[Jean Thibodeau]

David;

Extremely interesting post(s) and good to pay attention to the whole tactical issue of armour use and missile power as opposed to narrowly focusing on only the piercing or not piercing of the best breast plates.

A fully armoured Knight getting a bolt through an arm or a leg might well still be dangerous for a short time if he managed to close in on you: Seriously wounded men have historically continued to fight while the effects of adrenaline kept them going for a while. I remember reading a long time ago about a Canadian officer in WWII continuing to fight effectively after taking multiple 7.92 mm hits from an mg42 and only noticing he was wounded after the fight.

Now for every extreme case like this there are many more cases of fighting effectiveness going down to zero, not to mention living through the experience: This to make the point that being invulnerable to a head or chest shot due to unpierceable armour doesn't make you unstoppable or invulnerable and major wounds to limbs cannot be dismissed as not important: One should not assume that like the Black Knight in " Monty Python and the holy Grail " one can dismiss a completely disabled limb as " Just a scratch ".

Now on the use of soft steel for bodkin: Now let's say that soft points failed to be able to pierce armour when the armour was improved wouldn't it come to mind to at least try hardened points to see if they worked better ? Period bodkin Maker " Oh, no ! Dead soft Bodkins point are traditional we can't try hardened point ! Sorry, for the sarcasm. I don't think we should assume that Medieval craftsmen were too stupid to try ! And it's not as if they had no knowledge about hardening steel, or that the armour makers were much smarter than the bodkin makers.

[Dan Howard]

There isn't a single scrap of evidence to suggest that the bodkin was specifically designed to penetrate armour. A strong argument can be made that bodkins (specifically longbow types) were in fact used for flight arrows and not armour piercers. If this is the case then soft iron is more than adequate. If the broadheads were reserved for closer shooting then these are the only ones that one would expect to be able to compromise armour and hence are more likely to be made of higher quality steel.

[Jean Thibodeau]

I don't know about proof but it seems counter intuitive to me to select a broad head if one's goal was to make holes through hard to pierced targets no matter how good quality steel one uses: Maille or later plate

I could see that low mass and small bodkin arrows or bolts heads might be better to shoot as far as possible and might be used for flight arrows.

As to quality of iron or steel used for arrows heads, couldn't that vary a lot ? One might use a soft iron for a flight arrow bodkin were at long range one wouldn't expect good armour penetration anyway? So why waste good steel on a long range arrow.

A bodkin intented for short range armour piercing could look just about the same as a flight bodkin but made of harder steel.

Or it could just be that someone chose the lowest bibder for those 400,000 arrow heads. ( Mostly joking here. )

Broadhead are great for hunting or against unprotected flesh, in some cases in maritime warfare better at cutting lines or damaging sails. With nasty barbs they make wounds much harder to treat and maybe a lot of other advantages I don't know about.

If I was designing an armour piercing arrow it would be a bodkin style Against maille a very long and thin point might penetrate and wound even without breaking one link ? ( Very long needle like: I don't know if any historical one's match this description, but I would definitely design an anti-maille point this way if actually bursting ring(s) was very difficult to do or almost not possible )

[George Hill]

Now, I confess I skimmed a good bit of the last page or so, but nonetheless I have one thing I would like to ask about.

I fully understand the importance of riveting mail, but should we also not pay attention to the exact steel used for the links?

Obviously we would use some sort of steel, and I can't claim to be anything more then a rank novice in metallurgy, but those on the list have drilled into me that 'steel' has more potential properties then I have hair on my head.... so what about mail link metallurgy? As a gross exaggeration I suggest the idea of riveted
lead links obviously not stopping anything.

I of course have no idea what the actual historical steel would have been for a quality mail shirt, but I'm sure it would be an important question in any test.

Also, I know it many mail shirts had riveted links alternating with rows of solid links. (Like a washer.) If you hit a solid link with a powerful crossbow, what would happen? Wouldn't it need to pop the other four riveted links (remember the old 1-4 pattern of mail) to drive into the body?

Also, when testing a plate, we should take it's shape as a glancing surface into account. (Was this mentioned? If so I failed to see it.)

[Glen A Cleeton]

[David Ruff]

[J Westra]

I have tried to read over what everyone has written carefully, but I am late to the discussion and may have missed the points that other people have covered, but I thought I shall include what other people have missed...

No one seems to have meantioned the designs of Milanese armour vs Germanic Gothic plate. Notherners, such as the British and the Germans had lighter, flatter plate that allowed them greater movement. In these areas crossbows were not common and the longbow was preferred. Further south, especially in Italy where crossbows were very common the plate was heavier and more sweeping, especially in previously vunerable points such as the elbows. It seems that Knights were willing to pay for less agility and more weight in their armour to protect against crossbows, so I would guess that bolts did punch through armour. From the design of the Gothic plate, they were less concerned about longbow fire, and more about manoeuvrability or light weight.

There is little reference to quality of bows and crossbows. While a trainer archer can account for the inaccuracies of a bow and it capable of adjusting torque of the stiffness of the arrow, no such compensation can be easily made with a crossbow. An average crossbow in the hands of a well trained operator will always perform poorly. The higher the poundage of a crossbow, the higher the chance it will fracture and the higher chance of inaccuracies of the weapon. While laminates were improving they were prone to crack, and wood can only be stretched so many times before it too would fracture. Many longbows could stand 100s of uses. I very much doubt any medieval crossbow would last remotely that long.

I can't remember where I read it, but somewhere around the 15th/16th century laminated bows in the eastern steppes were being created that the author believed were superior to longbows. But given longbows are a pre-roman era weapon I think the weapon did well to last so long.

http://www.fletcher-family.co.uk/C13th%20Fletchers.htm is also a good longbow read and offers some suggestions on the power of longbows "At the siege of Abergavenny in 1182, Welsh archers, using longbows, pierced an oak door four inches thick with their arrows and William de Braose was hit by a Welsh arrow. This arrow went through his chainmail, into his thigh, through the saddle and penetrated the horse he was riding" is a nice quote.

[Bill Grandy]

[David Ruff]

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

[George Hill]

[Michal Plezia]

[Dan Howard]

[Dan Howard]

[Dan Howard]

[J Westra]

[David Ruff]

[Bill Grandy]

Hey David,
I don't have a stake in this one way or the other, but I think for the test to be valid then it absolutely needs an accurate arming doublet. Maybe the doublet didn't do a thing. Maybe the doublet absorbed some of the shock on impact and didn't allow the arrow to penetrate the plate in a way that it would have if the arming doublet wasn't worn. Maybe the plate was compromised, but slowed the arrow enough so that the arming doublet was sufficient to stop it from being fatal. I don't know. But I know I for one wouldn't take it as a valid test unless if you covered as many of the aspects as feasible, and the arming coat strikes me as an integral part of the armour.

[David Ruff]

[Benjamin H. Abbott]