It is a quite noticable fact that the armour piercing capabilities of weapons in written accounts increase proportionally with the distance in time and space between the writer and the actual event.

This is quite visible in the norse sagas, where the ones describing events long past speak of "Hewing in wrath to both sides, and neither mail or helm could stand against him", while the ones written about more or less contemporary events speak of "And he was hit by a spear squarely between the shoulderblades, but he had mail and a strong arming coat, and the spear bounced of"

According to Hardy, a longbow arrow only loses about 15-30% of its energy at the end of its trajectory since it picks up some energy on the downward part of the arc. So for a better test against Julio's mail we need a much heavier bow since, even at point blank, a 50 lb bow doesn't have enough energy. In The Great Warbow, Hardy gives good arguments for revising the Mary Rose draw weights back up to 150-160 lbs for a typical bow and Strickland gives good arguments that typical warbows had similar draw weights from at least the 13th century. Unless we can find someone capable of firing a 150 lb warbow then we are probably better off testing the mail against crossbows.

I don't think that chain maille's usefulness was measured up solely against archery as it would probably have been discarded, just as civil war soldiers dumped heavy plate armor on their marches, because although plates could stop a minie ball, they were just too heavy to carry, and useless against cannon balls, and all the other wounds a man could sustain, so the soldiers simply discarded the heavy metal pieces by the roadsides. Chain maille on the other hand was kept in use through thousands of years, and in many cultures, some of which made heavy use of archery in warfare, so you have to figure that all these warriors chose to keep wearing the stuff for some valid reason. I have always thought that maille would protect agains anything but a direct thrust, be it bodkin point or spearhead or the point of a sword. In other words maille would save from cuts, which is quite significant as people would die from cuts, nasty festering deaths....
As for the direct hit, the maille would slow down the projectile, allowing the under padding to be of greater use. In some instances, if the projectile lacked momentum, then the combination of maille and padding would be very effective, more so than the padding alone. We survive most germs today, they didn't, so we don't think much of a slash, but it must have scared the hell out of them. Where maille is a real disappointment is in the realm of protection from bruises and such. Whether we do live steel reenactment or stick (rattan) fighting, mail is just heavy gook looking stuff. You need the rigid protection to allow the blow to spread over a surface to absorb the impact. So the shot to the side of a maille-wearing warriorwith a sharp sword,even with the proper undergarment, would still impact, but the edge of the sword would not bite through. That by itself would justify the continued use of that form of protection.

Please allow me to add a thought or two....

As has been mentioned, maile was in use for a significant period of time. Some have suggested that this was because it worked and why discard something that worked. While I don't disagree with this there may be another reason. Perhaps they continued to use maile not just because it worked but also because that was all they had. What I mean is, before the introduction of plate armour, what else was there? Even if it was not 100% effective it still did offer some protection and was by far, better than no protection at all. Even after the advent of plate, maile was still found to be useful.

Another thought that I have been having is with regards to technology and humans thoughts about it. As modern men and women we are used to technology moving forward in leaps and bounds. Each new discovery or invention is adopted almost without thought. This was not always the case. Technology, especially in medieval times crawled forward at a snails pace (compared to modern times) with many years between each development. This would lead to a longer use of technologies like maile. There may also been some hesitation on the part of men and women of that era in accepting newer technologies as they came forth. This would again prolong the use of "trusted" technologies like maile. People of those times were, for the most part, uneducated, ignorant and superstitious. They may have been afraid or unable to let go of something that did show some usefulness.

As we look back at history we naturally compress the time frames we study into manageable chunks. Each one perhaps like a chapter or two in a book. Some times we forget that these chunks span many generations of human lives. A medieval person could live their entire life with little or no technological changes. Lifes as he/she knew it would have been the same from the time they were born, until the time they died. This is not true for todays man or women. Just think about all the new technologies that have been adopted in the last 30 years alone. How about the last 20 years or even 10 years. The pace of change seems to be accelerating for us. For them, there would have little or no changes.

Just a thought or two I had while reading this topic.

Chris Lee

Mail will protect you from all but the most determined melee attacks, and as such makes a immense difference in your combat effectiveness and fighting style.
The transition from beeing killed or crippled by almost any hit, to beeing able to "take one on the chest" is pretty huge.
A armoured fighter can attack without fear of random counterattacks, draw cuts or similar. (They might still hurt him, but seldom seriously). A unarmoured opponent, on the other hand, can go down from a single hit, and has to be a lot more defensive.
As such, the moral advantage of armour is also huge.

When one looks at the weapons made to fight armour, these are very seldom "Single high energy hit" weapons.
The hand weapons are made for maneuverability in close combat, the poles for or hooking and grappling potential(like the bill); the modes of attack are either "pressure thrusts" (Daggers, halfsword, spears) or rapid series of strikes (Maces, picks, and the like)
Weapons made to defeat opponents that do not go down from single strikes.

The 14th century also saw the replacement of the spear and shield as the primary combat loadout to two handed polearms. Quite likely due to the increased availability and effectiveness of armour.

Wow. I didn't know that chainmaille actually protected against stabs and thrusts, even arrows.
In that case I can see why it was so widely used.

I too believe that maillle must have been caapble of stopping blows and arrowheads, otherwise it would hav been dumped very quickly.

Metal was scarce, and construction of maille was labor intensive. Too much hassle for a purely decorative garment.

Possibly the key is in the fact that modern mail is steel and almoste ever butted, so it is frail, while soft iron would absorb better blows. by bending, as said above

Last but not least, the Bowyers bible states unanimously that yew bow can at most dra 60 - 65 libs.

Some experienced bowman may create 70 libs bow from yew, not more.

I wonder how much resistans a Gamboiseed Ringmaille would offer to a Roman javelin, It just struck me they look desinged to pierce just that!

Horsfal et al supports some of Williams' figures. Horsfal's test concluded that the maximum energy a person could deliver with an underhand stab is 63 J and overarm is 115J. I doubt one could deliver an uppercut with much more energy than an underarm stab.

Penetration and energy transfer are vitaly important to damage/penetration as well.
What makes a arrow able to pierce mail is the fact that it only targets ONE ring; the one it hits. A broader weapon will have to defeat more.

Also, few full force blows ever land. And if they do, they might hit at an odd angle, be partially deflected, and so on.

One of the nice things about thrusting weapons is that you can push the weapon after the stab, to make a partial or shallow penetration efficient; A spear fighter could sneak through an opening in the enemy's defences, and then apply his body weight.
Similar with daggers or half swording.