Gary Teuscher wrote: | ||
Only thing I'd have to say here - this is an ideal situation for the olympic javelineer, unemcumbered by a shield, on a track with a full run up. I'd guess the energy produced by the Roman Javelin thrower to be significantly less, particularily if not using a full run-up, which would be difficult in formation. |
I'm assuming about 400J for Olympic javelin, which is perhaps high.
The untrained, standing throw, unmotivated by a charging enemy, can get about 100J with a heavy pilum weight object. This gives us a lower bound.
Going from an Olympic javelin to about a 5 lb pilum, one gets about 30% more energy. So an "Olympic heavy pilum" would be about 500J. That's an upper bound.
(Last 2 figures from R. Cross, Physics of overarm throwing, American Journal of Physics 72, 305-312 (2004).)
I'm assuming a running throw. (Or equivalently, a charging enemy.)
Gary Teuscher wrote: |
Not to slight the javelins penetration - there are period sources of mailed people having their armour pierced by javelins, though I am not aware of period sources regarding the pilum stating this. Not saying there are not sources, I am just not that well versed regarding the pilum. It seems t me though the Pilum was a short ranged javelin, but designed to max penetrative power. I'm sure it was a fairly effective armour piercer - but considerering most warriors carried shields an would likely block many of the pilum thrown, havin a good secondary ability to make the shield somewhat useless was nice as well. |
I don't recall any specific accounts of individual cases of armour being pierced by pila, but a number of writers praised them for their anti-armour performance. E.g., Vegetius: "when thrown with force and skill, they penetrated the cuirass without difficulty".