How effective were throwing spears? I know the Roman pilum were mainly used to reduce the usability of the enemies shield, and it appears to have been one of the first weapons. Probably it was then effective against an unarmed opponent, but I think the increased range would come at a loss of energy. Because there is no mechanical advantage to throwing, compared to thrusting and when throwing energy is spent moving the spear forward. That is, all things being equal, a thrust would hit harder than a throw. Am I right in my understanding of the physics?
Additional questions:
Can the same spear be used as a throwing spear and a thrusting spear?
What armor could be pierced with a contemporary spear?
How effective are spear throwing devices?
How do javelins etc. compare to arrows and bolts?
Thrown spears remain in use for a really long time - writing in the 15th century, Duarte discusses javelins at some length in his Livro do Cavalgar (Book of Horsemanship). They seem to typically have had a reputation for hitting very hard compared to other missile weapons, but have the disadvantage of a much shorter range.
This is very complicated, in short. Throwing an object is a different type of movement to pushing/shoving it in a number of ways, and can be substantially more explosive (since you don't need to control the end of the movement).
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Because there is no mechanical advantage to throwing, compared to thrusting and when throwing energy is spent moving the spear forward. |
This is very complicated, in short. Throwing an object is a different type of movement to pushing/shoving it in a number of ways, and can be substantially more explosive (since you don't need to control the end of the movement).
Javelins are better than arrows for punching through shields and armour.
Breton javelins against Franks and Saxons: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/the-breton-lands-grubby-atom/a/battle-of-jengland-article
| Dan Howard wrote: |
| Javelins are better than arrows for punching through shields and armour. |
Strangely that's something that I also see being noted by Historians. I think it was Heath who says that Irish javelins, or at least some type(s) of them, were capable of penetrating armor: ("Monstrelet describes Irish foot-soldiers at Rouen in 1418 as 'having only a stocking and shoe on one leg and foot, with the other quite naked, having no trousers. They had targets, short javelins and large knives of a strange sort.' (...) The javelins or darts he mentions were capable of piercing haubergeons and plates according to one account; 3 were normally carried." Armies of Middle Ages, vol. 1).
Javelins disappeared from your "average" Medieval Army as times progressed out shieldwalls and infantry-based armies, However, in Spain, Ireland, Wales, Frisia, Gascony and Italy (though I'm not aware if the Italian reintroduced them by late middle ages or simply kept their use). Usually what all these regions have in common is how "outdated" and "poor" their style of warfare would sound to an English or French warfare.
Spanish use of plummed darts and javelins apparently impressed the French and the English, who had assengays (from Iberian azagaia, who's, in turn, a Berber term for javelin) in some registers we have, even in Henry VIII's inventory of weapons. But it doesn't seem to have much usefulness, considering I haven't seem a military source talking about their use; the Irish though, who would have been used as light infantrymen by the English in many circumstances, would be using their own darts.
Javelins were apparently reintroduced in Hungary after Ottoman Jarids, a type of javelin that seems to be capable of punching through mail. A Hungarian historian I know claimed the Hussar light cavalry used them, but I haven't find any positive evidence for that, so far the typical weapon of the Hungarian hussars would be simply the cavalry lance, with sword or mace as a secondary weapon. It should be said, though, that Jarids have been largely ignored when I see anyone discussing Ottoman weapons and tactics.
Yet on armor penetration, there's a famous reference that the Duke of Lancaster and his squire were talking about Jinetes' weapons and the ones they feared the most were, from what I understood, their lanza gineta or darts; so, a jinete's spear is considered to be a sort of lance that can be thrown or used couched, with both hands or held in the Berber fashion (over the arm), I think this is different weapon than the dart. The squire talks about how, in the Siege of Lisbon (1380's), a Castilian jinete managed to hit a Portuguese nobleman with full armor, basically piercing through a late 14th century's full harness; which I find impossible, but they say that happened.
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| By my faith, of all the arms the Castilians and your countrymen make and use, I love the dart best, and love to see it used; they are very expert at it; and I tell you, whoever they hit with it, he must indeed be strongly armed, if he be not pierced through and through.
To which the duke's squire replied: You say truly, for I saw more bodies transfixed at these assaults than I ever saw before in all my life. We lost one whom we much regretted, Senhor Joao Lourenço da Cunha, who was struck by a dart that pierced through his plates and his coat of mail and a gambeson stuffed with silk, and his whole body, so that he fell to the ground. |
I don't know how should I proceed with so many references of how effective they were against plate armor. But, it should be noted the Portuguese made relatively important use of javelineers in the Battle of Toro (1476); apparently, they were gathered with arquebusers to attack the Castillian lines. The Spanish also made use of Ginetes in their Italian Wars since their very beginning, though I heard that 16th century Ginetes wouldn't use javelins, but lances as other men-at-arms. At Seminara (1495) though,
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| The tactics employed by the jinetes at Seminara I during Gonzalo's first campaign in Naples were typical. The jinetes attacked a strong body of French gendarmes that was reordering, having passed a stream. In the usual fashion the jinetes charged in, let fly their javelins, and then suddenly wheeled in feigned retreat--intending, of course, to return to the fray if their impetuous enemy followed. The Calabrian militia of Gonzalo's Neapolitan ally, King Ferdinand, tragically misunderstood the tactic and, imagining the Spanish horse defeated, bolted the field en masse. Gonzalo was left to shift for himself, but there was no French pursuit, and the Spanish retreat (and Neapolitan rout) was covered by the jinetes.
source crashed: http://www.hotellnice.com/sv/xenophongroup.html |
| Pedro Paulo Gaião wrote: | ||
Strangely that's something that I also see being noted by Historians. |
I consider myself another historian with the same opinion (because the sources and physics both tell us that it is true) so it isn't all that strange.
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| I think it was Heath who says that Irish javelins, or at least some type(s) of them, were capable of penetrating armor: ("Monstrelet describes Irish foot-soldiers at Rouen in 1418 as 'having only a stocking and shoe on one leg and foot, with the other quite naked, having no trousers. They had targets, short javelins and large knives of a strange sort.' (...) The javelins or darts he mentions were capable of piercing haubergeons and plates according to one account; 3 were normally carried." Armies of Middle Ages, vol. 1). |
I suspect that the greater prevalence of body armour at the end of the Bronze Age is why archers (both foot and chariot) were phased out in favour of javelineers.
| Dan Howard wrote: | ||||
I consider myself another historian with the same opinion (because the sources and physics both tell us that it is true) so it isn't all that strange. |
Really? I mean, a bow can store and deliver a considerable amount of mechanical energy, while javelin or dart throwing depends on muscle movement. Arrows are lighter but can achieve higher speeds, and they also have a smaller area of contact when they hit something.
I tried knife-throwing and light dart throwing, I wasn't convinced by its efficiency, especially when compared to actually using that on melee-combat, but I might be wrong on that.
Oh, and this reminded me, there's an odd demand on some or even all the Portuguese crossbowmen where they were required to own darts alongside their standard equipment of bolts and crossbow. I think the idea was to use darts (3, if I'm correct) in smaller distances, or when the crossbowmen wouldn't have the time to span their crossbows (the other odd Royal demand was that they should have bascinets with visors). Some Portuguese sources from the 15th-century also say French pirates used "ascunas" type of dart/javelin
And by the way, at least in the way Froissart describes, the Castilians at Aljubarrota managed to carry 2-3 darts and a cavalry spear all at once.
| Dan Howard wrote: |
| I suspect that the greater prevalence of body armour at the end of the Bronze Age is why archers (both foot and chariot) were phased out in favour of javelineers. |
Wa Bronze armor so widespread as in post-High Medieval Europe to actually cause an impact on how weapons would be used? I thought only commanders and nobility could afford a cuirass or so.
They used a lot of rawhide armour. At Megiddo the Egyptians captured two hundred rawhide cuirasses and only two bronze ones, which is a ratio of one hundred leather corselets for every bronze one.. Todd Feinman has made the best reconstruction of Egyptian rawhide scale armour. It was the one that Mike Loades shot in his Chariot documentary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFxkYmqIX1w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFxkYmqIX1w
on the other hand, we have references from the late 16th century of the irish darts being more a nuisence than anything
| Pedro Paulo Gaião wrote: |
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Really? I mean, a bow can store and deliver a considerable amount of mechanical energy, while javelin or dart throwing depends on muscle movement. Arrows are lighter but can achieve higher speeds, and they also have a smaller area of contact when they hit something. |
Humans are really good at throwing stuff. And while a bow does store and deliver a bunch of energy, a lot of that energy goes into noise, heat, moving the limbs and so on.
100J seem like common values for the energy of a longbow arrow, with very favourable assumptions giving estimates up to around 150J.
Olympic javelin throws have an energy of more like 360J. Some notes on a previous discussion here reference other tests (with trained but non-Olympic participants) also getting 300J+ on throwing spears: http://myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.29604.html. Even if you round down these substantially, that's still way outperforming a heavy war bow in terms of raw energy at release.
| William P wrote: |
| on the other hand, we have references from the late 16th century of the irish darts being more a nuisence than anything |
Irish darts aren't much heavier than war arrows.
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| Olympic javelin throws have an energy of more like 360J. |
But need to be careful with this, as throwing an Olympic javelin for distance uses a different technique to throwing flat at short range for accuracy/penetration. But that said, a heavy javelin propelled by a strong arm is a powerful thing.
Armour penetration also relies on other factors - the relatively massive head of the javelin will take more energy to drive through armour than a arrow head, for example.
| Anthony Clipsom wrote: |
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Armour penetration also relies on other factors - the relatively massive head of the javelin will take more energy to drive through armour than a arrow head, for example. |
Yeah, it's definitely not as simple as "X > Y therefore better penetration". Another complicating factor can be whether the projectile is able to deliver all its energy - arrows can break off behind the head, where thicker/stronger javelins or spears might be able to carry more of that to the target (especially if reinforced with iron).
Throwing from horseback is also something I don't think has been investigated in a modern test. Duarte says that you throw "about a third further", meaning around 50%, which is a pretty big boost to power and could make the horseback javelin a fearsome thing indeed.
| T. Kew wrote: |
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Throwing from horseback is also something I don't think has been investigated in a modern test. Duarte says that you throw "about a third further", meaning around 50%, which is a pretty big boost to power and could make the horseback javelin a fearsome thing indeed. |
Before stirrups and couched lance becomes a thing, javelin from horse is a good option.
It mitigates the drawback of throwing a javelin..the small issue of someone picking it up and throwing it back at you!
If you charge in, throw and veer away.
I'm a little bit involved with a group of riders that to jousting shows and stunt riding. And we have done performances that includes javelin throws from horse, both on stationary and moving targets. My impression is that with the added speed of the horse, the impact on a short distance throw is nothing I would like to be on the recieving end of..
Shock cavalry actually started with chariot innovations attributed to Cyrus the Great. Over time the heavy chariot was phased out in favour of heavy cavalry. The first use of couched lances was in the 6th century B.C. It is unclear whether the Scythians or the Massagetae were the first to develop the tactics.
Stirrups were developed for horse archers to enable them to stand in the saddle while shooting. They have little benefit for couched lance combat. The dodgy idea was first proposed by Lynn White Jnr to support his debunked feudalism thesis. It was the war saddle that made couched lance combat more effective, not stirrups.
Stirrups were developed for horse archers to enable them to stand in the saddle while shooting. They have little benefit for couched lance combat. The dodgy idea was first proposed by Lynn White Jnr to support his debunked feudalism thesis. It was the war saddle that made couched lance combat more effective, not stirrups.
Ryan: I’m not sure if you’re getting the answers you are seeking. When I saw your post, the first thing I thought of was a lot of the projectile testing performed on the Tod’s Workshop YouTube channel. He does not test any mass deployment tactics, but does a good job of discussing range, accuracy, techniques, and energy of javelins, darts, bolts, and arrows. From this information, you can get a sense about the situations where these things would be useful.
I hope this helps a bit.
I hope this helps a bit.
| Dan Howard wrote: | ||
Irish darts aren't much heavier than war arrows. |
I think you have these, in mind, right?
[ Linked Image ]
Irishmen at Codice de Trajes, 16th century.
I think the Irish at Stoke Field (1487) would be armed with javelins and cheap sidearms (like knifes). But a dart like this does seen to easily go through mail.
| Quote: |
| I think the Irish at Stoke Field (1487) would be armed with javelins and cheap sidearms (like knifes). But a dart like this does seen to easily go through mail. |
It is probably a useful reminder that dart was the general medieval English word for what we would call a javelin. A javelin then was a light spear associated with cavalry. Note, incidentally, the throwing loop on the dart in the picture, which would affect the power of the throw. Such loops are confirmed by Irish literature.
| Gregg Sobocinski wrote: |
| Ryan: I’m not sure if you’re getting the answers you are seeking. When I saw your post, the first thing I thought of was a lot of the projectile testing performed on the Tod’s Workshop YouTube channel. He does not test any mass deployment tactics, but does a good job of discussing range, accuracy, techniques, and energy of javelins, darts, bolts, and arrows. From this information, you can get a sense about the situations where these things would be useful.
I hope this helps a bit. |
Thanks that helps. He does seem to be mostly to be using broad headed darts.
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| It is probably a useful reminder that dart was the general medieval English word for what we would call a javelin |
The terminology seems to be confusing, because even people aware of different types and know a lot about armor are unsure what they are supposed to be called, especially in the post classical period.
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| Thanks that helps. He does seem to be mostly to be using broad headed darts. |
The broad headed darts are a more recent video. He’s been doing this for years, even going so far as to enlist a competitive javelin thrower. It still might take awhile to find what you seek, as I don’t think youtube search is very good.
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