The latest Arms and Armour Journal from the Royal Armouries has an article regarding some testing of warbows against plate.
"A report of the findings of the Defence Academy warbow trials Part 1 Summer 2005." By Paul Bourke and David Whetham. pp.53-82.

It also has some criticisms from Kelly DeVries along with rebuttals from the authors.

I like some of it and dislike the rest. It seems to me (and to DeVries) that these guys had preconceived ideas and set about designing a test to validate them. DeVries reckons that the bow they used was too heavy but, after reading Strickland and Hardy's book, I can't agree with him. IMO the bow they tested was typical of the time (around 150 lbs). I think that the arrows they tested were reasonable reconstructions too although I would have liked to have seen more aspen shafts and less ash. By the time of Henry V, aspen was by far the most common wood used for arrows, not ash. I also have a problem with the extremely short range they used (10 m). Hopefully the next part of these tests will involve more realistic battlefield distances.

The arrowheads are flawed however. Although they use accurate reconstructions of the typologies, the hardness is far greater than that found in any bodkins to date. The authors state "it is unknown how hard average period arrowheads were or whether they would have been routinely surface/case hardened..." IMO they say this to try and avoid the fact that none of the bodkins so far analysed were anywhere near the hardness of the arrowheads used in this test. The hardest arrowheads so far analysed are broadheads (e.g. type 16), not bodkins. The one bodkin analysis they cite (their own unpublished work) indicate a hardness between 105-158 Hv which was well below the hardness of the arrowheads they used. Their first arrowhead (type 7) had a hardness of 190-200 Hv with the tip being 300 Hv. Their second arrowhead had a hardness of 230-250 Hv. The third 480-500 Hv. No surprises which one performed the best against the plate target.

Regarding the target, the authors correctly state that the Victorian wrought iron used in the past for these sorts of tests is inferior to what was available for contemporary plate armour. They reckoned that charcoal-rolled iron would be a closer match to what medieval armourers had available and I agree with them. They decide to shoot a flat sheet of this material, rather than a worked breastplate because they reasonably argue that it would produce more consistent results. This makes sense when testing the angle of impact but ignores the fact that armour was fluted and creased in key areas to reduce the likelihood of penetration. The thicknesses chosen by the authors seem reasonable. They test three plates: 1.15mm, 2mm and 3mm. However they ignore the fact that the thinnest sections of plate armour are often overlapped by another plate so that an arrow would have two thicknesses of this material to punch through. They also completely ignore the fact that plate armour was not worn against the skin. I would suggest that an arming doublet worn under armour would greatly reduce injury to the wearer.

The results. All three arrows easily penetrated the 1.15mm plate. The 2mm plate is penetrated by arrowhead 2 (9mm) and 3 (16mm). The 3mm plate defeats all the arrows. Angle of impact is 90 degrees. They note that adding wax to the arrowhead made no difference in penetration. They have some strange results against the 1.15mm plate when at high angles. 40 and 60 degrees seems to have increased penetration. Penetration is predictably reduced against the 2mm, and 3mm plate when the angle of incidence is less than 90 degrees.

Conclusion. Dispite this test being heavily biased against the armour, the plate seems to have performed well. Even without an arming garment behind the plate, none of the arrows would have killed a soldier wearing 2mm of plate (the deepest penetration was only 16mm). If the padding is added, I think that there would be no injury at all. If the 1.15mm plates were overlapped as would have been the case in a suit of plate then these too are likely to have prevented injury. The only injury that might have occurred would be the rare arrow that managed to hit a thin piece of plate that was not covered by another plate. These arrow strikes might hit an arm or a leg but certainly would not kill the wearer as is implied by some longbow enthusiasts. The authors then try to weasel out of these results by claiming that non-fatal arrowstrikes were likely to prove fatal anyway because of the unsanitary conditions, dispite plenty of evidence to suggest that soldiers regularly survived arrow wounds - even in the face. They also concoct a ridiculous theory that even though the armour resisted the arrow, the blunt trauma from the impact is likely to kill the victim anyway.

This test could have been very good. By itself it is only moderately useful. Hopefully Part 2 will build upon this data.

Regarding arrowhead hardness here is a letter from Dr Starley of the Royal Armouries. Crossposted from Armour Archive (emphasis mine).
http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/viewto...p;start=35

"As a metallurgist this is a question which interests me greatly. Some
early studies were done by Peter Pratt and Peter Jones, involving a
current member of RA staff but before he joined us. Some of these
experiments are recorded in an appendix to Robert Hardy's book. However I have
been concerned that the published version of these experiments used
heat-treated steel bodkin points, for which we have no evidence. By
contrast it would appear that other types of arrowheads: the compact tanged
and barbed (London Museums Type 16), did indeed have steel edges/points
welded to them and these were quenched and tempered. The metallurgical
work is in progress but some of the information is due to be published
by Ashgate in a collection of papers from the International Medieval
congress, Kalamazoo (The volume will be titled de re Metallica).
Unfortunately I haven't seen any results on the testing of such weapons.
Hope this helps,

David Starley PhD
Science Officer

Royal Armouries Museum
Conservation Department"

To me, with my admitedly limited knowledge, it seems as though the most unrealistic part of this test is the range. 10m is basically point blank, and not a range at which an archer would fire a bow at a charging knight, whether on horse or on foot. A running man in good shape can cover ten meters in less than 2 seconds.

In tests I have conducted against mail, a bow that penetrated very high quality mail at 20ft failed to do so at 50-60ft. Arrows lose steam very quickly, and so it can be argued that even if the rest of the test was perfect, the range makes its applicability to medieval warfare questionable at best.

I think it's pretty reasonable to suggest that high-end late medeival plate would protect the wearer against arrow-strike. The armourers of their day knew their stuff far more than we do (remember, they saw the first-hand results of real battle-damage). Anyone spending the best part of $2million (in today's money) would expect nothing but the best.

Some points:

The war bow and arrow have different ballistics to a modern recreational bow. The heavy bow was designed to launch a long, heavy arrow. Both parts are matched to each other. Attempting to shoot a war arrow off (even a heavy-weight) target bow will give a less-effective result. Similarly, a war bow will not be as effective draw weight-for-weight with a light arrow.
Heavy arrows launched from a war bow do not lose as much energy as a modern bow. Tests (See The Great Warbow by Hardy, Strickland) show that a war arrow loses only 15 - 30% of it's velocity at 240yards. Energy calculations then show that the arrow has lethal energies out to about 180 yards.

Don't dismiss blunt force trauma. Even with padding (and an arming doublet is quilted, not stuffed, making it pretty dense) a significant amount of energy is still transmitted to the wearer. I doubt this would be fatal with a body or limb strike (although it may break limb bones) but a head shot could well be debilitating, if not fatal. Imagine being hit on the head (in a helmet) with a lump hammer. It's going to stop you - at least for a while. Any re-enactor will tell you that a head strike can stun you, which is why so few re-enactment societies allow them.

The bow makes an excellent tactical weapon. It allows you to engage your enemy at range, before he can apply his battle tactics on you.

An old chestnut: Very few on the field would be wearing such high-quality armour. Estimates I have seen suggest maybe 5%. That still leaves a lot of people who are vulnerable to arrow strike.

An arrow doesn't have to kill to be effective. This is a common mistake. Dead men are dead men - you can't do anything about them. But a wounded man, screaming and thrashing is hard to ignore. Human nature says his immediate colleagues are going to try and help him. That means two or more fighters out of the picture (for a while at least) for one arrow. This knowledge is used even today. Modern military bullets are designed to maim, not kill.

Horses make much bigger targets than men. An un-horsed man-at-arms being trampled by others is still not able to fight. And horses weren't protected in full plate.

Never underestimate the English archer himself. The English archer was well-armed, tough, disciplined and aggresive. One cannot ignore the psychological and cultural aspects of the fighting man. When the bow was no longer effective in a battle, the archers would join in hand-to-hand fighting, essentially adding to the numbers of men-at-arms. The English army has never relied on technology to win its battles; it relies on the qualities of its soldiers


This 'debate' has been hovering on the fringes of one of those childish "who would win between..." arguments for many years now. At last somebody is doing some (more accurate) research. I agree with Dan: some bits could be better (I happen to agree that more a more realistic test would be to back the plate with representative padding). However, testing costs money and much of the financing of these tests comes out of people's own pockets. It's striking how many 'armchair experts' will sit and criticise but when asked to actually do something about it will shuffle, cough and change the subject rapidly. Especially when cold, hard cash is involved.

Remember, only a bigot sees things as black and white.

I don't disagree with anything you have said Glennan. My comments were only focused on the test itself. Not on the effectiveness of the longbow in battle. My views about the points you raised are well known. Regarding the bow and arrows: they were correctly matched. Mark Stretton was the archer. Regarding blunt trauma: I have no problem with it causing distress to the victim - bruises; even a cracked rib. My problem is with this statement: "...even a non-penetrating impact in the right place might be sufficient to cause death by blunt trauma due to internal injuries." p.70.

Dan,

Certainly, the energies involved are potentially fatal; that has been demonstrated. The Defence Academy tests have shown that plate certainly has the capability to stop arrows. The question then becomes: how well does the armour/padding/etc protect the wearer from BFT?

I'd like to see more experientation in the area of BFT, particularly head impacts (I suspect BFT is more dangerous than penetration in this case). Unfortunately, that requires things like instrumented mannequins and the like (expensive).

It's pretty unlikely we'll find someone brave/stupid enough to stand in front of an archer and be shot at and report how much it hurt!

Dan,

Thanks for the heads up. I had not heard this had come out yet.

Have caution with DeVries as well. He clearly has a very set opinion as well (catapults are not atom bombs, etc) on what should have been the outcome. He is a nice person and very helpful but can stretch sources pretty far in some cases in my opinion.

RPM

For those interested.

http://www.royalarmouries.org/extsite/view.jsp?sectionId=1166

They are not the only one looking at the efects of blunt force trauma in relation to arrows and armour so I am sure more info will come out on it in the future.

RPM

This may have been beat to death already but isn't the direct penetrating power of an arrow a moot point? In mass-formation combat, your archers (I would hope), shouldn't be in a direct line against heavy cav. Wouldn't it be more often true that your archers would be back on a hill, firing arced clouds of arrows to disrupt enemy foot troops?

Didn't stop them getting shafted at Agincourt, though :D

Recalculated for 450 grain arrow:

KE: 123J
Momentum: 2.68 Ns

So now we're in pretty much the same energy range, but the momentum is still way down (only 60%)

Of course, this is all moot. They didn't have bows capable of shooting (NOT firing - you fire a gun; you SHOOT a bow) an arrow at 300 ft/s

Still, wouldn't the arrow problem have been solved by even just a slight bit of barding? I understand that a lot of barding was lost during the early renaissance periods when gunpowder weaponry became more prominent (Very little period armor could stop a bullet). A small amount of light iron could seriously protect a horse from long range arrow fire. From what I've researched, they weren't kidding when they said that a fully armored and barded knight was the main battle tank of the medieval ages. Also, I would suspect that the horses were trained specifically with war in mind. In order to "Bomb proof" my sister's horse (jumper), we lit firecrackers near by to get her used to the idea. I think a lot of people overlook the training the horses get too.