[Low-Tech] Padded Cloth and Layered Armour penalty

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I'm looking into some history, but am still quite the novice idiot. So everyone correct me when, not if, I'm wrong.
But it seems like as plate started to get more prevalent, people began to add it piecemeal over suits of mail around the 1300s. But by the 1400s, they quickly began to just stop wearing the mail underneath except for the gaps.
It seems like that would make most sense if they realized that it was more weight/protection efficient to only wear one layer of armor.
Is this a valid assessment?

(I know that over time, plate became less expensive than mail, but that happens a bit later than when much of this cross over seemed to have occurred.)

There is one other point about mail, beyond the ones Tomsdad pointed out, and that is weight distribution. For a chainmail hauberk or a byrnie, almost all of the weight is borne by the shoulders. For mail chausses (trousers), the weight would normally be at the waist but IIRC braces (suspenders) were used which transferred the weight to the shoulders. The weight of a mail coif would be borne by the crown of the head. There isn't much you can do about any of that, even with tailoring or layering, so that's another reason to jettison mail anywhere it isn't essential.