Gentlemen; as this is my first post on the forum I would like to take this opportunity to say hello and that i'm very impressed with the knowledge I've gained from reading your posts. Just my two cents but everything I have read from Oakeshott to well researched historical fiction has asserted that 1. arrows from an English longbow could penetrate platemail given a straight-on hit (not a glancing or angled strike), 2. that peasants, unarmored and with only farm utensils often fought in conflicts and were easily cut down with swords. As to ringmail or chainmail, I have read much about mail haubergeons or shirts being taken as battlefield trophies, but had rents and tears from battle. Now, these could have caused by spears or lances, but I believe that given the proper angle of attack a sword could have caused such damage, especially if the blow was delivered from horseback to an opponent on foot. Your comments appreciated. Thanks and glad to be a part of such a knowledgeable group!

OK, the previous post made me think of something I had been told, I'll let someone else comment on the mis-terimnology used in more detail. Though I do not believe "platemail" is accurate in any way.

The point of a sword could be thrust into the mail, and then with a wedging motion you could effectivly break a few links in the maile and then thrust the sword into the individual wearing mail. Is this true?

However, to take the time to actually wedge your sword around, while the tip is paritally in the maile and with the guy wearing the maile, he would be moving around of course... So wouldn't this actually be unlikely or a rarity of some sort?

Kind of like a guy standing still while he see's a piano about to fall on him... lol

Christopher; You are absolutely correct. I misspoke, I meant to say "plate armor" as opposed to "platemail"....to my knowledge there is no such thing as platemail. That's what happens when you try to type too fast and don't edit your post. My apologies. It does seem logical to me that with the evolution of broadswords from nearly parallel sided, roundish tipped blades to profile and distal tapered blades with acute points, that the earliest blades were intended for slashing, chopping blows and the later tapered blades were intended for cutting and thrusting. given that mail was one of the earliest forms of armor it would stand to reason that swords were used in a cutting fashion against mail.....how successfully is open to debate.

Personally, I don't see the issue here. The later broadswords with acute points were used for finding the joints, chinks, and openings in plate armor. Also, it must be remembered that when full plate armor came into use, weapons such as maces, flails, war axes, warhammers, pikes etc. were more often used than swords. There were still combatants that were more lightly armored such as some men at arms and the sword would have been useful against them. Additionally, I would submit that any testing could not be done under original conditions. It would, of course, be performed without the mental stress, fear, adrenaline, and confusion of actual medieval combat, and modern steel would be used in both sword and mail. The results of such a test, to my mind, would be questionable at best.

Why is it so hard to accept that maile was an imperfect defense? that it could not stop arrows from from piercing it to inflict wounds upon the wearer? The same for axe blows which could sever the maile links, limbs, and heads as well as inflict ghastly wounds? Test after after test conducted have the effect of moderate strength bows, let alone recurve bows or even English long bows of yew.

As for swords causing blunt trauma rather than neat nuts so beloved to modern day sword enthusiasts, just consider the beating the edge of sword would take from hitting the maile, sheild, helmets or other objects which all serve to blunt that nice keen edge very very quickly. So the sword very soon became a blunted sort dull edged club used to bludgeon one's opponent. The mace, axe, flail and finally the sword were used after the lance was used to break the enemy formation and general melee commenced. :!: :!:

Of course mail is imperfect. But it saved your ass more often than not. As any other armor. In the age of mail still most warriors didn't have mail or any other metal armor so swords were ideal melee weapon. They were reasonably effective against mail too, though more through concussion than real cutting. But even with padding and mail, strong cut will damage the flesh beneath the protection in a way that will look more or less like a cut. I think we all experienced a cut by some accidental happening which cut our skin although our shirt or anything else we wore remained without a mark. Longbows and composite bows of 100lb+ of course could pierce mail and padding, but of course not always. Conditions must be perfect for them to succeed and many arrows will fail before one succeed in doing the job. If not, crusader army at Arsuf in 1191 would not live 5 minutes under the shower of Saracen arrows. English archers laughed at the Scots at the battle of Standard in 1138 who didn't wear proper armor and died in heaps under English arrows. As far as I know, English writers specifically said that such outcome was because scots didn't wear mail like English did. At least Scottish spearmen who did the first charge against the English lines.
Edit: I forgot axes. ;) Why do everyone claim axes cut mail? Battle axes have thin broad blades perfect for cutting flesh and would of course be effective against mail in the same way heavy cutting swords were, with blunt force. They didn't need to cut mail to be successful. They just did what swords did but better. With some disadvantages of course so they didn't replace swords but their cut was more effective than sword cut. But you can't cut iron. Maybe break some links in the mail but not cut them.

The reason why swords changed is as described above, plate was far more effective by weight as a defence against sword cuts. When discussing sword cuts against mail you have to first realise that a single handed broadsword does not generate enough blade speed to penetrate more than one link of armor. The vast majority of holes in armor that were seen during the medieval era occurred when someone was finishing off his opponent who was lying flat on the ground. Then it is very easy to place the point in a likely part of the armor and use your whole weight to punch a hole through.

Two handed broadswords generated a bit more bladespeed but in general according to some very interesting research I have seen were more commonly used like quarterstaffs. In mass combats (like that the Landsknecht engaged in) the sword was used with the point toward the ground and the target was the foot and the back ranks would finish off the victim.
Halberds were a truly effective weapon against even plate armor however and rapiers were designed to target the joints as has been pointed out before. Once the techniques and the skill of fencing were developed to a suitable level the plate armor was obsolete. At that point you see breastplates and helmets being used but almost nothing else because you have to remember ransoms were still being paid...on live prisoners!

I think it is a common problem to focus on one aspect of persoanl combat and forget about all the other aspects that are involved. Many people think that mail was very prevelant in the middle ages but it was not.. Most commonly it was only the knight and a few of most valued men who had a hauberk, the rest simply had padded armor....if they were lucky!

When speaking of the defense against arrows when one reads through the historical record it becomes apparent that longbows weilded by very strong archers (capable of pulling a 125lb+ bow) were in fact able to penetrate mail armor out to about 100 or 150 yards given a straight impact. There are also reports of archers with particularly keen eyesight and skill able to hit particular rings out to some pretty ridiculous ranges (though I have to admit I find those accounts rather fanciful) but when one is talking about the "average" archer 25 yards was a more likely range at which an arrow could reasonably be expected to penetrate mail armor.

Cheers!
Gary

J.D. Crawford wrote:

Steven H wrote: J.D. Crawford wrote: Can someone take up this challenge? It could not be that hard if you are willing to sacrifice some materials for knowledge. There's a not a compelling need for such tests Well, we'll just have to disagree on that point. There must be some reason why swords changed when people switched from mail to plate. The evidence I have seen so far is what we would call in my profession 'anecdotal'. I would like to see some systematic tests. This, to me, is 100% better than any amount of interpretation and speculation. The test by Julio posted above is nice, it tends to confirm the historical reports of what happened when light bows were used against mail in the crusades. However, a trained bowman with a heavier bow can do more damage. I recall seeing an English longbow put a bodkin 3-4" through a breast plate (Weapons that Made Britain bow & arrow episode), so I doubt it would do less against mail. But then again, the giving nature of mail against a soft padding changes the whole dynamic, so it has to be tested. But I'm no archery expert and that is not my interest. I would really like to know why cutting swords went out when plate came in, and how these different types of armor altered styles of fighting. If swords were completely ineffective against Mail, then there's apparently no reason why people shifted from broad cutting swords to stiff thrusting swords when plate came in, and the whole mainstream theory of Medieval sword development is shot down.

I believe that you are believing some very common misconceptions about the longbows penetrations. popular to the point where i have to often correct my history teachers when it comes to this.
the french nobility at agincourt were many indeed. but the arrows loosed were much more. statistics show, that if only 1% of the estimated arrows shot at agincourt killed a man, the french would have been utterly decimated. but most of the casualties for the french occured during the melee and when the french knights charged a group of protective stakes that were errected by the english for this purpose. many homemade and "scientific" tests show that a longbow arrow cant penetrate plate armour. in fact, the longbowman after shooting most of the french (and not so well protected) horses, had to support thier men-at-arms and threw down thier bows and joined in the melee (the french were in very muddy ground, which gave the archers a fighting chance in the melee) in fact, after the french got some artillery and tactics together, the english longbowman were almost always on the losing side of battles after agincourt. remember, the french won the war. and in the 14th cent, the full siut of plate hadnt been developed yet, and since i have not viewed satisfactory tests myself on longbow vs mail, i will not comment onto that point. btw, most of theese test you might have heard of, were carbon copies of the Warrior show on history channel. the guy takes his 120-pound or so bow, and shoots from bad breath range a crappy looking breastplate that mas no medieal ridges or other fairly common features, places it w/o a gambeson or arming coat up agianst a TREE and puts a 1/4 in hole in the breastplate. and then refers to it as "Total penetration" :lol: :lol: :lol:

i will stop with this correction. JR, i was referring to why i was ignoring crecy, which you also mention as proof of longbow o'er plate superiority. i know that agincourt was in the 15th cent. when suits of plate became common with the nobility. if you wish to continue our discussion, please start a thread and i will be more that happy to debate there.

Nobody is denying that the longbow helped the English win at Agincourt. The effectiveness of English longbow tactics had nothing to do with whether an arrow could punch through armour.

These threads cover the subject in more detail.
http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=8233
http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=15454