The mamluks were a fascinating bunch. They were a caste of warrior-slaves, originally Turkish but later Circassian from the Caucasus, who ruled over Egypt, Syria, Arabia and parts of Asia minor from 1250 AD to 1517 AD. Their capital city was Cairo which they filled with beautiful Mosques, Khanqa's, madrassahs, hospitals and Wikalas (caravanserais). Even after the Ottoman conquest they remained the dominant military group in Egypt until 1807.
As I said before , they fought a wide variety of enemies. They fought the Crusaders in the 13th century and inflicted several defeats on them, eventually driving them out of the Middle-East. They managed to stop Mongol expansion into North Africa by defeating the Mongols in 3 major battles in 1260, 1281 and finally 1303, although a few mamluks were themselves of Mongol origin, including one Mamluk sultan.
They may have come up against German Crusaders, although to my knowledge they never fought an all-German army. In the 15th century the mamluks conquered Cyprus, the last surviving Crusader kingdom, I presume that the Crusaders of Cypus may have used Western European weapons and equipment. In the early 1500s the mamluks fought a naval war against the Portuguese in the Indian ocean. Since the mamluks were primarily heavy cavalry/horse archers I'm not sure how much of a role they took in a naval battle. I have a suspicion that much of the fighting in the Indian Ocean was done by Maghribi (North African) mercenaries.
Finally the mamluks fought Napoleon Bonaparte duing his invision of Egypt in 1798. they used virtually the same tactics they used against the Crusaders, the Mongols and the Ottomans. Needless to say Napoleon defeated them, although he then went on the create his own small unit of mamluks!
The mamluks certainly used lamellar armour as well as mail in the 13th and 14th centuries, in the 15th century however they abandonned lamellar armour in favour of mail and plate armour. They also continued to use mail right until 1798.
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