The title is says all.

Okay now according to http://www.myArmoury.com/view.html?features/pic_spot_ghelm19.jpg this image the dude with the ax is ignoring the crossbowbolt sticking from his armour. How accurate is that? Can Maille shrug off Crossbow bolts as well as Longbow arrows, direct hits from lances, etc.? If so then why did Plate replace it?

Also the crossbowmen attacking the castle look very heavily armoured. How accurate is that?

If you got hit with a crossbow bolt, or for that matter, an arrow, at an oblique angle while wearing maille, it's entirely possible that the bolt'd just get wedged in the armor. It might wreck a few links, but it probably wouldn't do much damage to the wearer. On the other hand, a similar oblique shot would probably just bounce off a suit of plate, which would be an advantage to plate. It seems to me that glancing blows would just tend to skitter off plate, but would tend to get arrested by maille, just due to the different smoothnesses of the two media. Admittedly, if the glancing blow skitters off toward a relatively-unarmored joint or something, this ceases to be an advantage.

As a side note, that's a really big person in the tower in that picture. I think the axeman's going to have more pressing concerns than the bolt in his back in a few seconds.

Interesting scale armor on one of the invaders.

based on the manuscript, it looks like the defenders are using wooden crossbows, which are inherently weaker than thier metal counterparts, so maile could usually stop a bolt pretty easily. Of course when you double the length of the bow, like an english warbow, then a wooden bow will penetrate maile and in many cases plate armor.

Oh no, not again...

Let's please keep on topic, which does not seem to reference plate armour being pierced by arrows. If we must dredge back into a debate on historical evidence for arrows piercing plate, then let's find one of the numerous topics already devoted to it. But to be fair to Ben, let's simply try to answer his questions to the best of our knowledge.

Agreed?

Michael Psellos’ Chronographia talks about an attack on Isaac Komnenos (1057AD) in which his armour protected him from two lances striking simultaneously:

Some of our men saw him (they were Scyths from the Taurus district, and not more than four at that) and attacked him with lances, driving in on both flanks, but the iron shafts proved ineffective… Meanwhile he budged in neither direction, for as they pushed him with equal force this way and that, he remained poised and balanced in the middle. To Isaac this seemed a favourable omen, when attacks from right and left both failed to dislodge him.

We know that Komnenos suffered no internal damage since he was actively involved in the campaign after this incident and lived for years afterwards.

Dan-

While I agree that mail usually prevented penetration by lances I t hink it would be overstating the matter to say that mere survival equals no internal injury at all. A broken rib would hinder a person for a month or two but usually not kill him.

Cheers,
Steven

A lot of weird things can happen in a battle. Arrows can skip off a shield or wall and then hit something with minimal force. The person shooting my loose prematurely as he is drawing back. There is a statistical probability that there would be a number of guys on a battlefield that get hit by skimming shots that get caught in their armor.

The following videos are interesting relating to lance blows from charging cavalry. It includes some measured tests.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NblAIujdzeU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVdO0sAUaz8&NR=1

That was interesting, although I wonder how accurate that Mail was.