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Pieter B.





Joined: 16 Feb 2014
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PostPosted: Sat 10 Jan, 2015 11:21 am    Post subject: Documentary bit regarding the impact of a couched lance.         Reply with quote

I recently stumbled on this video where they hook up a quintain to a pressure meter and hit it with a couched lance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzG3VU6PXVI

The only result they show is that the meter registered 5957 pounds of pressure which they equate to being hit by a car. Now I wonder if such a comparison is even remotely true, sadly I am not that good at physics so I wonder if anyone some something to say about the video.

From what I gather that 5957 pounds of pressure (no idea if it is per inch) was inflicted by a lance blow which seems to have an impact surface of around (roughly 2,5 . 2,5) 6,25 square cm. Would this even remotely equate to being hit by a car which has a surface of 6,25 square cm?
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Terry Thompson




Location: Suburbs of Wash D.C.
Joined: 17 Sep 2010

Posts: 165

PostPosted: Sat 10 Jan, 2015 12:06 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I'm not sure how they figure it's like being hit by a car (2500 lb-3500 lb) moving at 70 miles per hour. Because....Science???
A 17hh horse is in the 1600 lb. range. + 150 at most for armor, saddle and tack is a total of 1800 lb range. And that would be a big horse, as medieval horse armors point to horses in the 15-16hh size.
Assuming the driver and the rider are about the same weight, the mass of the car has a good 800-1700 lbs. of mass over a knight + steed.

And a car moving at 70 miles per hour is moving about twice the speed of a horse at full gallop. And from what I have gleaned from these boards, knights didn't often their destrier at full speed (nor could they really run at full potential movement with that much weight on their back.) So the rider and horse might be moving a third of that speed.

I don't doubt that a knight on a horse striking a lightly armored opponent is as deadly (perhaps more so) as being run over. But, like you, I don't see how they get a knight+horse+lance = car at 70mph.
-Terry
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Dan Howard




Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia
Joined: 08 Dec 2004

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PostPosted: Sat 10 Jan, 2015 3:24 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

This bollocks takes us back at least twenty years. I thought we were starting to get past this nonsense.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books
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Scott Hrouda




Location: Minnesota, USA
Joined: 17 Nov 2006
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PostPosted: Sat 10 Jan, 2015 8:04 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Dan Howard wrote:
This bollocks takes us back at least twenty years. I thought we were starting to get past this nonsense.


Yes.

Is he holding his couched lance forward of the vamplate? Eek!

...and that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana shaped. - Sir Bedevere
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Raman A




Location: United States
Joined: 25 Aug 2011

Posts: 148

PostPosted: Sat 10 Jan, 2015 9:52 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Scott Hrouda wrote:
Dan Howard wrote:
This bollocks takes us back at least twenty years. I thought we were starting to get past this nonsense.


Yes.

Is he holding his couched lance forward of the vamplate? Eek!


It's a crappy-looking grapper.
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Mark Griffin




Location: The Welsh Marches, in the hills above Newtown, Powys.
Joined: 28 Dec 2006

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PostPosted: Sun 11 Jan, 2015 3:07 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

None of it has any value. Ignore.
Currently working on projects ranging from Elizabethan pageants to a WW1 Tank, Victorian fairgrounds 1066 events and more. Oh and we joust loads!.. We run over 250 events for English Heritage each year plus many others for Historic Royal Palaces, Historic Scotland, the National Trust and more. If you live in the UK and are interested in working for us just drop us a line with a cv.
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Pieter B.





Joined: 16 Feb 2014
Reading list: 10 books

Posts: 645

PostPosted: Sun 11 Jan, 2015 7:15 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Mark Griffin wrote:
None of it has any value. Ignore.


Point taken. The weird looking armor combo and lance already alerted me but I wondered whether there was anything sensible in that video. Frankly the physics already seemed a little off, I just wondered if those readings could be useful in determining how hard a couched lance would actually hit someone.
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Mikko Kuusirati




Location: Finland
Joined: 16 Nov 2004
Reading list: 13 books

Posts: 1,080

PostPosted: Sun 11 Jan, 2015 8:38 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Pieter B. wrote:
Point taken. The weird looking armor combo and lance already alerted me but I wondered whether there was anything sensible in that video. Frankly the physics already seemed a little off, I just wondered if those readings could be useful in determining how hard a couched lance would actually hit someone.

They certainly could, if the experiment was conducted and documented in a scientifically rigorous manner and similar care taken in analysing and interpreting the readings. None of which happened here, alas.

"And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That's what sin is."
— Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum
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Mark Griffin




Location: The Welsh Marches, in the hills above Newtown, Powys.
Joined: 28 Dec 2006

Posts: 802

PostPosted: Sun 11 Jan, 2015 9:53 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Some testing has been done by Drs Alan Williams and Toby Capwell. Not sure if its all been fully written up. That was with proper lances and grapers using arrets. I was there for the first, which basically showed what direction the testing needed to take to be meaningful, and supplied the lances.
Currently working on projects ranging from Elizabethan pageants to a WW1 Tank, Victorian fairgrounds 1066 events and more. Oh and we joust loads!.. We run over 250 events for English Heritage each year plus many others for Historic Royal Palaces, Historic Scotland, the National Trust and more. If you live in the UK and are interested in working for us just drop us a line with a cv.
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