Agincourt was one of the few history lessons I paid attention to in school. The teacher (the battle of Agincourt was his specialist subject) said that planning and location were as important as the weapons and armour. Specifically if you look at a topographical map of the area of the battle there is a 500 meter gap between the two hills (I have recently renewed my interest in this battle). However there was a reasonable amount of forestation which is completely unsuitable for a mounted knight to charge through overspilling the hills on both sides and some of the ground is boggy in October due to runoff from the hills. This could have brought the usable gap size down to possibly as little as 25 meters. There are several accounts that mention heavy rain (Gesta Henrici Quinti account, Thomas Elmham in Liber Metricus, and John capgrave writing a couple of decades later) and Thomas Walsingham mentions the area of the battle being very muddy. If you had half the Archers concentrating on that gap (the rest to guard against a possible flanking), then there could have been 60 bowmen for every meter of gap. Once you bring down a few horses and knights that gap gets considerably smaller. Just sheer weight of fire was bound to find gaps in the armour. For example there is some evidence that the archers were told to take aimed shots. This can be done in 6 seconds but to make the maths easy lets call it 10. So each archer is firing 6 shots per minute and 60 archers per meter (which is roughly the gap needed for 1 knight if they are virtually on top of each other). That's 6 arrows per second hitting you and your horse, in an area where fast movement is likely difficult. The archers would have been able to maintain this for several minutes.
Yeah and if he's at a gallop, he'd fall down hard enough to stun if not concuss him- and then you walk over to a bunch of stunned knights with a knife, lift up their visors and asked if they'd rather be ransomed or die.
More like why there were AT guns when they could not penetrate heavy tank front armor. Not everything was a heavy tank and not everything was the front ;)
Of course. I supose, in that context, lightly armored men at arms would be comparable with modern riflemen, giving you another reason to use that machine gun.
Yes. Play enough war games and you start to realize that each weapons platform has its relative strengths and weaknesses both at the tactical and the operational level, and that you're in a game of rocks, paper scissors. No one weapon is king and each one must be thought of in the context of a combined arms approach that maximizes strengths and minimizes weaknesses.
Oddly enough, this comment is a perfect example of Matt's point about "weapons finding gaps". The early tanks used in WWI WERE vunerable to heavy MG fire, but not in the way you might think. Bearing in mind that early tanks were of rivetted, not welded, construction, the "splash" from the bullet hitting armour plate (i.e. the bullet being de-jacketed and the lead interior melting due to the heat from impact), would find any gaps in the joints, and fly around inside the tank, potentially injuring the crew. The drivers were especially vunerable and wore a mail visor attached to the helmet to prevent injury from the flying metal. It was rarely lethal, but could incapacitate any member of the crew it struck.
I love how Tod's experiment showed that silly V of raised metal front center of the breastplate was not for style, it was for directing arrows and bolts up and away from the face.=)
In a word: volume. When thousands of arrows are hitting, round after round, every few seconds, they will find the gaps and weak spots in armor and it will have a detrimental psychological effect on the troops. Battle and war isn’t about one on one duels. It’s about numbers, strategy and tactics. A lot of people have this misperception that battle and war are about killing your opponent. But anyone trained in warfare knows the truth; it is about incapacitating your opponent. And that can be done by either wounding your opponent or by taking away his will to fight. One of the primary purposes of massed missile weapons in field battles throughout history has been to wound or otherwise handicap your opponent so that by time the lines hit for melee your opponent is already at a disadvantage, or breaking your opponent’s morale- again so that by time the lines hit your opponent is at a psychological disadvantage or perhaps break their will to even engage in melee fighting. Look at the Roman Pilum, it was specifically designed to take out the enemy’s shield and render it useless so that when the Roman infantry, clad in armor and with their shield still effective, closed, the Romans held the advantage in the melee. Look at the Frank’s Francisca- designed to disrupt the opponent’s shield wall or line so that when the lines met for melee their opponent’s line was in disarray and the gaps in the line could be exploited. The other prime objective of missile weapons in field battles is as Matt points out, to disrupt, change or dictate your enemy’s tactics. By using missile troops to incapacitate your enemy, or by your enemy knowing that you have missile troops and what their effect will be, a commander can disrupt his opponent’s battle plan and perhaps dictate his opponent’s actions to what he wants. It is a lot like using a geographical feature to dictate when and how your opponent must attack you. So looking at archery vs armor requires not just a consideration of one bow vs one armor clad individual, or like Matt points out one piece of armor, it requires a consideration of how archery vs armor worked in large scale battle. It requires a consideration of thousands upon thousands of arrows, coming in rounds after round every few seconds, hitting a mass of densely packed men. As Matt points out, while a minority of them may have armor capable of withstanding such a barrage, the vast majority would not. And when you consider that you don’t have to kill the men to win the battle, one can start to picture the problem. Just think about a man with an arrow in the knee. He might not die immediately from it, but he’s out of that battle and thus the mission of the archery was a success. Think about the knight whose horse is shot from under him. First, now you have broken his calvary charge but second even if he isn’t hit by the arrow there is a good chance he will be wounded from the fall to incapacitate him from the battle. Anyone who has ever fallen from a horse understands my point. And armor is not going to help much in that scenario. Just a sprained wrist to his dominant hand or a concussion that knocks him unconscious could incapacitate him from the battle. Thus the archery never even touches him but is able to render him incapacitated from the battle and thus has been successful in its job. And take conscripts who really don’t want to be there at all. They’re seeing men and horses go down around them, their forward momentum is halted (never underestimate the psychological effect of going forward vs being halting or being driven back), they’re getting showers of arrows landing around them, perhaps even hitting them but not penetrating their armor (it would be like being hit with a sledghammer). All of a sudden their will to advance is gone. They just want to get out of there. So even if the majority of the knights and men at arms make it through this barrage to the enemy lines, they are only a minority of their own line. What shape would their line be in? What numbers would they have? And the archers they are now going to be in hand to hand melee with are not like what most people envision- men dressed in tights who can only shoot bows. The English archers for example were welled armored, well armed, battle hardended men from the wars in Wales and Scotland and other local feuds. They were more than capable of standing their ground and engaging toe to toe in melee fighting. And they are supported by men at arms and knights on foot. Who are fresh. Looking at it this way makes it much more clear as to why archers were so sought after in wars and why they were effective. It also make more clear why armor was continuously evolving to try to be arrow proof. And remember too, large scale field battles were relatively rare. Fighting in huge field battles that involved armies of what would be nation states was the vast vast minority of a knight’s fighting. Much of his fighting was local feuds, fighting for power like the crown, putting down peasant revolts, or kings consolidating their power over their feudal subjects who, up until this time, had much power and autonomy. In this type of fighting and these battles, which involved far fewer numbers of men and thus far fewer archers, having armor that was impenetrable to arrows would have put the knight at a great advantage. When the archers cannot be massed in great numbers, then the advantages of the armor over the bow and arrow would be significant in the outcome of the battle favoring the armored troops. So their is still going to be this drive to develop this armor and a market for it because for the men who are going to purchase it, it still will put them at a great advantage in the vast majority of the fighting they are likely to do. Great video Matt, love your stuff.
Very good comment. Killing someone might enrage an onlooker. But seeing someone flee (his fighting will dismantled) will trigger a similar response in another, due to the herd mentality. So instead of one enraged bloke charging at you, you have two blokes presenting their rear sides. Tactically, if a shower of missiles makes an advance to falter even for few seconds, it is a win. The momentum is broken, the force of impact reduced. Again, very good comment. Sorry to basically repeat what you have said, but it is worth repeating.
I think one of the interesting points from the original video was what happened to the arrows. You do have to wonder was it a case of aim at the breast plates until a certain range and then start hitting weak points. The Knight in full plate might be fine however what would be happening to everyone around them?
I would like to add that, speaking from my experiences playing ice hockey, getting hit with a projectile carrying that kind of energy in the knee, shin, or foot can be painful and somewhat debilitating, depending on how it hits. Seeing what kind of dents those arrows made in the breastplate, I would bet on a direct hit to the knee causing enough harm to prevent the victim from walking for a while, despite any padding worn under the plate.
Excellent analysis. Your video complements Tod’s video perfectly! One point I feel hasn’t been addressed yet, though, is the psychological role that longbows would have played at Agincourt Imagine you’re a French knight. You’re advancing on foot towards the English line. You’re trudging through the mud, which is slowing you down and tiring you to no end. Then, with the English infantry 100m ahead of you, you’ve suddenly got dozens of arrows pounding you and your companions from both left and right. The arrows can’t go through your armour, but each time one of them hits you, it’s like being punched by a boxer. It staggers you backwards for a few steps and leaves a nasty bruise. What’s more, there are arrowheads and exploded wooden shafts flying everywhere. You’re constantly worrying that any arrow could be the unlucky one that hits you through the eye-slit or under the aventail. You press on through this seemingly endless barrage, until finally you reach the English men-at-arms, who have been standing there waiting for you this whole time. What do you think your psychological state would be after all that? I for one don’t think I’d have a lot of fight left in me! I certainly don’t think I’d be giving my best performance against my English counterparts. I think this might have been an important factor in why the English won, despite being outnumbered by the French.
Jacques de Châtillon - died while fighting in melee against the English man at arms David de Rambures - survived the arrow volleys and later captured while fighting the English in melee, murdered as a prisoner of war Guichard Dauphin - died while fighting in melee against the English man at arms Antoine of Burgundy - participated in the secondary charge, survived the arrows storm, fought in melee, captured and later murdered as prisoner of war Jean I, Duke of Alençon - survived the arrow storm completely unharmed, fought his way to king Henry himself, killed four of king Henrys bodyguards while trying to kill king Henry, died while fighting other bodyguards Edward III, Duke of Bar - died while fighting in melee against the English man at arms Philip II, Count of Nevers - died while fighting in melee against the English man at arms Frederick I, Count of Vaudémont - died while fighting in melee against the English man at arms Robert of Bar, Count of Marle and Soissons - captured during the melee against the English, later murdered as a prisoner of war John VI, Count of Roucy - died while fighting in melee against the English man at arms Waleran III, Count of Ligny - captured during the melee against the English, later murdered as a prisoner of war Edward II, Count of Grandpré - captured during the melee against the English Henry II, Count of Blâmont - captured during the melee against the English Jean de Montaigu, Archbishop of Sens - captured during the melee against the English John of Bar - captured during the melee against the English, later murdered as a prisoner of war Jean I de Croÿ - died in close melee while fighting against Henry's bodyguards while trying to capture king Henry, he managed to hit Henry with a mace to the face Jean de Béthune - captured during the melee against the English Jan I van Brederode - captured during the melee against the English, later murdered as a prisoner of war these are the people who lead the charge at Azincourt
not disagreeing with you there, but the people in the list were not the norm, they were the elite. No one recorded when a normal man at arms or conscript was killed. Also lucky (or unlucky) shots do happen, especially with volleys of arrows. Remember that the same King Henry V (then prince Henry) in the battle of Shrewsberry (1403) was shot just below the eye by an arrow. If he was anyone other than the future king, I doubt that it would have been survivable since he got the best medical attention.
@@deektedrgg The English took so many French prisoners that they started to be a security risk. So the king ordered his troops to kill the disarmed and surrendered men. Irony
This reminds me a lot of people talking about how certain Tanks or Battleships were impervious to some other type of weapon system. Lots of people don't understand that just because *one* part of a weapons sytem/defense system is impervious doesn't mean the rest is. There's a reason you want to shoot a tank in the side or rear. Seems to be similar here.
One tactical advantage of having a lot of long bows deployed might be to intentionally force the enemy to wear heavy armour, like when it's very hot or in swampy areas, or the enemy only has so many armoured warriors, etc. or even forcing the enemy to campaign with all that gear
Because you wouldn't wear all your *extremely expensive* gear otherwise. You'd just go into melee, charge a lancer or pike formations in your light and comfy "safety t-shirt", but for those pesky archers again... "Damn, call my squire. I'm gearing up."
@@bakters He's referring to the fact that too many bows makes fielding troops without said extremely expensive gear much less effective. Really expensive gear, being really expensive, means you won't have as much of it even if you really wanted to pay for it. You won't have enough boyz on the field to stop much larger numbers of guys with halberds, bec de corbins, or leverage + pointy bits weapons from overwhelming your tiny block of ardboyz if you're forced to try to armor up past what is efficient.
@@CtrlAltRetreat I second this. It's better to employ troops that can return fire instead of armoring up all your troops beyond cost efficiency. That's why crossbows are a game changer. Anyone can use it without needing a lifetime of strength training to pull a warbow.
@@CtrlAltRetreat You don't absolutely need expensive gear to defeat arrows. Shields will do that too. That's what people used when they couldn't afford large quantities of custom fitted steel plate. Think about Romans or Greek hoplites. That's actually interesting comparison, because in their time bows were not extremely strong, probably because even the strongest bows would be defeated by the large shields they carried, while a lighter and slower arrow would find a gap in armor just as effectively as a projectile shot from Mary Rose monsters. It seems to me that bows grew to monstrous sizes only because fairly good gear became common and people abandoned shields. Regarding "tiny block of ardboyz" being easily defeated by a hail of arrows - Sure it can work, but out in the open I wouldn't bet against the ardboyz. Find "Battle of Orsha" picture to see what I mean. Right in the center you have them shown. Both infantry, defending artillery and especially cavalry. Full plate armored knights on armored horses. (I don't like posting links on YT, because you never know if they are allowed, but I'll risk it this time. The Battle of Orsha below.) upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Autor_nieznany_%28malarz_z_kr%C4%99gu_Lukasa_Cranacha_Starszego%29%2C_Bitwa_pod_Orsz%C4%85.jpg
Great points all. One of the other things I've not really seen mentioned, is the sheer psychological effect of having to advance on foot into an onslaught of arrow-fire. One of the things that really struck me about Tod's video, was the massive percussive force being transferred onto the armour with every shot. If you try to put yourself into that scene; trudging forward into a hail of arrows, men around you dying, the cacophony of hardened steel arrowheads ricocheting off of you, each impact a hammer blow, all mixed with the adrenaline and fear that at any moment, one will find its way into a gap. It must have been truly terrifying.
My best guesses before watching the video: 1. Not everyone wore the same quality or amount of armor. 2. There are gaps in the armor so you can move 3. Kill the horses 4. Repeated impacts can take a toll 5. Showers of arrows cause confusion and panic 6. Tactical and strategic use; situation and context
noone wore brigandine everyday even back then, its like wearing a military plate carrier ballistic vest nowadays... also, armour is annoying... doing just normal day to day stuff isnt as fun with armour.
@@elgostine Not exactly like that since the modern military kit weighs significantly more than even platemail, but we have to make sacrifices in any case if we want to bring something into style. You can't wear it sparingly and get everyone to do it just for fashion purposes.
Matt, Please also note that arrows forced men at arms to close their visors. This made the plate-armored French advance through the mud at Agincourt, for example, just that much more difficult. As a teenager, Henry V had learned the hard way to keep his visor down.
One thing I really wish they had tested was a direct hit to the side of the plate. The breastplate is designed to turn direct hits to the front into glancing blows, which is great, but if you are charging a line of archers, people several meters to your left and right might also be shooting at you, and those people will be shooting directly at your sides, not your front. I suspect in those situations the arrow could penetrate, or if not, could slide upward into the armpit, similar to how the arrows behaved in the shown tests.
It'd definitely be interesting, though I might be wrong, but I think since you'd probably be part of a line and wouldn't charge alone, you'd have comrades on your sides, diminushing the likeliness of being shot in the sides ? Then again, it depends how lose or tight is your formation, but I think I remember French knights being described in many instances as closing in the english lines in tight formations.
"but if you are charging a line of archers, people several meters to your left and right might also be shooting at you" And waiting to be cut to pieces or bashed to death? You would really shot at someone who charge in your general direction from several meters? Event from 20 meters?
Add to that that people who move aen't able to present the strongest armoured part towards the enemy all the time. People turn to the side, reach down or turn around ect.
@Europa Uber Alles If you are not protected from charging warhorse by field fortification or allied heavy formation you will be moped up whatever you do.
@Europa Uber AllesBattlefield is not a sitting and moving icones on the screen. If you was light armed soldier charged by cavalry on open terrain you would not "choose the best option" but you would run in panic, or lay down frozen from terror.
Todd and his experts did mention wanting to do a test against limb armor. I would guess that cuisses would be the most likely plates to get penetrated, as they are fairly broad (compared to arm harness) and the limb is relatively stationary (when weight is put on them).
Richard Tillman I’d be very interested to see those results. I’d guess the thinner armor in those regions probably splits the difference with the fact that an arrow is considerably more likely to glance off an arm or shin?
It's dealing with the difference between thinner sloped/curved armor vs thicker, flatter armor. That relationship is complicated in all sorts of ways, but an overly simplified explanation is that the more sloped an armor is, the narrower your target area becomes while the thicker the armor, the more power you need to penetrate. If you have the power to go through the armor, you're aiming for the easiest clean target, but if you don't, you're looking for less well-armored portions, even if they are harder to get to. Another part of that is trying to make your attacks less likely to glance off the sloped armor. I suspect the extra ability for the hardened arrowheads to bite is for that reason, much like how warhammers and maces have the studs to make them grip the armor better so they're less likely to skip off.
Good points about quantity of projectiles overwhelming no matter how low you cut the chances - and most people didn't have an AC in the low 20s! In "Fighting with the AK: too Simple to be Tactical" Gabriel Suarez talks about the need in CQB to move sideways rather than forward, backwards, or remain stationary. Because "If I stand in his sights, what am I doing? I'm testing the capabilities of his round. No matter how strong I am, no matter how armored up I am - I"m gonna get shot!" Even with the best bullet-stopping armor we have over your as much of the body as Modern gear comes, one guy with an AK or Uzi or just a a double-stack auto-loading pistol emptying a magazine (semi-auto or full-auto) into you at CQB distances will almost certainly get more than lucky enough. "Whether through luck, or skill, makes no difference to you."-Sonny Puzikas, Fighting with the AK: Lost in Translation My friend got a nice collection of Red Dragon nylon swords. A few came bent, but I straightened them. I used your clamping method for straightening antique blades, but with my bare fingers! He's getting into longsword, and bought a set of Red Dragon gear. We're both getting those SPES officer jackets so we can spar! Thanks for doing so much to get us into this. You should get all the bits to make yourself a VERY well protected archer. The mail, the bits of plate on your limbs, etc. The same way you show off different swords in the background, you can show off different armors! You should take more about different types of shields, I think they've been neglected lately.
Very well done! Thank you for the very clear explanation. Armor, of course, is always a compromise between protection and mobility. The reason that the "best" armor was used upon the head and torso is that those are the parts of the body where a penetrating injury is most likely to result in rapid incapacitation; everything else was less important and thus less well-protected. As you point out, if either arrows or armor had a clear and decisive advantage, armies would have been comprised entirely of the "better" weapon system. The "arms race" of the 14th-15th centuries is pretty clear evidence that neither had a distinct edge over the other and I'm surprised how many "internet experts" can't see that. As an armchair cavalry historian and sometime practitioner of 19th-20th century cavalry skills, I concur 100% that depriving the opponent of his mobility is a big deal. A cavalryman on foot is...well...a poorly-equipped infantryman. That's not to say that mounted infantry (dragoons) don't have a place. Indeed, dragoons have been used to great effect, but they still rely upon mobility to provide their advantage. Even today, just knowing that the opponent has the capability to reduce or negate your mobility -- be it land mines, IEDs, or anti-armor weapons --- changes your tactics and thus the ebb and flow of the battle. I've personally had the experience of taking a very long walk because the enemy had anti-aircraft weapons in the area and we couldn't be extracted as planned. In effect, this meant that a unit was out of the fight until we could recover to our own lines. Even though anti-aircraft missiles aren't much threat to the man on the ground, it changes how he can fight. Even if arrows aren't much threat to a nobleman encased in full high-quality plate armor, it changes how he can fight. That makes the archers worth their expense.
I am so glad that in all the internet noise, there are channels like yours, Tod's and many others, which just consistently elevate the information and knowledge, really resonating among themselves when an interesting topic arises, providing all the different perspectives, insights, and mostly - in your case fully, all done with a deep respect. And... (18:24) makin' me laugh from time to time too, I ain't gonna be the guy testing kevlar vests, full plates or force fields against anything, just in case it won't get certified :D
Adding to this, just imagine the sheer amount of psychological terror of having mass arrows come at you - that alone might lower the morale far enough to call it quits.
More reason to believe armor could protect you again that kind of enemy fire. The knight where confident that they would get to the other end just fine.
@@vhsprojektblue4221 Did you not even watch the video? The majority of the army weren't extremely well armoured knights. It doesn't matter if the knights don't break formation, if the rest of your army loses morale and flees.
Matt, thank you for mentioning that wear full-plate armor was a team effort, requireing servents to help getting it on and off. Often that fact is forgot, yet it is another key reason besides cost that not every one wore plate. Over all a great video discussing the ways that ranged mediveval weapons like longbows got around armor.
I think the most interesting thing about this is the push pull of Armor and weapons development is back in the 21st century. I know US and probably UK soldiers are currently being issued armor, and the 62 grain projectile currently used in both countries rifle was developed in the 1980s to be able to defeat Steel helmets. They make soft body armor that can defeat a .44 magnum handgun round, so the Belgians developed the 5.7, a tiny zippy round that goes fast enough to penetrate it. NIJ rated level IV Body armor can defeat a few rounds of armor piercing .30-06, but only a few shots of anything, because they have to make it out of brittle ceramics, because a hardened steel plate that thick would be too heavy for the soldier to do soldier stuff while wearing it. You can get a level III solid steel plate which can take pretty much as many shots of non armor piercing .30 rifle ammo, or handgun ammo as you can throw at it, but the armor piercing rounds and vanilla 5.56 NATO rounds will make swiss cheese out of it. I'm certain that within a few decades we'll see new advances in composites which will make a level V armor possible, which will of course mean that firearms designers will be designing a new rifle round to penetrate it.
I think British soldiers have body armour now, but at the start of the 2003 Iraq war, there was a scandal over British soldiers being deployed without armour and were having to buy their own.
I've always pictured the fully armored knights and men at arms as the "tanks" of the medieval battle field. A tank on two legs. And just like in a modern army, the tanks are a small (but important) part of an army, the rest is other types of soldiers with varying degree of protection.
I imagine that getting shot with a lot of arrows is exhausting, even if none of them penetrate. Some of that percussive force is still getting transferred through the armor. If you get got in wave after wave of them, especially in heavy armor that restricts your breathing, it is entirely plausible that a knight would be utterly exhausted by the time that they marched through the mud uphill to meet relatively-rested soldiers who outnumbered them.
The thing that I took away from Tod's video was how the shafts of the arrows shattered when the arrows hit the breast plate. Now imagine hundreds of arrows hitting armoured plates, and you end up with thousands of wooden splinters to find those gaps in the armour, or the eye slots in visors. And its not just from arrows that are hitting you, but also from arrows that are hitting the knights either side of you, and therefore coming at you from all angles.
This was a much-needed and excellent supplement to the Agincourt video referenced earlier. I for one had all my questions answered with this video. Thanks. Great job.
As you say, it's worthwhile to remember that armor varied considerably in both quality & thickness. At say, 1 mm, even hardened steel wouldn't stop a perpendicular hit from bow & arrows tested in the excellent experiment in question. Limb armor was often 1-1.5-mm thick or possibly less. Visors & sides of helmets could also be fairly thin. All these thinner parts of harness could at least theoretically fail against a perfect shot from a 160lb yew warbow. Low-quality harness likewise could fail at a thick as 2 mm or a bit thicker. Harder steel requires three times the energy to defeat compared with slaggy wrought iron. Finally, note that yew warbow perform significant worse than well-made horn-&-sinew composite bows. According to current tests, a 160lb Manchu-style big-siyah bow with a very heavy arrow & a long draw might deliver double or more the kinetic energy the tested 160lb yew warbow delivered. Yew warbows made sense in their context in Northwestern Europe, given weather conditions & economic factors, but they were markedly inferior to the bows employed from Eastern Europe to China (assuming the same level of quality & proper maintenance &/or weather).
Check out the breastplate test on Lindybeige's channel. With a fully heat treated breastplate the thickness doesn't matter because the arrowhead doesn't even make a scratch. These would have been pretty rare in 1415, though.
Good against the enemy using horse in force of course! Anyway, I think the most interesting thing about the test is the ricochet of the arrowheads (and their ability to almost hug the armour)... which suggests that an impact that initially misses a gap may still find the gap! The question I'd like to see tested is whether the post-impact ricochet heads could penetrate gambeson or mail or dent thin plates (or helmet hinges)!
"breastplate does not make an armour." Right, as seen in the test, as the arrow went below the lower rim of the breastplate, it penetrated deep into the gel body, through mail, padding and so on. It is not the armour as such, but the spaces inbetween the plates that are risky when confronted with arrows. 😉
@@JS-yt5le Yes. As Mr. Easton ponts out, there can be, if the bearer has the abbility to afford the best. If he does not, as did the majority of soldiers, there inis still the risk of penetration. I mean, the best armour is in competition with high end weaponry, has always been. But everything can be overcome if there is a weak Spot, even the slightest one.
@@thomaswilkinson3241 He talks about it as well. ua-cam.com/video/yMaKrLxc9rw/v-deo.html The argument has almost always been plate vs bow. Sure some didn't have plate but they weren't the object of the question. That is smilarly to how soldiers without bows on the other side wouldn't really matter when finding an answer to how well a bow could shoot.
A very well thought out video, looking at the subject from a broad perspective. As usual in Matt's videos entertaining and instructive. Keep up the good work.
So basically, even the fully-armored Knights at that time were lacking the Horse Armor DLC and when they fell off of their steed, they became easy targets for weapons like Maces and Warhammers which DO massive damage, even against full steel plate. But most dudes were NOT even wearing any steel plate at all, and those that did, were mostly not covered head-to-toe.
Something that I would like to see discussed, is how many arrow impacts it would take to defeat that breastplate. We have modern body armor that can take solid impacts just the same, but each one fatigues the armor a little and it will eventually fail. So if you were to walk onto a battlefield in that armor facing hundreds of archers with the possibility of being hit dozens of times, I could see an arrow eventually punching a hole through.
I agree on the point of this video. A modern kevlar vest with ceramic plate will defeat a high powered rifle shot. So why do we still use guns? Well, because the plate only protects the most central and vital part and because it only works once. If you hit the guy anywhere else and miss the plate, that's him gone. I would fully expect the breast plate to be the most important and best of the armor plates. The rest are weaker, if only due to the weight and cost if everything was the same thickness and quality. Just because you can't penetrate the most obvious place doesn't mean you can't at all. That was true back then and it is true now. What the test clearly did show is that a well made breastplate was really very effective, that the V on it was really important and well designed and actually did perform its designed function very well, AND that shrapnel was a serious concern to the person being hit and to people next to him.
Best way to sum up war equipment is how an old NCO of mine explained to me the middling quality of standard issue: "what the Army gives you is adequate for you to complete your mission."
It would be really interesting to test how much kinetic energy was transferred to the body under the armour, and what that means in terms of under-armour injuries. I'm guessing getting hit with an arrow at close range didn't feel good. Better than an arrow through your liver, but still not fun.
Watching the video, I was wondering, "How many arrows can that breastplate take?" The arrows were leaving substantial dents. How many arrows have to strike in roughly the same spot, driving the same dent thinner and thinner, before one pounds through? 2? 3? 5? 10? 30? Considering the idea of long battles and advancing through massed fire, it doesn't seem like a wholly trivial question.
Breast plate does not an armour make is exactly the point I was making on the main video. I'd like to see more types of armour and more components of armour tested. Not just plate, boiled leather, jacks, coats of plates. I''m not familiar with the numbers of what was worn, but I would wager that only a minority of people could afford the full layer protection of a plate harness. Still, one of the best videos on the subject we've seen in a very long time. Hopefully we don't have to wait too long for the follow up.
Even if armor made you 'longbow proof' as we see in the video against the breastplate, I feel like it would still hurt and be very jarring to have a barrage of arrows slamming into you, shattering, throwing splinters everywhere... it wouldn't be physically or psychologically pleasant. Kind of like being in a bad hail storm. That kind of thing would still have a nasty effect on morale. I also found the shot where the arrow just plowed through the mail very interesting. It was like a hot knife going through butter.
Very interesting. Someone in Tod's video does mention the thinner plates, and how they'd like to see the test repeated on arm and leg armour pieces. And of course, they did emphasise the danger of the gaps. Especially after that one arrow just nicked the bottom of the breastplate and went right through the mail and the gambeson.
TLDR Arrows were effective as a tool in context with other weapons and defensive counter measures. Breast plates were only one piece in gear total gear to reduce injuries and deaths but other parts of the gear could be compromised. Most soldiers were not fully plate armored knights on horseback. Armored knights were just one of different type of soldier along with missiles soldiers spearmen deployed to defeat enemy formations. Yes both Arrows and Armor were effective at doing their particular jobs on the battlefield for a long time.
I think Tod and his co-researchers stated a few times that the breastplate is not the full story and there are thinner armor pieces on the extremities. They mentioned that they would like to test those as well and I very much hope they'll get to it some day :-)
Don't forget to mention that it's going to hurt when you get hit. And who'd want to walk up a muddy hill under a shower of arrows, getting hit time and time again, and then you still have to break into a hedge of halberd/spear/poleaxe points. It's gotta test anyone's courage.
Awesome video. One can clearly see how important this is for you. Any officer in those days would have liked it very much too as you always take care to give the scope of your statements.
The fact that the armor is weaker on the sides maybe helps to explain in part why the tactic of moving the archers to the flank to shoot from the sides came about? Maybe? Maybe it was not a planned tactic but an adjustment. Plan A isn't working, what now? Let's try something else, we are screwed anyways so might as well try something different. Or, they just got feedback in situ. "Our archers on the flanks are having some success." "Okay, shift all archers to the flanks." Obviously, we just do not know.
I would not say it irrelevant. Since a lot of people seem to think that armour was useless. Armour is not useless but it won't make you invulnerable. It will increase you survival chances. Also something people seem not to get is that a weapon may be used in the field to force a response by the enemy. Even if armour made you invulnerable towards arrow fire (which it do not) archers might still be something you bring. Why? Because it forces you opponent to bring armoured troops. In game design we call this counter play. And if you are more skilled at the how to counter treats you do not only know what options you have to counter you opponent. But also how you can direct you opponent with your forcing counter play. Of course a skill opponent may think out of the box and know your trapping them. They know you want them to use knights to counter there archers. But they also know that you will know you will use knights and so they have prepared a ambush with poles and pikes to counter any charger. No real difference if it a game of chess, magic the gathering or on a real battle field situation. There is always this game of countering and finding new way to surprise you opponent. If you removed you archers from the Battlefield you better be prepared when your opponent shows up with troops only which greatest counter was those archers. Heck maybe you opponent hired those now unemployed mercenary archers you discounted because you expected the enemy to show up in armour. ;) Like you so often say Matt. Context matters. And I do agree that if archers where useless then they would not been seen in the battlefield. Warfare is far more if a arrow can penetrate a piece of gear. ^_^
I think one thing people dont realize either when seeing these tests is that arrows are not just for shooting one guy in plate armor...Armors can be used as area denial weapons of the time..Just like rifles are not just for shooting people in combat. They also keep heads down and keep the enemy from moving to where they wanna be
Are you familiar with the arrow and armour testing done by the Woolwich Arsenal? This work was incorporated, in part, into Robert Hardy's "Longbow". There they found the heaviest hardened piles of about 4 ounces and sharpened like a cold chisel could punch through armour plate. Which is not to say they wouldn't glance off a breast plate, they probably did, the trick is getting the point to bite into the metal. The findings were also incorporated into the design of anti-tank shells.
The one aspect of the entire question that wasn't mentioned was the numbers of arrows being loosed. A large force of archers, each one able to shoot around 15 arrows a minute meant a total volume of projectiles in the air at any given time of many thousands. Even if this kind of barrage only lasted for a few minutes, the sheer terror of facing this kind of attack must have been substantial & the opportunities for arrows to find unprotected gaps or unprotected flesh would have been numerous.
Nice response video! I like your point of view. It really makes sense that you won't have to shoot all heavily armored opponents. Even more when you consider that 20 - 25% casualties is normally enough to brake your enemy's moral.
Great additional video to the test! I think there is a another point to make or to emphasise. Even if your harness is of the strongest kind, with very little gaps, hardened steel etc.: Like Dr.Capwell said, it will be very unpleasend to get hit with such a force. It must be horrible to get shot with arrows from such a bow, even in armour. The dents and the noise in the test tell the tale. Imagine you get hit multiple times, the hits are incredibly loud, especially when they hit your helmet, stuff is flying around, you get bruised, you try to hide your gaps you are aware of...the point ist: Even in "perfect" armour, this is not something you're cool with at all. And you have to get very close, without a horse, to do something against it with your pollaxe or whatever you swing around. Not an easy task.
Exceptionally informative. And there's a lot to be said about the sheer kinetic force of an arrow. I.e even if you plate stops rthe arrow, you're still taking the shock of impact which can be quite solid. and when you combine this with the mass volleys of arrows, well, Even if you can tank it you're going to need every muscle yyou've got just to stay on your feet, much less hold your ground, or silly things like advance. And then there's the sheer psychological impact of it. You've got a wall of pikes, spears and shields in front of you and then you start getting pointed death coming at you before you can even get in range of the angry men at their Sharp metal bits.
Cavalry nullification was an important point even in the late 19th century, its why the US chose the Spencer Rifle over the Winchester, larger ammunition that could bring down a horse.
Funny story. Purely by chance I actually met Will Sherman about a year ago while at a children’s farm park in Dorset. The farm was geared up for children’s play, and petting animals etc, but as I walked past one of the old farm buildings with my son I noticed a door ajar and the smell of wood fire. I poked my head in to see will at work in a medieval forge! I popped in and got chatting to him about black smithing until my 2 1/2 year old started saying he was bored and wanted to go to the tractor ride. I was like “oh please can I stay! Just 5 more minutes!” Obviously my son won, but I tool Wills details and have been saving up for one of his courses ever since 😂
Great point on processing the data from that test. So many people seem to want 100% conclusive, reproducible answers for this kind of thing, and that's just not how real life and actual daily physics works. I feel like a lot of these people will accept that a tank's armor is not "Good or bad" and depends on slope, angle of attack, ammunition used, etc. But then will say that "armor" either stops an arrow or it doesn't... just because we have modern day scientific data and first hand battlefield reports from tank battles but less so with battles from 200+ years ago.
Yep. From a battle between Novgorodians and Muscovites: "The warriors of the grand prince, noticing the heavy armor on the Novgorodians, began shooting arrows at their horses. The horses took fright and began to rush about under them and to throw them from their saddles. They [the Novgorodians] were unfamiliar with that kind of warfare and were as dead, and their hands grew weak. Their lances were so long that they could not raise them, as was the usual manner of fighting. They dropped them onto the ground when their horses panicked, and they fell under their horses because they could not master them."
Funny that, in many videogames / strategy games cavalry are actually the counter the to archers - exactly the other way round. The rock-paper-scissors formula typaclly is: archers beat swords, swords beat spears, spears beat cavalry, cavalry beats archers. Mostly because games consider horse+rider as one entity with a high amount of 'health' & due to their higher speed can reach the archers before they can get any decent damage out.Would be fun to see that trope subverted. Wonder if any game actually does that.
I think Mount and Blade does a decent job of it. Heavy cavalry tends to be the supreme unit in general in that game, but elite archers or crossbowmen supported by a solid infantry formation (especially with favourable terrain) can beat heavy cavalry fairly well. Mordhau also does it to an extent, in more of a siege context. Archer players can easily stay out of easy reach of the cavalry players, while peppering them with arrows any time they pass by.
A bit like today, we have plates that can stop all regular issued rifle projectiles. But that dont make 5,56 or 7,62 rifles obsolete because covering the entire body just isn't practical, so we compromise and put plates to protect vital organs.
I think they mentioned the main jist of your lecture. That the breastplate was the heaviest part of the armor you can get, but it didn't test the other, thinner, heavy armor pieces.
As I've posted a few times on the subject in a real battle the breastplate isn't stationary a charging mounted knight can add at least another 30 ft/sec to the arrow/armour collision and with kinetic energy increasing to the square of the velocity this may well make the difference between the arrow penetrating or not.
One thing that haven't been tested (for obvious reasons) is how much damage a knight could get by the impact of multiple arrows, just imagine how painful or deadly is a blunt trauma even using a helmet.
Think of the value; by wielding what amounts to some bits of wood, string, feathers and steel, you're forcing someone _else_ to cover themselves head to toe in ~50lbs of wildly expensive and sophisticated steel armour, which needs a team of people to transport, maintain and _even dress them in_ , all of whom need to be fed.
It would be great to see tests done against different kinds of armor at different ranges. There's a video on youtube of 150lb longbow vs gambeson at very close range like 20 or 30 mts and the arrow never penetrates. Seems unbelievable. Or if you're testing the strongest armor, let's see what the strongest bows can do. Todd shoots a 1000 lb+ crossbows for instance, and Joe the archer can pull a 200lb longbow. A fascinating tidbit from a French chronicler in early 16th century tells us that the maximum range that English archers would shoot from was about 30 meters (five pike lengths). All this to say, there's so much to test to really give an accurate all around picture of bow vs armor. It would be nice to see more and more tests done like the one that Todd and Toby did. The Way of Archery is doing some neat stuff along these lines.
that's why most of the knight from france did "survive" azincourt (yet waiting to be killed as priosoner). (and people forgeting it's a 2for1 (15k vs 8k) battle not a 10for1). and it explain why after this fight most of army was missile infantry
Great addition to Tod's series in my humble opinion. I pretty sure he mentioned at some points that he wanted to do the test on other pieces of armour like a thinner and more articulate one. Legs are especially interesting in my opinion as mechanically they don't react the same way as the chest to an impact but I guess they could be trickier to "simulate" under the layers of armour. And arms are other beasts too!
i think its the classic rock paper scissors nature of war, bows really effective against lightly armoured troop, heavily armoured troops really good against bows. not everyone can own a breastplate so bows were always useful against at least a quarter of the enemies army, probably more. its like asking today, why use regular soldiers if a regular soldier can easily be beaten by a tank.
The sheer volume of arrows would strike arms, necks, legs, and horse. These wounds would dismount many a knight, leave them wounded, and often incapacitated. This is why they worked, and why they were used in mass formations. Mind you the English bowman could place multiple arrows on a target at the same time by first firing a parabolic arched arrow or two, then a flatter trajectory arrow. Thus a formation of men would struggle to block all angles of arrows falling upon them. The English didn't necessarily need to defeat a given breast plate if they can pierce arms, legs and horse.
Thanks Matt, this is the video I've been waiting for years to see! Go and team up with Todd and the experts and do a definitive test. A full knight on a ballistic gell horse! 😀😉💪👍✌✊
Battles like Agincourt were the exeption. Most fighting during The Hundred Years War we're skirmishes and raids. Archers are more usefull for this way of warfare then heavy armoured Men at Arms. Archers march faster then Men at Arms with al their equipment.
If your side is outnumbered, taking out the regular soldiers, as Matt stated cavalry and then fight the fully armoured knights and men at arms with your own heavy armoured troops supported by their longbowmen. In that case the longbow is great. We shouldn't forget the armoured men at arms in the english army at Agincourt and the longbowmen could also fight in a melee. I do believe they did that at Agincourt? I do know that a lot of medieval armies had peasants, militia or whatnot as Matt said. However some do exaggerate and say that it was all knights or peasants, which isn't true. Now I've been wondering a bit since the french army for example in Agincourt is said to have a large number of noblemen and men at arms with good protection. Haven't found a lot about regular soldiers in that battle for the french? I would like to know a bit about it! Lastly, I do love these videos Matt!
With the visor down, Matt looks like 15th Century RoboCop.
"Dead or alive, you're coming with me... within context."
hahahahahah.....thumb up! Ein Daumen hoch für dreistigkeit!
"Ye wretched villain, lay down thine weapons in compliance with the King's law!"
Agincourt was one of the few history lessons I paid attention to in school. The teacher (the battle of Agincourt was his specialist subject) said that planning and location were as important as the weapons and armour. Specifically if you look at a topographical map of the area of the battle there is a 500 meter gap between the two hills (I have recently renewed my interest in this battle). However there was a reasonable amount of forestation which is completely unsuitable for a mounted knight to charge through overspilling the hills on both sides and some of the ground is boggy in October due to runoff from the hills. This could have brought the usable gap size down to possibly as little as 25 meters. There are several accounts that mention heavy rain (Gesta Henrici Quinti account, Thomas Elmham in Liber Metricus, and John capgrave writing a couple of decades later) and Thomas Walsingham mentions the area of the battle being very muddy. If you had half the Archers concentrating on that gap (the rest to guard against a possible flanking), then there could have been 60 bowmen for every meter of gap. Once you bring down a few horses and knights that gap gets considerably smaller. Just sheer weight of fire was bound to find gaps in the armour. For example there is some evidence that the archers were told to take aimed shots. This can be done in 6 seconds but to make the maths easy lets call it 10. So each archer is firing 6 shots per minute and 60 archers per meter (which is roughly the gap needed for 1 knight if they are virtually on top of each other). That's 6 arrows per second hitting you and your horse, in an area where fast movement is likely difficult. The archers would have been able to maintain this for several minutes.
Shad, Metatron, and now Matt, all geeking out over the same video. lol
Yeah, just waiting for Skall to do that =D
@@LuxisAlukard I'm waiting for Lindybeige to make his video on the subject 2-3 years from now.
@@dunmermage I think he won't do that. As far as he is conserned, only thing important about Agincourt is that English stuffed French
@@dunmermage Can't wait for Lyndybeige to make a 1 hour long video talking about it.
The good thing is that each of them took different approaches and put the effort to increase the information and not to bash or demoralize it.
If you took an arrow to the leg, you would not go to the back, you would become a Town Guard.
Well that is an accurate description of what a real "adventurer" is, i.e. someone who murders, rapes and steals from random people from other groups.
@@Robert399 Eh?
@@MrMonkeyhanger He's just mad that he can't win tabletop RPGs.
@@MrMonkeyhanger Well an "adventurer" is more like an English pillager than a fantasy hero.
@@kevinsullivan3448 Eh?
"Sir, the man on the horse is invulnerable to arrow fire!"
"The horse?"
"What?"
"Is the horse though?"
"......oooooooooh"
Yeah and if he's at a gallop, he'd fall down hard enough to stun if not concuss him- and then you walk over to a bunch of stunned knights with a knife, lift up their visors and asked if they'd rather be ransomed or die.
@@CrysResan Nah dude, when the horses die they do a combat roll and immediately get up to fight on foot. Haven't you played Mount & Blade?
@@CrysResan your comment sent my sides into orbit and back.
Cheers my guy 😂😂😂
Cries is metatron
When i want to pierce armor, i slam context into it.
A giant steel sphere wouldn't stand a chance against that.
I crit you with CONTEXT.
You died.
Nothing can defeat CONTEXT!
I counter your context with main character PLOT ARMOR!
My Cavalery is invulnerable............
It's like asking, "why were machine guns used when they had no chance of penetrating tank armor?"
I'd just finished typing out a longer more convoluted example then saw this.
More like why there were AT guns when they could not penetrate heavy tank front armor. Not everything was a heavy tank and not everything was the front ;)
Of course.
I supose, in that context, lightly armored men at arms would be comparable with modern riflemen, giving you another reason to use that machine gun.
Yes. Play enough war games and you start to realize that each weapons platform has its relative strengths and weaknesses both at the tactical and the operational level, and that you're in a game of rocks, paper scissors. No one weapon is king and each one must be thought of in the context of a combined arms approach that maximizes strengths and minimizes weaknesses.
Oddly enough, this comment is a perfect example of Matt's point about "weapons finding gaps". The early tanks used in WWI WERE vunerable to heavy MG fire, but not in the way you might think. Bearing in mind that early tanks were of rivetted, not welded, construction, the "splash" from the bullet hitting armour plate (i.e. the bullet being de-jacketed and the lead interior melting due to the heat from impact), would find any gaps in the joints, and fly around inside the tank, potentially injuring the crew. The drivers were especially vunerable and wore a mail visor attached to the helmet to prevent injury from the flying metal. It was rarely lethal, but could incapacitate any member of the crew it struck.
I love how Tod's experiment showed that silly V of raised metal front center of the breastplate was not for style, it was for directing arrows and bolts up and away from the face.=)
In a word: volume. When thousands of arrows are hitting, round after round, every few seconds, they will find the gaps and weak spots in armor and it will have a detrimental psychological effect on the troops.
Battle and war isn’t about one on one duels. It’s about numbers, strategy and tactics. A lot of people have this misperception that battle and war are about killing your opponent. But anyone trained in warfare knows the truth; it is about incapacitating your opponent. And that can be done by either wounding your opponent or by taking away his will to fight.
One of the primary purposes of massed missile weapons in field battles throughout history has been to wound or otherwise handicap your opponent so that by time the lines hit for melee your opponent is already at a disadvantage, or breaking your opponent’s morale- again so that by time the lines hit your opponent is at a psychological disadvantage or perhaps break their will to even engage in melee fighting. Look at the Roman Pilum, it was specifically designed to take out the enemy’s shield and render it useless so that when the Roman infantry, clad in armor and with their shield still effective, closed, the Romans held the advantage in the melee. Look at the Frank’s Francisca- designed to disrupt the opponent’s shield wall or line so that when the lines met for melee their opponent’s line was in disarray and the gaps in the line could be exploited.
The other prime objective of missile weapons in field battles is as Matt points out, to disrupt, change or dictate your enemy’s tactics. By using missile troops to incapacitate your enemy, or by your enemy knowing that you have missile troops and what their effect will be, a commander can disrupt his opponent’s battle plan and perhaps dictate his opponent’s actions to what he wants. It is a lot like using a geographical feature to dictate when and how your opponent must attack you.
So looking at archery vs armor requires not just a consideration of one bow vs one armor clad individual, or like Matt points out one piece of armor, it requires a consideration of how archery vs armor worked in large scale battle. It requires a consideration of thousands upon thousands of arrows, coming in rounds after round every few seconds, hitting a mass of densely packed men. As Matt points out, while a minority of them may have armor capable of withstanding such a barrage, the vast majority would not. And when you consider that you don’t have to kill the men to win the battle, one can start to picture the problem.
Just think about a man with an arrow in the knee. He might not die immediately from it, but he’s out of that battle and thus the mission of the archery was a success. Think about the knight whose horse is shot from under him. First, now you have broken his calvary charge but second even if he isn’t hit by the arrow there is a good chance he will be wounded from the fall to incapacitate him from the battle. Anyone who has ever fallen from a horse understands my point. And armor is not going to help much in that scenario. Just a sprained wrist to his dominant hand or a concussion that knocks him unconscious could incapacitate him from the battle. Thus the archery never even touches him but is able to render him incapacitated from the battle and thus has been successful in its job. And take conscripts who really don’t want to be there at all. They’re seeing men and horses go down around them, their forward momentum is halted (never underestimate the psychological effect of going forward vs being halting or being driven back), they’re getting showers of arrows landing around them, perhaps even hitting them but not penetrating their armor (it would be like being hit with a sledghammer). All of a sudden their will to advance is gone. They just want to get out of there.
So even if the majority of the knights and men at arms make it through this barrage to the enemy lines, they are only a minority of their own line. What shape would their line be in? What numbers would they have? And the archers they are now going to be in hand to hand melee with are not like what most people envision- men dressed in tights who can only shoot bows. The English archers for example were welled armored, well armed, battle hardended men from the wars in Wales and Scotland and other local feuds. They were more than capable of standing their ground and engaging toe to toe in melee fighting. And they are supported by men at arms and knights on foot. Who are fresh.
Looking at it this way makes it much more clear as to why archers were so sought after in wars and why they were effective. It also make more clear why armor was continuously evolving to try to be arrow proof. And remember too, large scale field battles were relatively rare. Fighting in huge field battles that involved armies of what would be nation states was the vast vast minority of a knight’s fighting. Much of his fighting was local feuds, fighting for power like the crown, putting down peasant revolts, or kings consolidating their power over their feudal subjects who, up until this time, had much power and autonomy. In this type of fighting and these battles, which involved far fewer numbers of men and thus far fewer archers, having armor that was impenetrable to arrows would have put the knight at a great advantage. When the archers cannot be massed in great numbers, then the advantages of the armor over the bow and arrow would be significant in the outcome of the battle favoring the armored troops. So their is still going to be this drive to develop this armor and a market for it because for the men who are going to purchase it, it still will put them at a great advantage in the vast majority of the fighting they are likely to
do.
Great video Matt, love your stuff.
Very good comment.
Killing someone might enrage an onlooker. But seeing someone flee (his fighting will dismantled) will trigger a similar response in another, due to the herd mentality. So instead of one enraged bloke charging at you, you have two blokes presenting their rear sides.
Tactically, if a shower of missiles makes an advance to falter even for few seconds, it is a win. The momentum is broken, the force of impact reduced.
Again, very good comment. Sorry to basically repeat what you have said, but it is worth repeating.
I think one of the interesting points from the original video was what happened to the arrows. You do have to wonder was it a case of aim at the breast plates until a certain range and then start hitting weak points. The Knight in full plate might be fine however what would be happening to everyone around them?
Excellent comment! There is so much more than just being lethally shot with an arrow involved here.
I would like to add that, speaking from my experiences playing ice hockey, getting hit with a projectile carrying that kind of energy in the knee, shin, or foot can be painful and somewhat debilitating, depending on how it hits. Seeing what kind of dents those arrows made in the breastplate, I would bet on a direct hit to the knee causing enough harm to prevent the victim from walking for a while, despite any padding worn under the plate.
Very likely, the kinetic energy of an arrow from Tod's test is similar to a hockey puck, and arrows are not pucks, they are more stabby...
Excellent analysis. Your video complements Tod’s video perfectly! One point I feel hasn’t been addressed yet, though, is the psychological role that longbows would have played at Agincourt
Imagine you’re a French knight. You’re advancing on foot towards the English line. You’re trudging through the mud, which is slowing you down and tiring you to no end. Then, with the English infantry 100m ahead of you, you’ve suddenly got dozens of arrows pounding you and your companions from both left and right. The arrows can’t go through your armour, but each time one of them hits you, it’s like being punched by a boxer. It staggers you backwards for a few steps and leaves a nasty bruise. What’s more, there are arrowheads and exploded wooden shafts flying everywhere. You’re constantly worrying that any arrow could be the unlucky one that hits you through the eye-slit or under the aventail. You press on through this seemingly endless barrage, until finally you reach the English men-at-arms, who have been standing there waiting for you this whole time.
What do you think your psychological state would be after all that? I for one don’t think I’d have a lot of fight left in me! I certainly don’t think I’d be giving my best performance against my English counterparts. I think this might have been an important factor in why the English won, despite being outnumbered by the French.
This was the second best test of Agincourt period bows and breastplates. The best test was done in France, on 25 October 1415.
mingheemouse Nicely done.
Jacques de Châtillon - died while fighting in melee against the English man at arms
David de Rambures - survived the arrow volleys and later captured while fighting the English in melee, murdered as a prisoner of war
Guichard Dauphin - died while fighting in melee against the English man at arms
Antoine of Burgundy - participated in the secondary charge, survived the arrows storm, fought in melee, captured and later murdered as prisoner of war
Jean I, Duke of Alençon - survived the arrow storm completely unharmed, fought his way to king Henry himself, killed four of king Henrys bodyguards while trying to kill king Henry, died while fighting other bodyguards
Edward III, Duke of Bar - died while fighting in melee against the English man at arms
Philip II, Count of Nevers - died while fighting in melee against the English man at arms
Frederick I, Count of Vaudémont - died while fighting in melee against the English man at arms
Robert of Bar, Count of Marle and Soissons - captured during the melee against the English, later murdered as a prisoner of war
John VI, Count of Roucy - died while fighting in melee against the English man at arms
Waleran III, Count of Ligny - captured during the melee against the English, later murdered as a prisoner of war
Edward II, Count of Grandpré - captured during the melee against the English
Henry II, Count of Blâmont - captured during the melee against the English
Jean de Montaigu, Archbishop of Sens - captured during the melee against the English
John of Bar - captured during the melee against the English, later murdered as a prisoner of war
Jean I de Croÿ - died in close melee while fighting against Henry's bodyguards while trying to capture king Henry, he managed to hit Henry with a mace to the face
Jean de Béthune - captured during the melee against the English
Jan I van Brederode - captured during the melee against the English, later murdered as a prisoner of war
these are the people who lead the charge at Azincourt
@@RockerMarcee96 holy smoke, that's an awesome list
from that info....
7 died
10 captured
and 6 murdered at a later date
@@x3roxide yeah but none died to arrows, that's the real thing here. Everyone who died in this list died to English knights in close combat.
not disagreeing with you there, but the people in the list were not the norm, they were the elite. No one recorded when a normal man at arms or conscript was killed.
Also lucky (or unlucky) shots do happen, especially with volleys of arrows.
Remember that the same King Henry V (then prince Henry) in the battle of Shrewsberry (1403) was shot just below the eye by an arrow. If he was anyone other than the future king, I doubt that it would have been survivable since he got the best medical attention.
That bow Matt is holding is amazing; with all those knots and wibbly bits.
As ever, context is king in this video.
My impression is that killing late medieval knights was like killing Space Marines: not impossible but you're going to have to try really hard.
Is this the real al-Khwarizmi? I have so many questions. I always knew Khwarizmi would be a Warhammer 40k fan. You should start an AMA.
Don't forget that killing late medieval knights is a waste of money. Ransom them, you fools!
@jihad islam you seem like you'd be a riot at parties
Massed flashlight volleys
@@deektedrgg The English took so many French prisoners that they started to be a security risk. So the king ordered his troops to kill the disarmed and surrendered men. Irony
Love it when all of you guys express your take on the same subject. Gives me a lot of content to think about. Beautiful work.
This reminds me a lot of people talking about how certain Tanks or Battleships were impervious to some other type of weapon system.
Lots of people don't understand that just because *one* part of a weapons sytem/defense system is impervious doesn't mean the rest is. There's a reason you want to shoot a tank in the side or rear. Seems to be similar here.
One tactical advantage of having a lot of long bows deployed might be to intentionally force the enemy to wear heavy armour, like when it's very hot or in swampy areas, or the enemy only has so many armoured warriors, etc. or even forcing the enemy to campaign with all that gear
Because you wouldn't wear all your *extremely expensive* gear otherwise. You'd just go into melee, charge a lancer or pike formations in your light and comfy "safety t-shirt", but for those pesky archers again... "Damn, call my squire. I'm gearing up."
It forces armies to march in their armor with all that heat. Being ambushed by archers would be deadly.
@@bakters
He's referring to the fact that too many bows makes fielding troops without said extremely expensive gear much less effective. Really expensive gear, being really expensive, means you won't have as much of it even if you really wanted to pay for it. You won't have enough boyz on the field to stop much larger numbers of guys with halberds, bec de corbins, or leverage + pointy bits weapons from overwhelming your tiny block of ardboyz if you're forced to try to armor up past what is efficient.
@@CtrlAltRetreat I second this.
It's better to employ troops that can return fire instead of armoring up all your troops beyond cost efficiency. That's why crossbows are a game changer. Anyone can use it without needing a lifetime of strength training to pull a warbow.
@@CtrlAltRetreat You don't absolutely need expensive gear to defeat arrows. Shields will do that too. That's what people used when they couldn't afford large quantities of custom fitted steel plate.
Think about Romans or Greek hoplites. That's actually interesting comparison, because in their time bows were not extremely strong, probably because even the strongest bows would be defeated by the large shields they carried, while a lighter and slower arrow would find a gap in armor just as effectively as a projectile shot from Mary Rose monsters. It seems to me that bows grew to monstrous sizes only because fairly good gear became common and people abandoned shields.
Regarding "tiny block of ardboyz" being easily defeated by a hail of arrows - Sure it can work, but out in the open I wouldn't bet against the ardboyz. Find "Battle of Orsha" picture to see what I mean. Right in the center you have them shown. Both infantry, defending artillery and especially cavalry. Full plate armored knights on armored horses.
(I don't like posting links on YT, because you never know if they are allowed, but I'll risk it this time. The Battle of Orsha below.)
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Autor_nieznany_%28malarz_z_kr%C4%99gu_Lukasa_Cranacha_Starszego%29%2C_Bitwa_pod_Orsz%C4%85.jpg
Great points all. One of the other things I've not really seen mentioned, is the sheer psychological effect of having to advance on foot into an onslaught of arrow-fire. One of the things that really struck me about Tod's video, was the massive percussive force being transferred onto the armour with every shot. If you try to put yourself into that scene; trudging forward into a hail of arrows, men around you dying, the cacophony of hardened steel arrowheads ricocheting off of you, each impact a hammer blow, all mixed with the adrenaline and fear that at any moment, one will find its way into a gap. It must have been truly terrifying.
My best guesses before watching the video:
1. Not everyone wore the same quality or amount of armor.
2. There are gaps in the armor so you can move
3. Kill the horses
4. Repeated impacts can take a toll
5. Showers of arrows cause confusion and panic
6. Tactical and strategic use; situation and context
I'm subsrcibed to your channel for about three years and I have never seen your full harness.
Same
I wish everyone could wear a brigandine everyday. Gotta bring it back, people.
And cloaks
noone wore brigandine everyday even back then, its like wearing a military plate carrier ballistic vest nowadays...
also, armour is annoying... doing just normal day to day stuff isnt as fun with armour.
Maybe in winter. I couldn't manage everyday armor in summer.
@@elgostine Not exactly like that since the modern military kit weighs significantly more than even platemail, but we have to make sacrifices in any case if we want to bring something into style. You can't wear it sparingly and get everyone to do it just for fashion purposes.
Well....no one is stopping you from wearing one, i imagine. Be the change. :P
Matt, Please also note that arrows forced men at arms to close their visors. This made the plate-armored French advance through the mud at Agincourt, for example, just that much more difficult. As a teenager, Henry V had learned the hard way to keep his visor down.
One thing I really wish they had tested was a direct hit to the side of the plate. The breastplate is designed to turn direct hits to the front into glancing blows, which is great, but if you are charging a line of archers, people several meters to your left and right might also be shooting at you, and those people will be shooting directly at your sides, not your front. I suspect in those situations the arrow could penetrate, or if not, could slide upward into the armpit, similar to how the arrows behaved in the shown tests.
It'd definitely be interesting, though I might be wrong, but I think since you'd probably be part of a line and wouldn't charge alone, you'd have comrades on your sides, diminushing the likeliness of being shot in the sides ? Then again, it depends how lose or tight is your formation, but I think I remember French knights being described in many instances as closing in the english lines in tight formations.
"but if you are charging a line of archers, people several meters to your left and right might also be shooting at you"
And waiting to be cut to pieces or bashed to death? You would really shot at someone who charge in your general direction from several meters? Event from 20 meters?
Add to that that people who move aen't able to present the strongest armoured part towards the enemy all the time. People turn to the side, reach down or turn around ect.
@Europa Uber Alles If you are not protected from charging warhorse by field fortification or allied heavy formation you will be moped up whatever you do.
@Europa Uber AllesBattlefield is not a sitting and moving icones on the screen. If you was light armed soldier charged by cavalry on open terrain you would not "choose the best option" but you would run in panic, or lay down frozen from terror.
Todd and his experts did mention wanting to do a test against limb armor. I would guess that cuisses would be the most likely plates to get penetrated, as they are fairly broad (compared to arm harness) and the limb is relatively stationary (when weight is put on them).
Richard Tillman I’d be very interested to see those results. I’d guess the thinner armor in those regions probably splits the difference with the fact that an arrow is considerably more likely to glance off an arm or shin?
It's dealing with the difference between thinner sloped/curved armor vs thicker, flatter armor. That relationship is complicated in all sorts of ways, but an overly simplified explanation is that the more sloped an armor is, the narrower your target area becomes while the thicker the armor, the more power you need to penetrate. If you have the power to go through the armor, you're aiming for the easiest clean target, but if you don't, you're looking for less well-armored portions, even if they are harder to get to.
Another part of that is trying to make your attacks less likely to glance off the sloped armor. I suspect the extra ability for the hardened arrowheads to bite is for that reason, much like how warhammers and maces have the studs to make them grip the armor better so they're less likely to skip off.
Good points about quantity of projectiles overwhelming no matter how low you cut the chances - and most people didn't have an AC in the low 20s! In "Fighting with the AK: too Simple to be Tactical" Gabriel Suarez talks about the need in CQB to move sideways rather than forward, backwards, or remain stationary. Because "If I stand in his sights, what am I doing? I'm testing the capabilities of his round. No matter how strong I am, no matter how armored up I am - I"m gonna get shot!" Even with the best bullet-stopping armor we have over your as much of the body as Modern gear comes, one guy with an AK or Uzi or just a a double-stack auto-loading pistol emptying a magazine (semi-auto or full-auto) into you at CQB distances will almost certainly get more than lucky enough. "Whether through luck, or skill, makes no difference to you."-Sonny Puzikas, Fighting with the AK: Lost in Translation
My friend got a nice collection of Red Dragon nylon swords. A few came bent, but I straightened them. I used your clamping method for straightening antique blades, but with my bare fingers!
He's getting into longsword, and bought a set of Red Dragon gear. We're both getting those SPES officer jackets so we can spar! Thanks for doing so much to get us into this.
You should get all the bits to make yourself a VERY well protected archer. The mail, the bits of plate on your limbs, etc. The same way you show off different swords in the background, you can show off different armors! You should take more about different types of shields, I think they've been neglected lately.
When you shoot the horse, a knight in the mud is fit for the dagger and hammer.
King Henry was great at setting up the fight.
A great upload!
Very well done! Thank you for the very clear explanation. Armor, of course, is always a compromise between protection and mobility. The reason that the "best" armor was used upon the head and torso is that those are the parts of the body where a penetrating injury is most likely to result in rapid incapacitation; everything else was less important and thus less well-protected. As you point out, if either arrows or armor had a clear and decisive advantage, armies would have been comprised entirely of the "better" weapon system. The "arms race" of the 14th-15th centuries is pretty clear evidence that neither had a distinct edge over the other and I'm surprised how many "internet experts" can't see that.
As an armchair cavalry historian and sometime practitioner of 19th-20th century cavalry skills, I concur 100% that depriving the opponent of his mobility is a big deal. A cavalryman on foot is...well...a poorly-equipped infantryman. That's not to say that mounted infantry (dragoons) don't have a place. Indeed, dragoons have been used to great effect, but they still rely upon mobility to provide their advantage. Even today, just knowing that the opponent has the capability to reduce or negate your mobility -- be it land mines, IEDs, or anti-armor weapons --- changes your tactics and thus the ebb and flow of the battle. I've personally had the experience of taking a very long walk because the enemy had anti-aircraft weapons in the area and we couldn't be extracted as planned. In effect, this meant that a unit was out of the fight until we could recover to our own lines. Even though anti-aircraft missiles aren't much threat to the man on the ground, it changes how he can fight. Even if arrows aren't much threat to a nobleman encased in full high-quality plate armor, it changes how he can fight. That makes the archers worth their expense.
I am so glad that in all the internet noise, there are channels like yours, Tod's and many others, which just consistently elevate the information and knowledge, really resonating among themselves when an interesting topic arises, providing all the different perspectives, insights, and mostly - in your case fully, all done with a deep respect.
And... (18:24) makin' me laugh from time to time too, I ain't gonna be the guy testing kevlar vests, full plates or force fields against anything, just in case it won't get certified :D
Adding to this, just imagine the sheer amount of psychological terror of having mass arrows come at you - that alone might lower the morale far enough to call it quits.
More reason to believe armor could protect you again that kind of enemy fire. The knight where confident that they would get to the other end just fine.
@@vhsprojektblue4221 Did you not even watch the video? The majority of the army weren't extremely well armoured knights. It doesn't matter if the knights don't break formation, if the rest of your army loses morale and flees.
Matt, thank you for mentioning that wear full-plate armor was a team effort, requireing servents to help getting it on and off. Often that fact is forgot, yet it is another key reason besides cost that not every one wore plate.
Over all a great video discussing the ways that ranged mediveval weapons like longbows got around armor.
I think the most interesting thing about this is the push pull of Armor and weapons development is back in the 21st century. I know US and probably UK soldiers are currently being issued armor, and the 62 grain projectile currently used in both countries rifle was developed in the 1980s to be able to defeat Steel helmets. They make soft body armor that can defeat a .44 magnum handgun round, so the Belgians developed the 5.7, a tiny zippy round that goes fast enough to penetrate it. NIJ rated level IV Body armor can defeat a few rounds of armor piercing .30-06, but only a few shots of anything, because they have to make it out of brittle ceramics, because a hardened steel plate that thick would be too heavy for the soldier to do soldier stuff while wearing it. You can get a level III solid steel plate which can take pretty much as many shots of non armor piercing .30 rifle ammo, or handgun ammo as you can throw at it, but the armor piercing rounds and vanilla 5.56 NATO rounds will make swiss cheese out of it. I'm certain that within a few decades we'll see new advances in composites which will make a level V armor possible, which will of course mean that firearms designers will be designing a new rifle round to penetrate it.
I think British soldiers have body armour now, but at the start of the 2003 Iraq war, there was a scandal over British soldiers being deployed without armour and were having to buy their own.
I've always pictured the fully armored knights and men at arms as the "tanks" of the medieval battle field. A tank on two legs. And just like in a modern army, the tanks are a small (but important) part of an army, the rest is other types of soldiers with varying degree of protection.
And like tanks, if you get rid of all the supporting infantry/light horse, they suddenly become much more vulnerable.
I imagine that getting shot with a lot of arrows is exhausting, even if none of them penetrate. Some of that percussive force is still getting transferred through the armor. If you get got in wave after wave of them, especially in heavy armor that restricts your breathing, it is entirely plausible that a knight would be utterly exhausted by the time that they marched through the mud uphill to meet relatively-rested soldiers who outnumbered them.
At Agincourt, archers were on the flamks, so shot the advancing dismounted knights in their sides and from behind. Lots of vulnerable spots.
The thing that I took away from Tod's video was how the shafts of the arrows shattered when the arrows hit the breast plate.
Now imagine hundreds of arrows hitting armoured plates, and you end up with thousands of wooden splinters to find those gaps in the armour, or the eye slots in visors.
And its not just from arrows that are hitting you, but also from arrows that are hitting the knights either side of you, and therefore coming at you from all angles.
This was a much-needed and excellent supplement to the Agincourt video referenced earlier. I for one had all my questions answered with this video. Thanks. Great job.
What's for dinner?
Archer: Fresh horses!
Not an arrow through the leg, only an arrow to the knee stops adventurers.
It's been like 8 years. Am I still going to see this meme another 8 years from now?
likely
@@Boomie789 Yes. Yes, you will, along with "All your base belong to us," and "LEEEEEEROOOOOOYYYYYY JENKINSSSS!"
I dislocated my left knee two times. Can I be a town guard now? I need a retirement job for beer money :(
Neil Wilson damn bees and their damn honey, would it kill them to get some beer?
Brigandine pattern t-shirt/hoodie merch anyone? Let's go!
Gotta do the helm too.
I would buy the shit out of a hoodie that looked like Matt's style of brigandine.
Or even better, a jacket that looks like an arming doublet.
I know that you can buy full plate or Polish hussar armor tshirt
The armored Knight was a very expensive and complex weapon system, with a massive logistical tail.
"weapons have a way of finding holes". Giggity
As you say, it's worthwhile to remember that armor varied considerably in both quality & thickness. At say, 1 mm, even hardened steel wouldn't stop a perpendicular hit from bow & arrows tested in the excellent experiment in question. Limb armor was often 1-1.5-mm thick or possibly less. Visors & sides of helmets could also be fairly thin. All these thinner parts of harness could at least theoretically fail against a perfect shot from a 160lb yew warbow. Low-quality harness likewise could fail at a thick as 2 mm or a bit thicker. Harder steel requires three times the energy to defeat compared with slaggy wrought iron.
Finally, note that yew warbow perform significant worse than well-made horn-&-sinew composite bows. According to current tests, a 160lb Manchu-style big-siyah bow with a very heavy arrow & a long draw might deliver double or more the kinetic energy the tested 160lb yew warbow delivered. Yew warbows made sense in their context in Northwestern Europe, given weather conditions & economic factors, but they were markedly inferior to the bows employed from Eastern Europe to China (assuming the same level of quality & proper maintenance &/or weather).
I heard the underrated chinese eared bow can reach really high poundage efficiency
Check out the breastplate test on Lindybeige's channel. With a fully heat treated breastplate the thickness doesn't matter because the arrowhead doesn't even make a scratch. These would have been pretty rare in 1415, though.
Love your videos Matt. Always make learning things fun. Wish my history classes in school and college were as engaging.
So do I. My History classes in the 1980s in the UK were deliberately boring and irrelevant. Comedy lessons in modern China are no laughing matter.
Good against the enemy using horse in force of course! Anyway, I think the most interesting thing about the test is the ricochet of the arrowheads (and their ability to almost hug the armour)... which suggests that an impact that initially misses a gap may still find the gap! The question I'd like to see tested is whether the post-impact ricochet heads could penetrate gambeson or mail or dent thin plates (or helmet hinges)!
"breastplate does not make an armour." Right, as seen in the test, as the arrow went below the lower rim of the breastplate, it penetrated deep into the gel body, through mail, padding and so on. It is not the armour as such, but the spaces inbetween the plates that are risky when confronted with arrows. 😉
Thing is there would still be a segemented plate "skirt" below the breast plate.
@@JS-yt5le Yes. As Mr. Easton ponts out, there can be, if the bearer has the abbility to afford the best. If he does not, as did the majority of soldiers, there inis still the risk of penetration. I mean, the best armour is in competition with high end weaponry, has always been. But everything can be overcome if there is a weak Spot, even the slightest one.
@@thomaswilkinson3241 He talks about it as well. ua-cam.com/video/yMaKrLxc9rw/v-deo.html
The argument has almost always been plate vs bow. Sure some didn't have plate but they weren't the object of the question. That is smilarly to how soldiers without bows on the other side wouldn't really matter when finding an answer to how well a bow could shoot.
A very well thought out video, looking at the subject from a broad perspective. As usual in Matt's videos entertaining and instructive. Keep up the good work.
I think it's also worth a mention that horses make nice big targets, and were not always as well protected as their riders.
So basically, even the fully-armored Knights at that time were lacking the Horse Armor DLC and when they fell off of their steed, they became easy targets for weapons like Maces and Warhammers which DO massive damage, even against full steel plate. But most dudes were NOT even wearing any steel plate at all, and those that did, were mostly not covered head-to-toe.
Something that I would like to see discussed, is how many arrow impacts it would take to defeat that breastplate. We have modern body armor that can take solid impacts just the same, but each one fatigues the armor a little and it will eventually fail. So if you were to walk onto a battlefield in that armor facing hundreds of archers with the possibility of being hit dozens of times, I could see an arrow eventually punching a hole through.
imagine the pain of wearing a plate if it was bent by a club
I agree on the point of this video. A modern kevlar vest with ceramic plate will defeat a high powered rifle shot. So why do we still use guns? Well, because the plate only protects the most central and vital part and because it only works once. If you hit the guy anywhere else and miss the plate, that's him gone.
I would fully expect the breast plate to be the most important and best of the armor plates. The rest are weaker, if only due to the weight and cost if everything was the same thickness and quality. Just because you can't penetrate the most obvious place doesn't mean you can't at all. That was true back then and it is true now.
What the test clearly did show is that a well made breastplate was really very effective, that the V on it was really important and well designed and actually did perform its designed function very well, AND that shrapnel was a serious concern to the person being hit and to people next to him.
Best way to sum up war equipment is how an old NCO of mine explained to me the middling quality of standard issue: "what the Army gives you is adequate for you to complete your mission."
It would be really interesting to test how much kinetic energy was transferred to the body under the armour, and what that means in terms of under-armour injuries. I'm guessing getting hit with an arrow at close range didn't feel good. Better than an arrow through your liver, but still not fun.
Excellent video Matt you covered everything and very well done!
Watching the video, I was wondering, "How many arrows can that breastplate take?" The arrows were leaving substantial dents. How many arrows have to strike in roughly the same spot, driving the same dent thinner and thinner, before one pounds through? 2? 3? 5? 10? 30? Considering the idea of long battles and advancing through massed fire, it doesn't seem like a wholly trivial question.
Breast plate does not an armour make is exactly the point I was making on the main video.
I'd like to see more types of armour and more components of armour tested. Not just plate, boiled leather, jacks, coats of plates.
I''m not familiar with the numbers of what was worn, but I would wager that only a minority of people could afford the full layer protection of a plate harness.
Still, one of the best videos on the subject we've seen in a very long time. Hopefully we don't have to wait too long for the follow up.
Even if armor made you 'longbow proof' as we see in the video against the breastplate, I feel like it would still hurt and be very jarring to have a barrage of arrows slamming into you, shattering, throwing splinters everywhere... it wouldn't be physically or psychologically pleasant. Kind of like being in a bad hail storm. That kind of thing would still have a nasty effect on morale.
I also found the shot where the arrow just plowed through the mail very interesting. It was like a hot knife going through butter.
Oh, thank god for this response video! I’m gonna go tell my boss that his weekly meeting can go screw right off!
Show him this video, and he might learn a bit about technical people and why they make projects work.
Very interesting.
Someone in Tod's video does mention the thinner plates, and how they'd like to see the test repeated on arm and leg armour pieces.
And of course, they did emphasise the danger of the gaps. Especially after that one arrow just nicked the bottom of the breastplate and went right through the mail and the gambeson.
TLDR Arrows were effective as a tool in context with other weapons and defensive counter measures. Breast plates were only one piece in gear total gear to reduce injuries and deaths but other parts of the gear could be compromised.
Most soldiers were not fully plate armored knights on horseback.
Armored knights were just one of different type of soldier along with missiles soldiers spearmen deployed to defeat enemy formations.
Yes both Arrows and Armor were effective at doing their particular jobs on the battlefield for a long time.
I think Tod and his co-researchers stated a few times that the breastplate is not the full story and there are thinner armor pieces on the extremities. They mentioned that they would like to test those as well and I very much hope they'll get to it some day :-)
Captain Context!
But!
Field Marshal context. He got promoted.
Don't forget to mention that it's going to hurt when you get hit. And who'd want to walk up a muddy hill under a shower of arrows, getting hit time and time again, and then you still have to break into a hedge of halberd/spear/poleaxe points. It's gotta test anyone's courage.
Awesome video. One can clearly see how important this is for you. Any officer in those days would have liked it very much too as you always take care to give the scope of your statements.
The fact that the armor is weaker on the sides maybe helps to explain in part why the tactic of moving the archers to the flank to shoot from the sides came about? Maybe? Maybe it was not a planned tactic but an adjustment. Plan A isn't working, what now? Let's try something else, we are screwed anyways so might as well try something different. Or, they just got feedback in situ. "Our archers on the flanks are having some success." "Okay, shift all archers to the flanks." Obviously, we just do not know.
I would not say it irrelevant. Since a lot of people seem to think that armour was useless. Armour is not useless but it won't make you invulnerable. It will increase you survival chances.
Also something people seem not to get is that a weapon may be used in the field to force a response by the enemy. Even if armour made you invulnerable towards arrow fire (which it do not) archers might still be something you bring. Why? Because it forces you opponent to bring armoured troops. In game design we call this counter play. And if you are more skilled at the how to counter treats you do not only know what options you have to counter you opponent. But also how you can direct you opponent with your forcing counter play. Of course a skill opponent may think out of the box and know your trapping them. They know you want them to use knights to counter there archers. But they also know that you will know you will use knights and so they have prepared a ambush with poles and pikes to counter any charger. No real difference if it a game of chess, magic the gathering or on a real battle field situation. There is always this game of countering and finding new way to surprise you opponent. If you removed you archers from the Battlefield you better be prepared when your opponent shows up with troops only which greatest counter was those archers. Heck maybe you opponent hired those now unemployed mercenary archers you discounted because you expected the enemy to show up in armour. ;)
Like you so often say Matt. Context matters. And I do agree that if archers where useless then they would not been seen in the battlefield. Warfare is far more if a arrow can penetrate a piece of gear. ^_^
I think one thing people dont realize either when seeing these tests is that arrows are not just for shooting one guy in plate armor...Armors can be used as area denial weapons of the time..Just like rifles are not just for shooting people in combat. They also keep heads down and keep the enemy from moving to where they wanna be
Are you familiar with the arrow and armour testing done by the Woolwich Arsenal? This work was incorporated, in part, into Robert Hardy's "Longbow". There they found the heaviest hardened piles of about 4 ounces and sharpened like a cold chisel could punch through armour plate. Which is not to say they wouldn't glance off a breast plate, they probably did, the trick is getting the point to bite into the metal. The findings were also incorporated into the design of anti-tank shells.
The one aspect of the entire question that wasn't mentioned was the numbers of arrows being loosed. A large force of archers, each one able to shoot around 15 arrows a minute meant a total volume of projectiles in the air at any given time of many thousands. Even if this kind of barrage only lasted for a few minutes, the sheer terror of facing this kind of attack must have been substantial & the opportunities for arrows to find unprotected gaps or unprotected flesh would have been numerous.
Awesome. Really enjoy understanding from your videos.
Nice response video! I like your point of view. It really makes sense that you won't have to shoot all heavily armored opponents. Even more when you consider that 20 - 25% casualties is normally enough to brake your enemy's moral.
8:15 "I'm always gonna have things exposed"
Knew there had to be a double entendre in there...
Great additional video to the test! I think there is a another point to make or to emphasise. Even if your harness is of the strongest kind, with very little gaps, hardened steel etc.: Like Dr.Capwell said, it will be very unpleasend to get hit with such a force. It must be horrible to get shot with arrows from such a bow, even in armour. The dents and the noise in the test tell the tale. Imagine you get hit multiple times, the hits are incredibly loud, especially when they hit your helmet, stuff is flying around, you get bruised, you try to hide your gaps you are aware of...the point ist: Even in "perfect" armour, this is not something you're cool with at all. And you have to get very close, without a horse, to do something against it with your pollaxe or whatever you swing around. Not an easy task.
Exceptionally informative.
And there's a lot to be said about the sheer kinetic force of an arrow. I.e even if you plate stops rthe arrow, you're still taking the shock of impact which can be quite solid. and when you combine this with the mass volleys of arrows, well, Even if you can tank it you're going to need every muscle yyou've got just to stay on your feet, much less hold your ground, or silly things like advance.
And then there's the sheer psychological impact of it. You've got a wall of pikes, spears and shields in front of you and then you start getting pointed death coming at you before you can even get in range of the angry men at their Sharp metal bits.
Cavalry nullification was an important point even in the late 19th century, its why the US chose the Spencer Rifle over the Winchester, larger ammunition that could bring down a horse.
Funny story. Purely by chance I actually met Will Sherman about a year ago while at a children’s farm park in Dorset. The farm was geared up for children’s play, and petting animals etc, but as I walked past one of the old farm buildings with my son I noticed a door ajar and the smell of wood fire. I poked my head in to see will at work in a medieval forge! I popped in and got chatting to him about black smithing until my 2 1/2 year old started saying he was bored and wanted to go to the tractor ride. I was like “oh please can I stay! Just 5 more minutes!” Obviously my son won, but I tool Wills details and have been saving up for one of his courses ever since 😂
always a delight to see your videos
Great point on processing the data from that test. So many people seem to want 100% conclusive, reproducible answers for this kind of thing, and that's just not how real life and actual daily physics works. I feel like a lot of these people will accept that a tank's armor is not "Good or bad" and depends on slope, angle of attack, ammunition used, etc. But then will say that "armor" either stops an arrow or it doesn't... just because we have modern day scientific data and first hand battlefield reports from tank battles but less so with battles from 200+ years ago.
That thumbnail is the most MS paint thing I've ever seen
Love it
6:37 It was Henry IV, not his son, Henry V.
Yep. From a battle between Novgorodians and Muscovites: "The warriors of the grand prince, noticing the heavy armor on the Novgorodians, began shooting arrows at their horses. The horses took fright and began to rush about under them and to throw them from their saddles. They [the Novgorodians] were unfamiliar with that kind of warfare and were as dead, and their hands grew weak. Their lances were so long that they could not raise them, as was the usual manner of fighting. They dropped them onto the ground when their horses panicked, and they fell under their horses because they could not master them."
Excellent video Matt amazing job and very interesting analysis !
Funny that, in many videogames / strategy games cavalry are actually the counter the to archers - exactly the other way round.
The rock-paper-scissors formula typaclly is: archers beat swords, swords beat spears, spears beat cavalry, cavalry beats archers.
Mostly because games consider horse+rider as one entity with a high amount of 'health' & due to their higher speed can reach the archers before they can get any decent damage out.Would be fun to see that trope subverted. Wonder if any game actually does that.
I think Mount and Blade does a decent job of it. Heavy cavalry tends to be the supreme unit in general in that game, but elite archers or crossbowmen supported by a solid infantry formation (especially with favourable terrain) can beat heavy cavalry fairly well.
Mordhau also does it to an extent, in more of a siege context. Archer players can easily stay out of easy reach of the cavalry players, while peppering them with arrows any time they pass by.
A bit like today, we have plates that can stop all regular issued rifle projectiles. But that dont make 5,56 or 7,62 rifles obsolete because covering the entire body just isn't practical, so we compromise and put plates to protect vital organs.
I think they mentioned the main jist of your lecture. That the breastplate was the heaviest part of the armor you can get, but it didn't test the other, thinner, heavy armor pieces.
even if it didn't kill you in your gear, having a wounded soldier meant that there was every possibility that you were no longer a major threat.
As I've posted a few times on the subject in a real battle the breastplate isn't stationary a charging mounted knight can add at least another 30 ft/sec to the arrow/armour collision and with kinetic energy increasing to the square of the velocity this may well make the difference between the arrow penetrating or not.
A demonstrator at the Royal armouries at Leeds said that a suit of custom made armour cost the same as a Ferrari today, not many could afford it.
Can't wait to see the review of that Messer!
One thing that haven't been tested (for obvious reasons) is how much damage a knight could get by the impact of multiple arrows, just imagine how painful or deadly is a blunt trauma even using a helmet.
I bet Bethesda Stole 'The arrow to the Knee' meme from Agincourt.
Think of the value; by wielding what amounts to some bits of wood, string, feathers and steel, you're forcing someone _else_ to cover themselves head to toe in ~50lbs of wildly expensive and sophisticated steel armour, which needs a team of people to transport, maintain and _even dress them in_ , all of whom need to be fed.
It would be great to see tests done against different kinds of armor at different ranges. There's a video on youtube of 150lb longbow vs gambeson at very close range like 20 or 30 mts and the arrow never penetrates. Seems unbelievable.
Or if you're testing the strongest armor, let's see what the strongest bows can do. Todd shoots a 1000 lb+ crossbows for instance, and Joe the archer can pull a 200lb longbow.
A fascinating tidbit from a French chronicler in early 16th century tells us that the maximum range that English archers would shoot from was about 30 meters (five pike lengths). All this to say, there's so much to test to really give an accurate all around picture of bow vs armor. It would be nice to see more and more tests done like the one that Todd and Toby did.
The Way of Archery is doing some neat stuff along these lines.
that's why most of the knight from france did "survive" azincourt (yet waiting to be killed as priosoner). (and people forgeting it's a 2for1 (15k vs 8k) battle not a 10for1). and it explain why after this fight most of army was missile infantry
Great addition to Tod's series in my humble opinion. I pretty sure he mentioned at some points that he wanted to do the test on other pieces of armour like a thinner and more articulate one. Legs are especially interesting in my opinion as mechanically they don't react the same way as the chest to an impact but I guess they could be trickier to "simulate" under the layers of armour. And arms are other beasts too!
i think its the classic rock paper scissors nature of war, bows really effective against lightly armoured troop, heavily armoured troops really good against bows. not everyone can own a breastplate so bows were always useful against at least a quarter of the enemies army, probably more. its like asking today, why use regular soldiers if a regular soldier can easily be beaten by a tank.
The sheer volume of arrows would strike arms, necks, legs, and horse. These wounds would dismount many a knight, leave them wounded, and often incapacitated. This is why they worked, and why they were used in mass formations. Mind you the English bowman could place multiple arrows on a target at the same time by first firing a parabolic arched arrow or two, then a flatter trajectory arrow. Thus a formation of men would struggle to block all angles of arrows falling upon them. The English didn't necessarily need to defeat a given breast plate if they can pierce arms, legs and horse.
Thanks Matt, this is the video I've been waiting for years to see! Go and team up with Todd and the experts and do a definitive test. A full knight on a ballistic gell horse! 😀😉💪👍✌✊
Yes, aim for the gaps or legs. Legs were commonly unarmored.volleys from the high ground were brutal too.
Battles like Agincourt were the exeption.
Most fighting during The Hundred Years War we're skirmishes and raids. Archers are more usefull for this way of warfare then heavy armoured Men at Arms.
Archers march faster then Men at Arms with al their equipment.
If your side is outnumbered, taking out the regular soldiers, as Matt stated cavalry and then fight the fully armoured knights and men at arms with your own heavy armoured troops supported by their longbowmen. In that case the longbow is great. We shouldn't forget the armoured men at arms in the english army at Agincourt and the longbowmen could also fight in a melee. I do believe they did that at Agincourt?
I do know that a lot of medieval armies had peasants, militia or whatnot as Matt said. However some do exaggerate and say that it was all knights or peasants, which isn't true. Now I've been wondering a bit since the french army for example in Agincourt is said to have a large number of noblemen and men at arms with good protection. Haven't found a lot about regular soldiers in that battle for the french? I would like to know a bit about it!
Lastly, I do love these videos Matt!