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When the British went looking for something other than bright cochineal scarlet they discovered two things: 1) The dingy maroon a grunt's cheap madder-dyed uniform turned into was actually a pretty good form of camoflage when they weren't out in the open. 2) A few days of marching in India...

The more sophisticated and advanced argument rings true. The Romans, known for being excellent engineers, had no answer for a Viking longship and would have gone WTF? when presented with a three-masted cannon armed caravel or carrack not much larger than 6-7 parking spaces.

That's also about when armies started to discard heavy armour because gunpowder rendered it obsolete. Once the armour was gone it wouldn't be until part of the way through WWI that metal helmets became standard issue because ... shrapnel.

Movie/TV armies are a lot like porn: make it look good for the camera and audience, any resemblance to actual reality is a mere accident.

Most medieval knights didn't have access to a blacksmith who could make armour like what those pictures show. As for "that stupid samurai looking armour"? That was mostly worn by generals so that everyone knew exactly where he was. The Japanese did not use shields during the Warring States...

If a peasant did get levied back then he was way more likely to die of disease before he even got to the battlefield than he was to be injured or killed in the fight. Google is being useless, but roughly 2/3 of the soldiers who died in the American Civil War succumbed to disease. That was was a...

Real life is not a TV show. If you and I were lords on a medieval battlefield our banners and heraldry would be distict enough that an illiterate peasant conscript who just wants to go home would be able to determine which of us is the asshole who dragged him there and knows how to get him home...

The costume people weren't being complete idiots. A military uniform should be distinctive enough that someone who knows what they're looking at/for can tell friend from foe. With a TV show the costumes need to tell the audience who is on which side, and it must be obvious at a glance to grandma.

Every military in Code Geass. I could do better than Lelouch even without his Geass power just by being smart enough to not go charging straight into an obvious trap. He's considered to be a military genius in that setting and everyone else is worse.