Medieval crossbow by Tods Stuff - from 'Wolf Hall'
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- Опубліковано 11 гру 2024
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Looking at medieval crossbows in general and specifically at a recreation of a German hunting crossbow by Tod, this exampe featuring in the BBC serries Wolf Hall. This example has a draw weight of 380lbs and is loaded using a goat's foot lever.
Tod's items are so beautiful they do not need any hard-selling at all! I'd buy them all if only I had the money haha
wolf hall. such a good, subtle, well-acted, masterpiece of television.
You've been cranking out the videos lately. keep up the good work, Matt!
He's been using a crank wheel...
;D
It's a real piece of art. This Todguy is amazing.
What a great looking bow. Tod is a truly impressive individual.
"a lot of meters per second"... that should make the metric fans happy ;)
Guess x
meters per second sounds much better than feet per second when butts are put in crotch of certain power strokes.
Nikita Onassis
Really? You know, bestiality with horses don't end well...
edi Poor horses..
You do know that only the United States still uses the Imperial system of measures, don't you. It is kinda funny that the only place that still uses Imperial measures is the US.
Excellent craftsmanship
Thanks very much. Very informative, and I love all the detail that's gone by into making the crossbow.
This is the most useful lesson on crossbows that I've come across
Thanks for sharing, I like the liked the insights into colour and decoration, made the object more personal!
Even though the crossbow bolt is the same thickness as the arrow, it is quite a bit stronger because it is shorter. The main failure mechanism for arrows and bolts is not pure tensile or compression failure. The way arrows break is from bending/buckling which isn't just a function of thickness but is also a function of the their length. Buckling failure is actually a function of the square of their length. So being half as long means the bolt is four times stronger in bending and buckling without it being any thicker.
Just watched "Wolf Hall", so I came back to watch this again. Just beautiful stuff that Tod makes. And then you get the bonus Easton brand of innuendos as well: "...it would suck some of the energy off, to accelerate this heavy, large nut...":)
The bow (lower force, longer distance) and the crossbow (high force, short distance) may seem very different but their fundamental physical limits are the same: the energy you can put in a prod is proportional to the volume of prod, or equivalently the mass of the prod, multiplied by various material-dependent quantities that a bow-maker has limited control over and some geometric quantities related to lamination. You can have a long thin prod like a longbow to get smaller force over a long stroke, or a short thick prod like a crossbow to have large force over a short stroke, but you can't have long stroke and a large force without making the prod larger.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strain_energy
I found it interesting when Todd mentioned in one of his videos that shooting the larger stronger bows is really loud, ear protection loud, something not many people know or even realize
I do not know much on this topic, however the limbs of the crossbow appear to be set at an angle so that when it is in your shoulder and positioned for aiming, it will properly offset the angle required to aim, which on this crossbow would make your bolt fly askew from what you would expect if you fired it off of from ontop your shoulder.
There must be recoil, Equal and opposite forces. I'd guess that since the energy is release across the full stroke the forces is a constant push rather than a kick
In fairness I have only shot this a few times and just didn't notice any kick myself. I'm used to black powder shotguns, muskets and rifles which have a considerable kick, so maybe I am desensitised! :-D
Yeah. These bows definitely have a degree of "push back" but certainly not a sharp kick like a gun. But there is a net force backwards that I notice, even from my measly 200lb crossbow.
Physically there must be, but I'd guess there would be a number of factors that might reduce the subjective kick actually felt by the shooter. For one, the crossbow itself looks fairly hefty in terms of weight, which always help. Secondly, the projectile is accelerated over a measurably longer period of time than a bullet from a gun would be. And last but not least, you'd have a lot of flex and vibration in the arms, which would probably have some effect spreading out the energy over a longer period of time, making it feel less powerful.
+Max Dooley Yes. You can't argue with Sir Isaac. (Unless your name is Albert.) But I guess the recoil of a crossbow would be far less noticeable than that of a firearm. This is partly because the energy is released more gradually, as you say, but possibly also because there is just less energy involved (not counting the heat generated in the arms and string of the bow). I did a bit of Googling on this, which suggested that the kinetic energy of a crossbow bolt on release might be between about 100 and 150 foot-pounds (or the equivalent in Joules), whereas the KE of a pistol bullet would typically be between 400 and 800 f-p, and a rifle bullet over 1000 f-p. Admittedly kinetic energy may not be the best indicator of recoil, as we really need to balance the momentum, not the energy, and a heavier projectile moving more slowly may have less energy, but as much momentum, as a lighter one moving more quickly (because for KE the velocity is squared). But the figures do suggest that a firearm usually has considerably more raw power than a crossbow.
I have fired a crossbow of a similar design myself, and would agree that it "feels" like it actually recoils forwards. I believe that the reason for this is that the acceleration of the bolt (the part that causes rearwards recoil) happens over 6 inches, however when the bolt has left the bow the string and the limbs have to be decelerated which happens over a much shorter distance resulting in a higher peak recoil impulse forwards which occurs over a shorter time. If you were to shoot a crossbow with it just laying on a table a film it with a hi-speed camera, I believe that what you would see is the crossbow sliding backwards "slowly" as the bolt was accelerated, but then as the bolt left the string the crossbow would jump back forwards, but not all the way back to its original position. This forwards jump is spread over less time, but as it is more intense it is more likely to overcome the resistance of your grip and actually move the weapon forwards by any significant distance.
That's a pretty fancy looking crossbow you have there. I just paid Tod for my finished crossbow a few days ago, so I should have mine soon!
a note about the bolts thickness... length of an arrow has a direct relation ship to its spine weight. if you cut an arrow shorter it will be stiffer when shoot and effect the archers paradox. you use length to tune your arrows to your bow. in the case of a cross bows you aren't trying to create archers paradox so its much more forgiving in the spine weight of the bolt. you would find that a bolt the same thickness as a longbow arrow could be shot out of a cross bow with a higher amount of energy then the longbow... if that makes sense.
I think what efficiency means in regards to a bow is not how quickly it returns forward and propels the bolt/arrow, but the ratio of drawweight and energy that ends up being put into the arrow. I read somewhere (don´t quote me on this though) that Korean compound bows with 60lbs drawweight ended up shooting the same arrow with the same speed as a English longbow with 100lbs of drawweight.
Its a matter of how efficiently energy is stored and released by the bow and how much energy ends up not in the arrow but in the limbs, the deforming of the materials and I´m sure there´s gonna be some amount of energy loss through heat and friction.
Most of the energy thats not ending up in the arrow is used for propelling the actual limbs forward (which is why adding weight to the tips of a bow is a really bad idea, you wanna keep it as slim as possible). With steel being so heavy its energy-storing capabilities per weight is way worse than composite materials.
Great Bow,There was also a hinged wooden loading lever,see Ralph Payne Gallway The Crossbow very interesting stuff in there.I have made some medieval rrossbows with 150 lb. glass prod 14 inch draw & attained 210 fps.Thanks for the upload Matt.
Beautiful crossbow!
Smaller bow is to facilitate the shorter bolts. One of the big advantages of crossbolt is the draw mechanism doesn't necessitate a longer arrow.
So physics wise, the steel has a certain stiffness which when the bow is drawn back, it stores a certain potential energy (I'd like to say Elastic). Force is proportional to the displacement of the bow so the further back it is drawn, the more energy stored which can be transferred into mechanical energy moving the bolt and transferring kinetic energy :) I like physics hehe, I'm doing an undergraduate degree in it!
It'd be cool to have an experiment on what effect does a wet crossbow have. A lot of historians put part of the blame on the geonese crossbowmen at the defeat on Crecy because they didn't protect their strings from the pouring rain while the english archers hid theirs under their hats. This sounds like a legend to me, it'd be very interesting to see a crossbow shoot both dry and wet and compare the performances.
Actually, It seem's rather likely that at Crecy the Genoese had waxed their strings and were well aware of the sodden, wet conditions and had prepared accordingly. During the battle, the baggage train carrying their pavises had apparently been late, so they were not able to effectively utilise their crossbows without their all-important form of protection (Outside of personally worn armour).
It was likely that the bit about wettened strings was added so that they could dismiss the Genoese mercenaries as being incompetent. Let us not forget that French knights happened to have 'run them down' when they decided that the smart thing to do was 'not' to engage without pavises.
I know, and the english are also mentioned to have set some kind of wagenburg formation to protect themselves with supply carts. Anyway it'd be cool to know how much does humidity and water actually affect bows and crossbows.
Tod has said that a crossbow of this weight would be roughly equivalent to a 70-80 lb bow in power. The Mary Rose bows that shot those arrows would be roughly twice as powerful on average. Arrow/bolt spine is less important on crossbows as they don't bend around anything and are braced up against the stock. In theory, the crossbow bolts could be much thinner than arrows shot from similar energy producing bows because they are so short, and therefore stiffer at a given thickness.
Hey Tod! Good point.
If you want a longer powerstroke on a crossbow with medieval technology, you have two options:
1) make the bow larger (then it would be like attaching a normal bow to the mechanism)
2) make the bow more curved (then the distance between bow and string would increase as well, which would be a lot of waste unless you turn the bow 180° and use all its length, but they didn't think that far back then)
A nice portion of information. As always.
A lot of Tods Stuff videos recently....not complaining.
I'd like to see Tod make some Han dynasty crossbows. Essentially the same draw weight as this crossbow, but with a power stroke that's similar to a recurve bow. I'd buy one of them in a heartbeat.
I just realized, that a lot of the work in experimental archaeology and HEMA is essentially reverse engineering historical "life hacks", the multitude if tips, tricks, and secrets we all use to get through our days without ever really thinking about them.
I think the mini documentaries is a great idea. Maybe you can discuss great historical duelist or famous duels. You can include discussion of the weapons and styles of fighting as well as surrounding political and or personal context. How about a video about Last of the Mohicans as well? Thanks for all the great videos, I appreciate your thoughtful approach and emphasis on historical research and context. Cheers.
If I do remember correctly Organic Bows/Composite bows had issue that they would lose their strenght in rain or in wet conditions and break.
"Swift way to give yourself... a Hernia" Actually my me chuckle. You CAN do it, but it really isn't worth it! Another great vid Mat. Thanks :)
Theres one more method of loading....You take a strong rope with "T" shaped handles of each end, then there are two hooks that are attached by a single pillar on each letting them slide easily up and down the rope. On the crossbow you'll have another round pillar behind the trigger nut..You start out by setting the rope behind the round pillar on the crossbow. Take a hook in each hand and push down until they connect on each side of the bow string and hook them on..You than grab each "T" shape handle on the ends of the rope. Put your foot in the stirrup and pull on the handles until the string gets set..Its basically making 3 pulley points to decrease the load your pulling up on..Easy and light
26:40 It was Crecy, not Agincourt.
Does Tod need an apprentice? If so, sign me up! :D
I *think* I read *somewhere* that the "fletchings" and crossbows are called flights. I honestly can't remember where I read it though, or if it was a good source. I like that name though.
I am surprised he didn't talk about Chinese crossbows when explaining power stroke. Chinese crossbows have their nut placed further back like a modern crossbow, which gives them a much larger power stroke. They don't have to be spanned with tools, but still are high powered thanks to the more bow like draw length. In fact most Chinese crossbows are really just a recurve bow tied horizontal on a plank with a trigger. They can be disassembled if you want to just use it as a typical bow. Should be noted I am not talking about repeating crossbows.
Your video is accurate and overall nicely done excluding one thing. There IS a recoil! Its simple physics that you refer to. Its not that strong as with guns but it still exists.
I think composite bows are more efficient at lower draw weights while steel bows are better was you get to the really powerful draw weights(1000pounds) as composite bows have to be made to thick to be efficient.
I'd like to hazard another guess as to the length of the draw/power stroke. I would posit that the reason for the short draw is faster reload. These are battlefield weapons, not hunting and target competition. How fast can I get volleys from my archers is important to a battlefield commander.
The analogy isn't great, but I think of firing lines with muskets. You need to know and take into account how fast your men can reload and be ready to fire.
For efficiency of the weapon it doesn't make much sense to have the short draw and I doubt there was enough bow breakage after a certain distance pull that everyone just decided to make their crossbows shorter draw. If it was that much of an issue they wouldn't have used them so prolifically imho.
Take it to units of men on a battlefield rather than the static measurement of the damage potential of a single weapon and it makes complete sense. Mechanical weapons have a rate of fire(or volley, or whatever the proper term is for crossbows)limited by the mechanics of the weapon. The only way to get shots off faster is to alter the mechanics of the weapon. With a short draw and that goat's foot thing a unit of crossbowmen can reload and be ready for another volley quickly. It's probably the shortest draw that could still do the job well.
Imho a weapon that would develop enough of a reputation for breakage that they'd almost standardize draw length across europe would be relegated to the bad idea bin before people figured out a "safe" draw distance and spread that information to all the crossbow makers. "This thing works, but it's too slow on the battlefield, can you make it better?" just seems more reasonable than "This thing breaks alot, but when it doesn't break it's great, can you fix that?"
Really wish we had some manuscripts on that, it's a really interesting quirk.
Let me know what you and Tod think about that theory if you have time. Thanx for the vid and have a good day boss. Peace
Here in the states typically dark horn on stuff like this is some kind of buffalo. I dunno what is common in Europe.
I love the "RPG" way of holding the crossbow ^^
Fantastic video. I learned a lot from it
The fletching is interesting. My first thought was that how would it fly straight with two vanes. Now I know.
What is the metal ring lever looking bit under the front of the stock? Is it a medieval bottle opener?
Philip, you are talking about the stirrup. I mean UNDER the front of the stock behind the stirrup when it is in the horizontal position.
He's not asking about the cocking stirrup. He's asking about the small lever looking thing under the stock near the prod. I'm also curious what that is.
The stirrup. How you load a crossbow. Prop it against the earth by the stirrup, prop the crossbow against your leg, operate the lever or another mechanism to span the bowstring (or pull the bowstring by your hands, if it's possible).
Thanks, Tod.
Looks like a ring you would tie a rope to it to carry it around on on your back.
You had me with emperor Maximilian.
But everything sounds better for someone from Innsbruck, if you say it's related to him.
Sadly, all I can do is live vicariously through you Matt! In Western Australia in 2011, the state government made all crossbows a prohibited weapon, because someone was murdered with one. That basically means you cannot be licensed to own one - you need an exemption letter from the police commissioner (impossible to get). I am a licensed firearm owner with several rifles, shotguns and bows in my possession, but I can't own a crossbow, antique, replica or modern. Even people who tried to get exemptions for their non-functional, 300 year old antiques had them destroyed by the police when the laws came in. The fine for being caught with one is $35,000 and up to 3 years prison. It is a sad state of affairs for historical enthusiasts.
Wow. That is totally ridiculous. The UK has some equally ridiculous laws, but here anybody over the age of 18 can buy a crossbow.
Wow - You all in Australia need to do a Mass Disobedience Movement, and all start manufacturing and carrying arms
Heh yeah... There is only 800,000 licensed firearm owners in Australia, most of us farmers. The rest of the 23 million Australians would just laugh at us and then completely legislate our weapons away from us. We have a couple of pro firearm lobbyists doing some rabble rousing, but they have almost no voice - the popular culture here is very much anti-firearm.
Crimmo877 That is sad....
Flechtings were made from paper, parchment, wood, feather and copper tinplate.
The only two sounds you hear a crossbow make are "Click&Thump"!!!
Medieval crossbows are not very quiet actually - they make quite a loud 'clunk' as they are shot. Certainly louder than longbows. Though of course quieter than firearms.
Maybe the longer draw length crossbows blew up, and we're left with the short ones.
If you look at flying arrows in slow-motion you can see them swinging or "wobbling" (wasn't sure about the right word for it) quite a bit. So ... do these short medieval bolts "wobble" too?
Is there a difference between a bolt and a quarrel?
I hope I can afford a collection of this stuff some day to show students. I plan to have "weapon of the week" quizes lol
18:47 shooting a crossbow like a bazooka or RPG... some things never change.
What about one thing - arrows are long and they flex a lot, thereby loosing much energy, especially during the start. While bolts are short and they don't flex. What do you think about it?
In fact for arrows this is necessary due to the "archer's paradox". The arrow needs to flex to clear around the bow, since the bowstring accelerates the arrow directly INTO the bow riser. While modern bows often have a shelf cut into the riser almost eliminating the issue, historical bows didn't. The way this issue is solved is by having the exact amount of elasticity in the arrows shaft that makes them oscillate around the bow as the arrow is accelerated. A mismatched arrow, too stiff or too flexible, will hit the bow on it's way out throwing your aim sideways. While modern bows almost eliminate the issue, it's still considered an important thing for improved accuracy to have just the right arrow stiffness - which is affected by shaft thickness, material, length and the weight of the arrow tip, among other things, making it a somewhat complex quantity to predict without measuring.
oooouh that's beautiful!
Can there anything be said about the range at which the armor would be tested for being bullet-/boltproof? Was it point blank?
Range makes surprisingly little difference to penetration. Arrows drop to the ground due to gravity before losing much velocity. But I would imagine the tests were done very close, as they were done by armourers in workshops.
Ladies, find you a man that looks at you like Matt looks at TodsStuff
How do the masses of the crossbow bolt and longbow arrow compare? While the crossbow bolt is shorter in the shaft, there looks to be much more metal in the tip.
i need someone who looks at me like matt looks at that crossbow
What about latchet-loaded crossbows and the screw jack mechanism that is used to load balestrinos? How prevalent were these methods? Are these, in combination with the five methods already listed, a comprehensive list of crossbow loading mechanisms?
I guess the chu-ko-nu also represents yet another kind of mechanism and one that only works at very low draw weights.
doesn't bolt fall off when aiming down?
Yes actually. They have a type of clip added sometimes to prevent that.
You can also lightly hold the bolt in place by placing your thumb on the butt while firing. Todd shows this in several of his videos
I wonder if these crossbows have been used mostly for fighting or hunting
if it's not made of feather, they're called vanes, at least nowadays, not sure historically.
Has scholagladiatoria become the Todd's stuff appreciation society?
Err: wet crossbows was Crecy not Azincourt.
Correct; my error.
12:27 come on man, you know what you said XD. You knew we would catch on
did the bows ever snap when people would try to load a crossbow, did you have to looks after them like you would with a bow string: eg beeswax for the bowstring
Why have a stirrup if the lever is used?
What is the metal piece underneath the front side? not the styrup, but on the underside. where your left hand is in the very end of the video.
Surely draw length speeds loading?
Did "sights" or something similar exist for crossbows ?
what about weight for steel vs organic bows?
Could a horn bow be made as effective as the one in the vid with bronze or brass components? (the actual bow part being the wood-horn-sinew type, just to be clear).
Uugh! I want one so incredibly badly. :D
Hey can you review a crossbow from Iolo.
it antler or bone strong enough to hold the 1000 pound bow?
Yes, but does it shoot pommels?
I thought that one would put the stock under the arm, rather than pressing it against the shoulder, judging by its shape. The one thing I don't get is, why they made these huge levers as trigger. Sure, the mechanism is quite far out, but if you tuck it under the arm, you wouldn't need such a long lever. Doing so, would make aiming even harder though.
I tink for force, when the bow is loaded, there is that full 350pounds of force on the mechanisme, I think you need some force to losen it, achieved via a longer leaver.
You see them fired, quite often, with the butt actually resting on top of the shoulder. No idea if that's historically accurate and it seems like an odd way to do it, but you're right, the stock really doesn't look that comfortable to shoulder.
EDIT: Just got to the bit where Matt shows the on-top-of-the-shoulder method, so never mind
Splinter5570
This is more a design and materials problem. Sure, it won't be like a pistol trigger with medieval technology, but a much shorter lever would be possible.
*****
How would you hold such a crossbow to aim?
PS: If I had some money to spare, I'd buy one of your crossbows. They look awesome.
The string is also not held under constant pressure, if anything constant tension, and that's not even true 'cause it would go through cycles.
12:28 How Lewd! Knights would be jealous of a Genoese power stroke! ;)
I thought that a 'prodd' was a crossbow optimised to shoot stones and/or bullets.
?
Nothing to stop the bolt falling out if you point it down?
If you're shooting from atop of the wall of a fortress down at attackers
Is there a meaningful difference between the terms "quarrel" and "bolt", or are they basically interchangeable?
Also, goat's foot works best with a short stroke, and is much faster than a winch. Definitely the answer here... I think?
Nice Video. But a little side question. Isn´t the draw weigth of bows normally measured at 28 inch draw distance? And so the weight of Crossbows also at a fixed values?
And I got a bigger more complex question since a while, concerning early pistols and other late medieval. I hope I formulate it understandable. All early European distance weapons, e.g. bows, crossbows, slings but also siege weapons like catapults and ballistas, all of them threw projectiles. Firearms on the contrary shoots a projectile more or less like blowpipe. So how did the Europeans had the idea to build rifles when they had gunpowder instead of just using it to build bombs, which I would do, if I never have seen a gun only bows and so on, but got this new powder that explodes when it got ignited.
Canons is the answer.
FIrst canon was more like a reusable bomb, a short barrel (very short) fully stuffed with powder was rolled up to a door and then fired, a directed bomb so to say, to blast the door open.
Well defenders on the wall discouraging the canon crew might have given one of those mens the idea, of lets stick a stone in the end and stand back a bit further and see of the door breaks that way.
et voila evolution of the canon.
from canons to muskets is a step that is understandable I assume
Yeah that sounds logic.
just make the canon lighter so that only one man can carry it and you have more or less a archebuse.
it is well know that first muskets and arquebuses were build with small gun carriages...
It was in Crecy. The failure of the geonese crossbowmen was cause the rain moist the cord of their weapons. English archers simply uncord their bows and put the cord under their hats. Cheers.
For your next Christmas video, you definitely must explain to your wife the differences between long and short power strokes:)
How were crossbows usually carried on the March? Were they just held in the hand like muskets or was there some sort of sling?
That is an incredible piece of craftsmanship! Also, Wolf Hall is a great novel. Haven't seen the series. Anyway...do you know why the bow is angled downwards on crossbows? I saw Tod point that out on one of his videos but he didn't say why.
It's so the string can run along the top of the stock, but the arrow can still pass over the top of the bow, if that makes sense as an explanation.
How difficult is to make bolts/arrows? Looks hard and time consuming to waste it all on one shot
is that a pistol or a revolver?
probably mentioned a thousand times, but that was crecy with the wet crossbows..
Wheeelp, now I REALLY need somebody to give me 1800 pounds so I can buy one of these sweet babies.
Hrm...
10 months left until Christmas. You think north pole elves make crossbows in the toy workshop? I haven't been naughty yet this year...
Hey matt what would you say would be an effective range for a crossbow like this?
how does a replica like this compare to a modern hunting crossbow?
Does any of these historical crossbows have sights like those on firearms??
Not that I am aware of, though the bullet bows that you can see demonstrated on Tod's own channel did have sights.
Did archers use 350lbs crossbows in war?
Was it common for medieval archers to use 350lbs crossbows in battle?
Are there any examples of crossbows with the goat's foot lever permanently attached to the stock? You see crossbows like that fairly often in video games. I wonder if those really existed or it's just something in the games to make the crossbow shooting/reloading animation quicker.