[William P]

[Will White]

If you'r looking for period arrows/heads and bows here you go[http://www.archery-centre.co.uk]. And there is a show wich although is not the best historically but occasionally they do some interesting tests[http://deadliestwarrior.wikia.com]

[Alexis Bataille]

Perhaps some one can enlighten me :
it appears after all my reading that mail & linen is more easily defeated by arrows than by sword trust with the roughly same kinetic energy even with acute sword points .
Did i miss something ?

[Dan Howard]

I don't see anything to suggest that a one-handed sword thrust delivers the same amount of energy as a war bow.

[Alexis Bataille]

Ok i miss that, energy from warbow are easy to find but one handed thrust there is big variations i read 120 for overhand thrust somewhere then 20-40 joules in another book. So i guess its more around 70 joules perhaps. I know its very dependent of techniques, skill and fitness of the striker but even trained modern fencer struggle to pierce good mail. So ok warbows deliver much more energy than one handed thrust (and perhaps two handed too, i see some halfswording-trust with acute swords fail to pierce mail too).
Thanks

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

We don't really have the data for such comparisons at the moment. The stab-test kinetic energy figures come from random people who tried a stab or three with a rather heavy instrumented knife with a handle similar to some swords. I have a feeling people who train to stab powerfully like people train to shoot warbows would do better. What percentage of random folks could effectively draw and shoot a 150lb bow?

I think it's probably correct that yew warbows hit harder than single-handed sword thrusts at the same level of strength and training, but I'd like tests that clearly show this. Some period sources equate arrows and swords for piercing armor, while others indicate greater penetrate potential for arrows. The couched lance and sometimes the crossbow get the highest regard in this respect. (Monte apparently considered the first pass of the lance and crossbows the most dangerous. Barwick gave that account of a lance impaling a man wearing a coat of plates, which he thought equivalent to brigandine. Etc.)

[Alexis Bataille]

I agree about the lack of data , but it seems that untrained tester pierce chain mail with more ease with a bow than with a sword / spear trust. Probably bow is a better tool for a one shot thrust than a pointy stick, i can accept that.

[Bartek Strojek]

Even with same energy, sword stab and arrow shot will be completely different impacts, so it's really hard to compare them 'theoretically'.

Vastly different masses, velocities, momentum, stiffness, presence, densities and so on.

And as far as linen goes, in this particular tests it falls to swords way, way more easily than to arrows, so not sure what you are referring to with arrows being 'better'.

Of course, those round, blunt arrowheads probably are pretty terrible as far cutting textiles.

[Dan Howard]

The tests against linen aren't much use because the samples weren't quilted properly. This is covered in other recent threads. Proper linen armour starts off at anywhere from 1-4 fingers thick and is then compressed down with quilting so that it is half that thickness. The amount of quilting is substantial and very dense - it isn't just a few rows spaced a few inches apart.

[Timo Nieminen]

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

Yep, good point about energy. As far as both period texts and tests go, there's some other evidence that two-handed staff weapons could/can hit as hard as or harder than than arrows from at least self bows. A 17th-century English colonial text from the land now claimed as the U.S. Northeast noted a particular Amerindian arrow shot struck a breastplate as if it had been pushed by pike, thus implying that pikes typically hit harder than arrows or at least assuming an equivalence. Similarly, a test of a circa-1600 halberd against a 16th-century munitions-quality infantry harness managed penetration of breastplate with halberd's top spike. This test achieves penetration of 1.5mm (or 1.6mm) mild steel with various polearm top spikes. By Alan Williams's figures, piercing 1.5mm mild steel requires 105 J with a 18-degree point (simulated arrowhead). 105 J is respectable figure for a yew warbow.

[Alexis Bataille]

At least 105 joules yes, with a 5-6 lb poleaxe plus steel gauntlets plus the "armour" weight.

[Nathan Robinson]

Many of the photos found in this topic's original posts have been restored. There's still a couple missing. We'll be contacting the author to see if they can be found and uploaded.

[Michael Kornecki]

Thank you both for your time and effort!