Over time, it was thought that making the armor ENTIRELY out of plate metal would be better than attaching the metal to cloth or leather. After all, if the cloth or leather got cut up, the plates wouldn't stay on long enough to protect anything. Also, large pieces of steel were better at distributing the force (see Armor Theory ) of a blow than the chainmail armor most wariors were using at the time. Soon soldiers and knights were having specific pieces made of whole bare metal, not just their helmets. Breastplates, greaves, cuisses, sabatons, faulds, gauntlets, bracers, pauldrons, gorgets...soon everything a war making fellow would require was prefered to be made from whole steel. Chain was still used in between pieces where lots of mobility was required, such as over the crotch and in the armpits. Armor rigs that used both chain and plate are now called transitional pieces, as the armor was making a transition from full chain to partial chain and plate, and eventually to full plate.