Composite crossbow vs original mail armour
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- Опубліковано 30 тра 2024
- Shooting test on a 15th /16th century original mail shirt with a 460 lb horn composite crossbow.
Pictural shooting scenario modified from: Zürich, Zentralbibliothek, Ms. Rh. hist. 33b: Kriegstechnik (Bilderhandschrift) (www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/lis.... Folio 101r.
0:00 Intro
0:46 History
1:36 1st Test - Modern mail & Textile armour
4:20 2nd Test - Original mail
5:40 Results
6:12 Summary
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it will keel
Thank you so much for sharing this! Incredible craftsmanship!
Cool! Ur channel will explode!
Very interesting
This video is awesome. i would love to own a composite bow for crossbow making. does anyone have any ideas where to get one?
Love Crossbow
Does the speed correspond to the 13 meter range or at the "muzzle"?
the speed was measured after 1m - an arrow, or bolt, loses about 0.1m/s per metre
Great video man
good video, das est fantastiche :)
Is this the upper limit of draw weight with a belt and hook, or do you think you could go even heavier? We have one source form Anvers 1448 of brigandines being half proofed with a arbaleste à crocq or a bow. Matthew Strickland is of the opinion that arbaleste à crocq is a crossbow with a cranequein.[1] I have also seen people arguing for arbaleste à crocq meaning belt and hook. What is your opinion on this? For comparison, the results you get with this 460 lb (210 kg) crossbow is comparable to a 100 lb longbow of yew.
[1] The Great Warbow p. 275
I know some french texts about prooving armour. There are 2 types proofed and half prooved. As you say - half proofed means a "light" crossbow wir belthook (upper limit approx 150kg), a belt and puley (upper limit approc 200 to 250kg) or a longbow. Proofed means a heavy crossbow with cranequin (300 to 500kg).
The original coat was an ottoman /eastern coat rather than a European one. Their riviting is far weaker than the ones made in Europe and the quality of the material isn't as good. When European mail is pieced, they rarely fail at the rivet. It also looks like it's been acid cleaned at some point, which also effects the strength of the metal. I restore them so I have experience. I would also question the ethics of damaging any original piece. Mail is not necessarily ment to stop arrows, that's why you have a shield. "Arrow proof" mail is a completely different animal.
I remember reading about that somewhere that Middle Eastern mail armor tend to be a lot weaker than that of the European mail armor. In fact the Europeans were making the best armors in the world of almost any type.
European mail armor were the best in the world. The Ottoman mail armor as well as any other form of mail armor around the world tends to be a lot weaker. The manufacturing of mail armor that the Europeans were doing was a much more superior one by a from compressing the metal wire into a device which is very similar to what we do today. Many of the cultures didn't have that form of manufacturing wires but rather they cut pieces of metal to make the mail armor which would make an inferior form of armor.
Also just look at the size of those Ottoman rings!! Those are pretty big gaps, the biggest rings European mail armor ever had was 8 mm size rings from what I understand and most were 4 to 6 mm riveted rings and very often flattened rings at that which is a whole lot stronger than that mail armor used in the video.
Keep in mind Europeans were capable and made such dense mail armor that not even a pin needle can go between them and there are surviving examples of that in museums in Europe.
I agree with you in most points. But the shirt wasn't acid cleaned - as I got it, it was rusty and I resored it with little brushes and oil by myself.
@@medievalcrossbows7621 you did a very good job of cleaning it, it looked well preserved. The acid cleaning I mention happen probably in the 19-early 20th century (it was very popular back then) it looks like it had a good working like, I could see a few period repairs and "alien rings* which is always interesting
I hadn't realized a drawing plate made maile stronger compared to cutting the rings. Though note that in places with hotter climates, maile tends to have looser weaves so that it breathes better, since heatstroke is a bigger danger than enemy weapons. I suspect better examples exist of Eastern maile.
Would you consider doing a penetration test on a Viking shield?
Excellent. Would a bit heavier bolt help it to penetrate a bit more armor?
a heavier bolt generate more energy - so the penetration depth should also be higher. But if the bolt weight is too high, the energy decreases again.
@@medievalcrossbows7621 could you try this roman "crossbow" ua-cam.com/video/qGzYumLxYSI/v-deo.html
@@markcorrigan3930 I have built one but have only done a few small tests so far
@@tatumergo3931 Energy, specifically sectional energy, is a better model for predicting penetration than just velocity. Bows have a fixed amount of energy that they can transfer to their projectile. Sometimes a bow will transfer more of its stored energy with lighter arrows, sometimes more with heavier arrows, and sometimes with something in the middle. At least that's what testing in very small samples seems to show. Some replica medieval steel crossbow designs (with very short draw lengths like this one) seem to favor heavier bolts to get more of the bows stored energy efficiently transferred to them. No idea what this particular crossbow would favor tho.
However simple velocity does not equate to better penetration. Energy increases with velocity squared and linearly with mass, but the bow determines the potential energy figure to begin with. So changing arrow weights you are trying to eek out a little more of that energy.
And the wives tale that I always heard was straw embedding in concrete... lol. If any of that were true there'd be a lot of motorcyclists impaled by random light bits of matter that penetrated their visors and leather jackets while they were travelling down I-15 at 150mph.
Do you sell these crossbows if so I’d like to have a price made
Sorry - I didn't sell my crossbows .....
Very impessive ..beautiful piece of workmanship ...composite bow seemed very fast .
I like the reference to historical documents. I enjoyed the demonstration. Great slowmo footage, your presentations get better and better.
Very good video. So the mail is non-hardened, does it mean that it was roughly equivalent to wrought iron? How would you rate to quality / thickness / ring density of the mail in comparison to historical european counterparts? Low end, mid range or even high end?
Thank you - as I observed its equivalten to wrought iron, but unfortunately it is not possible for me to do material analyses. But 12 years ago, we do a similar test with french reenactors. The mail was from German production (7mm ID, 1,3mm thickness). The boltweight was approx 45g. Penetration depth 110mm. Here ist the link: www.guerre-chevalerie.com/tests/haubert-et-arbal%C3%A8te-de-guerre/
The website says that the armor has already been went over so the article focused on the crossbow instead. Can you provide the page in which they talked about the armor? Sorry I don’t speak French so it’s hard to navigate for me.
Generally, if you can see gambeson, or any clothing so clearly under the mail, it's of rather light weave.
The trouble is that we don't have all that much mail preserved from the age where mail was main defence, most complete shirts are from 15th century when mail was usually (though not always) secondary or lighter defence.
But 1.1mm to 1.5 mm with 8-10mm weave is definitely o light variety.
Gjerumdbu shirt of mail from around 11th cenury, was seemingly composed entirely out of rings with 4.8 to 5.2 inner diamater and 1.3mm to 1.5mm wire. So you have over 3 times less surface area inside the rings, but it's being partially covered by 4 neighboring rings of similar thickness. It's huge difference.
The cost is, obviously, that Gjermundbu kind of shirt would be likely at very least 30%, probably way more, heavier than this one.
Most ancient and early Medieval mail preserved does tend to be much closer, or in fact way denser, than Gjermundbu, than to those light shirts.
I think the crossbow man is running if the enemy closes within 12 meters.
Also waht was the KE of the bolt from weaker crossbow that got stuck. It would be really nice to know threshold at which bolts / arrows start to break through mail and this information would help.
The draw weight from the weaker crossbow was about 120kg. The "rest" I have to check ;-)
The bolt weight was 47g and the speed was approx 50 m/s so it gets approx 59 Joule
Great test! What was the steel used for the chainmail?
I would say its mild steel
What’s the power stroke
approx. 200mm
Well done.
never heard a crossbow crack like that... sounds almost like a gunshot
every historical crossbow makes that sound ;-)
love this
Fantastic test, and the data was well presented and contextualised.
Will you be doing a test with a less powerful crossbow (like the old test you did way back when) and making another video? I'm curious to see how a 13th or 14th century crossbow - and a wooden prod crossbow in particular - would perform.
Also, will you be publishing the results in a more formal manner?
Thank you - The results will be published in a print verison, but this need more time ;-)
@@medievalcrossbows7621 Wonderful.
Thank you for all the tests you do, it's great to see such a variety of designs made and tested to give us moderns at least some idea of how they might have performed back in the Middle Ages.
powerstroke makes huge difference
Magnificent
What an awesome film ! A fun fact : on my channel I started a serie 2 month ago called "Crossbows VS Armours" where I shot at chainmail and gambeson with a different type of crossbow !
Fantastic. Would it be possible to do some longer range shots to see if there is a difference over distance?
Yea, they definitely should. This is too close distance.
@@TheDzigi94 depends on the context
@@TheDzigi94 He is shooting at the set distance described
Idk know how I feel about destroying such an intact artifact. Surely, any random scrap of mail would provide the same results as a full shirt?
And I know that mail isn't as rare as some people think it is, but I still have ethical questions.
I think it is a modern replica from India
@@domenigo97 There's a modern replica in the first section, but an original 15th century Ottoman mail shirt in the second
@@Cahirable o wow, you're right. I don't think I like that
The metal of male's rings is too fine... I think it is about 0.5 _ 0.8 millimeter. But usually it was about 1.2-1.8 milimeter
its an original mail shirt ;-)
@@medievalcrossbows7621 from 14th century?
@@user-zb7mr9kr2g 15th century
Good video.
84-90j is no joke and about the equivalent of a 100lb yew Warbow.
So def a realistic representation for the weapon.
However the Gambeson is quite thin.
We have a number of sources with varying descriptions of numbers of layers of linen.
A 15th century Burgundian ordnance states for horse archers a gambeson with 10 layers of linen was prescribed in conjunction with a mail shirt.
There are other sources that have gambeson up to 32 layers of linen.
it depends on the weather obviously, in the summer of the middle east you really dont want it thick
Tod's workshop tested a 95lb draw warbow with a 43gr arrow and it "only" went just below 43 m/s, so about 38j.
This thing is making over half the energy of a .22lr, it's truly an incredible piece of workmanship.
@@paulandreotti1639 Todd bow is “shot out”
I have a UA-cam chan where I test my bows and do armour tests as well
My 87lb Warbow produces up to 71j Ke (depending on arrow weight)
ua-cam.com/video/wfrsU3k5yUc/v-deo.html
My 70lb Longbow produces up to 55j ke
ua-cam.com/video/wCIyOnCyWcs/v-deo.html
My 55lb longbow produces up to 47j ke (more than Todd’s bow)
ua-cam.com/video/fkl_soZb9Cg/v-deo.html
Todd’s bow is not a good indicator of how longbows perform.
Not terribly surprised from the results looking at the hauberk itself. The maille weave is incredibly loose, and while rounded rings are superior to modern flat Indian rings, it's the density that saves you from the bolts shearing open rings and penetrating further. All of the energy is being dumped onto just 1-2 rings as opposed to dense construction where a hit would be striking numerous rings. Curious as to how surviving denser hauberks such as one belonging to a Hungarian monarch I recall seeing would hold up under similar stress. Maille unfortunately lacks research into just the specifics of how it performs in all its forms, as ring diameter, thickness, rivet setting, etc can all twist and turn how the performance pans out. Still shocked of that one test done by Arne where a couched lance struck a reconstructed aventail made by Augusto Boer Bront and just bounced right all despite probably being int he 200+ joule range.
The lance used by Arne is fir, it bends, and then snaps very quickly in one or two places, which probably helps a lot. It doesn't drive the point trough the mail quite as much.
I'm also not sure about their setup, in some strikes it seems that mail just flaps around when hit, like they didn't actually hit anything behind it square,
Those are my observations at least.
Predictable result but great video, especially when compared to period illustration.
I think that the valid point was raised: was it possible to make bolt-proof or at least pierce-resitant mail? The real top quality mail was much more dense and may be even tempered. Like the one Jean sans Peur is wearing under civilian clothes on his portrait, like the one on mail gorgets in Gratz or on mail shirt from Metropolitan (the one they tested with needle :) ). Tobias Capwell recently made a gorget for movie about Richard III with similar quality rings, so the modern replicas may be available. Was it indeed worth the efforts and money?
There are sources clearly indicating make resisting lance strikes completely, as well as mail being ranked "full proof", "toute botte" or “à toute épreuve”, just like breastplates and brigandines were. Full proof being understood as ability to withstand windlass crossbows.
Aside from some secrets of professionals of that time, that might have had large impact, the secret of making mail so resilient was simply making it very heavy and stiff. Couldn't really go around it in any way. Just as level IV bulletproof armor with steel plates, resisting rifles is going to be pretty heavy too, and many times heavier than the one that protects against pistols.
👍👍👍👍🇺🇿🇺🇿🇺🇿🇺🇿
Interesting test :) but the distance is extremely close. In my opinion most of shooting ranges on battlefield were something between 20-150m (even further, but this was really hard to hit direct target) . I'm understand that in such distance that would be more difficult to hit the target but it would give better comparison. I'm also not 100% sure if that would change the results. Anyway, thanks for that test :)
Thank you! A test distance of 20 to 25 m has little influence on the result. An arrow/bolt loses only 1m/s of speed at a flight distance of 10m. But you are right - this will be no battle distance.
@@medievalcrossbows7621 yes, you are right. 20-25m would not change anything much, and most of the test which you can find on UA-cam are from such distance. Why I did I mention 20m as a minimum? In my opinion this is average closest distance during siege fighting (20-50m during the assault). 12m could also imitate such situation.
Well...that's what your shield is for. Mail was never really intended to stop arrows like that, especially not at point blank range.
Would've been cool to see the mail take a hit from an axe, sword, etc. Nonetheless, neat presentation.
It probably will take an axe or sword slash pretty well since the force is distributed in a broader area. Probably breaking a bone or two underneath anyway.
Arrows, bolts, and even pointy pikes will penetrate more easily since since the small point puts a smaller area of the rings in more stress.
For this, swords started to get pointier and slimmer with time and the evolving of armor.
Anyway, there are chainmail sets stronger than this example that could deflect the bolt or at least stop it a bit more.
At last, sorry for the full text I just imposed, but I felt like answering lmao.
@@matiasdelatorreoverton3612 yeah, I figured it would shrug off a slash pretty easily since that's mainly what mail is designed for. The development of arms and armor in the middle ages is an interesting topic to look into and by the 15th century plate armor was so advanced it was essentially a layer of steel skin fully articulated and oh so pretty.
But yeah this would've made a bit more sense if they would've shot it from just a bit further away, just to see..
I feel like the mail is shit, idk why but the links seemed too large, other mail I've seen has had much more narrow gaps and the links aren't as big.
Muito bom 🇧🇷👍🏻
What did you mean by “original mail shirt”? Did you just shoot a historical artifact? Haha.
At first I was like "Why are they shooting it at just a loose, hanging mail shirt and gambison? Shouldn't it be in a dummy or something?" Then I saw the illustration and was blown away. That's so cool, doing something exactly like they used to and getting the same or similar results!
The thing is European mail armor were the best in the world though. The Ottoman mail armor as well as any other form of mail armor around the world tends to be a lot weaker. The manufacturing of mail armor that the Europeans were doing was a much more superior one by a from compressing the metal wire into a device which is very similar to what we do today. Many of the cultures didn't have that form of manufacturing wires but rather they cut pieces of metal to make the mail armor which would make an inferior form of armor.
Also just look at the size of those Ottoman rings!! Those are pretty big gaps, the biggest rings European mail armor ever had was 8 mm size rings from what I understand and most were 4 to 6 mm riveted rings and very often flattened rings at that which is a whole lot stronger than that mail armor used in the video.
Keep in mind Europeans were capable and made such dense mail armor that not even a pin needle can go between them and there are surviving examples of that in museums in Europe.
Here you'll find a similar test we made 12 years ago - the result is neary equal ...
www.guerre-chevalerie.com/tests/haubert-et-arbal%C3%A8te-de-guerre/
Fused chainmail might have better result. But then it's just basically using modern technology to improve historical design.
Just for you know...fantasy writing. Hahahaha.
Im sure this 500 year old shirt is not as strong as it was... 500 years ago... Maybe a more accurate replica of mail armor than indian mail, or damaging an extremely valuable mail shirt, would be a better test.
In the last years I shot at a lot replicas from several craftmen....
Clearly it's a replica.....
the crossbow made chain mail obsolete. Now knights have wear heavier gauge of amor so steel plates become dominate.
Except this isn’t a composite crossbow
What makes you think that?
But trust me, it's a composite bow made from horn and sinew covered with birch bark🙂
not happy with the gambeson or maille used. crossbow is fine, bolt weights good. But the gambeson should be minimum 20 layers (though i'd like to see 30 layers for a mail+gambeson test). (and forget the wool nonsense. And your maille... don't use the cheap indian bought stuff. i know they have some good quality if you look hard enough, but they mostly produce garbage for re-enactors. a 10mm diameter is also VERY bad (6 to 8mm would be considered a more historical maille). also '4 rings per' is the lowest/cheapest again. And finally 20m and 30m ranges please.
Largely agree but the we have sources for a minimum of 10 layers in historical texts
15th century Brigundian ordnance for horse archers prescribed a 10 layer jack with a mail shirt.
Yes Gambeson could be up to 32 layers as well.
4 layers is def too thin though.
@@stav1369 The thing is European mail armor were the best in the world though. The Ottoman mail armor as well as any other form of mail armor around the world tends to be a lot weaker. The manufacturing of mail armor that the Europeans were doing was a much more superior one by a from compressing the metal wire into a device which is very similar to what we do today. Many of the cultures didn't have that form of manufacturing wires but rather they cut pieces of metal to make the mail armor which would make an inferior form of armor.
Also just look at the size of those Ottoman rings!! Those are pretty big gaps, the biggest rings European mail armor ever had was 8 mm size rings from what I understand and most were 4 to 6 mm riveted rings and very often flattened rings at that which is a whole lot stronger than that mail armor used in the video.
Keep in mind Europeans were capable and made such dense mail armor that not even a pin needle can go between them and there are surviving examples of that in museums in Europe.
We know from the Sleeve of St Martin, King John of England's accounts, Edward III's accounts, the regulation of the Parisian armourers guild and even some Burgundian accounts that aketons were actually very thin, generally under 8mm thick and with 2-3lbs of cotton filling them, or 5-6 layers of linen (sometimes with a layer of blanket in the middle). The Burgundian ordonnance calling for 10 layers of linen was quickly dropped - along with allowing mail to be used - but 10 layers of linen isn't all that much protection, as David Jones' tests have shown.
While modern Indian mail isn't particularly good as a general rule, David's hand selected links were of pretty good quality, and similar results were found by Julio Del Junco Funes with his entirely hand made links.
Mail offered protection, but unless made of good steel and heat treated, it wasn't up to withstanding a good crossbow or bow. That's one of the reasons large shields remained in use until reinforcements (extra mail, cuiries, gambesons, coats of plate, etc) became common.
@@Cahirable the thinner gambesons (aketons) with cotton filling is for chaffing, not protection. The Burgundian period had improved coat of plates and plate armour types at this point, they often went lighter on the underarmour. So you are comparing incorrect periods. No soldier who was expecting to survive (and could afford) would wear anything less than 20 layers in the earlier medieval period when chainmail was most common.
While it's not fair to call for hardended links (tho i'd like to see that too since it undoubtedly existed), i'd still like to see a proper robust iron maille (7mm diameter maximum, 1.4mm thick, at least 5 rings per), not cheap indian re-enactment armour.
This was NOT a good test of armour. ps. i'm not interested in debating IF crossbows can pierce this or that, i'm interested in SEEing how well they perform (for good or bad) against real armour.
Fine - its your opinion (I am not sure if you looked the complete video) but If you want to see a test from an original german mail, here you'll find it: www.guerre-chevalerie.com/tests/haubert-et-arbal%C3%A8te-de-guerre/
If it was original it would be worth a lot of money or in a museum and you would not be shooting holes in it