That is a beautiful and amazing bow Andreas. Utterly fabulous as was the test. It is so useful to know what different energies do. I released an odd film a few days ago where I fitted rockets to arrows, generated a few more Joules than this but with smaller heads and still they struggled to get though and do damage. This is a great film
Amazing test. It really goes to show how much energy and momentum arrows/bolts require to have a chance of penetrating good plate. But no doubt some plate armour would be worse than this and the results under those circumstances would be different. Thank you for doing this test. It is very informative.
for a good breast plate or helmet perhaps, but limb and shoulder plates were by default thinner and thus required much less to penetrate, It's just like the Modern battle tank where the front armor is the toughest while the top, sides and rear are much less armored
I wonder if this crossbow can penetrate the 3 mm hardened breastplate from another video . That would be best armor vs best crossbow. A 3 mm plate would require almost twice the energy from the same arrow to be penetrated compared to a 2 mm because it's not a linear relation.And being hardened would raise the effectiveness by 1.5.
Excellent Video. Magnificent equipment, all quite amazing. The testing was well done, well thought out, and well explained. Thank you. Doctor George Whitehead (shooting bows for 70 Years)
Judging from some of the comments below I think you need to find a way to measure hydrostatic shock in your gel torso. For example, it is not the schrapnel from an IED that injures but the over pressure inside the body regardless of body armour. Those arrow tips are designed to bite into the plate enough to transfer the kinetic energy of the bolt into the body of the knight.
Yes. And the breast plate is one of the toughest parts of the full plate armour. If any knight was less lucky, the arrow would pierce both the armor and his body.
@@somerandoinaknightsarmor9938 Modern non-hardened mild steel is a good analogue in terms of strenght to the steel used for armor in the middle ages. Modern processes produce steel of much higher quality than what people were able to make in the middle ages. It is true that the very front part of the breast plate used to be thicker than in this video (2,5mm vs. 2mm) but other parts used to be significantly thinner than 2mm. As well as other parts of full plate harness. If the arrow hit any thinner part of the harness, the penetration would be severe, not just over 3cm.
Well, it still has less energy than most bullets... the momentum is very high though, so it may be right to compare it to hammer strike rather than a shot. On the other hand, the breastplate (together with the padding) will obviously distribute the shock both over the surface and the time, so it wouldn't be like a concentrated strike to one point... seems hard to tell on spot actually. Would be interesting to have some acceleration data from the target, especially from the inside. upd: actually as long as it doesn't actually reach the body to hit/wound it (and breastplate usually have some space underneath, padding included, exactly for the purpose), the fact that it penetrates the armor rather than glances/bounces off makes the hit softer overall.
Would bruises be reflected in the ballistic gel? We can't see any. Either way, if the bolts didn't cause internal injuries or bleeding, you would be just fine.
Surprisingly low velocity, a decent recurve 60# bo an beat it. Of course bolts are very heavy but still interesting. Anyway, totally awesome test! Wonderful work with reproduction of this crossbow.
Bow this massive definitely won't be built for speed... I wonder what's the maximum velocity, but danger of dry shot is real. From what I recall even with those massive bolts it still has rather low efficiency.
Awesome video ! I just put the ballistics of this crossbow's bolts into a stopping power calculator, did you know it has 92 TKOF stopping power? That's MORE than a 12 gauge shotgun slug !!! And 5 TKOF is already enough to kill, so your crossbow is really really deadly !
I really, really doubt it would have 92 TKOF. You'd need to know the diameter of the bolts they're firing, to calculate it. What we can calculate, based on mass & velocity is the kinetic energy - at 280g, moving at 52 m/s, these bolts have roughly 380J of kinetic energy. A 70mm Foster slug has about 3200J of muzzle energy.
@@ShokkuKyushu It's sort of a measure of presumed "one shot kill" ability for a projectile. It stand's for "Taylor Knock-out Factor", but how useful it actually is as a measurement is pretty debated.
What a beast! Any chance to test it at a longer distance? I keep being amazed by the punishment these plates can endure, from your art's, Tod's or Joe Gibb's strength.
Bolts not tuned to bow and flying perfectly straight and striking with all energy perfectly in line for max penetration. No..I don’t know how to fix that on this monster and I am very impressed with the video!
Very slow arrow speed for that draw weight. 170 fps is a decent but not outstanding speed for a 50lb drawweight recurve bow. The weight of the bolt must be what is producing the impact.
Armour on arms had to be thinner, since it would be difficult to fight with extra weight above 1 kg on each arm. And horse was vulnerable to shots from heavy crossbow too.
Very interesting; that bow is a beast. I'd say our target will probably live thanks to the cuirass, but he's definitely lost all interest in the proceedings and will probably want to crawl off and be very sick somewhere nice and quiet.
Wouldnt be so sure, it has the energy of average pistol bullet, and lots of it gets spent on deforming the armor, so the "kick" to the chest felt is probably less severe than when shot with bullet proof best on.
I wonder why they designed the bolts to have such relatively wide heads. In theory, a bolt with a narrower head would penetrate much deeper. It makes me wonder if these designs were target-shooting bolts rather than war bolts. There's a channel on here of elastic crossbows that achieves impressive penetration despite very low kinetic energy, probably because of the efficient design of the bolts.
For the quality of steel they could produce at the time, I don't think they could make much narrower heads that are strong enough to maintain structural integrity
Against properly designed plate anything with a sharper point with the material of the time (mostly iron) will just have the point tip roll, and penetrate less than this. The "blunter" pyramidal cross section allows some degree of chance of the point maintaining its shape. Any and all properly laid out tests of arrows shot against moderate plate that could be expected to encounter them shows that arrows really can't make it through. Only very low quality or thin plate against very strong bows or crossbows will fail to stop the projectile.
Finer points would have trouble keeping up as far as mass goes and would be prone to rolling and generally not surviving impacts. We've seen it happen. But yeah, it seems that some better compromise could be made. Those are si wide they stick to the surface, pretty much, moving entire breastplate round.
Yeah, with the amount of deformation it's pretty clear there 's lots of energy left for penetration. The problem is making very pointy arrowhead that will have sufficient mass and won't hopelessly roll upon the impact though.
Sharp points will have their tips roll against the steel plate and will likely penetrate worse. You need the point to maintain its shape and not lose energy to deformation to have any hope to damage properly made plate armour. Hence these are pointed, but not sharp.
I'm wondering, could a strong warbow with good bodkin arrows penetrate this armour? Because while this monster crosbow seems really strong, I don't think that it is really efficient.
While the original this replica is based on wasn't used with a spanning stand, is this the kind of draw weight/energy you'd expect to see for a crossbow that could be spanned by one?
@@medievalcrossbows7621 Oh yes, like I said, I know the original doesn't have one on it, I'm just wondering if it's technically feasible to span a crossbow of that draw weight with one. I'm trying to figure out the upper limit for a hausspied/garroc as mounted on the French ships at Sluys in 1340.
the arrowheads used in shooting are made of modern iron, therefore much better than historical ones, but with the breastplate everything is the opposite - only the proportion of carbon is taken into account, but for armor, if they were not made in Milan or in places close to it, therefore also considered Milanese, not any iron went, but specifically "Innsbruck" - mined in the Alps. This iron was not only free from bad impurities, but immediately had alloying additives, which significantly strengthened it.
@@ShokkuKyushu I am saying that anachronisms and weak materials science are allowed in all such tests. Therefore, the shooting efficiency is overestimated - this is typical of all channels
In fact only black powder weapons and ballistae could pierce a breast plate and have a lethal effect. But anything inferior could be pierced by a crossbow or bow, like gambisons and chain mail, this forced opponents to be heavily armored to defend themselves from these weapons, (bows required a lot of training but crossbows were idiot-proof) and since national armies did not exist at the time, individual knights had to spend a lot of money to arm and armor themselves.
Even many gunpowder-weapons had problems penetrating plate armour. This is also the origin of the word bullet-proof, in order to proof that a cuirass could protect against gunfire it was shoot from a fairly low distance with a pistol, if the shoot went through the cuirass had failed the test, if the shoot was stopped it would leave a characteristic indent in the armour that would prove it‘s durability and protection.
No, but you wouldn't normally try to destroy the armour, you'd go for the man wearing it, through the necessary gaps in the armour, not even with something like a two-handed German "panzerstecher" would you try to go through the heaviest plates, you'd beat your opponent to the ground and then go through where you had a chance to end him. Or more likely, make him surrender. And here in Europe we used plate armour, at least cuirasses and tassets long after the invention and introduction of blackpowder weapons on the then modern day battlefield, and they held up fine to shot, I've seen plenty of original breastplates that had a dent from the "proofing shot."
Even then they struggled for a long time. A lot of people have this idea that gunpowder weapons immediately made plate obsolete, but in truth, plate armor kept pace with firearms technology for a long time. The massive, fully articulated suits that most people think of when they hear the word "suit of armor" were mostly designed specifically with gunpowder weapons in mind, and they worked. There are many accounts of knights shrugging off bullets like they're nothing. As gunpowder weapons got more powerful though, full body protection became impractical. However, plate armor protecting the chest arguably never went away, as armored chestplates and even some suits providing partial protection to the arms, legs, and head saw limited use in both world wars, and even now plate carrier style body armor often just has steel plates in it.
That is a beautiful and amazing bow Andreas. Utterly fabulous as was the test. It is so useful to know what different energies do. I released an odd film a few days ago where I fitted rockets to arrows, generated a few more Joules than this but with smaller heads and still they struggled to get though and do damage. This is a great film
Would the arrows be more stable with two smaller rockets on the same plane side by side?
Thanks Tod, I'm glad you like the video!
Amazing test.
It really goes to show how much energy and momentum arrows/bolts require to have a chance of penetrating good plate.
But no doubt some plate armour would be worse than this and the results under those circumstances would be different.
Thank you for doing this test. It is very informative.
for a good breast plate or helmet perhaps, but limb and shoulder plates were by default thinner and thus required much less to penetrate, It's just like the Modern battle tank where the front armor is the toughest while the top, sides and rear are much less armored
@@aburoach9268 Agreed
I wonder if this crossbow can penetrate the 3 mm hardened breastplate from another video . That would be best armor vs best crossbow. A 3 mm plate would require almost twice the energy from the same arrow to be penetrated compared to a 2 mm because it's not a linear relation.And being hardened would raise the effectiveness by 1.5.
Wow, what a monster. Very impressive to see it recoil and the impact in slow motion.
Sehr gut. Vielen dank!
Danke für das Lob!
Beautiful job Andreas! very well documented.
Thank you!!
Very Impressive and again proves having a good breastplate is extremely useful as most dont get hit by a stonking big crossbow
Plate protects well against crossbow. That isn't a crossbow, that's a monster.
Those are some sturdy shafts. I'm surprised none of them splintered.
Imagine getting shot in the head with this, it would only need a shallow punch in the helmet to get a grip and transfer all of the force.
It would knock you off your feet for sure
...And your neck probably wouldn't be too happy either...
Another excellent test video Andreas, much appreciated.
Maybe waxxing the Bolts would made the Bolts more efective?
289 ftlbs is on a par with a 9 mm
This isn’t a great crossbow, it’s a small ballista…🤔🙂But boy, it’s beautiful and impressive!
Excellent Video. Magnificent equipment, all quite amazing. The testing was well done, well thought out, and well explained. Thank you. Doctor George Whitehead (shooting bows for 70 Years)
Quite the glorious crossbow. Thank you for doing the demonstration.
Excellent video. Thank you for posting.
Wow, it actually happened, I always wanted to see this beast tested against plate and it was, in a proper authentic test. I am super impressed.
Judging from some of the comments below I think you need to find a way to measure hydrostatic shock in your gel torso. For example, it is not the schrapnel from an IED that injures but the over pressure inside the body regardless of body armour. Those arrow tips are designed to bite into the plate enough to transfer the kinetic energy of the bolt into the body of the knight.
A great video that closes the "bolt vs. armor" theme, in my opinion. Thanks!
Very jinteresting test! Thank you ❤
Здорово! Спасибо за видео. Значит средневековые танки были практически неуязвимы в своём железе.
Такое железо могли себе позволить не только лишь все , мало кто мог это сделать .
Übrigens... Absolut schönes Trefferbild!
Danke dir!
incredible. Even with all that power it still can't get through the armor enough to pierce organs. But i bet the impact with hurt like hell.
Yes. And the breast plate is one of the toughest parts of the full plate armour. If any knight was less lucky, the arrow would pierce both the armor and his body.
Keep in mind the armor in the video wasnt even hardened and it held up that well!
@@somerandoinaknightsarmor9938 Modern non-hardened mild steel is a good analogue in terms of strenght to the steel used for armor in the middle ages. Modern processes produce steel of much higher quality than what people were able to make in the middle ages.
It is true that the very front part of the breast plate used to be thicker than in this video (2,5mm vs. 2mm) but other parts used to be significantly thinner than 2mm. As well as other parts of full plate harness. If the arrow hit any thinner part of the harness, the penetration would be severe, not just over 3cm.
Well, it still has less energy than most bullets... the momentum is very high though, so it may be right to compare it to hammer strike rather than a shot. On the other hand, the breastplate (together with the padding) will obviously distribute the shock both over the surface and the time, so it wouldn't be like a concentrated strike to one point... seems hard to tell on spot actually. Would be interesting to have some acceleration data from the target, especially from the inside.
upd: actually as long as it doesn't actually reach the body to hit/wound it (and breastplate usually have some space underneath, padding included, exactly for the purpose), the fact that it penetrates the armor rather than glances/bounces off makes the hit softer overall.
Would bruises be reflected in the ballistic gel? We can't see any. Either way, if the bolts didn't cause internal injuries or bleeding, you would be just fine.
Surprisingly low velocity, a decent recurve 60# bo an beat it. Of course bolts are very heavy but still interesting. Anyway, totally awesome test! Wonderful work with reproduction of this crossbow.
Bow this massive definitely won't be built for speed... I wonder what's the maximum velocity, but danger of dry shot is real. From what I recall even with those massive bolts it still has rather low efficiency.
sensationell!!!!!!!!!! Vielen Dank.
Whoever built that crossbow is a Master artisan😮.
Thank you ;-)
On the breastplate.. well it would hurt badly. But doesn't look leathal. Awesome vid man
Awesome video ! I just put the ballistics of this crossbow's bolts into a stopping power calculator, did you know it has 92 TKOF stopping power? That's MORE than a 12 gauge shotgun slug !!! And 5 TKOF is already enough to kill, so your crossbow is really really deadly !
I really, really doubt it would have 92 TKOF. You'd need to know the diameter of the bolts they're firing, to calculate it. What we can calculate, based on mass & velocity is the kinetic energy - at 280g, moving at 52 m/s, these bolts have roughly 380J of kinetic energy. A 70mm Foster slug has about 3200J of muzzle energy.
@@Soren015 The diameter of the bolts is said at 4:27... I used "22mm" in the calculator.
Pardon ,what is a TKOF?
@@ShokkuKyushu It's sort of a measure of presumed "one shot kill" ability for a projectile. It stand's for "Taylor Knock-out Factor", but how useful it actually is as a measurement is pretty debated.
@@Soren015 Ah,ok
Amazing work. Let's not underestimate late medieval armour. It could even withstand some types of firearms.
What a beast! Any chance to test it at a longer distance? I keep being amazed by the punishment these plates can endure, from your art's, Tod's or Joe Gibb's strength.
Bolts not tuned to bow and flying perfectly straight and striking with all energy perfectly in line for max penetration. No..I don’t know how to fix that on this monster and I am very impressed with the video!
I’m wondering what those internal injuries would have been. That’s quite an impact from those bolts.
Very slow arrow speed for that draw weight. 170 fps is a decent but not outstanding speed for a 50lb drawweight recurve bow. The weight of the bolt must be what is producing the impact.
Respekt! Schöne Armbrust und top Video!
Vielen Dank!
Armour on arms had to be thinner, since it would be difficult to fight with extra weight above 1 kg on each arm. And horse was vulnerable to shots from heavy crossbow too.
WOW! HUGE! does this prove you need to be a monster and no little guy has a hope?
While the armour has saved in wearers life theres now rethinking there life choices.
The bolts look dull and broad. Would a seeker version do better?
Hello
Where can i buy this crossbow?
Try it with a hardened bodkin point, I wanna see that👍🏻
Ancient missile vs tank of body.
Sehr interessante und schön gearbeitete Armbrust samt Bolzen. Ich hätte eine deutlich höhere Durchschlagskraft erwartet.
Like a Roman scorpion?
Hey nice work, subbed!
monster crossbow
Не просто кроссбоу, а кроссбоуище!
CROSSBOWS!!!
Very interesting; that bow is a beast. I'd say our target will probably live thanks to the cuirass, but he's definitely lost all interest in the proceedings and will probably want to crawl off and be very sick somewhere nice and quiet.
Wouldnt be so sure, it has the energy of average pistol bullet, and lots of it gets spent on deforming the armor, so the "kick" to the chest felt is probably less severe than when shot with bullet proof best on.
Super!
Da steckt einiges an WUMMS dahinter
Probably wouldn't kill him, but damn is that disrespectful
Those hits would break bone, even if you did not eventually die, you would be out of the fight.
Ja ja, shooten za wooden pewpew. Danke 😂
Just curious, does the armor provide double protection at the belly, do the plates overlap significantly in that area?
only a few centimetres but I don't think the bolts will get through 4mm
I wonder why they designed the bolts to have such relatively wide heads. In theory, a bolt with a narrower head would penetrate much deeper. It makes me wonder if these designs were target-shooting bolts rather than war bolts. There's a channel on here of elastic crossbows that achieves impressive penetration despite very low kinetic energy, probably because of the efficient design of the bolts.
For the quality of steel they could produce at the time, I don't think they could make much narrower heads that are strong enough to maintain structural integrity
Against properly designed plate anything with a sharper point with the material of the time (mostly iron) will just have the point tip roll, and penetrate less than this. The "blunter" pyramidal cross section allows some degree of chance of the point maintaining its shape. Any and all properly laid out tests of arrows shot against moderate plate that could be expected to encounter them shows that arrows really can't make it through. Only very low quality or thin plate against very strong bows or crossbows will fail to stop the projectile.
Historians only have the remains of history, we do not know all types of arrowheads, we only know those that have reached us
Finer points would have trouble keeping up as far as mass goes and would be prone to rolling and generally not surviving impacts. We've seen it happen. But yeah, it seems that some better compromise could be made. Those are si wide they stick to the surface, pretty much, moving entire breastplate round.
Same principle as trying to use a woodworking chisel on steel
The prod of this crosbow Is only horn and sinew with out wood?
Thank you .
Guido
jep- 67 stripes of buffalo horn and approx 800 g sinews.
I think the sharp and pointed arowhead would pierce the breastplate
Yeah, with the amount of deformation it's pretty clear there 's lots of energy left for penetration.
The problem is making very pointy arrowhead that will have sufficient mass and won't hopelessly roll upon the impact though.
@lscibor bodkins would be your best bet, I think, but the chance of a glancing blow would definitely be higher.
Those were sharp and pointed or are you talking about Aladeen level of pointy?
Sharp points will have their tips roll against the steel plate and will likely penetrate worse. You need the point to maintain its shape and not lose energy to deformation to have any hope to damage properly made plate armour. Hence these are pointed, but not sharp.
I agree,but there were breastplates of hardened high carbon steel and thicker.
With force like this, you do not need to penetrate the armor, to kill a man.
A square hit on the helmet would result in serious injury.
At last, it seems the point only had the purpose to make a grip
Are the tips of the bolts waxed?
No
I'm wondering, could a strong warbow with good bodkin arrows penetrate this armour? Because while this monster crosbow seems really strong, I don't think that it is really efficient.
If you want efficient one, look at Chinese Crossbow that basically got 200lb draw weight, drawn into 20 inch.
It has 3 times the energy of a strong bow.
Great video. What is the powerstroke and draw length of the crossbow?
The distance between the bow to the nut is 46cm, the powerstroke is approx 33cm
@@medievalcrossbows7621 Thank you very much!
While the original this replica is based on wasn't used with a spanning stand, is this the kind of draw weight/energy you'd expect to see for a crossbow that could be spanned by one?
For this crossbow, you need a spanning bench or lage windlass like here in the video ua-cam.com/video/JVVFp9t8Rk4/v-deo.html
@@medievalcrossbows7621 So not even a spanning stand like the one in the Löffelholtz Codex?
@@Cahirable Maybe a big spanning stand would work but all pictures I know show crossbows with stirrups and the great crossbow doesn't have them....
@@medievalcrossbows7621 Oh yes, like I said, I know the original doesn't have one on it, I'm just wondering if it's technically feasible to span a crossbow of that draw weight with one. I'm trying to figure out the upper limit for a hausspied/garroc as mounted on the French ships at Sluys in 1340.
@@Cahirable I understand - a very interesting question. I also own a spanning stand but have only used it to span light crossbows so far....
If I'm not mistaken I believe this is the most powerful crossbow ever built at least to be successfully replicated.
I wonder how much penetration a heavy full steel/iron bolt could manage?
the arrowheads used in shooting are made of modern iron, therefore much better than historical ones, but with the breastplate everything is the opposite - only the proportion of carbon is taken into account, but for armor, if they were not made in Milan or in places close to it, therefore also considered Milanese, not any iron went, but specifically "Innsbruck" - mined in the Alps. This iron was not only free from bad impurities, but immediately had alloying additives, which significantly strengthened it.
Basically best crossbow vs mid armor. Still one of the few videos on UA-cam about this topic.
@@ShokkuKyushu I am saying that anachronisms and weak materials science are allowed in all such tests. Therefore, the shooting efficiency is overestimated - this is typical of all channels
so only gunpowder weapons can destroy medieval plate armor?
In fact only black powder weapons and ballistae could pierce a breast plate and have a lethal effect. But anything inferior could be pierced by a crossbow or bow, like gambisons and chain mail, this forced opponents to be heavily armored to defend themselves from these weapons, (bows required a lot of training but crossbows were idiot-proof) and since national armies did not exist at the time, individual knights had to spend a lot of money to arm and armor themselves.
Even many gunpowder-weapons had problems penetrating plate armour. This is also the origin of the word bullet-proof, in order to proof that a cuirass could protect against gunfire it was shoot from a fairly low distance with a pistol, if the shoot went through the cuirass had failed the test, if the shoot was stopped it would leave a characteristic indent in the armour that would prove it‘s durability and protection.
The armor for arms and legs was thinner.
No, but you wouldn't normally try to destroy the armour, you'd go for the man wearing it, through the necessary gaps in the armour, not even with something like a two-handed German "panzerstecher" would you try to go through the heaviest plates, you'd beat your opponent to the ground and then go through where you had a chance to end him. Or more likely, make him surrender. And here in Europe we used plate armour, at least cuirasses and tassets long after the invention and introduction of blackpowder weapons on the then modern day battlefield, and they held up fine to shot, I've seen plenty of original breastplates that had a dent from the "proofing shot."
Even then they struggled for a long time. A lot of people have this idea that gunpowder weapons immediately made plate obsolete, but in truth, plate armor kept pace with firearms technology for a long time. The massive, fully articulated suits that most people think of when they hear the word "suit of armor" were mostly designed specifically with gunpowder weapons in mind, and they worked. There are many accounts of knights shrugging off bullets like they're nothing.
As gunpowder weapons got more powerful though, full body protection became impractical. However, plate armor protecting the chest arguably never went away, as armored chestplates and even some suits providing partial protection to the arms, legs, and head saw limited use in both world wars, and even now plate carrier style body armor often just has steel plates in it.
2:38 for people who don't want to be teased by the cold opening.
Terrible recoil!