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Originally Posted by Aryan
Let me throw something else into the equation.
For a blow to be fatal, it doesn't need to necessarily penetrate the armour; if its delivered in a powerful enough manner, the shockwaves generated can easily cause enough internal damage passing through the body to kill a man, with the armour intact.
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Obviously it depends on where and how the blow is made; a blow to an armoured neck would be potentially more lethal than one to the shin. Still, that's where you really get into the specific design of the armor. European armor was fitted quite close to the body, but was also designed so that vulnerable areas such as the neck and torso were somewhat protected agains shock; many european gothic harnesses(armors) had a firm steel collar called a bevor that was fitted and fixed to the breastplate. This would transfer a lot of that shock to the chest, which can take more punishment than the neck. A key idea in armor is the distribution of weight and impact across the body. Not an answer to your question, but hopefully helpful. I can't say anything for Japanese armor because I admit to not knowing much about it. A footnote: European armor also incorporated a lot of features designed to cause many blows to glance off. Especially the 15th cent. Gothic and Maximillian styles.
Some pictures of a pretty good reproduction Gothic Harness (the top three pictures):
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgu...3Doff%26sa%3DN