Sorry, I missed that qualification! However, I'm not sure the Williams tests clearly indicate how mail compares with iron plate because of the matter of padding. The mail tests involved a very substantial quilted jack, while numbers for plate assume a much lighter padded garment. (A merely 15x15-inch section of quilted jack - about the minimum to cover from my shoulders down to my navel - would weigh 3lbs. A hauberk-sized quilted jack would easily weigh 15+lbs.) Plate combined with the quilted jack instead of padding would provide better protection. Even using padding for plate and the quilted jack for mail, by Williams's numbers 1.8mm iron plate plus padding requires 120 J to defeat via arrow, the same as mail plus quilted jack. Is 1.8mm plate plus padding heavier than the mail plus quilted jack? (The quilted jack weighs five times more than the padding per unit of area.)

Recently i bought "A Storm of Spears" and book contains a lot of useful info about speed of thrust for different grips (overarm, underarm etc..) Overall, spears were told to have about 6-9m/s speed of thrust (less with overarm grip). Yet it would be quite interesting to know, how much pike was different from spear thrusts.. using both hands must have some effect on it, yet a lot of speed would be negated by pike weight (5-6kg).. my current assumption is that pike could probably get as high as 5-6m/s, but maybe i'm wrong. what is your opinion on this? are there any books that investigated Pike Phalanx in same depth as Storm of Spears did for Hoplite Phalanx?

Accord to a thread over at Roman Army Talk, the book gives 46 J as the energy of low or couched dory thrust. That's consistent with the kinetic energy of underarm knife stab tests, though some folks managed 60+ J. Overarm knife stabs went up to 115 J. In theory spears should do better because they are heavier. I am also skeptical that any of these numbers represent the performance of a strong historical warrior. I know stabbing is not the most powerful motion, but athletes can deliver so much more energy with golf club and baseball bat swings - 200 to 330+ J - and thrown javelins - 360 J. War bows can deliver 100-150+ J. I do not get the impression from period sources that one-handed thrusts were so much weaker than arrows. Two-handed thrusts from polearms seem stronger. The pollaxe thrust in the mail test above did better than arrows delivering 108 J. I think these lower KE figures will end up being like the ones previously cited for bows.

These low energy figures are the work done by the hand pushing on the knife pushing on the target during the stab. The instrumented "weapon" used for such tests is usually very light, and its motion before impact doesn't contribute much (if at all) to the energy of the hit. (The energy of the moving hand and forearm should contribute.)

With a heavy weapon, once it's up to moderate speed, you have a lot of energy before impact. That gets delivered to the target. The usual knife stab energy measurements don't include that.

The knife stab tests by Horsfall et al included fairly elaborate sensors. Their results stand generally consistent with a number of other similar studies. While kinetic energy isn't the only thing that matters, for penetrating armor it's a good measure. As far as the dory numbers from A Storm of Spears go, they appear to be calculated simply from the weight of the weapon (1.4kg) and its velocity (8.1-8.3 m/s). The Horsfall tests suggest that such calculations may underestimate the energy delivered by 50% or more. (The test knife weighed 0.6kg and the highest velocity was 11.6 m/s, which delivered 115 J rather than 40 J.)

Anyways, as I wrote above, I suspect further testing will suggest that historical warriors hit harder than the folks tested by Horsfall and company. After all, how many semi-randomly selected moderns could draw a 150lb bow on the first or second try? (I'd be lucky to manage 50lbs myself.) While certainly not all historical archers met that standard, many did. I imagine stabbing weapons saw the same levels of performance.

(On the other hand, low numbers for historical archery continue to circulate. This article, for example, gives 24-52 J as the energy of the ancient Persian bow. These numbers, I believe, come from P. H. Blyth's old thesis. Blyth's Scythian bow has an initial energy of only 25-30 J. In contrast, a replica 1000-400 BCE Scythian-style bow from China draws 120lbs at 28 inches. The authors estimate the range of 80-140lbs for such bows. Even with light arrows, such bows likely would have delivered 64-126 J up close. Of course some historical military archers may have drawn light bows, but I doubt it was the standard.)

A recent study on how hard boxers punch found that a trained boxer punches about 10 times harder than an untrained man. I was suprised it was so high but it bears out in the gym where experienced but light boxers can often hit like mule kicks. I'm not sure if this would translate into armed combat but it is an interesting finding.

What suits of period armor were 1.27mm on average? While limb armor could be that thin or thinner, breastplates and helmets tended to be 2+mm. The breastplate on the AVANT harness from 1440, for example, measures 2.3-3.2mm. At by the mid sixteenth century if not earlier, according to Alan Williams, 2.5mm of low-carbon steel would be common for infantry. Williams writes that you'd need 310 J to defeat such an armor with arrow, though this assumes both padding and a 45-degree angle because of the armor's keeled form. A perpendicular hit would require 235 J with padding, which is still likely more than your average soldier could deliver and would require perfect placement.

I'd consider 60lbs with large chunks of the harness missing to be rather hefty; definitely pushing the lower, or even middle limits of jousting armor dependent on period.

2.5mm is just shy of a 10th of an inch and a bit more than 13 gauge steel. In the days of 17th when the pike and shot era looked more like the shot and shot, I'd give you 2.5mm as a possible average, but you don't hear (in the historical record) about landschneckts eschewing their preciously bought half armor in the same way a pikemen from the English Civil war did due to weight.

If an fully armored man could just bullrush straight through a hedge of pikes completely immune from all injury, I'm sure someone in period would have learned to exploit that rather glaring problem. The tactic didn't seem to work out all too well for the rotela infantryman after all.

I think you need to read The Knight and the Blast Furnace Tom. 17th century armours got up to 6mm, not 2mm. 2-3mm is a very good average for 14th-15th century (at least on breastplates and other such hard targets). The only 1mm armours I read about where for limbs and such, I don't recall any breastplates of that thickness mentioned in the whole book. Also, if one was wearing a placard and a breastplate together (as was common in the 15th century), the overlap could easily be in the 4-5mm, giving the cuirasse substantially more protective quality than 2.5mm.

As for your comment about eschewing heavy armor in the English civil war, that stuff was frequently around 6mm, not 2.5mm, so we are talking about double the weight of medieval or early 16th century pieces, (Some pieces Williams tested from that time period even got up to 8mm, so those would be monsters).

Quote:

If an fully armored man could just bullrush straight through a hedge of pikes completely immune from all injury, I'm sure someone in period would have learned to exploit that rather glaring problem. The tactic didn't seem to work out all too well for the rotela infantryman after all.

I have never heard of rotella infantry men being fully armoured. Just because a pike can't pierce your cuirasse doesn't mean it can't pierce your face, your thigh, arms, legs, etc. So the pike is still equally useful. Also if pikes could so easily pierce armour of the time then why where fully harnessed men deployed at the front of pike squares? (these being the famous doppelsoldners who received double pay).

In addition, there ARE instances of fully armoured and fully barded men-at-arms riding through pike squares unscathed. If I recall it was French Gendarmes vs. either a swiss or Landsknecht pike square, hopefully someone hear will know better.

The question for the ages, if _____ can defeat _____, then why use _______.

In this case it seems it because a moderately powerful pike thrust will not go through a moderate quality (1.5-1.8mm thick) breastplate over padding in ideal conditions. Increase the power of the thrust or decrease the thickness or quality of the metal and you can get a different outcome entirely. With hand weapons you really don't need more.

2 part breastplates having a band of overlapping metal does bring up an interesting point into the equation. A 16ga placard over a 16ga breastplate having a band of 3+ mm material is not the same thing as an uniform 10 gauge breastplate. And this may be the issue at hand, maximum thickness versus predominant thickness. If a harness is recorded as "in excess of 3mm thick" due to measuring overlapping plates and the cross sectional thickness of flutes and so forth, yet the rest of the piece is 1.5mm or less, calling it 3mm is a misleading portrayal.

Men-at-arms did ride through pike squares on various occasions - Ceresole 1544 and Dreux 1562 being classic examples - though probably always with some losses. I don't know of much evidence that pikes could pierce the armor of men-at-arms in this period. In the middle of the century Fourquevaux described men-at-arms as nearly invulnerable. He instructed his men-at-arms to avoid directing their lances at their opposing counterparts and to instead target their unarmored or incompletely armored horses. Similarly, when it came to swords, he recommended only targeting the horses and/or any unarmored spot on the man. However, having virtually impenetrable armor didn't make charging resolute pikemen a great tactic for men-at-arms. Smythe described in detail how to arrange pikemen to resist cavalry. The close array of points with each pike's butt end braced against the soldier's foot served deter cavalry or at least slow down the impetus of their charge. Most of the points should target horses according to Smythe, but some target men-at-arms' bodies. There's no indication that this was to pierce armor, but could have been to unhorse them. Smythe mentioned the possibility that pike thrusts would "overthrow" foes - while not fatal, being on your back isn't the place to be on the battlefield. Smythe acknowledge that some cavalry might mange to penetrate this dense array of points presented by five ranks of pikemen. Pikeman already had their hands on their swords to attack horses in this circumstance; additionally, Smythe had ranks of halberdiers behind the pikemen to bring horsemen down with blow at the head and thrust at the face. Barwick thought it useless for pikemen to aim at the men-at-arms themselves or at their horses' thickly armored heads, but instead recommended targeting the breast, which was he wrote was ethier unarmored or more lightly armored. All of this suggests that pikes could not meaningfully penetrate mid-to-late sixteenth-century plate armor with any reliably.

In the seventeenth century, Francisco Núñez De Piñeda y Bascuñan wrote of a Mapuche lance or pike piercing his breastplate, though obviously he survived the experience. The linked account may well resemble what happened to men-at-arms inside an infantry square: they still had to fear blunt trauma and perhaps wounds to limbs. (Men-at-arms, at least before the late sixteenth century, had complete arm protection, but this tended to be much thinner and have gaps only guarded by mail or padding.)

thanks for these answers, it made me realize something is missing in all these values...

As you said, Horsfall's values with 115 joules and overarm grip, and 60 joules with underarm grip were both done with dagger. Anyway, in these tests, maximum speed was just 11.5m/s, which would only produce 40 joules with 0.6kg dagger.. So how exactly could that dagger get to 115 joules?

I think the only explanation is, that it got additional momentum/weight from men and his muscles who was stabbing with it. If we look at men physiology, and which muscles are active with underarm and overarm thrusting, it is quite obvious that overarm relies on in majority on deltoid, but also on pectoralis major and latissimus dorsi. You are also doing much longer movement which activates these muscles better increasing possible momentum.

Anyway, with proper underarm grip, with hand at the height of your chest, pushing forward, you would fully activate pectoralis major in some kind of similar movement like bench-press, which suggest quite a lot more strength than you can deal with your deltoids. Anyway this still doesn't explain why Horsfall got totally different values for underarm and overarm grip. Anyway, when you look at Mathews work, he is actually mentioning 4 possible thrust methods - overarm, underarm, reverse and low underarm. Low (underarm) thrust in his tests got lower speed of 8.1m/s. yet, with low thrust, you only engage muscles of your deltoid, major body muscles play only very minor role in thrust, which means that additional momentum is much lower than with other thrusting attacks.

Also, because Horsfall tests were actually performed with dagger, we can exclude upper underarm thrust as being used, and instead it is most probable low thrust was used which is most natural for dagger thrusts. Which explains the big difference in output energy between overarm and underarm (low) thrust in his test.

Problem with all man held weapons is the variety of handlers which influence the measured results. Taller and stronger men would outperform shorter men, which is quite obvious in any today's contact sport like boxing or wrestling. Therefore any testing to be valid needs to have properly defined conditions how the testing was done. I only have access to tests mentioned in Mathews book, who relies on tests done by Blyth, Gabriel and Metz. And in their tests they only measured the speed of thrust, not the actual impact energy, which was just mathematically deducted, which means, they practically ignored the influence of momentum human body would add to thrust.

I don't want to jump into conclusion based on combined math, so lets take this with grain of salt, anyway if we combine both works, where we know that overarm thrust with dagger of 0.6kg weight and speed of 11.5m/s generated 115Joules, while without momentum from body should only deliver about 40 joules, which gives us difference of 75 Joules. Such increase would be only possible if weight increased to 1.7kg, which means muscles added additional 1.1kg to the equation.. using same added weight would increase dory weight to 2.5kg, with 6.5m/s gives us energy of 53 joules. yet, maybe with heavier weapon, actual strength into thrust would be a bit higher than with lighter weapon.. again, this is just an assumption on my side..

Now only question remaining is how much power muscles would give to proper high underarm thrust with the spear.. trained athletes should be able to add several kg with this, yet true amount is questionable, as we still need to keep in mind the speed that needs to stay at 8.5m/s.. If we assume at least same amount of power would be applicable, it gives us 90 joules, anyway i have strong feeling it would be much more with full active pectoralis major + deltoid.