In addition to adding weight, the lead prevents the dart from completely passing through the target. Meaning that to remove it, you *have* to pull it out the way it came. And while there were techniques for doing it without letting the barbs engage, it wasn't something you could do on a battlefield. So if you got stuck with one, it's in you, bouncing around until you stop moving.
@@stevexl7747 Probably possible to wiggle the whole thing apart, but when it's stuck in your leg? Not that that level of masochism wouldn't be found in your average legionary, but OWWWWWW! I'd think initial first aid would have been to strap it down so it didn't move.
@@andrewtinker7537 I'd agree with that. Getting a mate to sort you out quickly would be the best job so 1 dart takes out 2 soldiers.... If it hit a limb the tip may be through and out the other side so snap off tip at lead and pull through. If embedded then you have to strap it up quick for now and extract in reverse later.
@@stevexl7747 and remember you have a boatload of Roman Legionnaires 30-40 meters from you, eagerly wanting to poke you with sharp objects.... you wont be doing anything quickly :)
I am not a historian, but I imagine these maybe an 'accuracy by volume' weapon. Fairly easy to make, give all of your legionnaires a handful and basic practice, then have them lob a volley an incoming enemies.
probably does not get much outright kills right away but i doubt anyone could fight effectively with one of those in them, plus it adds to the *flinch* factor before the lines crash together.
@@MusMasi Maybe they used it on cavilary charge ? I can imagine horses turning around with these things easily sticking onto them. Also seems like a great ambush weapon when thrown from above or used for defending catwalks on garrison walls since it seems it cant be thrown far away like spears or slings.
I am not a historian, but I imagine these maybe an 'accuracy by volume' weapon. Fairly easy to make, give all of your legionnaires a handful and basic practice, then have them lob a volley an incoming enemies.
As a Dungeons and Dragons player, I've always wondered how "Darts" were used in medieval combat. In the past, I've always just went with the suspend your disbelief route and went with it. Now I can completely picture in my mind how it goes when using these implements of war.
They were many used as a skirmish weapon that would distract the oncoming enemy! The skirmish lines behind the sword/spear shielded troops would toss these high in the air forcing the opponent to raise its shields! The front line would then attack those with raised shields to devastating effect!
About 10 years ago I watched a group of a dozen Roman reenactors at Arbeia Roman Fort (South Shields) demonstrating these thrown en masse. They threw them underarm up high into the air , and let them rain down on a target area marked on the grass about 3 m diameter, something like 20m away from their line. Result : roughly 50 plumbarta inside the circle in about 20 seconds.
From everything I have read, that's how they where used historical. Also they had a handle for throwing above the fletches. The entire cohort would through at the same time when ordered.
Lever extender devices tend to work better with light objects, so if it was tested that a javelin could get 50% more range from using one, then the range of a dart could easily double, and in modern atlatl competitions you can see shots well over 200m so serious distances are possible. Of course, there's a drawback to everything, you can probably throw five more darts by hand in the time you'd need to set up a new dart in the device.
Same thought here...we got bored with the "horseshoes" approach and would set the circle target on the other side of the house and throw the "jarts" over the roof. Ridiculously dangerous!! But we at least had one person blocking the back doorway so our mother would not mistakenly come outside.
@@marz6770 No that's basically it too. Or for one of the games, everyone stands grouped in a circle and one person lobs the dart straight up. The last person to move wins.
Should make a test on how much these things do against something with thick clothes on first^^ and then see how to improve them- i doubt they would actually do alot against even thick clothing.
When we were 16 - 18 years old we used to throw around a toy called a nerf vortex at the school playing field. It is basically a cushioned throwing dart. We were commonly able to reach distances of about 50 meters and one guy was even able to throw them a whopping 60 meters. So to me it is absolutely clear that a throwing dart with a steel point thrown by someone who is strong and spends some time practicing is an absolutely fearsome weapon! Edit: This was only possible with overhand throws. Anything else just does not work.
I messed around with tying a string near the end and using that to sling it. I was a very weak 11 year old and was able to easily throw it about 50 meters with just a little practice
The American grenade was designed to be as close to a baseball as possible because every American soldier would have experience with it, and some would be excellent at throwing it. I wonder how far these could be thrown if they had a slightly larger led weight that you could grab and throw more effectively. Overhand throwing is very unnatural but once you learn to do it you gain certain benefits from leverage. So I would expect the roman would plan for underhand, but I imagine if it were sized to be gripped in the hand and thrown like that vortex or a baseball that would straighten out, it could be thrown really far and pretty accurately. Might still make more sense to try for a more natural underhand throw because of armor and shield and all the other things, but I wonder if they could be maximized.
Honestly I thought more of Blow Gun type Darts, not sure which it is but this is pretty interesting. Loved D&D surprised to see it having a resurgence.
@@SlayerofFiction It’s always been popular, it’s only now that the dumbed down 5e is getting picked up by every soyboy on UA-cam are the normies finally noticing it.
I was going to post the exact same comment. Glad I found yours. (Definitelly going to have some fun with them now that I know what to expect/describe.)
Me: "Hmm, it feels like these angles are rather restrictive, why do we not have a shot from the other side of the field?" Tod: "Oh Dear, Oh Dear, Oh Dear....I believe I've hit my camera..." Me: "Ohhhhhhhh"
Yes it was damn annoying on the losing a camera front, but also the footage. Hitting the circuit board corrupted what would have been an excellent shot!
@@SilvaDreams lol from how they treated the plywood, idk if a plexiglass protection would have saved it. you know what, you are right, it would have helped it glance off a bit, so it wouldn't have hit the camera. i think it would still be done with a dead on shot though
I liked using these things in early versions of D&D when I could talk my DM into letting me use them. It let my swordsmen have a ranged option without having to carry a golf bag sized quiver of javlins or have to fiddle with taking a shield off to mess with a bow.
I was thinking D&D when I saw these too and was wondering if these were what they were actually referring to when listing "darts" as a weapon. Most people seem to assume the darts in the recent versions of the game are normal throwing darts or basically replace them with the Japanese shuriken but this seems a lot more brutal and representative of the 1d4 damage they do (since it is equivalent to the damage of a dagger).
Shiriken are used similarly as distraction so for me replacing is okey. And I remember one nice thing in ad&d 2ed you can throw serval darts in atack, not like in 3-5 e when one you can use only one per atack.
@@windsgrace688 when we played 2nd edition D&D we assumed Darts, Barbed were the same as Plumbata as the Barbed Darts were listed as piercing and weighed 5lbs doing 1d4 against small and large-sized creatures. Where-as Darts weighing 1/2 pound doing 1d3 against small and 1d2 against large creatures were more like a large playing dart which use was more in line with applying poison to. Then there is the barbed dart and needles used in a blowpipe. Shuriken weighed 1lbs doing 1d4 against small and large creatures, we went along with the rule book for ease of play as a shuriken doing the same damage as a heavy dart seemed a bit of a stretch, but hey it's a game after all and if you can fry some-one with a fireball whats reality got to do with it anyway, it's all good fun, why argue about something so trivial.
That is a nice little terror weapon for the enemy. Along side the sling-shots, the javelins and the arrows, the battlefield must have felt like walking into a hail-storm.
Hello Todd ! Just wanted to thank you for making these videos not only entertaining and instructive but also so accessible. I love your subject material and the down-to-earth way you treat them, but as a foreign guy who does not have English as a first language, the combination of (extremely) welcome subtitles checked by a human, and your clear and patient elocution really allow me to fully understand and enjoy these videos and the topic you tackle. Big shout-out here, and I'm impatiently waiting for the next instalment !
When throwing overhand you should throw them like a throwing knife: hold the back end of the dart in your palm with index finger pointing down the shaft. When throwing it try to empart as little spin on the dart when releasing it. That should get it it fly more straight and a more even trajectory
One theory I heard is that it is the second and third row of legionaries that throws them.They throw them in a high, steep arch right before impact with the enemy. So an enemy combatant in the front line has the choice of either raising the shield and opening up his legs and lower torso to the first row of legionaries, but protecting against the plumbata or ignoring the plumbata and risk being injured by one. Either way the first impact of the enemy infantry is lessend.
I was thinking the same, now you could make the argument that the soldiers behind should protect first rank with raising shields and so on But if you charging or are being charged the first thing that will happen is that you will be "squished" between the rank in front and behind you and having your shield stuck above your head is suboptimal in a massive sword fight so it is plausible that they were used as you described.
@@ognjenbegicevic6298 according to the strategikon of maurice (written in 590), all the ranks except the first two would be throwing plumbata (the first two would be forming a tight shield formation similar to the testudo) throughout the fight, except against cavalry where the 3rd rank would join the first 2 as part of the shield formation. formations could be between 4 and 16 ranks deep in this period, so thats 2-14 ranks throughing these war darts overhead at the enemy.
@@matthiuskoenig3378 I can imagine that it would be realy effective against "untrained" opponents that are charging. Just imagining being in first ranks and before you even make contact you start hearing screaming behind you . Gives me the chills.
You can really see why they'd wait until the absolute last second to throw them too to minimize the time the enemy has to pick up the darts and start throwing them back - since it looks like unless they get stuck in a person or deep in the ground, it would be trivial to send them right back
@@chanman819 treatises from the early centuries say they threw them from back ranks over the front line as the battle was fought, well after the shields are met... capable of hitting an enemys back line with plunging fire, without hitting their own men @Tod i would think they used a wider fletching, like a lawn dart. You throw them real high, more up than out, and they plunge strait down. Ideally theyd train like horseshoes, by hitting a ring on the ground. Lawn darts remained a fun game in the states until they were outlawed. The blunt tips still penetrated flesh and the game had too many fatal accidents, but you can reasonably hit within a 1/2 meter target at 15 meters with a few days training😀 Think of it like tossing a grappling hook, youd be able to get the throw practiced to be above the wall, but not over the edge of tge ramparts. I think youd want the fletching to be wide and behind the weight, and a bit extra to be a handle behind... again like lawn darts... because it gives alot more accuracy and control to the throw
I'm not a historian but I can imagine using these while enemy shields are above their heads protecting them from an archery fire. Plumbata was probably very effective against unarmoured enemy and their horses. This is basically a short range arrow useful in woods where archery has no much of significance.
Yes! Its lightweight and ease of use makes it a great harassment tool. But I think it might have been more useful against clumps of enemies advancing. A sort of suppressing fire if you will. Later when plate armour was a thing. English longbowmen managed to win not by killing power. But by the sheer volume of percussive bolts coming your way and completely battering you. The killing power of projectile weapons became so powerful eventually. That heavy armoured elites like knights became uneconomical compared to massed volleys of gunpowder fire. You saw the same dynamic in Japan were massed peasant troops like Ashigaru came to be more effective than Samurai. Especially with gunpowder weapons. Armour wasn't made obsolete as people might think but just too damn expensive. Especially when its made ineffective after just one fight against muskets. I think the plumbata followed a similar trajectory of cheapness and volume over power.
Pilum, viking throw spear, we already saw those fletched spear thingies. But didn't they have like normal spears for throwing in mid medival? And difference between normal(war) and boar(hunting) spears. And tod if you Read this, after corona i am definitely gonna order your 1500 messer, as fishing/bush utility tool. So don't die from Corona
a staff sling onager could have been able to do that. According to Ammianus Marcellinus writings onagers were also used to launch arrow-shaped missiles
@@errantstar cool!! Do we actually know they were using these things on battle fields? Like they had pilum for that Surely they were used to throw down from fortifications! From 5 meters up they must have been terrifying with those weights!!
When you were doing the argument about the speed throwing, I had the feeling that quantity, was a factor, and it seems that gravity would be doing most of the work, so I wonder... could you throw a group of them at once? And if you did, what would the spread be like? Why even go for accuracy? The darts are small enough that you could carry a good quantity of them, and just saturate the field with what amounts to a shotgun/multi shot approach. If you can, say, have every soldier on the first couple ranks just launch a couple hand fulls of 5 darts at the right time, that might be more effective than trying to aim them.
I had the same thought. The main challenges then would be (1) separating them in the air so that they don't interfere with each other too much, and (2) gauging the horizontal distance right, which is the basic challenge of any weapon. I could also see a handful of guys who were really accurate joining in the charge and trying for enemy legs. Getting a stumble at the right moment could be a big deal for a couple of your buddies.
I feel they probably wouldn't have done this for two reasons: 1. throwing several darts at a time increases the chance of something going wrong and hitting your own men, and 2. if your aim is mainly to distract your enemy and break up their formation, rather than to hurt or kill them, you can achieve this just as well by throwing them one-at-a-time.
Same thought. Considering a century or two lining up to receive a charge, what if wach legionary the rear line tossed handfuls of these up in the air, letting them rain down on the oncoming enemy. Could seriously disrupt a charge
Reckon as with any pointed launched projectiles be it dart, spear, or arrow... accuracy & target penetration best insures that they will not be launched back @ you by the enemy. Distance for the dart might be well served by a single knot ended string of the dart's same length; and slung like a common sling by the slingers.
There was a battle in the Peloponnesian War, I think called the Battle of Pylos (it took place on a small island called Pylos), where the Athenian darters were the decisive element for beating a Spartan detachment. The Athenians had chased the Spartans up onto a hill and the darters came out and unleashed on the Spartans until they couldn't fight anymore. Thucydides talks about it.
Javelins, those. And it was the battle of Sphacteria (Pylos was the preceding naval scrap). A javelin penetrates with far greater force. The Athenians, by the way, also had overwhelming numbers.
Like a Shuriken, a big problem is: When you miss, It will likely be coming back at you soon. That doesn’t happen so much with many other kinds of projectiles.
HI Adam, Sorry just saw this and great to see you here - thanks for popping in. I saw you messed around with them a while back and if you want, once Jorg has messed about with them, I could send them over to you if there is anything left to send....Drop me an email if you would like to.
@@tods_workshop Hey Tod, thank you we are actually going to make some of our own its really been some time i threw them i would love to make like historical version and one maybe more modern for really practical throwing, but for any case or collab (we should do some) adamceladin@seznam.cz Cheers brother, take care out there
They seem awfully expensive and elaborate to drop off a battlement, to me. Big rocks or rough metal spikes might be just as effective in that tactic and very cheap :)
At West Point Museum there is an exhibit of items from the air war from World War One. In there is a metal dart which was thrown from planes before they started dropping bombs. Like the bucket from a siege they would have dropped these darts in mass and the idea was revived during the Korean War where the darts were capable of cracking an engine block.
@@schizoidboy the good ol Flechette. My favorite design actually comes from the Vietnam war, though it pushes the definition of dart quite a ways, the lazy dog bomb. Just a hefty cartoon bomb shaped chunk of solid, slight pointed steel they would be dropped en masse and apparently the results were pretty gruesome
I feel like I have to warn you, Todd... I LOVE your semi-scientific videos, period. I feel like you are very aware of your own biases. All of that said, I have never seen a channel featuring a non-scientist which actually managed to maintain that for more than a couple of years. Please stay who you are and keep checking yourself properly! I would really love for you to be the only channel with this kind of content that I have ever stayed subscribed to!
Imagine you're just about to hit the enemy line, and every other roman is throwing these high up in the air to fall down on them, all the while (maybe a split second later) the other half of the roman line are chucking these straight forwards. It would cause chaos.
Against completely unarmored Gauls and Celts, this is yet another reason that the arms, armor and training of the Romans made them nearly unstoppable for a time.
Imagine a third throwing up in the air, a third throwing at your face and a third throwing pilum! The first rows of an opposing army would bearly be able to function!
@@ChadRazorback same here. I would shoot arrows into the air all afternoon, and juggled knives as well. I have no idea how I survived. Or how I don't have any more scars. Proof we're tougher than we look, I suppose.
i had lawn darts as a kid and never had a issue with them. that said a kid i was at school with nearly killed his dad with one. the guy supposedly needed surgery to fix the damage he did.
@@tods_workshop if these are could be meant to just fill the air with a last bit of danger before clashing, and accuracy isn't that important, how hard would it be to throw several at once, since it seems 3 fit in your hand just fine on camera
The British Roman reenactment group Commitatus used these both on foot and mounted, and had some impressive results, throwing underhand, overhand and a sidearm throw at close range. Being on the receiving end of a blunt dart launched from a rider at a canter was apparently quite the terror.
I started watching your content simply because it’s accessible as you have actual closed captioning! Thank you (to whoever did the editing, unless that’s you Tod).
JARTS! Funnily enough, none of us were ever injured with these. Dirt clods, corncobs, blackwalnuts , tomato's, oh God yes. Lawn darts, no. I cant really say we had more sense than other kids (we were farm kids) but WTH can't modern kids seem to no impale each other that they cant be trusted with such things?
If I remember correctly, the Greeks also could use a sling to get these darts to greater heights, distances, and could possibly penetrate wicker shields, like many Persians had (my speculation). Also, I think the Romans also used some slings for pila, which I'd assume would be used by dedicated skirmishers, and we can imagine the slings allowed the pila to glide over a Roman formation, or over their layered fortifications. Now, when I imagine the Battle of Thermopylae, I imagine the Persian army getting pelted by these, stones, arrows, and javelins as soon as they rounded that corner. The phalangites there had been training for weeks w the picked Spartan royal guard, and could maneuver back and forth, and they had rebuilt a wall to stand behind the phalanx, a perfect place to hurl these missiles. One can imagine the Persians and their allies had to stop the combat whenever the bodies mounted too high: or else you can imagine men stumbling over the dead, further making them vulnerable to missiles, and if they survived, their loss of cohesion would stand no chance against the mighty wall of hoplite. Not that they stood a chance even with their cohesion, as the Greeks, as I hinted, must have cycled their troops. There were thousands of Greek combatants, and they only needed one phalanx at a time (300 men) to hold that point at any given time. On the advance to the narrowest point: Herdotus writes the width as "two chariots wide". Cheers!
@@stephenlyon1358 and with the Greek phalanxes and sarissa phalanxes I speculate they would have pulled forward their spears and pikes if any broke further up. Even in the pitch of combat I don't think it would be that hard to simply grab the spear or pike of your man behind you, and he the man behind him, and the less combat savvy would be in the rear to pass up extra spears/pikes when necessary. It may not work for the front rank, who might need to simply push with their shield and let the second rank do the killing, but definitely in a lull, it would be advantageous to keep the enemy at bay before they can close in mingling distance again. It's also written in Herodotus explicitly that the Greek's final stand at Thermopylae included them breaking or losing all or most of their spears, and presumably most of their swords (or they were dulled to be much less lethal), and their shields battered/broken as well (or bent too much to carry). So if that were true, then it wouldn't really make too much sense or be very efficacious if the last ranks didn't offer their spears to the front ranks who had lost all theirs. Those spears would've done no good idle in the back/center.
Also worth considering that in a tight infantry formation, troops likely wouldn't have the space in front of them for an underhand throw. Overhand makes way more sense considering that fact unless you're in the foremost line.
I have heard in a video of British reanactors that the plumbata would actually be thrown into the sky. This was done when running towards the enemy, in combination with throwing the pila. When there are pila comming from you front and plumbata from the sky you won't know where to hold your shield, causing more casualties and I presume more panic.
there is an argument for adding a layer of pigskin because skin is tougher than muscle. Alot of the gun channels when testing ammunition would use a pig skin, pork rib and a pig heart layered togeather. Often with a few layers of denim to represent heavy clothing. That being said I have no trouble believing that this would sink up to the lead weight, possibly more given the dimensions of the head and how flesh stretches.
I too played a lot with lawn darts back in the day! I remember once we tried to go for distance and someone sent a dart over into the second neighbour's yard, right into is brand new above ground swimming pool....made quite a mess of his lawn!!!
@@wwmoggy no, it's usually just the usual small group of people who go around disliking videos just because they can. Likes and dislike ratios don't actually matter.
They can be thrown by a yoke stick kinda like the goat's foot, that would be the martial secret that isn't disclosed in drawings. Shorten the fletchings to the last 1/3rd of what you have and put a knob behind them on the shaft. Lawn darts. Another way to throw them, still with only 1/3rd the length of fletching, is to place them across your palm with your hand angled so the side of your hand with your thumb is lined up with your forearm bones. Lay the weight just behind the tips of your index and ring fingers and stand with your non-throwing side towards the target. Palm up with arm across to opposite side, place in palm. spin arm down around and up and then release by letting your thumb and fingertips relax. It's like a backhand throw. Just let it slip out. You should be able to get about 55-65m with the windmill and about 38-45m with the backhand fling. Your "rate of fire" with the backhand, thrown literally from a series of tubes bandolier, can be as high as 5 in 4 seconds. They are *actually* for hunting small game.
@@matthiuskoenig3378 I don't believe that was what he was saying, Matt - I took it to be an 'origins' comment, rather like the fauchard derived from the agricultural scythe/bill.
I looked at this and thought "Surely that would be better with a launcher - a bit like an atlatl or your dog's tennis ball thrower". Great video! Those combined with caltrops must have been great fun...
So playing on the idea of it being a harassing weapon to slow down an enemy charge and to distract them for a moment, would it stand to reason in order to get as many out as possible they may have thrown 2-3 at a time? Just getting as many into the air in a short amount of time as possible. You loose accuracy and some distance but then you are getting into the territory of "accuracy by volume"
Can you imagine the effect they would have if they were loaded into a catipult 2 dozen at a time and launched over the enimy line at a high arch , dozens of small sharp projectiles that's hard to see raining down on them , even if they missed the head but contacted an arm or leg would effectively slow them down .
It's a cool idea, but I think maybe catapults would have to be close to the enemy for it to be effective, which isn't great, since it makes them easier targets. I'm not an expert; that's just my intuition. But if you could maybe bundle the darts in a way that they travelled a long ways in a bunch together (getting longer range), then split in the air into separate darts, that might be more effective? Again, it's just guessing. You have a great idea overall. Definitely would be fun to test out.
I know it would take more than a couple dozen but a few catipults launching that many each time would result in a lot of down range projectiles , I suspect you would probably get more range from a catipult than just throwing them plus the highth would give them a chance to stabilize and fall straight without tumbling, it was just a thought , besides this would be a way to slow or district the enimy.
A better option I feel would be placing a bundle of them in a sort of cup and wadding, similar to how a shotgun works and using a scorpion or other type of ballista to propel them forward.
As for speed, I have a theory that multiple were thrown at the same time. Kind of like a shotgun of barbed darts. Doesn't seem like it would be too difficult. Toss 2-5 of them underhand quickly at the enemy charge and draw your primary weapon.
Seems possible but they might not be as effective. Knocking into each other during fligjt causing them to loose some speed. Think a wobbling football compared to one with a perfect spin.
Thank you. Apart from learning something new, I have now a new idea of what I could throw at my Players in one of our next sessions. Well, just to stay clear, at their characters.
So what you're saying is that they are for against light infantry because most of the time they have only a weapon and if lucky some kind of small wooden shield that's only good for deflecting sword blows, not ranged projectiles...
I don't know. If you think about it the skirmishers fought the skirmishers of the enemy. (Your heavy troops cannot engage against enemy light troops. They would just fall back behind their own heavy troops.) You would want a long range weapon for that kind of fight, like a sling, bow or javelin at least. I think heavys used the weapon right before the engagement, so it is used in a fight heavy vs heavy. Maybe cavalry used the weapon too, I dont know for the roman war darts, but cavalry in Asia used war darts. They even use it untill today in sports, ua-cam.com/video/k9ojU-PpfKY/v-deo.html . I don't think it was a weapon against light troops, simply because you were not in range of them with that weapon.
In those times not everyone was armored. Imagine a slave uprising and a legionare using this as we now use watercannons against riots, the bloody kind.
Go check out watts unique, he made a scary "lightning" ballista. It will throw a 600gram bolt 1000m, and pin a barbarian warchief to his horse at over 500m. It will also throw a 2.5kg soft lead glandes over 250m. Scary machine!
@@TheChiconspiracy ? Did you mean to reply to me? The lead glandes was apparently the preferred anti riot load, though what happens to a person hit by 2.5kg of soft lead at 50+m/s is not likely survivable.
right? making those fins wider like a lawn dart would make the throwing characteristics much better. my guess is that this design allowed for scavenged fletching, from broken or extra arrows found on the battlefield, to be refitted with these war dart heads. If the fins on the dart are made unusable, it would be much quicker and simpler to repurpose arrow fletching than to fashion new ones.
My first thought is that these would have been an excellent way for small infantry units to deter attacks by cavalry. Get one of those barbs stuck into horseflesh with the bouncing weight causing the tip to cut around in the muscle as the animal moves. The pain would be maddening and the horse will probably throw his rider and disrupt others nearby. A unit of only 20 men could probably have 60 darts in the air in seconds with a little practice and a horse and rider are a big target.
I feel like the stabilization really depends on the fletching design. I have made a few with a short length but a lot of height that stabilize with an overhand throw after a few meters
And throw it with as fast spin as possible. The faster it spins the more drag the vanes generate an the quicker it stabilizes. The whole idea is to use the shaft as a sling lever.
There was a lawn game we use to play that involved plastic weighted darts, similar to these. The goal was to toss them into a small circular ring, at a set distance away. It was easy to get the darts to fly incredible distances with little effort, but you needed to know how to hold them when you throw, and the trajectory when released was a pretty flat arc; you were not holding them correctly. After some children began suffering accidents from impalements, the darts were banned in most states. They didn't have a sharp tip, but it didn't take much effort to injure someone.
My contribution: skin makes a noticeable difference on "meat" resistance, as does clothing. I suggest doing penetration tests on meat with skin and some kind of clothing.
Yes. I’ve seen firearm ballistic testing according to the FBI protocols, and I’ve been instructed that the first three inches of ballistic gel accounts for the skin alone.
I guess you've probably thought of this yourself after the throwing better than expected incident, but maybe something like plexiglass or another transparent material that is often used to shield cameras from flying shrapnell during explosion testing could be worth having around. If you're going to test things like armour and get a glancing hit followed by the arrow being deflected to a camera that wouldn't be great either. Nasty little darts btw, wrapping the meat in some clothes could be interesting as well to observe if it behaves the same as normal arrows/bolts (fast + low mass) compared to slower with higher mass with these darts.
Nice work Tod. Regarding throwing technique: When I was a young athlete I threw the Javelin with my pointer finger wrapped around the end of the grip (as most people do) and used my finger to make the Javelin spin. Similar to what you seemed to be doing naturally with your overhand throw. Unfortunately spin does not seem to suit a fletched projectile. One day the Australian champion was training at our club and my coach asked him to give me a lesson :) He used a different grip which did not cause the Javelin to spin and would probably suit the plumbata. Basically if we put our pointer finger and middle finger on either side of the plumb (lumpy metal bit) we can keep our wrist cocked back and flick the wrist forward at the end of the throw. I never got good at it but it obviously worked for him.
I can bury a playing dart into an oak tree, all the way up to the grip, at 20 feet away. Former baseball player I’ll bet with good training a hard overhand throw would be absolutely devastating!
They'd be pretty heavy as well. They'd be as heavy as chucking a stone at someone. I doubt you'd get through chainmail/ shields with these things, but you'd still damn well hurt/bruise someone if they hit. And if you do hit an unarmoured spot, yeah, don't want to be the unlucky SOB who get's skewered in the neck/face.
I used to be part of a late Roman re-enactment group we used plumbata all the time in demonstrations, they are nasty little thing's, we used to throw them high as to rain down on the the enemy we had rubber ended ones for combat, they would hit everywhere including your feet! A late Roman legion would have around 500 men, each would carry usually 4 plumbata held in their shield, they would also carry a few javalins, an Angon or Spiculum (late version of the pilum) and perhaps a throw in axe, the point was, for each legion they threw around 2500 sharp missiles at the enemy, even if they didn't hit marching through the hedge of javalins Spiculum, and plumbata was a nightmare. Good video I enjoyed it.
Thinking about tactics. How possible is it to throw 2 or 3 of them at a time with the underhand high lob? Maybe you get a line of guys each throwing a handful of plumbata underhand so they rain down on the advancing enemy from overhead. If they've got shields, they're probably going to raise them over their heads to protect from the hail of barbs. That's when your second line steps up to hit them with the pila. It would take a bit of coordination to nail an effective one-two punch like that, but then again the Roman unit training was pretty legendary.
They’re like ancient Jarts. No wonder they took them off the market. I don’t for the life of me know as children how we didn’t get a Jart embedded in someone’s skull.
i can see them being used when in a pile and the rear troops lob them over to the enemy mid to rear troops while waiting to get in to the front line action. But is it not also possible they could have use them in a miniature atleatle configuration as well?
I could see a Roman formation with a mixed unit of skirmishers throwing these and the 2nd line legionaires throwing pilum. Forces the enemy to bunch up, get distracted, and take some moral/shock damage before the lines clash.
1970's toy company executive: "I've got an idea, lets turn a Roman weapon of war into a fun lawn game!"
Well you have just described the Olympics......
Actually... probably said "I've heard the Romans played a game...."
ye retrospect you've got to wonder what they had been drinking :)
@@tommyfred6180 or eating... or smoking. Or some sadist said "This will thin out the heard... Darwin theory in practice... 3...2...1... GO!"
Lawn darts were safe until someone decides that they need to stick into hard soil like compacted silt.
In addition to adding weight, the lead prevents the dart from completely passing through the target. Meaning that to remove it, you *have* to pull it out the way it came. And while there were techniques for doing it without letting the barbs engage, it wasn't something you could do on a battlefield.
So if you got stuck with one, it's in you, bouncing around until you stop moving.
I think the softness of the lead means you could wiggle the bladed tip lose from the lead and tail if you wanted.
@@stevexl7747 Probably possible to wiggle the whole thing apart, but when it's stuck in your leg? Not that that level of masochism wouldn't be found in your average legionary, but OWWWWWW! I'd think initial first aid would have been to strap it down so it didn't move.
@@andrewtinker7537 I'd agree with that. Getting a mate to sort you out quickly would be the best job so 1 dart takes out 2 soldiers.... If it hit a limb the tip may be through and out the other side so snap off tip at lead and pull through. If embedded then you have to strap it up quick for now and extract in reverse later.
@@stevexl7747 and remember you have a boatload of Roman Legionnaires 30-40 meters from you, eagerly wanting to poke you with sharp objects.... you wont be doing anything quickly :)
Bouncing around and causing more damage. Just like a broad head arrow.
Being old enough to have played with lawn darts, I totally believe these are terrifying weapons of ancient warfare.
Pffft, terrifying? Dodging lawn darts was just another Tuesday after school activity. Lol, good times.
Lawn darts were great.
good times , mum wouldnt let us play with them , so i played with a mates set ua-cam.com/video/khHzGqgO2Bw/v-deo.html
Is the difference the size of the flights / flites? I recall the lawn darts going further and plunging more vertical
That's precisely what I was thinking.
I am not a historian, but I imagine these maybe an 'accuracy by volume' weapon. Fairly easy to make, give all of your legionnaires a handful and basic practice, then have them lob a volley an incoming enemies.
Didnt legionaries have 2 of those spears to throw tho ?
Maybe auxillaries had them
They had 5 of them tucked into their sheld. Toss them out in a volly.
probably does not get much outright kills right away but i doubt anyone could fight effectively with one of those in them, plus it adds to the *flinch* factor before the lines crash together.
@@MusMasi Maybe they used it on cavilary charge ? I can imagine horses turning around with these things easily sticking onto them.
Also seems like a great ambush weapon when thrown from above or used for defending catwalks on garrison walls since it seems it cant be thrown far away like spears or slings.
I am not a historian, but I imagine these maybe an 'accuracy by volume' weapon. Fairly easy to make, give all of your legionnaires a handful and basic practice, then have them lob a volley an incoming enemies.
As a Dungeons and Dragons player, I've always wondered how "Darts" were used in medieval combat. In the past, I've always just went with the suspend your disbelief route and went with it. Now I can completely picture in my mind how it goes when using these implements of war.
They were many used as a skirmish weapon that would distract the oncoming enemy! The skirmish lines behind the sword/spear shielded troops would toss these high in the air forcing the opponent to raise its shields! The front line would then attack those with raised shields to devastating effect!
About 10 years ago I watched a group of a dozen Roman reenactors at Arbeia Roman Fort (South Shields) demonstrating these thrown en masse. They threw them underarm up high into the air , and let them rain down on a target area marked on the grass about 3 m diameter, something like 20m away from their line. Result : roughly 50 plumbarta inside the circle in about 20 seconds.
it's kind of weird that you spelled 'plumbata' with a british accent...
@@danger_design even more strange that you read the word with your mind in british acent
@@sandrajohansson1516 not really. Only non rhotic accents (stereotypically British) would pronounce plumbarta the same way they would plumbata.
From everything I have read, that's how they where used historical. Also they had a handle for throwing above the fletches. The entire cohort would through at the same time when ordered.
As a kid in 1983 I saw my drunk uncle on speed trow nothing but ringers at the family reunion at yard darts for 11 hours straight.
To get greater range of the "plumbata" or "kestros" they also used the "Kestrosphendone" which is a type of sling specially designed for that dart.
Wasn't it like a string wrapped in a spiral around the shaft?
around 400mtrs range.
@@baysword nope, it's described in Polybius as a type of sling & working like one, not like an amentum (which fits your description better)
@@stuartandrews4344 you wouldn't get that range with a plumbata/kestros dart (100m would be a pretty damn good throw)
Lever extender devices tend to work better with light objects, so if it was tested that a javelin could get 50% more range from using one, then the range of a dart could easily double, and in modern atlatl competitions you can see shots well over 200m so serious distances are possible. Of course, there's a drawback to everything, you can probably throw five more darts by hand in the time you'd need to set up a new dart in the device.
Honestly all i see is the lawn darts i used to throw as a child. Just making a funny. Keep up the good work.
Same thought here...we got bored with the "horseshoes" approach and would set the circle target on the other side of the house and throw the "jarts" over the roof. Ridiculously dangerous!! But we at least had one person blocking the back doorway so our mother would not mistakenly come outside.
Now you know why they made them illegal....
as a child i was struck in the head by a lawn dart, thank god they are not barbed
I misread "the lawn darts I used to throw at a child"
@@marz6770 No that's basically it too. Or for one of the games, everyone stands grouped in a circle and one person lobs the dart straight up. The last person to move wins.
Cool video and beautiful weapons! One of these days I have to make a launcher for them maybe.
Please do
"Let me show you itz features..HahaHaaaa"
For real though, I can totally see you have'n fun play'n lawn dart with some horrifying rubber contraption.
That'd be really cool! Greetings from your Western neighbour, the Netherlands
yes please make a launcher and play deadly game of darts with balliistic heads in ring as dart ring.
Should make a test on how much these things do against something with thick clothes on first^^ and then see how to improve them- i doubt they would actually do alot against even thick clothing.
When we were 16 - 18 years old we used to throw around a toy called a nerf vortex at the school playing field. It is basically a cushioned throwing dart. We were commonly able to reach distances of about 50 meters and one guy was even able to throw them a whopping 60 meters. So to me it is absolutely clear that a throwing dart with a steel point thrown by someone who is strong and spends some time practicing is an absolutely fearsome weapon! Edit: This was only possible with overhand throws. Anything else just does not work.
I messed around with tying a string near the end and using that to sling it. I was a very weak 11 year old and was able to easily throw it about 50 meters with just a little practice
The American grenade was designed to be as close to a baseball as possible because every American soldier would have experience with it, and some would be excellent at throwing it. I wonder how far these could be thrown if they had a slightly larger led weight that you could grab and throw more effectively. Overhand throwing is very unnatural but once you learn to do it you gain certain benefits from leverage. So I would expect the roman would plan for underhand, but I imagine if it were sized to be gripped in the hand and thrown like that vortex or a baseball that would straighten out, it could be thrown really far and pretty accurately. Might still make more sense to try for a more natural underhand throw because of armor and shield and all the other things, but I wonder if they could be maximized.
Enjoyed the video. Reminds me of the lawn darts I played with as a kid
You mean the commercial Plumbata
I use Lawn Darts for home defense.
H.D.L.D. = Home-Defense-Lawn-Darts
I like your channel too🤙🏽
@@onebadmoto5081
🤜⚡🤛
Tod these experimental archeology series continue to be my most looked forward to videos on a weekly basis. Keep it up dude!
Seeing "darts" in D&D weapons lists always felt kinda weird. But if this is what they're talking about, yeah... not wanting that coming at me!
And a rogue tips them in poison....
Honestly I thought more of Blow Gun type Darts, not sure which it is but this is pretty interesting.
Loved D&D surprised to see it having a resurgence.
@@SlayerofFiction It’s always been popular, it’s only now that the dumbed down 5e is getting picked up by every soyboy on UA-cam are the normies finally noticing it.
I was going to post the exact same comment. Glad I found yours.
(Definitelly going to have some fun with them now that I know what to expect/describe.)
@Cancer McAids Yeah but compared to a bastard sword which does 1d8/2d4 that's pretty fair.
Me: "Hmm, it feels like these angles are rather restrictive, why do we not have a shot from the other side of the field?"
Tod: "Oh Dear, Oh Dear, Oh Dear....I believe I've hit my camera..."
Me: "Ohhhhhhhh"
Yes it was damn annoying on the losing a camera front, but also the footage. Hitting the circuit board corrupted what would have been an excellent shot!
@@tods_workshop The camera couldn’t handle your excellency
@@bigredwolf6 If I was excellent, I would have missed the bloody thing!
@@tods_workshop I think the lesson to be learned here is... A little plexiglass shield will save a lot of money.
@@SilvaDreams lol from how they treated the plywood, idk if a plexiglass protection would have saved it.
you know what, you are right, it would have helped it glance off a bit, so it wouldn't have hit the camera. i think it would still be done with a dead on shot though
It’s pretty amazing how much your accuracy improved over a few hours. Imagine actually training as a profession, they much have been crazy good.
Probably spent a half hour a day throwing them.
You get *really* good at things if you spend that little time one them every day.
I liked using these things in early versions of D&D when I could talk my DM into letting me use them. It let my swordsmen have a ranged option without having to carry a golf bag sized quiver of javlins or have to fiddle with taking a shield off to mess with a bow.
I was thinking D&D when I saw these too and was wondering if these were what they were actually referring to when listing "darts" as a weapon. Most people seem to assume the darts in the recent versions of the game are normal throwing darts or basically replace them with the Japanese shuriken but this seems a lot more brutal and representative of the 1d4 damage they do (since it is equivalent to the damage of a dagger).
They're in every version of D&D up to the present day!
I remember using them all the time for my mages in a C64 version of D&D. I played that game a lot but I don't remember the name.
Shiriken are used similarly as distraction so for me replacing is okey.
And I remember one nice thing in ad&d 2ed you can throw serval darts in atack, not like in 3-5 e when one you can use only one per atack.
@@windsgrace688 when we played 2nd edition D&D we assumed Darts, Barbed were the same as Plumbata as the Barbed Darts were listed as piercing and weighed 5lbs doing 1d4 against small and large-sized creatures. Where-as Darts weighing 1/2 pound doing 1d3 against small and 1d2 against large creatures were more like a large playing dart which use was more in line with applying poison to. Then there is the barbed dart and needles used in a blowpipe.
Shuriken weighed 1lbs doing 1d4 against small and large creatures, we went along with the rule book for ease of play as a shuriken doing the same damage as a heavy dart seemed a bit of a stretch, but hey it's a game after all and if you can fry some-one with a fireball whats reality got to do with it anyway, it's all good fun, why argue about something so trivial.
you ever just have a long day, get to the corner shop and think "time to treat myself, gonna pick up a Mars Barb"?
🤣
Better yet, a deep fried mars barb.
Brilliant
Huwbacca They’re awfully good. What’s even better is not having to dodge ‘em after a hard day’s work!
Apply directly to the forehead.
That is a nice little terror weapon for the enemy. Along side the sling-shots, the javelins and the arrows, the battlefield must have felt like walking into a hail-storm.
Would be interesting to see what a bunch of people could deliver if timed/sq.m...
Exactly what I was thinking. I guess the message here is: " One does not mess with the legion!"
I really appreciate the transparency of your videos. They're not edited to leave out mistakes and inaccurate throws/shots
Hello Todd ! Just wanted to thank you for making these videos not only entertaining and instructive but also so accessible. I love your subject material and the down-to-earth way you treat them, but as a foreign guy who does not have English as a first language, the combination of (extremely) welcome subtitles checked by a human, and your clear and patient elocution really allow me to fully understand and enjoy these videos and the topic you tackle. Big shout-out here, and I'm impatiently waiting for the next instalment !
When throwing overhand you should throw them like a throwing knife: hold the back end of the dart in your palm with index finger pointing down the shaft. When throwing it try to empart as little spin on the dart when releasing it. That should get it it fly more straight and a more even trajectory
Thought so too, and with just some practice he could throw the plumbata pretty accurately and fast.
Yeah i can do this with regular throwing darts too, makes them nail into the board.
@@napoleonbonerfarte6739 Same here. I'm actually more accurate throwing like that. I remember getting a 1 inch group from 35 feet at one point.
One theory I heard is that it is the second and third row of legionaries that throws them.They throw them in a high, steep arch right before impact with the enemy. So an enemy combatant in the front line has the choice of either raising the shield and opening up his legs and lower torso to the first row of legionaries, but protecting against the plumbata or ignoring the plumbata and risk being injured by one. Either way the first impact of the enemy infantry is lessend.
I was thinking the same, now you could make the argument that the soldiers behind should protect first rank with raising shields and so on
But if you charging or are being charged the first thing that will happen is that you will be "squished" between the rank in front and behind you and having your shield stuck above your head is suboptimal in a massive sword fight so it is plausible that they were used as you described.
@@ognjenbegicevic6298 according to the strategikon of maurice (written in 590), all the ranks except the first two would be throwing plumbata (the first two would be forming a tight shield formation similar to the testudo) throughout the fight, except against cavalry where the 3rd rank would join the first 2 as part of the shield formation. formations could be between 4 and 16 ranks deep in this period, so thats 2-14 ranks throughing these war darts overhead at the enemy.
@@matthiuskoenig3378
I can imagine that it would be realy effective against "untrained" opponents that are charging. Just imagining being in first ranks and before you even make contact you start hearing screaming behind you . Gives me the chills.
You can really see why they'd wait until the absolute last second to throw them too to minimize the time the enemy has to pick up the darts and start throwing them back - since it looks like unless they get stuck in a person or deep in the ground, it would be trivial to send them right back
@@chanman819 treatises from the early centuries say they threw them from back ranks over the front line as the battle was fought, well after the shields are met... capable of hitting an enemys back line with plunging fire, without hitting their own men
@Tod i would think they used a wider fletching, like a lawn dart. You throw them real high, more up than out, and they plunge strait down. Ideally theyd train like horseshoes, by hitting a ring on the ground. Lawn darts remained a fun game in the states until they were outlawed. The blunt tips still penetrated flesh and the game had too many fatal accidents, but you can reasonably hit within a 1/2 meter target at 15 meters with a few days training😀
Think of it like tossing a grappling hook, youd be able to get the throw practiced to be above the wall, but not over the edge of tge ramparts. I think youd want the fletching to be wide and behind the weight, and a bit extra to be a handle behind... again like lawn darts... because it gives alot more accuracy and control to the throw
next two t-shirts: "Dont plumbata til you see the whites of their eyes!" and "Put the fear of mars into them!" lol
Commander Prescott in our own revolution gets credit for the first one!
🤣🤣👀🏹
I'm not a historian but I can imagine using these while enemy shields are above their heads protecting them from an archery fire. Plumbata was probably very effective against unarmoured enemy and their horses. This is basically a short range arrow useful in woods where archery has no much of significance.
Yes! Its lightweight and ease of use makes it a great harassment tool. But I think it might have been more useful against clumps of enemies advancing. A sort of suppressing fire if you will. Later when plate armour was a thing. English longbowmen managed to win not by killing power. But by the sheer volume of percussive bolts coming your way and completely battering you. The killing power of projectile weapons became so powerful eventually. That heavy armoured elites like knights became uneconomical compared to massed volleys of gunpowder fire. You saw the same dynamic in Japan were massed peasant troops like Ashigaru came to be more effective than Samurai. Especially with gunpowder weapons. Armour wasn't made obsolete as people might think but just too damn expensive. Especially when its made ineffective after just one fight against muskets. I think the plumbata followed a similar trajectory of cheapness and volume over power.
As soon as the "It wasn't" showed on screen, I was dead. Man, one of those days. Sorry about your camera.
Would love to see javelin penetration testing
Yes
Matt Easton did a bit of pilum testing on his channel scholagladiatoria.
viking spear with a trowing stick test would be sick
Pilum, viking throw spear, we already saw those fletched spear thingies. But didn't they have like normal spears for throwing in mid medival? And difference between normal(war) and boar(hunting) spears. And tod if you Read this, after corona i am definitely gonna order your 1500 messer, as fishing/bush utility tool. So don't die from Corona
@@emilbostrom3278 id love to see javelin versus metal armour test (bronze, brigadine, chainmain, etc)
Imagine getting 50 of them adding a basket and a catapult or ballista.
I was thinking like an atlatl thrower
Oh my!!
Dastardly haha
a staff sling onager could have been able to do that. According to Ammianus Marcellinus writings onagers were also used to launch arrow-shaped missiles
@@errantstar cool!!
Do we actually know they were using these things on battle fields? Like they had pilum for that
Surely they were used to throw down from fortifications!
From 5 meters up they must have been terrifying with those weights!!
I want to see this what happens.
When you were doing the argument about the speed throwing, I had the feeling that quantity, was a factor, and it seems that gravity would be doing most of the work, so I wonder... could you throw a group of them at once? And if you did, what would the spread be like? Why even go for accuracy? The darts are small enough that you could carry a good quantity of them, and just saturate the field with what amounts to a shotgun/multi shot approach.
If you can, say, have every soldier on the first couple ranks just launch a couple hand fulls of 5 darts at the right time, that might be more effective than trying to aim them.
I had the same thought. The main challenges then would be (1) separating them in the air so that they don't interfere with each other too much, and (2) gauging the horizontal distance right, which is the basic challenge of any weapon. I could also see a handful of guys who were really accurate joining in the charge and trying for enemy legs. Getting a stumble at the right moment could be a big deal for a couple of your buddies.
I feel they probably wouldn't have done this for two reasons: 1. throwing several darts at a time increases the chance of something going wrong and hitting your own men, and 2. if your aim is mainly to distract your enemy and break up their formation, rather than to hurt or kill them, you can achieve this just as well by throwing them one-at-a-time.
Same thought. Considering a century or two lining up to receive a charge, what if wach legionary the rear line tossed handfuls of these up in the air, letting them rain down on the oncoming enemy. Could seriously disrupt a charge
Reckon as with any pointed launched projectiles be it dart, spear, or arrow... accuracy & target penetration best insures that they will not be launched back @ you by the enemy.
Distance for the dart might be well served by a single knot ended string of the dart's same length; and slung like a common sling by the slingers.
Annoyingly I nearly tried this......but fidntt
There was a battle in the Peloponnesian War, I think called the Battle of Pylos (it took place on a small island called Pylos), where the Athenian darters were the decisive element for beating a Spartan detachment. The Athenians had chased the Spartans up onto a hill and the darters came out and unleashed on the Spartans until they couldn't fight anymore. Thucydides talks about it.
Estas un poco equivocado, no usaban plumbatae, eran peltastas con jabalinas, honderos y arqueros.
Javelins, those. And it was the battle of Sphacteria (Pylos was the preceding naval scrap). A javelin penetrates with far greater force. The Athenians, by the way, also had overwhelming numbers.
Like a Shuriken, a big problem is: When you miss,
It will likely be coming back at you soon. That doesn’t happen so much with many other kinds of projectiles.
The thin metal part between the weight and point were originally meant to deform or snap on impact so you can't throw them back.
Great job Tod :) Not a bad throwing
I want to see you throw these things!
was about to comment that it would be interesting to see what adam (you) would be able to do with these badboys hahahah
HI Adam, Sorry just saw this and great to see you here - thanks for popping in. I saw you messed around with them a while back and if you want, once Jorg has messed about with them, I could send them over to you if there is anything left to send....Drop me an email if you would like to.
@@tods_workshop Hey Tod, thank you we are actually going to make some of our own its really been some time i threw them i would love to make like historical version and one maybe more modern for really practical throwing, but for any case or collab (we should do some) adamceladin@seznam.cz Cheers brother, take care out there
@@AdamCeladin I would totally buy some Plumbata in a more modern version sold by you in Europe, Adam.
imagine a bucket of these thrown over a wall during a seige.
They seem awfully expensive and elaborate to drop off a battlement, to me. Big rocks or rough metal spikes might be just as effective in that tactic and very cheap :)
At West Point Museum there is an exhibit of items from the air war from World War One. In there is a metal dart which was thrown from planes before they started dropping bombs. Like the bucket from a siege they would have dropped these darts in mass and the idea was revived during the Korean War where the darts were capable of cracking an engine block.
Imagine them coming straight back over.
@@schizoidboy the good ol Flechette. My favorite design actually comes from the Vietnam war, though it pushes the definition of dart quite a ways, the lazy dog bomb. Just a hefty cartoon bomb shaped chunk of solid, slight pointed steel they would be dropped en masse and apparently the results were pretty gruesome
Darts were actually dropped from planes in early WWI.
I feel like I have to warn you, Todd... I LOVE your semi-scientific videos, period. I feel like you are very aware of your own biases. All of that said, I have never seen a channel featuring a non-scientist which actually managed to maintain that for more than a couple of years. Please stay who you are and keep checking yourself properly! I would really love for you to be the only channel with this kind of content that I have ever stayed subscribed to!
Thanks and I will try
Could the Romans honorably fight with such an underhanded weapon?
I see what you did there.
Absolutely.
We, the readers, dont deserve this level of punishment.
Dah dum, tst.
So funny!,,
NPC: "I was an adventurer once. But I took a dart in the knee."
That would certainly put an end to your adventuring. By the time you got it out, you wouldn't have a knee anymore!
Imagine you're just about to hit the enemy line, and every other roman is throwing these high up in the air to fall down on them, all the while (maybe a split second later) the other half of the roman line are chucking these straight forwards. It would cause chaos.
Imagine a couple hundred men manning a fortication and chucking these things at the enemy charging uphill ...
Against completely unarmored Gauls and Celts, this is yet another reason that the arms, armor and training of the Romans made them nearly unstoppable for a time.
The ol 1-2 dodge-ball attack. If middle schoolers can figure that out, then so can Romans.
Imagine a third throwing up in the air, a third throwing at your face and a third throwing pilum! The first rows of an opposing army would bearly be able to function!
@@johnstockton2800 "Gauls and Celts" wore armor too, those that could afford it at least
And that is why they banned lawn darts.
The first thing I thought of was the original Jarts when I saw them :) minus the barbs. Had lots of fun with those as a kid lol.
Never had lawn darts... but we did used to shoot arrows straight up into the air.
@@ChadRazorback same here. I would shoot arrows into the air all afternoon, and juggled knives as well. I have no idea how I survived. Or how I don't have any more scars. Proof we're tougher than we look, I suppose.
@@beckyp9633 same here!
i had lawn darts as a kid and never had a issue with them. that said a kid i was at school with nearly killed his dad with one. the guy supposedly needed surgery to fix the damage he did.
7:35 wait, wait, wait. So these Plumbata things are essentially the Roman version of our modern day Flashbang!?
Yes I suppose so
@@tods_workshop if these are could be meant to just fill the air with a last bit of danger before clashing, and accuracy isn't that important, how hard would it be to throw several at once, since it seems 3 fit in your hand just fine on camera
ua-cam.com/video/khHzGqgO2Bw/v-deo.html
Flash-bangs don't penetrate the body. Plumbatas are potentially lethal.
also people didnt armor their mounts to the extent of high middleages during roman times. Cav eating a volley of these would be hurting.
The British Roman reenactment group Commitatus used these both on foot and mounted, and had some impressive results, throwing underhand, overhand and a sidearm throw at close range. Being on the receiving end of a blunt dart launched from a rider at a canter was apparently quite the terror.
I started watching your content simply because it’s accessible as you have actual closed captioning! Thank you (to whoever did the editing, unless that’s you Tod).
And this children, is why we can no longer buy lawn darts in the US....
Lawn darts!
JARTS! Funnily enough, none of us were ever injured with these. Dirt clods, corncobs, blackwalnuts , tomato's, oh God yes. Lawn darts, no. I cant really say we had more sense than other kids (we were farm kids) but WTH can't modern kids seem to no impale each other that they cant be trusted with such things?
But they were so fun
I remember being pretty effing good at Jarts...
But you still buy guns...
If I remember correctly, the Greeks also could use a sling to get these darts to greater heights, distances, and could possibly penetrate wicker shields, like many Persians had (my speculation). Also, I think the Romans also used some slings for pila, which I'd assume would be used by dedicated skirmishers, and we can imagine the slings allowed the pila to glide over a Roman formation, or over their layered fortifications.
Now, when I imagine the Battle of Thermopylae, I imagine the Persian army getting pelted by these, stones, arrows, and javelins as soon as they rounded that corner. The phalangites there had been training for weeks w the picked Spartan royal guard, and could maneuver back and forth, and they had rebuilt a wall to stand behind the phalanx, a perfect place to hurl these missiles. One can imagine the Persians and their allies had to stop the combat whenever the bodies mounted too high: or else you can imagine men stumbling over the dead, further making them vulnerable to missiles, and if they survived, their loss of cohesion would stand no chance against the mighty wall of hoplite. Not that they stood a chance even with their cohesion, as the Greeks, as I hinted, must have cycled their troops. There were thousands of Greek combatants, and they only needed one phalanx at a time (300 men) to hold that point at any given time. On the advance to the narrowest point: Herdotus writes the width as "two chariots wide".
Cheers!
I speculate that the front ranks of the roman threw their pila but once combat was engaged, the rear ranks peppered the ranks of the enemy with theses
@@stephenlyon1358 and with the Greek phalanxes and sarissa phalanxes I speculate they would have pulled forward their spears and pikes if any broke further up. Even in the pitch of combat I don't think it would be that hard to simply grab the spear or pike of your man behind you, and he the man behind him, and the less combat savvy would be in the rear to pass up extra spears/pikes when necessary. It may not work for the front rank, who might need to simply push with their shield and let the second rank do the killing, but definitely in a lull, it would be advantageous to keep the enemy at bay before they can close in mingling distance again.
It's also written in Herodotus explicitly that the Greek's final stand at Thermopylae included them breaking or losing all or most of their spears, and presumably most of their swords (or they were dulled to be much less lethal), and their shields battered/broken as well (or bent too much to carry). So if that were true, then it wouldn't really make too much sense or be very efficacious if the last ranks didn't offer their spears to the front ranks who had lost all theirs. Those spears would've done no good idle in the back/center.
Anybody else herre because of Joerg Sprave? Great content Tod, looking forward to getting familiar with your channel!
I was looking up "Can you buy Jarts in Mexico". Man Jarts were cool, but bocce is a better game.
Also worth considering that in a tight infantry formation, troops likely wouldn't have the space in front of them for an underhand throw. Overhand makes way more sense considering that fact unless you're in the foremost line.
Not interested in old weapons but you are a great presenter and very entertaining.
So that's why the Gauls feared that the sky would fall on their heads.
remember kiddies use lead free dart when hunting joints of gammon
What do you use to hunt the pineapple?
cocktail stick
@@Bob-ni8rg But if we're going to have pineapple on cocktail sticks, now we need something for the Cheddar! XD
The scene opens with Chekov's leg of meat, just sitting there very conspicuously. I wonder what's going to happen to it.
Oh, yeah, I also looked forward to seeing someone or a dummy smashed with a leg of meat... :D
Imagine holding your shield and one of these catches you on the foot. You’re pinned to the ground -:-
I have heard in a video of British reanactors that the plumbata would actually be thrown into the sky. This was done when running towards the enemy, in combination with throwing the pila. When there are pila comming from you front and plumbata from the sky you won't know where to hold your shield, causing more casualties and I presume more panic.
Everyone knows you should use the official scientific "Paul Harrell" meat target to determine effectiveness of ammo...geeze.
Great video!
High-tech fleece Plumbata stop
there is an argument for adding a layer of pigskin because skin is tougher than muscle. Alot of the gun channels when testing ammunition would use a pig skin, pork rib and a pig heart layered togeather. Often with a few layers of denim to represent heavy clothing. That being said I have no trouble believing that this would sink up to the lead weight, possibly more given the dimensions of the head and how flesh stretches.
Give it a week and Joerg Sprave will have a full auto plumbata gun
ua-cam.com/video/0FBGGD8-w7I/v-deo.html
The "plumbatatatatator"
The whole poin of plumbata is that they are hand-thrown arrows. Making a device for them would completely defeat the purpose and novelty.
@@Monchegorx The whole point of Joerg Sprave is to take ancient technologies and make them badass and ridiculous.
Reminds me of the lawn darts we played with when I was a kid.
I too played a lot with lawn darts back in the day! I remember once we tried to go for distance and someone sent a dart over into the second neighbour's yard, right into is brand new above ground swimming pool....made quite a mess of his lawn!!!
Thanks for this! Fascinating video that I stumbled on, and I’m glad! Good on you!
Someone literally gave a 12 minute video a dislike at least 8 minutes after it was posted
Bloody Pacifists I bet
And you are surprised? There are bots that dislike videos mere seconds after being posted.
@@wwmoggy no, it's usually just the usual small group of people who go around disliking videos just because they can.
Likes and dislike ratios don't actually matter.
Bots are so critical these days
@Arozin for UA-cam's almighty algorithm, it doesn't though. It counts as engagement thus still benefits the video.
They can be thrown by a yoke stick kinda like the goat's foot, that would be the martial secret that isn't disclosed in drawings. Shorten the fletchings to the last 1/3rd of what you have and put a knob behind them on the shaft. Lawn darts. Another way to throw them, still with only 1/3rd the length of fletching, is to place them across your palm with your hand angled so the side of your hand with your thumb is lined up with your forearm bones. Lay the weight just behind the tips of your index and ring fingers and stand with your non-throwing side towards the target. Palm up with arm across to opposite side, place in palm. spin arm down around and up and then release by letting your thumb and fingertips relax. It's like a backhand throw. Just let it slip out. You should be able to get about 55-65m with the windmill and about 38-45m with the backhand fling. Your "rate of fire" with the backhand, thrown literally from a series of tubes bandolier, can be as high as 5 in 4 seconds.
They are *actually* for hunting small game.
if you are implieing these aren't weapons of war with the last comment, they are specifically described as being used for it.
Whats the name of that yoke stick for throwing them?
@@george867 A variant of the atlatl, basically.
@@matthiuskoenig3378 I don't believe that was what he was saying, Matt - I took it to be an 'origins' comment, rather like the fauchard derived from the agricultural scythe/bill.
@@dallassukerkin6878 Yeah, sounds more like "their effect in a battle may vary a lot, but they're definitely used regularly for hunting small game"
I looked at this and thought "Surely that would be better with a launcher - a bit like an atlatl or your dog's tennis ball thrower". Great video! Those combined with caltrops must have been great fun...
Lolz me too, like, dull one inside barb so you can fling it with a slingshot and dood... danger....
I can see them disorganizing a charge and breaking an enemy’s focus. Practical archeology at its best. Well done
I’ve just been binging this channel and I love how passionate Tod gets about this stuff, it’s just fun to watch
I’m fairly sure that you can throw them like you would a throwing knife with instinctive/no spin techniques. I bet the results would be interesting
So playing on the idea of it being a harassing weapon to slow down an enemy charge and to distract them for a moment, would it stand to reason in order to get as many out as possible they may have thrown 2-3 at a time? Just getting as many into the air in a short amount of time as possible. You loose accuracy and some distance but then you are getting into the territory of "accuracy by volume"
Can you imagine the effect they would have if they were loaded into a catipult 2 dozen at a time and launched over the enimy line at a high arch , dozens of small sharp projectiles that's hard to see raining down on them , even if they missed the head but contacted an arm or leg would effectively slow them down .
That would be really effective but I bet they wouldn't go far enough to really be useful.
It's a cool idea, but I think maybe catapults would have to be close to the enemy for it to be effective, which isn't great, since it makes them easier targets. I'm not an expert; that's just my intuition. But if you could maybe bundle the darts in a way that they travelled a long ways in a bunch together (getting longer range), then split in the air into separate darts, that might be more effective? Again, it's just guessing. You have a great idea overall. Definitely would be fun to test out.
That sounds like a challenge for Joerg Sprave :D
I know it would take more than a couple dozen but a few catipults launching that many each time would result in a lot of down range projectiles , I suspect you would probably get more range from a catipult than just throwing them plus the highth would give them a chance to stabilize and fall straight without tumbling, it was just a thought , besides this would be a way to slow or district the enimy.
A better option I feel would be placing a bundle of them in a sort of cup and wadding, similar to how a shotgun works and using a scorpion or other type of ballista to propel them forward.
I just found my next make it at home project ....thanks Tod very cool demo
This was like watching a new recruit's first day training montage. Awesome!
HEY i remember these! our parents let us play with them back in the day. i loved lawn darts
I've been curious about these, thanks.
As for speed, I have a theory that multiple were thrown at the same time. Kind of like a shotgun of barbed darts. Doesn't seem like it would be too difficult. Toss 2-5 of them underhand quickly at the enemy charge and draw your primary weapon.
Seems possible but they might not be as effective. Knocking into each other during fligjt causing them to loose some speed. Think a wobbling football compared to one with a perfect spin.
Thank you.
Apart from learning something new, I have now a new idea of what I could throw at my Players in one of our next sessions.
Well, just to stay clear, at their characters.
The noise produced when those entered the flesh..."There was a sound of ripping fabric as the sword bit deep".
So what you're saying is that they are for against light infantry because most of the time they have only a weapon and if lucky some kind of small wooden shield that's only good for deflecting sword blows, not ranged projectiles...
I don't know. If you think about it the skirmishers fought the skirmishers of the enemy. (Your heavy troops cannot engage against enemy light troops. They would just fall back behind their own heavy troops.) You would want a long range weapon for that kind of fight, like a sling, bow or javelin at least. I think heavys used the weapon right before the engagement, so it is used in a fight heavy vs heavy. Maybe cavalry used the weapon too, I dont know for the roman war darts, but cavalry in Asia used war darts. They even use it untill today in sports, ua-cam.com/video/k9ojU-PpfKY/v-deo.html .
I don't think it was a weapon against light troops, simply because you were not in range of them with that weapon.
In those times not everyone was armored. Imagine a slave uprising and a legionare using this as we now use watercannons against riots, the bloody kind.
Even with leather armor, these might still be a problem.
@@zacharyrollick6169 I think you ment fabric armor as that was what was actually used but a properly made one would likely stop it.
But tbh, almost any weapon of a legionary would slaughter an unarmored and untrained slave.
Go check out watts unique, he made a scary "lightning" ballista. It will throw a 600gram bolt 1000m, and pin a barbarian warchief to his horse at over 500m. It will also throw a 2.5kg soft lead glandes over 250m.
Scary machine!
@@TheChiconspiracy ? Did you mean to reply to me?
The lead glandes was apparently the preferred anti riot load, though what happens to a person hit by 2.5kg of soft lead at 50+m/s is not likely survivable.
Lawn darts were much deadlier with a better throwing handle.
right? making those fins wider like a lawn dart would make the throwing characteristics much better. my guess is that this design allowed for scavenged fletching, from broken or extra arrows found on the battlefield, to be refitted with these war dart heads. If the fins on the dart are made unusable, it would be much quicker and simpler to repurpose arrow fletching than to fashion new ones.
9:15 when that hit the mean I let an audible groan - that would have hurt like hell. As a Roman historian, this was awesome to watch.
My first thought is that these would have been an excellent way for small infantry units to deter attacks by cavalry.
Get one of those barbs stuck into horseflesh with the bouncing weight causing the tip to cut around in the muscle as the animal moves. The pain would be maddening and the horse will probably throw his rider and disrupt others nearby.
A unit of only 20 men could probably have 60 darts in the air in seconds with a little practice and a horse and rider are a big target.
I feel like the stabilization really depends on the fletching design. I have made a few with a short length but a lot of height that stabilize with an overhand throw after a few meters
Taller fletching would be good, I think I've also seen reference to them being fletched with leather or wood rather than feathers.
And throw it with as fast spin as possible. The faster it spins the more drag the vanes generate an the quicker it stabilizes. The whole idea is to use the shaft as a sling lever.
Yes! Tod goes Roman!
if he ever happened to be interested in more Roman vids/tests I'd be just as interested as I am in his typical more medieval stuff!
In the 70's they sold those in the US as "Lawn Dart games." They turned out to be rather lethal and kids used them more as weapons than as game items.
But only in the USA would they make such darts illegal whilst still being able to lawfully buy an uzi.
@@mrdarren1045 This is true.
@@gerardtrigo380
Same thing with clacker balls!
The chef in me is screaming "I hope he sanitized after touching the raw pork" lol. Very interesting video!
There was a lawn game we use to play that involved plastic weighted darts, similar to these. The goal was to toss them into a small circular ring, at a set distance away. It was easy to get the darts to fly incredible distances with little effort, but you needed to know how to hold them when you throw, and the trajectory when released was a pretty flat arc; you were not holding them correctly. After some children began suffering accidents from impalements, the darts were banned in most states. They didn't have a sharp tip, but it didn't take much effort to injure someone.
My contribution: skin makes a noticeable difference on "meat" resistance, as does clothing. I suggest doing penetration tests on meat with skin and some kind of clothing.
Yep.
Yes. I’ve seen firearm ballistic testing according to the FBI protocols, and I’ve been instructed that the first three inches of ballistic gel accounts for the skin alone.
I wonder what they'd do to horses. And, I think they'd be suitable for use with some sort of throwing aid.
Could be useful, if you have light Cavalry or Chariots harassing your lines, and you dont have Archers.
“Been facinated by them for 20 (t)odd years!”
Thought that was funny
hey you did a plumbata video. awesome. I requested this a while back in a comment
Hey, lawn darts!
Played with them as a child.
We lost a few kids to them but it was worth.
They are fun.
I guess you've probably thought of this yourself after the throwing better than expected incident, but maybe something like plexiglass or another transparent material that is often used to shield cameras from flying shrapnell during explosion testing could be worth having around. If you're going to test things like armour and get a glancing hit followed by the arrow being deflected to a camera that wouldn't be great either.
Nasty little darts btw, wrapping the meat in some clothes could be interesting as well to observe if it behaves the same as normal arrows/bolts (fast + low mass) compared to slower with higher mass with these darts.
Cool! Do you think they throw few of them together (more in the air - at the same time), and how effective that would have been.
Thanks!
If they are not for accuracy then maybe you can throw multiples at once. I wonder too.
I was going to ask the same question. I could imagine three at a time being feasible.
I would like to see what these starts to do out of a shepherd's sling
Looks like a great present for kids at Christmas!
Nice work Tod. Regarding throwing technique: When I was a young athlete I threw the Javelin with my pointer finger wrapped around the end of the grip (as most people do) and used my finger to make the Javelin spin. Similar to what you seemed to be doing naturally with your overhand throw. Unfortunately spin does not seem to suit a fletched projectile. One day the Australian champion was training at our club and my coach asked him to give me a lesson :) He used a different grip which did not cause the Javelin to spin and would probably suit the plumbata. Basically if we put our pointer finger and middle finger on either side of the plumb (lumpy metal bit) we can keep our wrist cocked back and flick the wrist forward at the end of the throw. I never got good at it but it obviously worked for him.
"just wanna fill the air with nasty junk"
fletcher: "am i a joke to you?"
I can bury a playing dart into an oak tree, all the way up to the grip, at 20 feet away. Former baseball player I’ll bet with good training a hard overhand throw would be absolutely devastating!
They'd be pretty heavy as well. They'd be as heavy as chucking a stone at someone. I doubt you'd get through chainmail/ shields with these things, but you'd still damn well hurt/bruise someone if they hit. And if you do hit an unarmoured spot, yeah, don't want to be the unlucky SOB who get's skewered in the neck/face.
Consider that these would be used by a bunch of trained men in formation. Doesn't sound fun to be on the receiving end.
How good is this if paired with archers? So while they duck and get their shield up, the archers in front of you is free to shoot them
The archers in front of you? Are you sure about that?
I used to be part of a late Roman re-enactment group we used plumbata all the time in demonstrations, they are nasty little thing's, we used to throw them high as to rain down on the the enemy we had rubber ended ones for combat, they would hit everywhere including your feet! A late Roman legion would have around 500 men, each would carry usually 4 plumbata held in their shield, they would also carry a few javalins, an Angon or Spiculum (late version of the pilum) and perhaps a throw in axe, the point was, for each legion they threw around 2500 sharp missiles at the enemy, even if they didn't hit marching through the hedge of javalins Spiculum, and plumbata was a nightmare. Good video I enjoyed it.
Thinking about tactics.
How possible is it to throw 2 or 3 of them at a time with the underhand high lob?
Maybe you get a line of guys each throwing a handful of plumbata underhand so they rain down on the advancing enemy from overhead. If they've got shields, they're probably going to raise them over their heads to protect from the hail of barbs. That's when your second line steps up to hit them with the pila.
It would take a bit of coordination to nail an effective one-two punch like that, but then again the Roman unit training was pretty legendary.
I don’t think you really need to hit someone, throw a few hundreds of them at the enemy line, cause a panic, and have the line of solder disintegrate.
They’re like ancient Jarts. No wonder they took them off the market. I don’t for the life of me know as children how we didn’t get a Jart embedded in someone’s skull.
i can see them being used when in a pile and the rear troops lob them over to the enemy mid to rear troops while waiting to get in to the front line action. But is it not also possible they could have use them in a miniature atleatle configuration as well?
I read somewhere that they could have buckets full of these things for soldiers to throw. And you could carry some in your shield.
I always found war darts to be interesting. Never seen these kind before, they didn't disappoint.
I could see a Roman formation with a mixed unit of skirmishers throwing these and the 2nd line legionaires throwing pilum.
Forces the enemy to bunch up, get distracted, and take some moral/shock damage before the lines clash.