Next up in the occassional series - the one some of us have been waiting for. Tod Todeschini's reconstruction of a 1415 man-at-arms in plate v. a 160lb longbow at around 10m on You Tube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds-Ev5msyzo). Lots of loud clanging and smashed arrows in slo-mo. Interesting commentary from the ever enthusiastic Tod, plus top experts and craftspeople. Well worth a watch.
The key to this one was they reproduced what was probably the standard plate armour in 1415, not the top of the range. It was not impervious (too much mail still in use) but pretty effective. Our man-at-arms would not necessarily have been killed but could easily have been wounded or stunned. He would certainly start at a disadvantage when he got to handstrokes with his English equivalent.
that is so cool. best 45 minutes you will spend in front of the telly this year.
Peter Barham, this is what we were talking about last time
the range is interesting, maybe 15 meters, and yet when he tries to aim for a specific target - gaps in the plate, or the front arm - he is close but not quite.
Stage 3 with heavy shields would be interesting to see how much difference they make to the mail areas too.
I think the key takeaway, which may have been obvious to others, is that armour of this era was pretty useless against arrows because it didn't cover everywhere. Yes, a proportion of the hits might be harmless, but an archer aiming at your groin was going to take you out before you got anywhere near him.
I think you are completely wrong.
The key takeaway is exactly what was done, mail is useless and unarmoured horses are dead, but plate works, so dismount and add more plate - which they did. And they won, eventually.
Look at the film again, the major wounds only happen at small unplated bits - which are not easy to hit (you can see him trying) even at some 25 yards on a stationary target.
Plus you need to stay out of wet fields, and find a way to shoot back
The key takeaway for me was the importance of the angle at which the arrow strikes the plate, which makes the various tests against flat sheets of plate null and void.
A proportion of the hits being harmless is a good deal, so far as the advancing infantry/knights are concerned.
Interesting to see some opposite take-aways from the same experiment.
There were lots of things tested on this which were part of the "lore" of the longbow. One was arrows would go through poorer quality armour (this did not seek to duplicate the most technically advanced armour of 1415) easily. They don't, unless they hit weak points. It takes quite a lucky shot even to penetrate the thin armour on the arms and the idea that the visor was vulnerable looks unlikely (though period art shows that the French also wore kettle helmets - a test against one of those in bowed-head mode would be interesting).
We might also note that this was a 160lb longbow with a master archer shooting armour-piercing arrows (which tend to be referred to, especially by Tod, as plate cutters). Most longbowmen at Agincourt were weakened by campaigning, probably drew a bow of 100-130 lbs and were issued with multi-role arrows (called in modern typology a Jessop M4). What difference this would make I don't know (I suspect the mail would still be vulnerable at short range).
That short range remains an issue, I think. Tod has confirmed the range was 15m. How much further out is this armour vulnerable in its weak points?
My other takeaway was that that archer will have terrible back problems in later life.
Also, in the era of firearms infantry would advance (to contact, perhaps, sometimes) without any armour at all, or any defence against incoming shot. Penetration tests could be carried out on muskets against cloth uniforms, but I don't know what that would prove. I rather feel that way with tests like this, interesting though they are. (Because, to spell it out, there are a bazillion other factors from weight of bows to skill of archers to determination of attackers to accuracy of shot and so on and on, and armour penetrating ability of arrows at range x from bow y at angle z on point a is only a tiny part of the whole picture).
I think the importance of tests like these is they build up to an understanding of the technological parameters of archery on the battlefield. It would be foolish to try to draw too much from them alone (ignoring, say, the written record) but brushing them aside seems equally flawed. Collect as much evidence as you can to get a rounded picture to build your reconstruction, I reckon.
Sure - and I don't think anyone advocated brushing them aside, unless I'm somehow not seeing a bunch of posts on this forum? As I said, technical params are 'a tiny part of the whole picture', but they are still a part (and unlike some other things, they are at least to some extent repeatable, testable and quantifiable, which also makes them popular).
As a general rule though I've not been impressed by a lot of these sorts of tests (eg the things Christopher Matthew talks about) - but then we had a 'value of re-enactment' thread a while ago so that's another topic already done to death!
Quote from: RichT on November 29, 2022, 05:01:32 PM
Sure - and I don't think anyone advocated brushing them aside, unless I'm somehow not seeing a bunch of posts on this forum?
That's me deliberately exaggerating for effect again. Sorry.
QuoteAs I said, technical params are 'a tiny part of the whole picture', but they are still a part (and unlike some other things, they are at least to some extent repeatable, testable and quantifiable, which also makes them popular).
As a general rule though I've not been impressed by a lot of these sorts of tests (eg the things Christopher Matthew talks about) - but then we had a 'value of re-enactment' thread a while ago so that's another topic already done to death!
As always with these things, I prefer those which are clear on their parameters and methods, because it makes it easier to spot faults. After Paul Bardunias was critical (as a scientist) of people claiming these activities as experiments, I've tried to view them more as tests (of ideas, of reconstructions etc.). In this case, we have knowledgeable people with quite a bit of experience of testing stuff who define their objectives, specify the qualities of their materials and measure stuff (weights, measures, speeds, decibel levels). So better than the average.
Quote from: Mark G on November 29, 2022, 08:15:01 AM
The key takeaway is exactly what was done, mail is useless and unarmoured horses are dead, but plate works, so dismount and add more plate - which they did. And they won, eventually.
That's a bit like saying 1st World War infantry were fine against machine guns because eventually they'd learn to use helicopters.
During 1415 the French we're vulnerable to archery - I don't think there's a lot of debate about that. This test gives one possible reason for that.
Quote from: RichT on November 29, 2022, 10:06:03 AMA proportion of the hits being harmless is a good deal, so far as the advancing infantry/knights are concerned.
Not really - you can only die once, so only be killed by 20% of the arrows that hit you is no better than being killed by all of them.
If there are significant areas with no practical protection (e.g. the groin) then advancing into an arrow storm isn't going to work, which is borne out by the historical record.
We have to disagree on this.
Crest was all about the vulnerability of mounted men to archery. Agincourt was all about the mud.
As a slight digression we tried flat shooting against clankies and were surprised by the punch delivered by the arrows hitting
Quote from: Mark G on December 23, 2022, 06:38:33 PMCrest was all about the vulnerability of mounted men to archery.
Nah, Crest was all about making your helmet look pretty ???
(Don't you just love predictive text?)
Quote from: Holly on December 23, 2022, 07:26:50 PM
As a slight digression we tried flat shooting against clankies and were surprised by the punch delivered by the arrows hitting
Would have been even worse against bows with the sort of weight Joe Gibbs was using.
I can still see the impact now ;D
Dave,
What strength bows were being used and at what range?
I am not surprised about the effect of firing flat-head arrows at live targets. My ballistic calculations for 'Behind the Curve' indicated that the kinetic energy could be significantly more than what is normally considered lethal for blunt objects hitting the human body. (The French determined this by shooting cannon balls at people.) Of course, plate armour tends to dissipate the effect over a wider area, but I can imagine firing bodkins, even without penetration, might cause more than a few bruises.
we used 40lb draw weight with rubber blunts at decreasing distance so starting at 100 feet down to around 40-50 feet
arrow weight approx 100g
Really low power then. A good job you did not start off with 140lb longbow! One can imagine the embarrassing conversations afterwards...
"Oh look at at that dead crash-test dummy! Maybe we should have started with the 40lb bows?"
:-[ :-[ :-[
oh yes, we didnt want to over egg the custard too much......we were being filmed after all :)
Did you know that the lethal blunt force trauma criterion widely used today was derived, not from experiment, but from conversation with 19th German artillery officers?
Rohne, H ; Schiesslehre fur Infantrie, 1906
"to remove a human from the battlefield a kinetic energy of
8mkg is sufficient according to the prevailing view of the
German artillery community"
8mkg would be rendered 80J in modern SI. In fact, as you might expect, it depends where you are hit. There is an estimate that 80J is only lethal in 31% of cases and you need 103 J for a 50% chance.
Of course, you then need to factor in the effect of armour which, as Nick says, doesn't just have the job of stopping the projectile but also dissipating the energy. There is plenty of stuff on the internet on ballistic protection which shows a mix of hard and soft armour (say plate over arming garment) is pretty good at this. If you observe the video you will also see that the arrow "wastes" a lot of impact energy disintegrating, deforming the head and making a loud noise.
I think the bottom line is, if the arrow hasn't enough energy to penetrate the armour, it doesn't have enough to kill by blunt trauma unless you are very unlucky. It will, however, hurt and repeated hits will impair performance. The one area I think I'd want more data is about head trauma. We are much more aware recently about potential of head blows to cause both temporary impairments and long term damage in sport. If the former can cause such concerns in football it may have been relevant on a battlefield. More study required with ballistics heads and sensors inside helmets I think.
I remember when I did other reenactment (modern FIBUA) with airsoft rifles we were limited by a very low kinetic energy threshold as defined by the firearms act. here is a brief tract:
1 POLICING AND CRIME ACT 2017 – Detailed Briefing New definition of lethality If the muzzle energy of a firearm is over 1 Joule (0.737 ft. lb) it is considered to be lethal and thus caught by the definition of firearm in the Firearms Act 1968. This new legal threshold imports clarity into the law. It simply enacts current practice into law. It does not alter the higher energy thresholds for air weapons as defined by s1(3)(b) of the Firearms Act 1968 (i.e. the 12ft lb and 6ft lb rules for air rifles/guns and pistols respectively).
There's quite a bit out there on non-lethal projectiles and policing/riot control. Perhaps more relevant to ancient battlefields is the stuff on behind armour trauma (or Back Face Deformation/Signature), which also provide images of what our man-at-arms might look like if he survived to take his armour off. :o
Add : On second thoughts, look at them after Christmas .
;D
Quote from: Erpingham on November 22, 2022, 05:52:17 PM
Next up in the occassional series - the one some of us have been waiting for. Tod Todeschini's reconstruction of a 1415 man-at-arms in plate v. a 160lb longbow at around 10m on You Tube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds-Ev5msyzo). Lots of loud clanging and smashed arrows in slo-mo. Interesting commentary from the ever enthusiastic Tod, plus top experts and craftspeople. Well worth a watch.
The key to this one was they reproduced what was probably the standard plate armour in 1415, not the top of the range. It was not impervious (too much mail still in use) but pretty effective. Our man-at-arms would not necessarily have been killed but could easily have been wounded or stunned. He would certainly start at a disadvantage when he got to handstrokes with his English equivalent.
Hi guys, What I found most surprising is that at min 36, the experienced archer shot 12-13 arrows at a stationary target, at a range where in my experience the archer has to either turn and run or switch to his sword and shield, and did not score a single debilitating hit. I am not sure those strikes to the head had enough force to disorient a man with his adrenaline pumping. You have probably seen boxers take much harder strikes and keep moving forward. If we were to compress the time, this would be the equivalent of 12 archers shooting in a volley. It would be interesting to see how the momentum transfer stacks with coincident strikes.