[Jean Thibodeau]

[Randall Moffett]

I sort of doubt it was used longer. By the 1320s and 1330s they are being largely replaced by bascinets. By mid century I have found only a few used in real war of scores and scores of accounts. My guess is this was more a consideration 1320s and earlier.

RPM

[William P]

well visored bascinets design, particularly the cone snouted hundskulls,
are particularly good at saving you from arrows to the face and definately one of the better designs for this purpose

the snouted visor would increase the chances of an arrow simply glancing off, and unlike great bascinets with rounder visors, would have less impact transferred from arrows flying at you and the eye holes, are , as far as i understand slightly protruding from th surface of the helm increasing the distance a arrow has to go to hit your eye,

this is contrasted with the fact the nature of the visor maybe means that you have to expose your whole face to see a lot, which, if im not mistaken, led to a LOT of arrow related deaths which boil down to people lifting the visor to see/ breathe, and having an arrow hit them in the face while doing so.

[Timo Nieminen]

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

I'll throw out a source that I haven't seen cited before in these debates. As part of a 1527 book of military advice, Jacopo di Porcia wrote the following: "Fotemen with bowes, whych englysh men vse: do greate seruyce in an host. For there is no breste plate, whyche is able to wythstand, and holde owte the stroke of the arrowes, suche force and vyolence is in bowes." I seriously doubt English bows could pierce decent-quality breastplates in the early sixteenth century, but I figure this text deserves a place in the mix.

[Dan Howard]

May as well include Francis Bacon's claim that Turkish arrows could pierce 2 inches of brass.

[Nat Lamb]

[William P]

also at crecy in particular, what KIND of shield was used by the men at arms and how OFTEN were they used

and what kind of shields were men at arms, particularly ones dismounted to fight on foot, use around the time of agincourt?

ive also seen this suggested to me quite often,. to do a rough test of the effect of arrows on armour, get a dummy of wax or ballistics gel, stand him up, put him in a reasonable approximation ofa harness of the period or even 2 or more dummies in a variety of armours for example, a crecy armour side by side with an agincourt armour

, and have archers plug arrows at the dummy at successively closer ranges, i.e start at 200-150m, shoot a number of arrows assess the effect, then move closer by certain intervals.


this primarily would be to test the agreed phenomenon of the fact that a large number of arrows fired at a host, increases the chance of hits sliding into armpits through vision slits etc.

one guy shooting at reletively close range at a target doesnt give much of an idea of the group mechanics of a cloud of arrows striking a target
or of arrows raining down onto a target in terms of parabolic arc fire,it would also assess the grouping of arrows at longer ranges, although that factor isnt as hard to quantify
the only issue with adummy in a harness, is that a dummy lacks certain normal movements which might suddenly expose elements like the face, the armpit, the throat etc. i.e the normal movement that rocks the arms back and forth during walking, the sudden raising of the visor.

in australia, the greco roman society the sydney ancients conducts a similar experiment during their battle of marathon reenactments every couple of years inviting people to bring along a bow and safety arrows, (though due to safety regulations, of combat archery, the bows could only have a maximum poundage of 30lb's and arrows were rubber combat archery blunts) and shoot at a column of hoplites as they advanced, to assess the frequency that arrows would hit vital areas i.e legs arms, heads etc. iin 2011's reenactment, there was about 16-20 archers and 16 hoplites
the archers made VERY few direct hits on any part of the hoplites legs were hard to hit, shots to the helmets often just glanced off, andthe rest of the body was protected by shields.

[Aleksei Sosnovski]

Actually a dummy might be easier to hit in a "vital" area. People who know about weaknesses of their armor tend to protect these weaker areas. Like keeping their heads down and their hands close to their bodies, maybe even protecting their armpits with their vambraces.

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

[Ben P.]

[William P]

[Dan Howard]

[Matt Easton]

If it is in a molten state....

[Glen A Cleeton]

[Jojo Zerach]

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

[Dan Howard]

[Bartek Strojek]

[William P]

i get the feeling a .50 calibre armour piercing sniper round would maybe even have trouble penetrating that much brass.