Can a 350lb Medieval Crossbow Penetrate Steel Helmets? (16 / 14ga)
Вставка
- Опубліковано 10 лис 2016
- This historical reproduction is from Tod's Stuff.
www.todsstuff.co.uk/crossbows/...
Basic introduction to medieval crossbows:
• Medieval crossbows: Fu...
Previous crossbow tests:
• Light Crossbow, Bow, S...
• This piece of leather ...
• 45 lb Scythian bow and...
Melee weapons tested on these helmets:
Norman mask helmet
• Helmet tests, part 3 -...
Anglo-Saxon helmet
• Helmet Tests, Part 4 -...
Music: “Celtic String Orchestra” by Audio Lion
www.audiomicro.com/violin-viol...
********************************************************************************
My favorite online store for buying swords (worldwide shipping):
ww4.aitsafe.com/go.htm?go=kult...
Channel-related shirts and stuff:
skallagrim.spreadshirt.com/
Some recommended knife makers on Amazon:
amzn.to/1qjwMNL
Want to help fund future videos?
/ skallagrim
My Facebook page:
/ skallagrimyt - Розваги
See I'm an idiot who clicked the video expecting the crossbow *itself* to be 350 pounds, and was super confused why you weren't calling it a ballista at that point.
Shawerma I would figure it's the force of the draw on the crossbow's string itself, and how hard it shoots bolts. I don't know proper terminology for that, but I can assume that's at least what it is.
Shawerma The draw weight of the crossbow
The draw strength of the crossbow.
Important for comparison to a bows strength is that the draw weights impact on the projectile depends on string/draw length. Bows have a lot less draw weight but often similar "power" since the draw distance is much longer. So 350 lb sounds like a lot and it is but they have around or less than a third of the draw length depending on crossbow and bow you compare.
Hmm they must not still teach about tension in schools
*Armored soldier hit by a crossbow*
Armor soldier: "Lol"
Heath Mordin Armored soldier gets hit by a crossbow with a draw weight of a thousand pounds "ouch my arm shit, shit, I'm bleeding out"
+X Infinity
See, this is why crossbows need pommels too.
maxwell simon bolt with a pommel tip
Mateus Zuravski
I think you might be a genius!
I heard on the Silk Road that they have something like that in China now!
you need a magic enhanced cross bow that ignore armor rating.
I mean, that's what the S+ rated medieval armies do right?! HAHAHA!
You mean, this one?: www.diabloii.net/gallery/data/642/runeword_ice_gmb_perfect.jpg
MadEngineer , good old D2. but that is a bow, not cross bow, plus skall cannot use it (is Cara in the right class ?). don't forget ignore defense doesn't work on boss.
AFAIK in D2 it doesnt matter what class a hero is: he can use whatever equipment he wishes if he has enough strenght/dexterity.(with a few exceptions)The class-skills for specific weapon/armor thats another matter.
And I honestly would not believe that shooting at an empty helmet would count as Boss. :)
MadEngineer, it's been a long time since I played D2 (used to play alot), I remember those class specified items can be only used by the class. We all know skall is not in the right class for that bow anyway. I always liked those "effects" works for everyone.
Here is a better example what I had in mind.
tinypic.com/r/2rgdk5s/9
This is why armour existed. It was effective. Next video we'll see why "was" is an important word.
It still is, modern armour is effective (though has many of the limitations of over armour, mainly weight cost and lack of manoeuvrability). All modern armies worth anything equip their troops with armour, you need look only at the suggested videos to see tests of said armour.
Go watch Demolition Ranch he has few videos of him shooting modern armor plates with gradually increasing sized round. You'd be surprised how well even the low caliber armor rated stuff holds up to stuff.
Okay, can I correct myself? I meant steel armor, more specifically full plate, splint and chain mail.
I do not doubt the capabilities of modern armor. (Still wouldn't like to be shot whilst wearing it though.)
Its a low poundage crossbow. Back then you could get over 1000lbs of draw weight with these. Skall mentioned he'd like too test those out but they are too pricey.
Still armor works completely differently now. It's too expensive and heavy to fully armor a soldier with any material worth using, and even then most armor can only reliably stop a limited number of shots before they start to penetrate. At least from whatever caliber they're rated for.
Of course that was true in medieval times too, but guns made everything much more difficult.
on the bright side if you were shooting at a guy buried neck deep in sand you could probably just take the helmet off of him
But he might bite your legs off.
Maybe it's like that duel with the guy half buried and the dog..
And now the black knight from monty python popped up xD
LMAO !!!!!
lmao
Impressive what a helmet is capable of...
Ive been decieved by movies and games
Helmets are not completely useless? Woah. :V
No Free Will i mean, in movies they are just there to look cool. You never see the armour stop anything
That's because the helmets being tested are made of 100% thrown pommels, how else could they deflect those bolts?
Chris G Actually, Skall said in abother comment that the crossbow he was using was only a 350 lbs draw weight. The ones that were used to penetrate armour (and are depicted in movies) are heavier ones with a draw weight of over 1000 lbs. He would like to test it out but they are too expensive.
I was just watching Troy again yesterday and Achilles *throws* a sword that cuts into and lodges itself in one of the Trojan soldier's helm. I mean, it's Achilles but that totally stupid one way or another.
"Dat one bounced."
"We dinged them."
"We didn't even scratch em."
Try premium ammunition. :P
Lol, HEAT ammo for crossbows, now that's an interesting thought
Gonna try with some APCR
its called a piat
lol
Just load HE you pleb, no need to waste creds on like 3 mm of armor
Crossbows can't melt steel beams.
Budred123 your right I never thought of it like that
Would a heavier bolt have penetrated? The speed and range obviously will suffer from the heavier projectile, but seeing how the helmet dented, I think a heavier bolt might be able to punch through.
It would depend on how much the added weight reduced the speed, and whether the new combination of velocity and mass would actually increase or reduce the kinetic energy being delivered. So, the answer is maybe, depending on how much mas you add and how close the crossbow is to reaching the mass limit before losing total energy.
On my current bow, using 125 grain heads instead of 100 grain heads gives me more penetration. 175 grain reduces the speed, but I've been able to find no difference in power and like the arc better. If I tried 200 grain heads I'd likely see a reduction in power as the speed continues to drop. It might be that the crossbow is already firing the heaviest bolt it can without losing energy.
edit: I am not a physicist, so my terms will likely be irritating in their wrongness, but I believe the idea to be solid.
I doubt that a heavier bolt would have made much of a difference. The key to penetration vs. armor is more speed than weight, that and material density. If you take two projectiles of equal density with one lighter than the other and fire the lighter one really fast and the heavier one fairly slow the faster-lighter one is going to penetrate better.
It already used two different bolts, and one of them was about the max weight you want for this. Much heavier and it loses too much velocity, and velocity matters a LOT (as you'll see with the firearms).
kinetic energy grows faster at higher velocities than higher masses, so a faster projectile will transfer more energy at the impact compared to heavier but slower ones (obviously the difference between masses hasn't to be that high, an arrow will strike much harder than a pin shot by the same crossbow).
No it wouldn't have mattered, since Kinect Energy = 1/2 * Mass * Velocity^2. Having small and faster bolts would bring a lot more energy to the table than increasing the bolt's mass or weight. It's probably why the Chinese had those repeating crossbows, that could fire quite a few smaller bolts in a minute.
I think the real power of the crossbow in the medieval era wasn't their power, or any of thing of that sort but it was their ability to be massed easily and be trained on it easily. Or it might have been that massed fire of crossbows would dent the armor all to hell, allowing the second volley to let some through. Or it was good way of killing the horses the mounted knights used. I don't know, probably conjecturing at this point.
Trebuchet vs helmet!
Did you know that a Trebuchet can launch a 95kg projectile over 300 meters? Isnt a Trebuchet which can launch a 95kg projectile over 300 meters really nice, not like catapult because Trebuchet can launch a 95kg projectile over 300 meters.
Pommel vs helmet
filewulfe Catapults are only good for launching plague bodies into enemy cities. They don't even do any actual damage!
Atomic bomb vs helmet
Results: Inconclusive, Helmet and Hiroshima test area in question could not be accounted for, requires further testing.
I was surprised just how effective the helmets were.
Crossbows had been in use since the Late Roman Empire. Both Saxons and Normans by the mid dark ages had already known how to counter them.
Pommel tipped bolts would've ended any soldier rightly.
LOLOL
With my luck the bolt would come straight back at me.
Even if it didn't pierce it, the medieval crossbow is such a gorgeous weapon :o
This was a low poundage crossbow.
Nah. 350lbs is a perfectly reasonable fighting weight - it doesn't reliably punch through armour, but plenty of people don't wear armour or wear partial armour, horses don't wear armour, etc etc. It's also light to carry, and fairly quick to reload. Lots of fighting is more skirmish-type arrangements (instead of pitched battles), and participants wouldn't necessarily be expecting to be shot at that day.
Furthermore, the rise of even larger crossbows is easily matched by making armour plates thicker (which we see happen). The idea of 'proofing' armour by taking a test-shot at it emerges first with crossbows well before it is ever done with firearms.
@@teakew8217 Actually, I was surprised how weak this crossbow even is against lower grad armour, scrap lamellar, chainmail with padding etc. If you compare it to the longbow in Tod's Arrows vs Armor, this crossbow does far, far worse. It seems that you would need like a 1000 pound windlass crossbow to compete with a longbow, so this 350 pounds crossbow is probably just comparable to a relatively weak bow and every warbow surpasses it in terms of penetration, at least judging from the tests I have seen. Yes, you could reason that a windlass takes far longer to reload and so there is an argument to be made for this goatsfork crossbow, but then a warbow has an even higher rate of fire and is far more effective. This crossbow would do nothing against high tier armour, it doesn't even pierce mail with gambeson underneath.
Works as designed to! :D The effectiveness of black powder firearms would be interesting to see.
He tried but it rained that day.
says a lot about the effectiveness of black powder then.
Ostsol it would be perfect in Australia. barely rsins
I suspect that even modern low caliber rounds such as .22 might have trouble with the normal helm. Not anything above that, just the really weak stuff.
Tane Gurnick, you've clearly not lived in Melbourne, mate.
Your videos have come a long way (production and location) in the last 3 years. Keep up the great work Skall!
This crossbow is on the lower end. If I remember correctly the draw strength on an English longbow was something like 180lb and I think most crossbows were heavier than that.
the crossbow was at 350lb. is has to be that high as to account for the short lengh
It's still a fairly small crossbow, significantly larger ones were used.
And then of course you have the absolute monsters seen in siege battles, but those are man carried ballistas really.
draw weight isn't the only factor when evaluating the power of a bow or crossbow. Projectile weight, draw LENGTH, and arrow velocity are all equally or more important to the efficacy of a bow shot than raw draw weight.
Because crossbow bolts are substantially lighter than war arrows, crossbows get much less "bang" for their "buck" when it comes to raw draw weight in comparison to conventional bows.
*90-110 not 180
Fuhrer Pingas reproductions of the bows recovered from the wreck of the Mary Rose have draw weights ranging from 150-170 lbs. Of course we have no way of knowing for sure whether such weights were typical for medieval English longbows/warbows, but clearly draw weights in excess of 150 lbs were not unknown.
Well, despite the bolt not puncturing the helmet, it would certainly give the wearer something to think about.
The wearer would not think much about anything after that dent to the forehead.
Yay, waiting for the next video! Guns VS helmets sounds awesome.
And afterwards +JoergSprave builds a slingshot shooting helmets.
The ultimate support-weapon - equip your comrades with helmets forma distance - "let me show you its features"
ABaumstumpf Unfortunately you need a helmet to avoid getting killed by flying helmets... :-)
Peter Guhl let me show you it's features
... thanks and bye-bye ...
HA-HA-HA-HAA
...well at least you'd stand a chance of maybe temporarily disabling another enemy nearby when it bounces into their eye
That first bolt, at least, appears to be iron tipped. A steel tip may fair better.
Steel tips may break off under such forces.
Most historical sources point to soft iron tips that deform and harden on impact rather than steel for bolts and arrows.
A say, 0.8% carbon steel, properly hardened and tempered is tough, not brittle. The tempering reduces the brittleness, reduces hardness from very hard to still very hard and greatly increases toughness. Firing a arrowhead, made from that, at a medium steel helmet, with a crossbow and at close range would cause the arrowhead to have some of its patina scratched off at worst. Unhardened steel is also not brittle.
Most medievel arrow heads would have been forged.i.e heated and hammered into shape, out of wrought iron. This would provide sufficient hardness, toughness and resistance to deformity to do its job at least once, especialy given that the blacksmith would carburize it and quench it once it is to the required shape. You wouldn't want your arrow head to deform on impact, you would like it to hold its shape and punch through. You don't make nails from plasticine.
......those wearing this sort of armour and being fired upon have aren't going to be firing it back.
Very nice shots Skall!
This give so much background for realistic, medieval fantasy games. And for thar I thank you, sir.
One thing i am confused about now is this: your crossbow in the video, is it a general type of power for medieval crossbows or is it weaker then the general medieval crossbow! because if that would be the most damage it can do those helmets then why the reputation of the crossbowmen like the genoese! i mean they had a mean reputation, rumors say that the Pope banned crossbows, now i know that most likely is as said a rumor but that just shows what debate it started through the middle ages!
The reputation is mainly that of heavy crossbows, spanned with a windlass, which can have draw weights over 1000 pounds.
***** oh thanks Skall! , is there any reproduction of one of those? What your opinion would be if you tested one of those? Thnx anyway.
Artani Awesome i was actually wondering that myself im sitting here think is his crossbow weaker than a normal one because ive heard of them punching right through helms and armor
Skall, next time use armour-penetrating bolts with depleted-uranium-cores...
I believe at those draw weights typically they were classified as Arbalests given the sheer kick to those things.
No expert, but that seems like a very blunt bolt... Pretty sure you need special bolt heads to penetrate armour.
Exactly, one could essentially use steel that was tempered in the same way the steel plated armor was made. Which of course was possible but was impractical because of time and cost when trying to outfit an army.
Yeah, should've used HEAP bolt
crossbows generally use a more blunt tip as the higher power of the crossbow a sharp bladed tip would crumble. cost and time would not be worth it to have sharp pointed tips.
*pene-trait
Well, I might say something extremely stupid now, but I think that you're not supposed to penetrate armor with blunt arrow. I think that one should use a sharp arrow with a bayonet style head (sorta like the first one in the video).
Yan Doroshenko Blunt bolts were used for bird hunting.
Wiped Ceiling I am no ornithologist, but that thing does not look like a bird to me.
Yan Doroshenko Cutting doesn't help against hard targets. Sharp weapons are used for soft tissue and unarmored targets. You want a heavy and hard tip with a small impact area. But the longer and smaller the tip is the greater risk of breaking or bending. No sword was ever used to cut through steel armor. all you'd do is damage the edge. Thrusting swords were used to get in the places where no armor was present. Penetrating weapons always had a small but sturdy tip.
the lacete head was more commonly used for armor penetration. Those seemed to be blunt pyramidal heads.
Not stupid at all. A needle bodkin was the prefered arrowhead for piercing armor, but even that wasn't particularly useful for the task. It might cause injury, but not a fatal one. More "Ouch, pull it out" than "errgh, I am dead".
thankyou thankyou thankyou for showing the reload. so many other crossbow reviewers skip the reload, maybe cause it less dramatic but if you really want to know all the ins and outs its a major in to skip! thank you!
What if a Bodkin Point was used?
If it can dent the helmet like that, wouldn't it still fuck you up pretty badly and crush your skull?
they wore padding underneath, you'd probably be fine.
AwestaKhalid Probably not crushing the skull, but it would of course be a lot of punch perhaps nocking you over I guess (although it of course depends).
Not usually; armor is rarely worn without padding underneath it. Judging from those, the most you would experience would be some mild discomfort.
Maybe if a fuck-ton hit it
Would ring your bell, not really fuck up.
Wow, I thought for sure it would go through like butter every time.
You are way too accurate with this crossbow! Impressive!
Apparently armor and helmets were made because of these crossbows.
looking like you should be fine if you were wearing it. It would probably still hurt
Have fun with that concussion
Well, with some luck you might actually survive. Getting your head penetrated by bolt, well, good luck surviving that :)
At least your head will ring for a while. And some of the dents bent the metal pretty deep inwards which coud give so.e nasty wounds and scratches.
Seems like it hits pretty hard so it might knock you off your feet and leave you dazed for a moment which would probably be pretty bad on a battlefield.
DR. JAGER MEISTER But was that force spread out or concentrated on a single point? Even a relatively small amount of force concentrated in a small area can easily do more damage than a larger amount of force spread out
SO HYPED ABOUT NEXT VID!!!!
Such a beautiful Saxon helmet too.
Spoiler alert: it can't.
you should attach a string to your bolts so you don't have to chase them down
Don't try this at home kids, it's VERY DANGEROUS... Attach a string to a bolt/arrow is extremely dangerous as the string will probably wrap onto the bow/crossbow or even the device you'll use (like a pulley). It will cause the projectile to travel circularly, and probably hit something on his way (probably you, in fact...)
Sorry for my bad grammmar, i'm not English... But kids, don't try this i'm serious !!
Very interesting, this is probably one of the reasons when not volley shooting bows you would attempt to aim for weak points in the armour, I imagine that bolt would do a lot of damage to chainmail even if it couldn't penetrate the helmets, however during a lot of the medieval period most soldiers would not have full armour on, it was too expensive to give to peasant levies and other troops, so crossbowmen with handspun and lower draw-weight bows could still effectivley shoot down a lot of the enemies forces.
Awesome! Thanks for all the tests you do for us! Of course at 350# I'd have to think that was more of a hunting crossbow than a war crossbow but on the other hand those weren't top of the line helmets either. (So much for RPG rules stating arrows and bolts are always "destroyed" after use. Although I really appreciate you showing us that the bolt became a little loose.)
The French Hound's helmets made from hardened steel and the accompanying plate armor were specifically designed to protect against English longbow arrows. If these crossbows can't get through regular helmets at close range why did the French need that special armor then?
An English longbow is considerably powerful than this crossbow.
But crossbows seems stronger in all the games. D:
The beefiest crossbows were very powerful, with draw weights over 1000lb. Those were stronger than any normal bow could be but this one is much weaker.
As Skall said at the start, 350lb crossbow is comparable to 70-80lb bow. Longbows were about 160lb.
Paddywhack _ added to that, the arrows for stronger bows and bolts for stronger crossbows, i suspect, would have to be sturdier than for regular ones or the stress of shooting them from those weapons could break them. that could make them heavier - well, i know that arrows of that time had to be built stronger for warbows and longbows than for hunting bows. No deer ever wore armor so they could be killed easier.
Mass over matter, heavier dart required
Actually velocity matters more. One of the two bolts I used is already close to as heavy as would be practical with this crossbow. Much heavier and it loses too much energy.
It won't lose energy if it's heavier. It'll have more energy (but if the bolt was already heavy enough, not enough to matter). It will lose velocity, but energy is the key to punching holes in steel.
Timo Nieminen
Velocity increases energy at a more rapid rate than mass. Which is why in the other video where we shot the helmets with firearms the smaller bullets firing at higher velocities could more easily penetrate the steel.
Bullets are a poor comparison, since different cartridges provide different amounts of energy (and anyway, lighter but faster doesn't always have more energy - 5.56x45mm NATO provides about 1700J and 7.62×51mm NATO about double that (3300J)).
Shooting heavy or light bolts/arrows from the same crossbow/bow, at the same draw, you have the same stored energy. Since the heavier bolt/arrow is shot more slowly, you lose less energy to the movement of the bow limbs, and the bolt/arrow gets more energy. As I said, maybe not enough to matter, but more energy is more energy and not less energy.
For a simple mathematical model, see arxiv.org/abs/1101.1677
For measurements, see www.atarn.org/islamic/akarpowicz/turkish_bow_tests.htm (arrow weights from 14 grams up to 100g)
Timo Nieminen
Kinetic energy is 0.5*m*v², and because the speed is squared it increases the result much more than an increase in mass does. Lower mass = less inertia = less energy needed to accelerate the object to a certain speed.
Your channel is so awesome
Great sounds made by bolt and helmet!
Can a Gun Penetrate Steel Helmets...????
So exciting, can't wait to find out.
So many opportunities for dangerous ricochets, yay!
Yes and no, against those mild steel helmets, a 9mm round will pen most of the time, but against a hardened steel helmet it will not ( most of the time).
J. Bravo I was answering the first commentary, yours had not even appeared yet :p . And about the 9mm against those helmets, i'm talking about the video where skall shot one of these helmets with an 9mm, and as i remember, from 4 shots fired, 2 penned. Considering its a mild Steel helmet and tests made against hardened Steel, its safe to say that a hardened helmet would have good chances against the same weapon.
there's a reason armor got ditched after gunpowder weapons were introduced and constantly improved. For a short time you saw some really heavy and thick armor but that dissapeared quickly because it wasn't worth it. you are to slow and you wouldn't want to be this slow and cavalry couldn't armor horses lile that.
No, but a bullet fired from one can. : )
I feel like you should be just a tiny bit more careful about ricochets.
Meh richochetes have lost most of their power. My friend got ricocheted by a .22 bullet in the shin or what was left after I accidentally shot a metal fence. Hardly even hurt him we just laughed about it
Nice test.
sweet demo
Next I want to see a gastrophetes and an arbalesta. Make it happen, Skall, we depend on you!
Sorry, I can't grow money out of my pockets. :)
***** Hmm.
True.
My Name Chef A gastrophetes is 5k lbs.
The 350 lbs refers to the force of the string, it takes 350 lbs of force to lock the string back
signs80 We know.
how are you picking up a fucking 350lb crossbow with such ease
I really hope this is a joke...
remonjules I'm the furthest thing from a master but cmon really? Really?
remonjules no it was a joke lmao
This puts my faith back into helmets.
I have always wanted a crossbow ever since I found this channels I have realized how effective armor really was
No penetration power whatsoever. interesting. crossbow would be more useful as a club
Tane Gurnick that or you need a really good aim to get the exposed flesh
that's why you shoot him in the torso(if he's not wearing full plate)
To be fair, it is a rather small and weak crossbow. A war-grade one can be considerably stronger.
Still thought it made dents in the helmet. It might not kill the person yet it would defiantly hurt them.
SKy_the_Thunder what is a war grade one? 350 lb is already a lot. I think I'd go for a recurved bow. Good poundage and better rate of fire.
Nah, just shoot it with SKS.
Agnar Selvik. soviet russia
Wow. Armour is really bloody useful!
Don't know what it is, but there's something entertaining about watching test videos, whether you know the expected result or not.
Nope it dosent, need a 500lb
Na go to a full on balista for guaranteed penetration, bigger is always better right?
Launch a tree trunk at them with such velocity it splinters in the air and rains the enemy with armor-piercing splinters.
If I recall correctly, Sergeant Detritus's crossbow was actually a re-purposed siege engine with a 2000 lb draw. It was called the "Piecemaker", and was known for not only opening front doors, but frequently creating backdoors as well.
I am very happy someone got the reference ^^
The draw weight on the Peacemaker was originally 2000lb when it shot a six-foot iron arrow, which Detritus could draw with two fingers ("Men at Arms", in the armory as Corporal Carrot arms his militia). However, in order to achieve maximum destruction, the draw weight was adjusted to be several times higher, requiring a winding mechanism to be cocked even by Detritus (This is most dramatically used at the castle of the werewolves in "The Fifth Elephant").
this made me so much curious if any home made weapons from slingshot channel could penetrate the helmets or not
Some people are thinking, how does a 350 pound crossbow not penetrate armor?
The crossbow has shorter draw length than a normal now. Meaning it's not equivalent to shooting a 350 pound long bow( I don't think such powerful bow exists anyways)
Also, the helmet is made of 14/16 gauge steel. It's very, very heavy and thick. Tempered steel that thick at times couldn't even be penetrated by primal firearms. You'd have to be very close to punch that kind of armor through with a matchlock.. Perhaps a much heavier crossbow with 500-800 pound draw weight could've done a better job with a heavier and sharper bolt.
Also for many people saying it needs a heavier bolt, that's not entirely true. Heavier bolt using the same draw weight cross bow would mean the bolt would travel slower.
You need the projectile to be traveling faster to punch through armor. Sufficient weight is required but velocity also is vital.
Seeing how it dents the steel, it'll probably give the head inside the helmet a concussion I think. Or at least hurt a lot.
Just wondering though, how would it fare against torso armor?
dang! I'm actually pretty surprised it didn't do more.
As someone who enjoys the idea of a crossbow, this was extremely interesting!
There is a crossbow in NYC's Metropolitan Museum of Art with a1,800 pound pull. A windlass is used to draw the bowstring back into position. Someone told me that it's purpose was to securely imbed into a medieval siege tower. The rope attached to the bolt would allow defenders to pull the tower over. (I don't know it the siege tower story is true).
Looking forward to the next video :D Man, I thought the bolt would penetrate the helmet for sure.
i cry everytime i see theses poor helmets get hurt :( you are a monster skallagrim!
helmets can literally save your life 1000 times on the battlefield yet most movies seem to totally ignore them for the sake of cinema
Looking forward to the next video! Are you doing Flintlocks?
Two things.
* The helmet is half buried in soft sand, so the impact is much weaker (the sand absorbs some kinetic energy)
* Even without actual penetration, this could effect in a severe concussion (which would disable a wearer)
I'm just amazed you managed to hit it. i don't think i could have, even at that range.
Would one of those winch-cocking super heavy crossbows make a difference?
pretty much yeah xd more impact and velocity
You mean an arbalest?
I'd be interested to see how different arrowheads perform against armor - though given the promised follow-up video I doubt you'll have any intact armor left to test.
The more I see of these videos the more I understand the trend towards firearms when they were available.
I'm surprised the fletching stayed on the bolt as well as it did. With my modern aluminum arrows if I miss and strike the fence post, the fletching flies off the shaft.
The area you live in looks lovely, i wish we had fog like that here
QUESTION! How does the bolt stay on the crossbow without tipping forward and falling off?
It doesn't, if the bow is slanted down too much. This was dealt with by either fitting a horn spring clip behind the nut which gently holds the base of the bolt onto the stock, or something moderately sticky, like beeswax, on the groove on the stock to gently stick the bolt on the stock.
Maybe the tip of the bolt is dull, how about a sharper one? maybe it has a chance of punching through
well , you still have the option of aiming in the eyes, and besides, even if the bolt doesn't penetrate the helmet, some bolts made dents, so the energy from the impact if transferred to the head, so it would still hurt, if you got hit with a crossbow bolt in the head
I was surprised, it looked like it did puncture the helm, even if only slightly. All of those hits looked like they could potentially cause concussions. They hit with a lot of force.
this will be no problem for bullets.
weight increases piercing force linearly, while speed increases it exponentially (force is mass times the square of the speed)
Looks like it has a hardened wooden tip ? If it was heavier with a metal tip, and there was something inside the helmet to provide some resistance, Im sure it would punch right through.
Just wondering if a heavier projectile could have done more damage though i doubt it would go through
So if you get shot in the head by a crossbow when you're wearing a helmet, you'll probably survive. But now I'm wondering, would it knock you out? Give you a concussion? What would you feel/hear/see after such a hit?
Quick question: why do these bolts only have two fletching sections? doesn't it need three to be stable in 3 dimensional space? Does it have so much mass that it just doesn't matter? Gimmie the physics doc.
do you know the kinetic energy of the bolt? i think a slinger can do more damage (but he's not that accurate)
Maybe the point of the dart is too wide for penetration, but It looks like there would have to be a lot of space between the helmet and your head if you don't want to get hurt, because the steel bends a lot. Was that the case back then ?
Moral of the story: wear a helmet to battle - it's so good they're still doing it. ^^
nice shots
Great test but Id like to see what happens against a flatter chest plate like steel..The shape of the helmet alone does alot of the protection
Is there a way to know how much "harder" are these modern steel helmets are compared to historically ones?
Shows you how important helmets were!!
Is the bolt tip historically accurate?
If you have the will, time and resourses, you coud try playin with different bolt tips/heads. Maybe a head with a more acute angle (more pointy) could achieve a better penetration, much like the spike of a warhammer.
Or, it could also break or be more easly deflected.
Consider if you see movement that it is the force of the bolt transferring some of its energy from impact to movement. If the armor was being worn, it would work against that effect.
I wonder if the helmet would be actually on a head would the result be any different. This way it seems that there is quite a bit of "give" that dissipates some of the power, also interesting to see the neck strain put by crossbow bolt
So... I'm writing a phantasy story, but with a realistic touch to it. The projectiles didn't penetrate the helment, but that must cause terrible headache, right?
So much so one might feel too dizzy to fight or just fall flat.
It's really hard to tell how someone reacts when hit by a bolt to the helmet.
So that thing is used for stepping when setting up the bow string huh, always wondered why is it designed like that
It should be noted that you don't have to penetrate the helmet, you just have to dent it far enough that it dents his skull.
The one that almost went through the eye-socket around 2:10, you'd be one thankful knight!
What would this type of crossbow have been used against? Mainly chain, or would it need to go against plate as well? Would that shape of bolt tip have been used against plate?
I wonder if a solid hit from this has the potential to knock you out or cause concussion.
I often think the effective hits are to the joints where there is little or no armor. If enough arrows and bolts are fired at an armored soldier, he is going to go down when they hit the joints. You can't make those armored as the guy has to still move. Same goes for the front lines. Go for the joints. It still the same today. You don't fire an anti-tank missile at the front of a tank turret. You go for the roof, sides, or rear where the armor is thin.