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Thrand Godfrey
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 Posted: Tue 04 Aug, 2015 1:12 am Post subject: Hammer hardened bronze can cut and pierce steel I have proof |
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Here is series of test with Neil Burridge's Bronze swords and spears I have done proving the bronze can cut mild steel or wrought iron and slightly hardened metal.
Bronze Sword Cuts Steel Plate Mycenaean Sword Challenge! Reply to Samurai Challenge!
https://youtu.be/Uz_CBcxzOFk
Mycenaean Era Bronze Naue II Swords vs Auto Hood!
https://youtu.be/5Wp17o1lK4E
Iron Age Celtic Spear Tested on 15th Century Breast Plate! + Bronze Spear Reply to Arms and Armour
https://youtu.be/E8vFfDuG-iA
Bronze Spear Underarm Slide on Van Hood Reply to Demomanchaos!
https://youtu.be/lrv2bh0HECY
Middle Bronze Age Spear Vs Auto Hood!
https://youtu.be/8jP3TLZ3RyE
Testing Middle Bronze Age Spears from Neil Burridge - Pierces Steel?
https://youtu.be/SmKKWmnPWaI
Was curious how many were aware of this fact?
I am a arms and armour tester and experimental archeologist trying to rediscover ancient and medieval combat methods and tactics.
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Edward Lee
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| Posted: Tue 04 Aug, 2015 1:39 am Post subject: |
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Amazing tests! I always wanted to see something like this. Good job
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Matthew Amt
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| Posted: Tue 04 Aug, 2015 4:19 am Post subject: |
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Well, all of us Bronze Age reenactors and most bronze sword collectors have known this for a long time! A good bronze sword is superior to just about any ancient iron/steel sword. The thing is that you don't have to have the BEST weapon to make a hole in someone, you just need an adequate one. And iron weapons were more than adequate. The ability to pierce armor was rarely a factor, since most weapons couldn't.
Good stuff, bronze!
Matthew
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Thrand Godfrey
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| Posted: Tue 04 Aug, 2015 6:28 am Post subject: |
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| Edward Lee wrote: | | Amazing tests! I always wanted to see something like this. Good job |
Thanks and was my pleasure 
I am a arms and armour tester and experimental archeologist trying to rediscover ancient and medieval combat methods and tactics.
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James Arlen Gillaspie
Industry Professional
Location: upstate NY Joined: 10 Nov 2005
Posts: 587
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| Posted: Tue 04 Aug, 2015 8:33 pm Post subject: |
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Bronze is great! It was fabulous to see you cut that 20 gauge mild steel like it was aluminum foil.
jamesarlen.com
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Thrand Godfrey
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| Posted: Tue 04 Aug, 2015 9:13 pm Post subject: |
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| James Arlen Gillaspie wrote: | | Bronze is great! It was fabulous to see you cut that 20 gauge mild steel like it was aluminum foil. |
You do realize that most bronze age armour was 1mm bronze and never was heavier than 2mm that has been recovered.
It also pierced a 15th century 15 to 16 gauge hardened Breast plate did you no t watch the video? Here it is again watch the video at 11:20 goes strait in just like steel that is about 1.71mm at point it went in.
ron Age Celtic Spear Tested on 15th Century Breast Plate! + Bronze Spear Reply to Arms and Armour
https://youtu.be/E8vFfDuG-iA
I am a arms and armour tester and experimental archeologist trying to rediscover ancient and medieval combat methods and tactics.
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Michael Parker
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| Posted: Wed 05 Aug, 2015 9:39 pm Post subject: Unrelated penetration question |
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I was really impressed to see the bronze swords go so deep into the car hood. Certainly it makes me realize that plate armor might not be as impervious as I often think. On the other hand, the test against the breastplate showed that it is usually difficult to get more than superficial penetration against an actual armor as opposed to a tiny hole, a dent, and a lot of force transmitted to the target. Is there any chance of seeing the swords against the breastplate?
As an unrelated question, I was wondering whether bayonets in general, and present day knife bayonets specifically, would be able to penetrate medieval plate armor to any degree. Are there any circumstances under which a knife bayonet mounted on a Japanese Howa type 64 assault rifle, or the M9 or OKC-3S bayonet mounted on an M16, to use two specific examples, would be able to pierce a 15th century breastplate enough to wound or kill the guy wearing it? I wouldn't have thought it remotely possible before, but now I am not so sure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howa_Type_64#/media/File:Present_Arms_fixing_bayonet.JPG
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M16_rifle#/media/File:Combat_knife_attached_to_gun.jpg
"This is a sharp medicine, but it is a physician for all diseases and miseries."
-Sir Walter Raleigh, upon being allowed to see the ax that would behead him, 29 October 1618
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Thu 06 Aug, 2015 5:08 am Post subject: |
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Bronze and iron armour was work hardened. Automobile panels are not. An auto panel is usually less than 1mm thick; 0.8mm is fairly typical. It is not a reasonable approximation for body armour. It isn't possible for a one-handed thrust with any kind of weapon to penetrate plate armour far enough to cause serious injury.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen and Sword Books
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Philip Dyer
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| Posted: Thu 06 Aug, 2015 5:53 am Post subject: |
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| Dan Howard wrote: | | Bronze and iron armour was work hardened. Automobile panels are not. An auto panel is usually less than 1mm thick; 0.8mm is fairly typical. It is not a reasonable approximation for body armour. It isn't possible for a one-handed thrust with any kind of weapon to penetrate plate armour far enough to cause serious injury. |
Also, another thing which makes this even less conclusive is that armour was rarely uniform thickness. We have many example of helmets that have been measured to be thick in one area and thinner in the other.
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Benjamin H. Abbott
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| Posted: Thu 06 Aug, 2015 1:23 pm Post subject: |
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It didn't look like any of those spear thrusts to the 1.71mm breastplate would have caused serious injury to somebody inside it. Many 15th-century breastplate were 2mm or thicker as well, and I suspect made of tougher metal that the one tested seems to be. It's an impressive test in any case, however. It's particularly interested because I recall some published tests of bronze swords have claimed they couldn't cut through bone.
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Jean Henri Chandler
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| Posted: Thu 06 Aug, 2015 2:42 pm Post subject: |
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This brings up another interesting issue, of armor being damaged.
In our perpetual debates about armor vs. weapons, we tend to want to know can weapon x defeat armor y
Another issue is how armor gets damaged. I have seen other tests with bows and crossbows and guns where the armor worked, but had a bad dent and / or hole in it. Not necessarily easy to fix - especially a hole. Of course you can patch that but basically your armor is messed up. And armor isn't cheap.
I think someone once said that the habit of wearing gambesons over the armor such as we can see a lot in the 14th Century, may have been partly to protect the armor.
I've often wondered how well various types of armor would fare against repeated strikes, impacts or cuts. For example, Japanese style lamellar which is laced together, how well would that hold up to repeated cuts.
Or how about a textile linothorax (if we can accept that such a thing existed)?
J
Books and games on Medieval Europe Codex Integrum
Codex Guide to the Medieval Baltic Now available in print
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Pieter B.
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| Posted: Thu 06 Aug, 2015 3:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Jean Henri Chandler wrote: | This brings up another interesting issue, of armor being damaged.
In our perpetual debates about armor vs. weapons, we tend to want to know can weapon x defeat armor y
Another issue is how armor gets damaged. I have seen other tests with bows and crossbows and guns where the armor worked, but had a bad dent and / or hole in it. Not necessarily easy to fix - especially a hole. Of course you can patch that but basically your armor is messed up. And armor isn't cheap.
I think someone once said that the habit of wearing gambesons over the armor such as we can see a lot in the 14th Century, may have been partly to protect the armor.
I've often wondered how well various types of armor would fare against repeated strikes, impacts or cuts. For example, Japanese style lamellar which is laced together, how well would that hold up to repeated cuts.
Or how about a textile linothorax (if we can accept that such a thing existed)?
J |
One Burgundian Ordenance states archers should wear a 12/10 layer gambeson OVER their mail armor. I've seen a few tests of arrows against a combination of mail and gambeson and every time the mail was worn on top a few links got busted while the gambeson stopped it. An easy solution to this problem could be to wear padding over the mail itself.
Maybe the surcoat worn by mail armed crusaders was lined with felt to a similar effect.
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Vasilly T
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| Posted: Thu 06 Aug, 2015 4:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Jean Henri Chandler wrote: | This brings up another interesting issue, of armor being damaged.
And armor isn't cheap.
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Depends, really. Tailor-made full plate armour wasn't cheap indeed, but wasn't that expensive as you might think. The price of a milanese full plate armour could be 5 to 8+ pounds, considering even archers had a payment of 6d/day it could cost as less as 200 to 320 days wages for them, which isn't really an impossible sum, but fairly big nonetheless.
Infantry armour, especially in 16th century, could be really cheap, there are documents mentioning almain rivet's cost to be 7s 6d for the best sort(made out of hardened steel afaik) and 6s 8d for the second sort, the latter is about 4-6.6% of the above mentioned sums if we won't take the fluctuation of the currency into account. And replacing a breastplate or some other part in a suit of armour doesn't sound expensive either.
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Philip Dyer
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| Posted: Thu 06 Aug, 2015 6:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Benjamin H. Abbott wrote: | | It didn't look like any of those spear thrusts to the 1.71mm breastplate would have caused serious injury to somebody inside it. Many 15th-century breastplate were 2mm or thicker as well, and I suspect made of tougher metal that the one tested seems to be. It's an impressive test in any case, however. It's particularly interested because I recall some published tests of bronze swords have claimed they couldn't cut through bone. |
Where the heck would they could up with that idea? Shield were the stock item defense of the poorest fighters any anyone that done anything than requires to stand in shield formation would tell, the softest, squish part of your body (the stomach) is completely covered , along with your genitals, depending of the size of the, your ribs and lower legs, all that leaves is the thick bony mass called your head, the bony rod called your neck and your bony lower legs. If such weapons couldn't withstand impact into either of these areas, with would open to strike,p retty much at all times (especially the skull because you have to being able to see) swords wouldn't have had any major development in the bronze age, which we we that they did.
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Matthew Amt
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| Posted: Fri 07 Aug, 2015 5:46 am Post subject: |
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| Philip Dyer wrote: | | Where the heck would they could up with that idea? Shield were the stock item defense of the poorest fighters any anyone that done anything than requires to stand in shield formation would tell, the softest, squish part of your body (the stomach) is completely covered , along with your genitals, depending of the size of the, your ribs and lower legs, all that leaves is the thick bony mass called your head, the bony rod called your neck and your bony lower legs. If such weapons couldn't withstand impact into either of these areas, with would open to strike,p retty much at all times (especially the skull because you have to being able to see) swords wouldn't have had any major development in the bronze age, which we we that they did. |
Nah, could be worse. There are still whole populations of historians that believe all bronze weapons and armor were ceremonial, and not usable for combat. Youtube videos can be a good way to marginalize such dinosaurs until they become extinct. BUT we have to be careful not to imply that *armor* was no good, either!
Matthew
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William P
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| Posted: Fri 07 Aug, 2015 6:06 am Post subject: |
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| Pieter B. wrote: | | Jean Henri Chandler wrote: | This brings up another interesting issue, of armor being damaged.
In our perpetual debates about armor vs. weapons, we tend to want to know can weapon x defeat armor y
Another issue is how armor gets damaged. I have seen other tests with bows and crossbows and guns where the armor worked, but had a bad dent and / or hole in it. Not necessarily easy to fix - especially a hole. Of course you can patch that but basically your armor is messed up. And armor isn't cheap.
I think someone once said that the habit of wearing gambesons over the armor such as we can see a lot in the 14th Century, may have been partly to protect the armor.
I've often wondered how well various types of armor would fare against repeated strikes, impacts or cuts. For example, Japanese style lamellar which is laced together, how well would that hold up to repeated cuts.
Or how about a textile linothorax (if we can accept that such a thing existed)?
J |
One Burgundian Ordenance states archers should wear a 12/10 layer gambeson OVER their mail armor. I've seen a few tests of arrows against a combination of mail and gambeson and every time the mail was worn on top a few links got busted while the gambeson stopped it. An easy solution to this problem could be to wear padding over the mail itself.
Maybe the surcoat worn by mail armed crusaders was lined with felt to a similar effect. |
it was also a common practice for byzantine cataphracts to wear an epilorikion aka a thick, quilted coat over their other metallic armour and i believe these epilorikia were also employed by other areas of the army mostly the cavalry
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