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William P
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 Posted: Tue 06 Mar, 2012 10:02 pm Post subject: |
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| R. Kolick wrote: | | William P wrote: | the book about knights by christopher gravett, talking about the evolution of the knight in england, asserted that tests had shown that arrows DRILL, or bore into a plate... forgive me but that seems an absurdity to the highest degree.
but otherwise it was apparently very capable. |
The fletchings on arrows are set at an angle, causing the arrow to spin in the air (this is primarily to increase accuracy) so it’s not that absurd that it could also cause a sort of drilling effect |
yeah but the second you hit a surface, you stop spinning, right?
when mike loades did those air cannon tests against armor plates in weapons that made britain, we had no spinning whatsoever of the arrows,
although then again, the fact it was shot out of an air cannon might have been why.
but, just so im clear, even if it didnt make much difference to whether arrows penetrated. im genuinely confused whether knights used COP's or full breastplates at crecy... froissarts chronicles seem to depic most people in full harness.
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Tue 06 Mar, 2012 10:51 pm Post subject: |
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All arrows spin in the air regardless of the fletching. They don't spin anywhere near fast enough to have a drilling effect.
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Justin King
Industry Professional
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| Posted: Wed 07 Mar, 2012 6:52 am Post subject: |
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Unless the frontal profile of the arrowhead was perfectly round, the spinning would cause any corners or irregularities to engage with the hole it is supposedly creating in the armor, which would redirect energy and impede penetration, not aid it.
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Timo Nieminen
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| Posted: Wed 07 Mar, 2012 12:46 pm Post subject: |
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| William P wrote: | | although i realise needle bodkins are useless against solid plate armour |
What do you mean by "needle bodkin"? The majority of the arrowheads I see labelled as needle bodkins (i.e., Type 7) are theoretically close to optimum for piercing plate armour.
Of course, if the armour is thick enough, they're useless, but no more so than any other arrowhead (which will also be useless). But one sees plate armour that isn't too thick (e.g., on arms and legs).
"In addition to being efficient, all pole arms were quite nice to look at." - Cherney Berg, A hideous history of weapons, Collier 1963.
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Bartek Strojek
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| Posted: Wed 07 Mar, 2012 1:25 pm Post subject: |
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| Aleksei Sosnovski wrote: | [
When I shot my 90lb bow at a lamellar at point blank range leather laces got torn and plates twisted though none of the plates were penetrated deep enough to cause an injury. Blunt trauma though would probably be significant, none of the full-force blows with a one-handed sword (delivered in combat, so not the strongest blows I could possibly deliver) could cause such damage to the armor.
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Nice to see someone willing to test some armor in very destructive ways, very interesting to see lamellar being somehow prone to getting damaged like that too!
Wouldn't 'blunt trauma' actually be limited quite a lot in this case?
Without a doubt tearing laces and twisting plates with less than 'optimal' leverage etc. robs arrow of it energy very efficiently, with all this parts moving around and all deceleration is also not very rapid, so trauma would be probably dissipated by armor clothes and body quite 'safely'?
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Ian S LaSpina
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| Posted: Wed 07 Mar, 2012 1:31 pm Post subject: |
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The notion of an arrow drilling in to anything doesn't really make sense. Drilling works by cutting and removing material from whatever it is that you're drilling in to, that's why twist drill bits are shaped the way they are. They need a cutting surface to come in contact with the material.
An arrow's spin is purely for gyroscopic stability in flight, like the principle that keeps an American football stable in the air. If you locked a bodkin arrow head in a drill I imagine it would be much the same as if you took a hardened nail and stuck it in a drill. It would be unable to bite in to the material because it has no cutting surface. It would just slide right off. The only penetration power is from the force of impact and shape of the arrowhead concentrating said force on to a tiny surface area, the spin would be negligible in this regard.
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William P
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| Posted: Wed 07 Mar, 2012 8:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Timo Nieminen wrote: | | William P wrote: | | although i realise needle bodkins are useless against solid plate armour |
What do you mean by "needle bodkin"? The majority of the arrowheads I see labelled as needle bodkins (i.e., Type 7) are theoretically close to optimum for piercing plate armour.
Of course, if the armour is thick enough, they're useless, but no more so than any other arrowhead (which will also be useless). But one sees plate armour that isn't too thick (e.g., on arms and legs). |
hmm, my impression has been that the purpose of needle bodkins, like the classic norman bodkin i.e the very elongated opyramid is primarily supposed to deal with maile, unless their really well hardened, wi heard a needle bodkin wont have the material strength to resist bending and curling, which has been what usually happens when people have tried shooting needle heads against solid plate.
anti plate arrowheads are supposedly more like the head of a cold chisel, thicker, and more obtuse, another being called a 'plate cutter head'
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Matt Easton
Location: Surrey, UK. Joined: 30 Jun 2004
Posts: 241
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| Posted: Thu 08 Mar, 2012 12:19 am Post subject: |
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You are correct. They are too fragile against plate and generally either curl or snap on impact. The best heads for plate piercing are stout and short. One historical piece of data that armour fans often ignore is that Henry V of England complained about arrowheads that were not properly hardened steel. If he was concerned about arrowhead hardness then he expected arrows to penetrate something, and he himself had taken a longbow arrow to the face when on campaign in Wales.
Schola Gladiatoria - www.swordfightinglondon.com
YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/scholagladiatoria
Antique Swords: www.antique-swords.co.uk/
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Thu 08 Mar, 2012 12:53 am Post subject: |
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The only hardened steel arrowheads that have turned up in the archaeological record are broadheads, not bodkins. I've been saying for years that the compact broadhead and not the bodkin was intended for armoured opponents.
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Matt Easton
Location: Surrey, UK. Joined: 30 Jun 2004
Posts: 241
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| Posted: Thu 08 Mar, 2012 1:20 am Post subject: |
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Quite possibly. Though that doesn't apply to crossbow quarrels used against armour, AFAIK. Having said that, a 'compact broadhead' and a short bodkin are both square at their pointy end, so not much difference for the first few milimetres.
Regardless, the Henry V demand is one of the best bits of information about arrows against armour that we have, potentially. The material being at least as important as the shape.
Schola Gladiatoria - www.swordfightinglondon.com
YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/scholagladiatoria
Antique Swords: www.antique-swords.co.uk/
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Ian S LaSpina
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| Posted: Thu 08 Mar, 2012 3:26 am Post subject: |
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| Dan Howard wrote: | | The only hardened steel arrowheads that have turned up in the archaeological record are broadheads, not bodkins. I've been saying for years that the compact broadhead and not the bodkin was intended for armoured opponents. |
This mini-article from the Royal Armouries in Leeds would agree.
http://www.royalarmouries.org/what-we-do/rese...arrowheads
It concludes in the end that the common belief among people in the know is now that it was indeed hardened type 16 heads that were intended to penetrate plate (i.e. compact broadheads)
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Timo Nieminen
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| Posted: Thu 08 Mar, 2012 3:31 am Post subject: |
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"Theoretically close to optimum", since practical issues of bending/breaking do interfere with this nice theoretical idea. Shorter and squatter can be better in practice. Still, I'd hesitate to dismiss them - especially the shorter, stouter, ones - as useless. There are two other deficiencies with the long needle - a long needle is heavier than a short stout pyramid of the same width, and might not be the best for deep penetration. The long needle is "ideal" for making a hole in the armour, not for the deepest penetration. A head that's widest near the tip should be good for this.
The elongated pyramid is also seen in Central Asia, Persia, and India - some are clearly north Indian or Persian, and I've seen some labelled as Turkish/Mongol. I haven't seen any Japanese examples (although some Japanese heads are somewhat pyramidal - thick diamond section, and a somewhat rounded, rather than needle, point).
Widest-near-the-tip is common in Japanese war arrows, and Central Asian chisel-tip arrowheads.
| Dan Howard wrote: | | The only hardened steel arrowheads that have turned up in the archaeological record are broadheads, not bodkins. I've been saying for years that the compact broadhead and not the bodkin was intended for armoured opponents. |
Not much metallurgical testing of arrowheads, though.
Hardening might not be for armour-piercing. Hardened steel heads are pretty common on Japanese arrows (including blunt-pyramid tipped armour piercing arrows, and the closest-to-pyramidal ones), including heads that would be very poor anti-armour heads, like forked heads. Also votive heads not intended for shooting at anything.
"In addition to being efficient, all pole arms were quite nice to look at." - Cherney Berg, A hideous history of weapons, Collier 1963.
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Randall Moffett
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| Posted: Thu 08 Mar, 2012 5:57 am Post subject: |
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Regarding this arrowhead testing-
There is a quarrel head that the neck opening could easily be an arrow head that is hardened in this same test so not true only broadheads were hardened. Of the needle bodkins it is true all are unhardened or appear to be but we are excluding the quarrel head bodkins, or short bodkins, which some are hardened. Truth is using a dozen of the hundreds maybe thousands found is a silly survey size and in all statistical application dangerous but having any of the hardened ones being the short bodkin type is I think rather clear there were making these in hardened materials and a conclusion of there being no hardened nonbroadheads error.
I agree with Matt, we know Kings from Edward III required some quantity of hardened head and even with on of a dozen being hardened I think we have sufficient evidence to show it was done on at least short bodkins. If the long bodkin was developed for mail there is little point in being hardened as it mostly will be hitting flesh anyways.
RPM
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William P
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| Posted: Thu 08 Mar, 2012 6:04 am Post subject: |
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| Timo Nieminen wrote: | "Theoretically close to optimum", since practical issues of bending/breaking do interfere with this nice theoretical idea. Shorter and squatter can be better in practice. Still, I'd hesitate to dismiss them - especially the shorter, stouter, ones - as useless. There are two other deficiencies with the long needle - a long needle is heavier than a short stout pyramid of the same width, and might not be the best for deep penetration. The long needle is "ideal" for making a hole in the armour, not for the deepest penetration. A head that's widest near the tip should be good for this.
The elongated pyramid is also seen in Central Asia, Persia, and India - some are clearly north Indian or Persian, and I've seen some labelled as Turkish/Mongol. I haven't seen any Japanese examples (although some Japanese heads are somewhat pyramidal - thick diamond section, and a somewhat rounded, rather than needle, point).
Widest-near-the-tip is common in Japanese war arrows, and Central Asian chisel-tip arrowheads.
| Dan Howard wrote: | | The only hardened steel arrowheads that have turned up in the archaeological record are broadheads, not bodkins. I've been saying for years that the compact broadhead and not the bodkin was intended for armoured opponents. |
Not much metallurgical testing of arrowheads, though.
Hardening might not be for armour-piercing. Hardened steel heads are pretty common on Japanese arrows (including blunt-pyramid tipped armour piercing arrows, and the closest-to-pyramidal ones), including heads that would be very poor anti-armour heads, like forked heads. Also votive heads not intended for shooting at anything. |
heres a description by longbow user 'bigbowbrum' of a 'plate cutter head
| bigbowbrum wrote: | | "A plate cutter has a short, 4-sided, almost pyramidal shaped front which creates the initial hole, the 4 sides of the massive lozenge head then create small cuts enabling the metal to split & curl back out of the way. The head is thick to stop it bending or curling like a needle bodkin. The head is wider than the shaft to allow the shaft to slip through the hole without further friction. The Towton head was just one type found at the site. I imagine it was a general purpose head. |
http://www.evado.co.uk/Hector%20Cole/Arrowheads/index.html he said these are what hesdescribing in terms of plate cutter heads
" Here is the kind of head I was trying to describe. It's the first one shown on the 6th row, titled "Heavy War Bodkin". The plate cutter I was describing has a shorter, stubbier front point to it, then a longer and less eliptical body, but you should get the basic idea... "
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev0kZ2CHRWE oh and whil i realise the french at agincourt didnt have LCD pavises... this video fairly succinctly illustrates the issues with shooting a needle bodkin at solid plates
its fairly well agreed by most that the needle heads are designed to slip through rings in maile and still be able to pierce the clothing underneath to deliver a lethal blow
 Attachment: 39.23 KB
Heavy war bodkin ala plate cutter head made by hector cole
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Matt Easton
Location: Surrey, UK. Joined: 30 Jun 2004
Posts: 241
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| Posted: Thu 08 Mar, 2012 7:32 am Post subject: |
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| Randall Moffett wrote: | | Truth is using a dozen of the hundreds maybe thousands found is a silly survey size |
Indeed, and even more so when we consider the corroded state most arrowheads are in. We know that knives and axes were often made of an iron core with a carbon steel point or edge forge welded on. In some cases the steel part is very thin (so much so that on some knives they have re-honed the edge enough to remove part of the steel and go down to the iron) - if this was done on something as small as an arrowhead then there is a good chance that corrosion would remove the steel point and leave the iron core. Assuming that arrowheads will always be made of one grade of iron/steel ignores contemporary technology.
In this case I think that history is a little more useful than archaeology - we know that the Kings of England considered it important to have hardened steel arrowheads... that it pretty much all the information we need!
For the record I believe that long bodkins are basically anti-mail arrows. All they need to do is burst one ring and penetrate a padded aketon. A long thin point seems the best thing to do that. Also I think that long bodkins are more common in the 13thC and gradually get replaced with short bodkins and 'compressed broadheads' in the 14th/15thC. Not so surprising when we consider the changes in armour.
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YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/scholagladiatoria
Antique Swords: www.antique-swords.co.uk/
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Thu 08 Mar, 2012 6:40 pm Post subject: |
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So produce a report of an English bodkin made of hardened steel. You only need one example to kill my theory.
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William P
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| Posted: Thu 08 Mar, 2012 11:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Matt Easton wrote: | | Randall Moffett wrote: | | Truth is using a dozen of the hundreds maybe thousands found is a silly survey size |
Indeed, and even more so when we consider the corroded state most arrowheads are in. We know that knives and axes were often made of an iron core with a carbon steel point or edge forge welded on. In some cases the steel part is very thin (so much so that on some knives they have re-honed the edge enough to remove part of the steel and go down to the iron) - if this was done on something as small as an arrowhead then there is a good chance that corrosion would remove the steel point and leave the iron core. Assuming that arrowheads will always be made of one grade of iron/steel ignores contemporary technology.
In this case I think that history is a little more useful than archaeology - we know that the Kings of England considered it important to have hardened steel arrowheads... that it pretty much all the information we need!
For the record I believe that long bodkins are basically anti-mail arrows. All they need to do is burst one ring and penetrate a padded aketon. A long thin point seems the best thing to do that. Also I think that long bodkins are more common in the 13thC and gradually get replaced with short bodkins and 'compressed broadheads' in the 14th/15thC. Not so surprising when we consider the changes in armour. |
and that royal armouries research page showed OTHER artefacts as being like that, particularly a piece of japanese plate armour , and of course the katanas as well, have that composition.
as i pointed out a really long bodkin also partly acts like a pilum..
i.e
arrow hits maile with aketon underneath, arrow starts passing through 'hoop' of the maile ring, and immediately starts penetrating gambeson,
due to the sheer LENGTH of some bodkins.. what can happen is that the arrowhead has already started hitting the flesh BEFORE the widest part of the arrowhead is finally jammed up by the ring of the mail,and its motion is stopped
although to be a deep wound, it probably does need to burst the link and get better penetration, i mean, whats the sort of wound depth you would need to actually do some decent damage, i realise other areas are more vulnerable to 'pricks' than others, i.e if one hits the leg just right even a fasirly shallow wound can maybe hit the femoral artery.
so what we might find is what matches that description of crusaders looking like pincushions. although maybe, they would have a whole heap of little prick wounds.
the narrow point also means that theres a higher chance of it slipping through a link, or slip into the points where the maile links link up, a stouter head might have trouble slipping into those narrow gaps.
theres a russian arrowhead thats like a bodkin except it is exceptionally thin, and very long, im not sure if the picture was to scale, but the arrowhead was of a uniform thickness of about 2-3mm, and was about 10cm long, or even slightly more.
ill see how much hope i have getting my hands on that particular volume again, scanning the page (it was from a russian archaeological periodical about archery equiptment from the 9th to the 15th centuries.)
my ideal anti mail;e arrowhead would be of Parallel thickness one that's smaller than the diameter of most maile links.and make it REALLY long. as well as make the head have a cruciform cross section i.e tha of a plus sign, and each of the edges being sharpened to help it slice its way through any fabric under the maile
and here was an even more interesting article about making armour of proof.http://www.royalarmouries.org/what-we-do/research/analytical-projects/duplex-bulletproof-armour
this is renaissance armour but its still an interesting principle
and dan, two things
1, that compact broadhead could very concievably have been used for anti armour, why> broadheads that are anti clothing and flesh, work best when the create a nice big wound channel, so the wider the cut, the better,
these compact broadheads dont seem all that suited to having a razor edge that slices flesh on its way in,
and more importantly as pointed out before it shares a LOT of characteristics with the heavy war bodkin i showed on my post.
secondly, regarding hardened heads, someone mentioned that henry the 5th was angry that they didnt havem or just didnt have enough hardned arrowheads, so clearly this means he normally expected that his men would be using them.
of course we need to know what kind of arrowheads he was hoping to have in a hardned state.
and it is quite a good point to be made that arrows may very well just be case hardned i.e a very thin surface coat of harder material.
i mean it seems logical to once having forged a bunch of iron arrowheads, to put them in the forge and pile coals on top of them, causing a twofold effect
correct me if im wrong, but when iron is heated to a certain temperature in the prescence of carbon, it absorbs a little bit, right, thus increasing the carbon content, and lets face it, you dont need to be delicate, you just rapidly grab each arrowhead and , one after another just dip them into water for a second, then grab the next one. if you get tyour assistants to help, i imagine you could very rapidly add some form of heat hardening to a whole bunch of arrowheads fairly quickly.
especially since these are disposable items, not like their swords which you hope that when the fights over, you still have yours.
unless iv completely missed the mark on how steel is heat hardened / has carbon added to it.
ill get the scans of the russian arrowheads as soon as possible.
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Matt Easton
Location: Surrey, UK. Joined: 30 Jun 2004
Posts: 241
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| Posted: Fri 09 Mar, 2012 5:04 am Post subject: |
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Not only HenryV, also Henry IV:
"In 1405 Parliament required all Arrow heads to be 'boiled or brased, and hardened at the Point with STEEL'. Makers also had to mark each head with their own mark [Acts (1405)]."
From: 'Arango - Artillery', Dictionary of Traded Goods and Commodities, 1550-1820 (2007).
And Edward III specified arrowheads to be made of steel back to the 1360's at least.
This tells us many things, the most principle of which are:
1) That they wanted arrowheads to be of steel and hardened for some reason (rather than unhardened or iron)
2) That they had to keep re-issuing the act, because presumably many makers were not complying
Of course we can not specify what shape of head they refer to - it could be short bodkins or 'compact broadheads' at this date... not that it makes much of a difference as both are essentially square-section spikes.
Schola Gladiatoria - www.swordfightinglondon.com
YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/scholagladiatoria
Antique Swords: www.antique-swords.co.uk/
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Randall Moffett
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| Posted: Fri 09 Mar, 2012 5:49 am Post subject: |
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Dan,
The same RA study posted above includes a hardened short bodkin/quarrel head arrow..... not sure what the issue is. If that is all required no one needs look any further.
I just reread the last few pages and not sure any one is saying the long needle bodkins were used to counter plate, quite the contrary.
RPM
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Brian Robson
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| Posted: Fri 09 Mar, 2012 6:23 am Post subject: |
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I'm a bit confused now.
On the short bodkins - some were hardened, some(most?) were not.
They need to be hardened to attempt to penetrate plate
We know they had difficulties in penetrating layered textile armour..
What were the unhardened short bodkins used for? Target shooting?!
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