Just to give an anecdote as to how our beliefs about arrows and armour penetration originates: Years ago, I remember seeing a T.V. program showing an arrow easily sailing thought a heavy steel or cast iron frying pan ! This was done in the program just to show that bows & arrows are not toys and can be very dangerous. ( Kids program I think. )

Now, this doesn't prove much if anything about period longbows / crossbows but it has always stayed in my memory that arrows are not something I want to be a target of. :p

Even more, this memory tells us little as the power of the bow? It must have been fairly light and the pan fairly soft.

With performance, as Nathan has mentioned, context is everything: Modern test against modern media are still valuable to give us some relative indications of penetrating power.

If we try to recreate the closest to historical conditions we can achieve the results should be much closer to historical results but if we insist on 100% certainty of our conclusions we need a " Time Machine " !

Since David has offered to do tests against " as close to historical plate as possible " what he needs are the specifications of what would be a valid target. In any case any tests he does should give us a better idea of the power of bolts and arrows and against what !

As to tactics I tend to agree with David that close range accurate aiming would still be happening and bows wouldn't be dropped in favour of hand weapons until the last possible moment: This last possible moment would vary depending on some conditions; 1 ) if the Knights are charging over boggy or broken terrain. 2 ) If the archers are behind some cover like a ditch or a low wall. 3 ) If the Knights have to cross / run a long distance. 4 ) if the archers outnumber the Knights considerably, a bit like a pack of wolves surrounding a bear ! If a group of knights charge at some of the archers they run away while other archers not in direct peril carefully aim at weak points.

The armour might be proof on helm and breast plates but thinner armour on arms and legs would still be vulnerable. Also not all armour would be of the best quality.

Hey, I could be completely wrong ? But there are many more variables than simply breast plate being " proof " or not.

To use a WWII analogy: Against a Tiger tanks, a Sherman tank would be toast in a one on one frontal attack on the Tiger as the Tiger's armour would be proof against the Sherman's 75mm gun. A Sherman positioned to fire at the back of a Tiger could well destroy it or incapacitate it. A group of Shermans could generally take on a Tiger but at the cost of loosing quite a few Shermans. The Tiger's armour would be proof on turret and glacie, but a shot to the tracts would disable it making it more vulnerable to a group of Shermans again.

Oh, I think there is at least one case of one Tiger destroying and entire convoy of vehicles including Shermans when the Tiger was situated at the un-flankable end of a narrow pass.

So under the right conditions A Knight or small group of Knights might well be next to unstoppable by archers assuming their frontal armour was in fact " proof ", but under other conditions they could be toast.

Very longwinded way to say that there are too many tactical variables to give total dominance of any weapon system under all conditions.

Not making a comment on the possiblity or impossibility of holes getting punched through things or anything like that just simpley the lack of examples that show it. When things get broken now we throw them out or take them to get repaired, and if they can't be repaired we throw them out,go to Walmart and get another, when things got broken then they tried to repair them, if that was impossible than they tried to recycle it into something else(everything costs money and money wasn't so easy to come by so better to make what you can out of it than waste it) and if that was impossible then welcome to the garbage pit. This very practicel formula of economic conservation doesn't make for boatloads of survivals of much at all. Chuck in the ravages of time and i'm not sure its all that realistic to expect there to be any examples of broken stuff of any sort from that time period hanging about to awfully much at all so to say that one hasn't seen any may not be so much proof that they didn't exist. It makes it conjecture to say they did but it also makes it conjecture to say they didn't. Thus welcome to theories and thats what makes discussing it fun!

It will be some months before we can run a test that will be close to real as possible. the two bows we will be testing need finishing.

I have contacted the forges chainmail maker that is making me a 12" sq of butted up chain and a 12" square of riveted mail.

I have contacted the head smith at the forge that is going to make a front plate, this will be from historical references and all stats on the plate will be listed.

The missiles used will be made to spec as well.

Testing will be at period ranges - longbow at 50, 40 and 30 yard and crossbow at 90, 80 and 60 yard against each target.

I have said in previous post that crossbows and longbows were not the end all to weapons, many shots bounced and made pretty dents. However, at close range..... well we will leave it to the testing. Heck i could be wrong and if i am great - no harm in learning.

The crossbows tested will be 450lbs 700lbs and 1700lbs or a goatsfoot bow, a windlass bow and a crankline bow. The long bows will be a 90lb and a 127lb. I figure this will give a nice array of power and what it took. Until then i will refrain from any comments unless period/factual.


If anyone wishes to give me the information needed on a typical late 1400 to mid 1500 type plate that would be great, or i am going to use my own refences and call the test valid.


David

I agree with Nathan that the butted maille is too weak to stop almost anything and wasn't used in Europe. In the far east some butted maille was used for less important things like maille neck guards. The Japanese also used butted maille but their styles of maille were very different and would sometimes be made up of rings wound more than 360 degrees: Multiple turns and their mail was also hardened, I think, making it a bit better than soft butted maille.

In any case I look forward to seeing the results of your tests. And maybe in the mean time we could maybe discuss other things about crossbows and crossbow making, as well as " proven " accuracy. :p :lol:

Hard to dispute small groups on target ! If one can keep bolts within 4" to 6" groups at 50 yards getting a bolt through a visor would happen often ! And even more often if half a dozen crossbowman all aimed at your visor at the same time.
( Sorry, couldn't resist adding the last ! ) I expect the accuracy being equal or better than a good handgunner could get.

I know I have been able to knock down chicken metal silouhettes at a 100 yards while standing using a 9mm CZ 75 at least 50% of the time. A friend of mine could do the same with his CZ 75 and I have knocked down the larger pig silouhettes with a
.45 ACP at 150 yards once I got the range. ( Sandy shooting range. )

So up to what range could one keep one's groups within a foot or so with a crossbow ?

There's armour and there's armour.
Just like there's crossbows and crossbows.
And hits and hits.

Few pieces of armour where alike, even at the same place at the same time. Some might be better, some worse.
Even if we had a historic armour and a historic crossbow, these might not be representative for it's time.


Also, even if a weapon is capable of piercing armour, this does not mean that it will automatically be effective. There are lots examples of the same weapons failing to rout even unarmoured foes.
Up until the introduction of rapid fire, semi automatic firearms, engagements where expected to be settled with close assault.
With the introduction of the self igniting, bayonetted musket, one got a formation that was able to deliver great firepower, with shock effect, at close range, and subsequently enter close combat, something archers or crossbowmen seldom did.

Julio is currently putting together another mail test. Using a similar sample of mail as in his previous test but with better reconstructions of weapons and a more accurate aketon. However, I'm not sure that any crossbow he can come up with would be as accurate as David's reconstructions. It would be excellent of David's crossbows could be tested against Julio's mail. Unfortunately I believe Julio is based in Spain. I'll send him an email to see if anything can be done. I believe that this is the crossbow he is currently planning on using. Draw weight is probably under 150 lbs.
http://www.arcomedievo.net/ma1.htm
[click on "ballestas", followed by "Nuestras ballestas siglo XII-XIII"]

3 to 5 minutes to crank ! That is slow :eek: I guess one gets a manageable amount of effort to turn the lever of the crank at the price of having each 360° turn of the crank only moving the crossbow string a fraction of an inch at each turn.

For it to take 3 to 5 minutes the number of turns must be close to a hundred or more ??? Wild guess ?

Now for an extremely heavy crossbow the leverage advantage would have to be very high: Would cranks with less leverage, but much faster loading times, have been used with more moderate power bows using a crank ?

Lets say a crossbow in the 500 pound draw range that could have been cocked using a goatsfoot but using a crank instead for ease of use on horseback or other awkward positions when loading.

If it's going to be 5 minutes until your next possible shot you are not going to waste a shot just shooting in the general direction of the enemy. The only exception might be in a siege for harassing fire or if your crossbow can outrange the ennemie's missile weapons ? Here I'm thinking the use of crossbows by King Richard in the Third Crusade: Assuming the crossbows outranged the Turkish horse archer bows, or at least had more stopping at extended range. Volley fire might have been used or more probably a continuous snipping at any horse archers getting into range or close enough to be effective against the crusaders armour. ( Probably fairly close then, and well within the effective accurate range of the crossbows. ) Well, this was before the English used longbows en masse as far as I know.

I wonder if longbows were used sporadically before becoming the English weapon of choice. Any idea of what is the earliest documented use of longbows in any quantity.