a very good amount of protection. The tricky part was always protecting the joints of the limbs while retaining freedom of movement. This is partly why chainmail tends to remain as it more easily follows the body.
As armour is developed and covers more and more areas with plate various methods are used. These change according to need, but also fashion (sometimes certain aspects are enlarge like pauldrons or ridiculously spiked sabatons), and and in response to other changes. Chainmail was used to cover those trickiest spots and to a degree you can tell the age of an armour by the amount of chainmail is used in the construction. Though don't get me wrong, there's no one linear path for armour changes. That first link of yours would be more like an early example where the main protection is the chainmail augmented with plate. Though on the other hand it doesn't quite look right either. I don't know what they are going for with the shoulder stuff it looks wildly out of place.
What am trying to say is that even as ability exited sometimes a less optimal method was chosen to protect weak spots that were less easy to attack. It's cheaper and you can make the armour less bespoke. There are even arming doublets with chainmail patches sown into armpits and the like. It's important to remember that plate armour is really a layered defence with outer and inner layers, e.g. the plates and a gambeson or doublet. Armour displayed empty will never quite give you the right impression.
