| Author |
Message |
Mackenzie Cosens
Location: Vancouver Canada Joined: 08 Aug 2007
Posts: 238
|
 Posted: Thu 07 Jul, 2011 11:42 am Post subject: |
 |
|
| Sean Manning wrote: |
The source nobody seems very interested in is the 16th and 17th century Italian rotella material which deals with a strapped shield about 60 cm in diameter used together with sword, partisan, or two partisans. There isn't a huge amount of it, and it feels quite different from what little we know of the long prehistory of European martial arts. The sources have trouble describing shield position and shield actions, they are arts which teach a shield rather than arts which are built around a shield, so you would have to spend a long time studying Manciolino and di Grassi and Capo Ferro only to learn something which probably isn't the same as how people before 1400 used a shield. |
Agippa also has a small section on the use of shield and strapped shield and Thibault has a chapter on how to defeat a sword and shield neither which I have studied. I am curious if the Spanish Esgrima Vulgar has anything to say on shield use.
I don't think we know how people used their shields pre 1400 but there may be echoes of the earlier use in the later written material. I don't think the post Agrippa Italian material is the best source because i expect i underwent the some reductive analyses that produced rapier play and in doing so lost a lot. Of course that is just speculation on my part.
mackenzie
|
|
  |
 |
|
William P
|
| Posted: Fri 08 Jul, 2011 8:02 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Matthew Amt wrote: | | William P wrote: | | on the subject of greek panoply while i have our attention, the book the wars of ancient greeks notes the breastplate being i think in some areas 6mm thick. this doesnt seem right, and how thick have you found historical greek bronze cuirasses to be? |
Yoiks! I think you need a better book! (Though there are certainly plenty of older books who conclude that a hoplite's gear was 2 or 3 times as much as it really was.) Helmets and cuirasses averaged about ONE mm thick. It is true that far too few pieces have been measured with any accuracy, but that's the most common statistic. Some measurements seem to be taken (or just guessed!) at the very edge of a piece, with is typically folded or thickened. When anyone bothers to weigh a helmet or cuirass, the weight is surprisingly low. For instance, a muscled cuirass weighed by Dave Michaels (an antiquities dealer in California) turned out to be just over 6 pounds--that's even less than my own bronze cuirass, which is about 8 pounds and just under 1mm thick! Helmets run 2 to 3 pounds, while repros made of 18-gauge metal (c. 1mm) run 4 to 5 pounds. Go figure.
I've seen a documentary (you can find it on YouTube) in which a Greek Corinthian helmet is examined and X-rayed. They keep saying the thickness is 2 mm, but the weight is about a kilogram (2.2 pounds), so clearly they mismeasured something since my 1mm helmet is 5 pounds!
Obviously there was some variation, but for getting started a good rule of thumb is that armor was usually thinner and lighter than we think. Oh, also beware of modern authorities who blithely dismiss a piece of armor, or even ALL bronze armor (yes, I've seen it!), because it is "too thin and flimsy" to be protective. Then they quote a thickness of 1 to 2 mm. Amusingly, sometimes these same pieces are dismissed by other writers because they are "too thick and heavy" to be practical! Boggles the mind. I think their leather fetishes have too much of an influence on their conclusions...
Khaire!
Matthew |
i was planning to goto the library to get it again ill double check those figures.. maybe ot was talking about the shelds. i dunno , unfortnately a few sections have been cut out because someone wanted the images of part of the battle of platae, among others. and thus removed the text on the other page, it seems that photocopying didnt produce good enough image qualities for their needs...
just how protectibve IS 1mm thick bronze, especially if its been muscled.
btw, how widespead was the bell cuitrass among hoplites backwards in time from thermopolyae im under the impression the spolas (i was tempted to just say linothorax) was a product of post persian wars developments where hoplite engagements no longer was heavily ominated by just the hoplite phalanx.
bte if you havent read the book, it examines hwtheway greeks fought from the myceneans to the time of phyrrus of epirus and the last battles of the successors.
it often looks at changes in milityary structure as influencing and being influenced by economic and social situations,
\a good example is that in the archaic period the dominant fighter was the agrarian landed hoplites, who wold fight, one sside wind but they generally didnt slaughter the losers, and negotiated thereturn of the dead etc. and a city state could mantain a decent citizn army cheaply, to maintain a force of cavalry, ora flet or to maintain constant expeiditions for longer then the summer season between harvests meant these men had to be maintained, this resulted in the need to tax people fr other things,
anotheris looking at how the fleet of athens helped usher in the democratic system (which it called radical democracy in the sections of the pelleopnesian wars) because before the persian wars the hoplites did most of the fighting
(the author contends that, cavalry cantdo much to get past the phalanx's spears, and missiles would have had little effect on thelumbering coloumns beforethey reached them) and the protecting of land, and thus had most of the stake in defense and thus more 'lobbying power'i guess wih thathenian fleet, now thelandless sailors and rowing crews now had a much boosted lobby power over the rulersof athens. etc and that sort of thing.
long story shrt themiliary situation had ripples within the social an economic realms of socioty as well. which an angle most books on ancient greece (though most ive read are those generic books that look at ancint greece as a whole.
|
|
 |
|
|
Matthew Amt
|
| Posted: Fri 08 Jul, 2011 12:34 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| William P wrote: | | i was planning to goto the library to get it again ill double check those figures.. maybe ot was talking about the shelds. i dunno , unfortnately a few sections have been cut out because someone wanted the images of part of the battle of platae, among others. and thus removed the text on the other page, it seems that photocopying didnt produce good enough image qualities for their needs... |
Yikes! Yeah, the Romans had problems with Vandals, too...
| Quote: | | just how protectibve IS 1mm thick bronze, especially if its been muscled. |
Welllllll, about all you can say is "Good enough!" I don't want that to sound too facetious, but the bottom line, like most other forms of armor, is that it was resistant to most weapons most of the time. Or at least those who wore it perceived it as such, or they would not have worn it! Properly hammer-hardened high-tin bronze is harder than wrought iron or "mild steel", so it was pretty darn good stuff. Of course the quality would vary, but all the surviving bits seem to be of high enough craftsmanship that I doubt you'd find much if any from the lowest end of the quality scale.
| Quote: | | btw, how widespead was the bell cuitrass among hoplites backwards in time from thermopolyae im under the impression the spolas (i was tempted to just say linothorax) was a product of post persian wars developments where hoplite engagements no longer was heavily ominated by just the hoplite phalanx. |
Hoo, there are others who can answer this better than I can. It would probably be rash to say that a bell or early muscled cuirass was "standard", though I suspect it was quite common, much more than the usual "10 percent armored" seen in many armies through history. As I vaguely recall from discussions on RAT, the tube-and-yoke cuirass is seen on vases dating back into 7th century BC, so it very definitely pre-dates the Persian Wars. It is also quite likely that some hoplites had body armor at all.
| Quote: | bte if you havent read the book, it examines hwtheway greeks fought from the myceneans to the time of phyrrus of epirus and the last battles of the successors.
it often looks at changes in milityary structure as influencing and being influenced by economic and social situations,... |
I don't think I have read that one (I tend to focus too much on specific technical details, neglecting the actual history!), but if anything it's possible that the military influence was under-estimated. The Greeks saw peace as an aberration, warfare being the natural state of mankind. So all of their political and social structures had a heavily military foundation, without which they would not have survived.
Good armor helped, too!
Matthew
|
|
 |
|
|
David Clark
|
| Posted: Fri 08 Jul, 2011 2:43 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Just my 2 cents regarding helm weight from what I have experienced.
I have fought in the SCA for years, and I love it, but I can say that as far as a real melee fight goes, SCA helms would NOT be my first choice, as they are overbuilt. They are ridiculously heavy, though they are bomb proof. They average around 10-12lbs from what I have experienced!
However, the issue of loss of balance is a very real problem with most thin or normal weight fighters. This can cause unexpected toppling or an inability to move the upper body as quickly as with a lighter helm. Those with a 'lower' center of mass don't suffer from this 'top heaviness' quite as much.
Personally, I would rather have a lighter helm in a life or death situation. The loss of dexterity and head reactionary speed due to weight ratio disruption would not be worth the added protection IMO.
Of course, SCA helms are the thickness they are because ya get bludgeoned on the head a LOT week after week...and we can't afford to just up and buy another $400 helm after every few fights. 
But if ye wonder if 1mm is thick enough to protect, just try to stab or slash through a basic skillet. I know I can't. And that's a cooking implement, not armour! 
|
|
|
|
|
|
William P
|
| Posted: Sat 09 Jul, 2011 2:31 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Matthew Amt wrote: | | William P wrote: | | on the subject of greek panoply while i have our attention, the book the wars of ancient greeks notes the breastplate being i think in some areas 6mm thick. this doesnt seem right, and how thick have you found historical greek bronze cuirasses to be? |
Yoiks! I think you need a better book! (Though there are certainly plenty of older books who conclude that a hoplite's gear was 2 or 3 times as much as it really was.) Helmets and cuirasses averaged about ONE mm thick. It is true that far too few pieces have been measured with any accuracy, but that's the most common statistic. Some measurements seem to be taken (or just guessed!) at the very edge of a piece, with is typically folded or thickened. When anyone bothers to weigh a helmet or cuirass, the weight is surprisingly low. For instance, a muscled cuirass weighed by Dave Michaels (an antiquities dealer in California) turned out to be just over 6 pounds--that's even less than my own bronze cuirass, which is about 8 pounds and just under 1mm thick! Helmets run 2 to 3 pounds, while repros made of 18-gauge metal (c. 1mm) run 4 to 5 pounds. Go figure.
I've seen a documentary (you can find it on YouTube) in which a Greek Corinthian helmet is examined and X-rayed. They keep saying the thickness is 2 mm, but the weight is about a kilogram (2.2 pounds), so clearly they mismeasured something since my 1mm helmet is 5 pounds!
Obviously there was some variation, but for getting started a good rule of thumb is that armor was usually thinner and lighter than we think. Oh, also beware of modern authorities who blithely dismiss a piece of armor, or even ALL bronze armor (yes, I've seen it!), because it is "too thin and flimsy" to be protective. Then they quote a thickness of 1 to 2 mm. Amusingly, sometimes these same pieces are dismissed by other writers because they are "too thick and heavy" to be practical! Boggles the mind. I think their leather fetishes have too much of an influence on their conclusions...
Khaire!
Matthew |
i didnt misquote... it says
"the bell crslet (thorax) of a 1/4-inch (6mm) thickness of bronze ....yet most early breastplates weighed between 25-30 pounds (11 nd 13.5kg)
well if your cuirass is 8 pounds and just less than 1mm thick (say 0.9 for simplicity) a 24 pound cuirass would e about 2.7mm thick, 32lbs being 3.6 a 5.4mm thick cuirass would be a whopping 48 pounds...
though he notes on the previous page "homer, the lyric poets herodetus aeschylus al brg about the superiority of greek plate nodding crests and iron tips and spears. but while the 50-70 pounds (23-32 kg of wood bronze and iron gave unmatched safety, the ensemble was also a curse..
theres also 3 pages of stats at the end showng the weight and impact area/pressure of various weapons, the costs of various things in drachmas, with a drachma apparently = about a days wage in the 5th century) from a hopltes panoply (1-300 drachmas) to the maintainence of a fleet of 100 triremes for a month (pay and supplies) being 1,400,000 drachmas, it also shows the costs of nonmilitary expenditures of the time, like the building of the parthenon, it also shows the casualty lists of winners and losers for marathon delium gaugamela and pydna
|
|
|
|
|
|
Matthew Amt
|
| Posted: Sat 09 Jul, 2011 8:21 am Post subject: |
|
|
| William P wrote: | i didnt misquote... it says
"the bell crslet (thorax) of a 1/4-inch (6mm) thickness of bronze ....yet most early breastplates weighed between 25-30 pounds (11 nd 13.5kg) |
Huh, well, the only polite way to put is that I believe he is flat-out wrong. Not blaming YOU, by the way! He might be another victim of "parrot syndrome", blithely copying someone else's baseless assumptions, but I have yet to see ANY piece of bronze armor that has been measured to reveal such a thickness. The thickest I've seen is 2mm mentioned for a couple corroded scales, and I don't know if that was a true measurement with good calipers, or just a guess, or if they didn't take the corrosion into account, or what. (*I* would not want to wear scale armor made of 2mm scales, but that's just me!)
I tried to come up with some solid data to back up my claims, but it's hard to come by. The Axel Guttmann collection included a number of cuirasses and a ton of helmets, but the catalog doesn't mention weights. Neither do the Christie's or Hermann Historica websites (antiquities dealers). Twits. How hard is it to stick something on a scale? Grumble grumble... But I did find one of my old references to that cuirass that Dave Michaels had, and I was wrong: it is FIVE AND A QUARTER pounds! Matt Lukes also cited one in the British Museum that weighed 7.25 pounds.
Of course, if anyone can cite a scientific measurement showing a few examples of bronze armor or helmets that are significantly thicker than 2mm, I will cheerfully eat my words! But quite often you can see easily on the pieces in museums that they are quite thin, even allowing for corrosion.
Hey, wasn't this thread about shields?...
Matthew
|
|
|
|
|
Michael Curl
Location: Northern California, US Joined: 06 Jan 2008
Posts: 487
|
| Posted: Sat 09 Jul, 2011 10:40 am Post subject: |
|
|
Hmmm, 1 mm seems really thin, I don't know how bronze compares to steel, but most late medieval/renaissance armor before the 16th tends to be in the 2-3mm range, though you do see 1mm on the lighter pieces of a harness (greaves, etc.)
E Pluribus Unum
Last edited by Michael Curl on Sat 09 Jul, 2011 3:02 pm; edited 1 time in total
|
|
 |
|
|
Timo Nieminen
|
| Posted: Sat 09 Jul, 2011 2:47 pm Post subject: |
|
|
2-3mm should stop high-power arrows (i.e., 100+ J arrows, or arrows shot from 110lb warbows). 1mm (iron) isn't enough for that. Too heavy to want to carry 2-3mm all over, so leave some parts thinner.
I wouldn't expect 1mm bronze to stop such arrows either. But that's a job for the shield.
"In addition to being efficient, all pole arms were quite nice to look at." - Cherney Berg, A hideous history of weapons, Collier 1963.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sean Manning
|
| Posted: Sat 09 Jul, 2011 5:43 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Michael Curl wrote: | | Hmmm, 1 mm seems really thin, I don't know how bronze compares to steel, but most late medieval/renaissance armor before the 16th tends to be in the 2-3mm range, though you do see 1mm on the lighter pieces of a harness (greaves, etc.) |
Remember that in the Iron Age the most powerful weapon against armour was a two-handed spear with a narrow head. Almost all infantry who expected to fight hand to hand had a shield for defense. There were relatively few maces or swung staff weapons.
Most Bronze Age and Iron Age warbows seem to have draw weights suitable for hunting (some Scythian bows may have been around 50 lbs at 60 cm); the light weights of arrowheads (often as low as 1/2 shekel or 4 g) supports this, because there is no point using a very powerful bow with a very light arrow. There seems to be a meme that all military bows were monsters with draw forces over 100 lbs, but that only seems true in the early modern period.
|
|
|
|
|
Michael Curl
Location: Northern California, US Joined: 06 Jan 2008
Posts: 487
|
| Posted: Sat 09 Jul, 2011 8:13 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Interesting. I was under the impression though that maces were quite common in that time period. Are there any good (stress the word good here) books about bronze-early iron age weapons and armor? Most of what I find are bad, or I doubt their quality. Took me 2 years to get up to speed on medieval/renaissance W&A, I know how much misinformation is out their on the subject.
E Pluribus Unum
Last edited by Michael Curl on Mon 11 Jul, 2011 12:19 pm; edited 1 time in total
|
|
|
|
|
|
Timo Nieminen
|
| Posted: Sun 10 Jul, 2011 4:28 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Sean Manning wrote: |
Most Bronze Age and Iron Age warbows seem to have draw weights suitable for hunting (some Scythian bows may have been around 50 lbs at 60 cm); the light weights of arrowheads (often as low as 1/2 shekel or 4 g) supports this, because there is no point using a very powerful bow with a very light arrow. There seems to be a meme that all military bows were monsters with draw forces over 100 lbs, but that only seems true in the early modern period. |
Do you have a reference for the Scythian bow figure? A replica of a Xinjiang Scythian bow came in at 120lb@28" (probably too high); the original is estimated to have been 80-140lb.
How light is too light for an arrow? Turkish military flight arrows were around 20g (compared with 40g for "heavy" Turkish military arrows), shot from 100-110lb bows. Of course you need a bow with lightweight limbs to get enough benefit in speed to compensate for the loss of energy, but this doesn't rule out powerful bows.
"In addition to being efficient, all pole arms were quite nice to look at." - Cherney Berg, A hideous history of weapons, Collier 1963.
|
|
|
|
|
|
William P
|
| Posted: Sun 10 Jul, 2011 7:19 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Matthew Amt wrote: | | William P wrote: | i didnt misquote... it says
"the bell crslet (thorax) of a 1/4-inch (6mm) thickness of bronze ....yet most early breastplates weighed between 25-30 pounds (11 nd 13.5kg) |
Huh, well, the only polite way to put is that I believe he is flat-out wrong. Not blaming YOU, by the way! He might be another victim of "parrot syndrome", blithely copying someone else's baseless assumptions, but I have yet to see ANY piece of bronze armor that has been measured to reveal such a thickness. The thickest I've seen is 2mm mentioned for a couple corroded scales, and I don't know if that was a true measurement with good calipers, or just a guess, or if they didn't take the corrosion into account, or what. (*I* would not want to wear scale armor made of 2mm scales, but that's just me!)
I tried to come up with some solid data to back up my claims, but it's hard to come by. The Axel Guttmann collection included a number of cuirasses and a ton of helmets, but the catalog doesn't mention weights. Neither do the Christie's or Hermann Historica websites (antiquities dealers). Twits. How hard is it to stick something on a scale? Grumble grumble... But I did find one of my old references to that cuirass that Dave Michaels had, and I was wrong: it is FIVE AND A QUARTER pounds! Matt Lukes also cited one in the British Museum that weighed 7.25 pounds.
Of course, if anyone can cite a scientific measurement showing a few examples of bronze armor or helmets that are significantly thicker than 2mm, I will cheerfully eat my words! But quite often you can see easily on the pieces in museums that they are quite thin, even allowing for corrosion.
Hey, wasn't this thread about shields?...
Matthew |
well i started the thread in the first place. so i dont care if its off topic.
i now know that heaters, my question was based on the small 50cm high heater sed by knights, andforgot that heatersand kite shields are also sed by infantry who, as matthew pointed out dont fight in much of an individualistic way.
i realised my question wasbased off flawed assumptions.
as for the original question as to lloyds mention of taking a hit to the ankles. how WOULD you stop yourself being skewered in the ankle/ upper foot by a underarm spear thrust. i would imagine you just move your feet back, but in a solid plalanx when our being pushed by your comrades from the back..
since hoplite swords measured around 2 feet long overall?i wouldnt try and chop at someones ankle. id have to get to a distance where i think id rather get around his shield and slice his arm.
as for the cuirass. quarf morgan my garrison leader and part of the sydney greco roman group (you might know of him). told me that 6mm bronze is CAST not forged as well O.O
and how thick was the breastplateby dave michaels?
accordingto quarf i told him what i said here, assuming your 8 pound cuirass was about 0.8/0.9mm a 5.4mm cuirass would be about... 48 pounds now. ive been told an ENTIRE gothic harness was about 48 or sslightly more pounds.
and i sympathise about weights, manning imperial often doesnt list ANY weights or measures i mean unless each one is madewith a persons dimensions in mind, but even then thered be a upper and lower figure for weights.. its particularly frustrating when your reenactment group has weight restrictions for things like axe heads and spear heads. for example a mace head can be no bigger than 300grams.
http://manningimperial.com/item.php?item_id=5...mp;c_id=35 this breastplate, by mannng is 5.6 kg, thats about 11.2 pounds
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sean Manning
|
| Posted: Sun 10 Jul, 2011 8:14 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Timo Nieminen wrote: | | Sean Manning wrote: |
Most Bronze Age and Iron Age warbows seem to have draw weights suitable for hunting (some Scythian bows may have been around 50 lbs at 60 cm); the light weights of arrowheads (often as low as 1/2 shekel or 4 g) supports this, because there is no point using a very powerful bow with a very light arrow. There seems to be a meme that all military bows were monsters with draw forces over 100 lbs, but that only seems true in the early modern period. |
Do you have a reference for the Scythian bow figure? A replica of a Xinjiang Scythian bow came in at 120lb@28" (probably too high); the original is estimated to have been 80-140lb.
How light is too light for an arrow? Turkish military flight arrows were around 20g (compared with 40g for "heavy" Turkish military arrows), shot from 100-110lb bows. Of course you need a bow with lightweight limbs to get enough benefit in speed to compensate for the loss of energy, but this doesn't rule out powerful bows. |
Erhardt Godehardt et al., "The Reconstruction of Scythian Bows", in Barry Molloy ed., The Cutting Edge (Tempus, 2007)
Philip Henry Blyth, THE EFFECTIVENESS OF GREEK ARMOUR AGAINST ARROWS IN THE PERSIAN WAR (490 - 479 B. C. ): AN INTERDISCIPLINARY ENQUIRY (PhD Thesis available online: University of Reading, 1977)
Someone would have to do the math, and the physics of archery is complicated, but I suspect that 20 g flight arrows aren't getting much benefit from a 110 lb draw, even with a composite bow. Too light an arrow can even disintegrate when fired from a powerful bow. I don't have access to the Karpowicz Jnl. Soc. Ar. Antiquaries article which measured velocities of different arrows from the same Turkish bow.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Matthew Amt
|
| Posted: Sun 10 Jul, 2011 11:48 am Post subject: |
|
|
| William P wrote: | | as for the original question as to lloyds mention of taking a hit to the ankles. how WOULD you stop yourself being skewered in the ankle/ upper foot by a underarm spear thrust. i would imagine you just move your feet back, but in a solid plalanx when our being pushed by your comrades from the back.. |
Poke him in the eye as he's looking down! Heck, in a phalanx you probably can't even see the other guy's feet unless you bring your shield in tight and stick your head out over the rim. I just don't think feet or ankles were all that much of a danger. Pretty small and fast-moving targets, after all. Shins are a little more likely, hence the greaves.
| Quote: | | as for the cuirass. quarf morgan my garrison leader and part of the sydney greco roman group (you might know of him). told me that 6mm bronze is CAST not forged as well O.O |
Well, I doubt armor was ever cast to shape. You cast a plate or blank and hammer it out into sheet. I have yet to see a piece of armor that has been decisively shown to have been cast rather than hammered.
| Quote: | | and how thick was the breastplateby dave michaels? |
Don't know. (Thinner than mine, ha!) It must have varied, thicker in some places than others. The breastplate was 3 pounds, the backplate (which tends to cover a larger area) 2.5 pounds.
| Quote: | | accordingto quarf i told him what i said here, assuming your 8 pound cuirass was about 0.8/0.9mm a 5.4mm cuirass would be about... 48 pounds now. ive been told an ENTIRE gothic harness was about 48 or sslightly more pounds. |
Exactly, it's a ridiculous weight, used by "experts" to draw all kinds of false conclusions about ancient warfare. And it's a completely unnecessary weight, since we know that 1 to 2mm of bronze is resistant to most anything the ancient world can throw at it.
| Michael Curl wrote: | | Interesting. I was under the impression thought that maces were quite common in that time period. Are there any good (stress the word good here) books about bronze-early iron age weapons and armor? Most of what I find are bad, or I doubt their quality. Took me 2 years to get up to speed on medieval/renaissance W&A, I know how much misinformation is out their on the subject. |
Maces were extremely common in the Early Bronze Age, and then someone invented helmets! At least, that seems to be the rationale, since after helmets appear the mace is suddenly relegated to a ceremonial scepter, mostly. Maybe it was just the appearance of swords that pushed out maces. There are a few books around that us Bronze Age types really like, but a few ("Bronze Age Warfare" by Osgood, Monks, and Toms) which are indeed dreadful. Frustrating as heck. If you can afford them, any of the volumes in the Praehistorische Bronzefunde series are excellent, basically dry scholarly catalogs full of line drawings of weapons and stuff.
Valete,
Matthew
|
|
|
|
|
|
Timo Nieminen
|
| Posted: Sun 10 Jul, 2011 2:33 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Sean Manning wrote: | | Timo Nieminen wrote: | | Sean Manning wrote: |
Most Bronze Age and Iron Age warbows seem to have draw weights suitable for hunting (some Scythian bows may have been around 50 lbs at 60 cm); the light weights of arrowheads (often as low as 1/2 shekel or 4 g) supports this, because there is no point using a very powerful bow with a very light arrow. There seems to be a meme that all military bows were monsters with draw forces over 100 lbs, but that only seems true in the early modern period. |
Do you have a reference for the Scythian bow figure? A replica of a Xinjiang Scythian bow came in at 120lb@28" (probably too high); the original is estimated to have been 80-140lb.
How light is too light for an arrow? Turkish military flight arrows were around 20g (compared with 40g for "heavy" Turkish military arrows), shot from 100-110lb bows. Of course you need a bow with lightweight limbs to get enough benefit in speed to compensate for the loss of energy, but this doesn't rule out powerful bows. |
Erhardt Godehardt et al., "The Reconstruction of Scythian Bows", in Barry Molloy ed., The Cutting Edge (Tempus, 2007)
Philip Henry Blyth, THE EFFECTIVENESS OF GREEK ARMOUR AGAINST ARROWS IN THE PERSIAN WAR (490 - 479 B. C. ): AN INTERDISCIPLINARY ENQUIRY (PhD Thesis available online: University of Reading, 1977)
Someone would have to do the math, and the physics of archery is complicated, but I suspect that 20 g flight arrows aren't getting much benefit from a 110 lb draw, even with a composite bow. Too light an arrow can even disintegrate when fired from a powerful bow. I don't have access to the Karpowicz Jnl. Soc. Ar. Antiquaries article which measured velocities of different arrows from the same Turkish bow. |
Thanks!
Godehardt et al end up with bows of only up to 50lb since that's what they designed to (assuming that >66lb was "not common" for horse archers, and aiming for what they can manage to test shoot with sufficient ease). Karpowicz and Selby (Scythian bow, via ATARN above) try to replicate an actual object. Assuming their reconstruction is accurate, this is a case of real life trumping preconceptions.
Experimentally, 20g arrows give significantly higher speeds from a Turkish bow (and significantly less energy). The efficiency drops enough so you wouldn't want to go much below 20g. These are military flight arrows, not "sporting" flight arrows, which were lighter still (average of 12g). The flight arrows are short (shorter than the draw length), and are shot using an arrow guide (sipar).
Karpowicz 2005 is reprinted on ATARN. Also of interest is A. Karpowicz, “Ottoman bows — an assessment of draw weight, performance and tactical use,” Antiquity, vol. 81, pp. 675–685, 2007.
Greek armour + shield worked well in practice against the Persian bow (e.g., Plataea). Xenophon's Carduchi, who could penetrate both shield and breastplate were exceptional.
"In addition to being efficient, all pole arms were quite nice to look at." - Cherney Berg, A hideous history of weapons, Collier 1963.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sean Manning
|
| Posted: Sun 10 Jul, 2011 4:10 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Timo Nieminen wrote: |
Thanks!
Godehardt et al end up with bows of only up to 50lb since that's what they designed to (assuming that >66lb was "not common" for horse archers, and aiming for what they can manage to test shoot with sufficient ease). Karpowicz and Selby (Scythian bow, via ATARN above) try to replicate an actual object. Assuming their reconstruction is accurate, this is a case of real life trumping preconceptions.
Experimentally, 20g arrows give significantly higher speeds from a Turkish bow (and significantly less energy). The efficiency drops enough so you wouldn't want to go much below 20g. These are military flight arrows, not "sporting" flight arrows, which were lighter still (average of 12g). The flight arrows are short (shorter than the draw length), and are shot using an arrow guide (sipar).
Karpowicz 2005 is reprinted on ATARN. |
Oh dear. I can't read their table 1 easily (they made a mistake converting it to HTML) and I'm not sure how I can use it. Their main examples of high draw weight bows are "flight" and "target" bows, and the flight bows use special short arrows and an arrow guide. I'm also not sure why they tested so many arrows over 650 grains/44 g if there are no historical examples? The performance of the hybrid bows with light arrows is quite impressive, but by increasing draw force 74% they only increased velocity 17% with a 200-230 grain arrow. Unfortunately its hard to compare most of the shots with the hybrid bows with a shot from the war bow. Almost as frustrating as Godehart et al's arguments that bows with a moderate draw weight were so effective they didn't need to be stronger.
There isn't a lot of circumstantial evidence for such powerful, efficient composite bows in the 1st millenium BCE, and Blyth's argument about shaft diameters and strengths seems reasonable although I haven't spend a week on it with a pad of paper and a engineering textbook. E. McEwan reconstructed two of Tutankhamun's composite bows and got 18 and 23 kg at their intended draw; I've also seen a reconstructed Egyptian bow with a 28.8 kg draw.
| Timo Nieminen wrote: | | Also of interest is A. Karpowicz, “Ottoman bows — an assessment of draw weight, performance and tactical use,” Antiquity, vol. 81, pp. 675–685, 2007. |
I have that, but again its not relevant unless the evidence suggests that ancient composite bows were monsters with > 100 lb draws.
| Timo Nieminen wrote: | | Greek armour + shield worked well in practice against the Persian bow (e.g., Plataea). Xenophon's Carduchi, who could penetrate both shield and breastplate were exceptional. |
Which rather supports a moderate draw weight doesn't it! Ancient armour usually wasn't as protective as its early modern equivalents.
|
|
|
|
|
Elling Polden
|
| Posted: Mon 11 Jul, 2011 2:18 pm Post subject: |
|
|
When fighting with the spear in the underhand grip, you will spend most of your time pointing the tip at the opponents face, to keep him at your fighitng distance. If you lower your point to strike at the legs, you also expose yourself to beeing closed.
Which brings us to another of Lloyd's assumptions; the use of the spear over or underhand. Like him, I have most of my experience from the reenactment combat rules system, where the head is not a target (with any weapon) and overhand use of the spear is prohibited.
Having experimented with fighting masks to widen our horizons, we have made some observations.
The underhand grip is more flexible and has much better tip and range controll. You can make high/low feints, thrust for the legs or belly, or throw the tip over the top of the opponenents shield.
The overhand grip has more power, and is better for pushing or close combat. With the spear in the overhand grip, you can move past the opponents point, and threaten his head and shoulders from above. If he is standing in the underhand grip, his only defences are retreat, or shortening his spear to thrust you in the belly.
My theory, which remains to be tested, is that a shieldwall using their spears overhand will have greater momentum than the more deffensive underhand line. Which would explain why the overhand grip is used.
And when fighting with your spears overhand, leg strikes would be less common.
Another way to defend the lower leg is simply to angle the bottom shield outwards, forcing the opponent to withdraw his spear and make a new thrust rather than just letting the tip drop. This weakens your flank defence, however.
"this [fight] looks curious, almost like a game. See, they are looking around them before they fall, to find a dry spot to fall on, or they are falling on their shields. Can you see blood on their cloths and weapons? No. This must be trickery."
-Reidar Sendeman, from King Sverre's Saga, 1201
|
|
 |
|
|
Sean Manning
|
| Posted: Tue 12 Jul, 2011 7:20 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Elling Polden wrote: | | Another way to defend the lower leg is simply to angle the bottom shield outwards, forcing the opponent to withdraw his spear and make a new thrust rather than just letting the tip drop. This weakens your flank defence, however. |
Some vase paintings do show Greek hoplites with their aspides centered in front of the body with the bottom of the rim angled out. Hand and Wagner have a modern name for it (High Ward?).
|
|
|
|
|
Justin Lee Hunt
Location: North Baltimore OH Joined: 28 Jun 2011
Posts: 38
|
| Posted: Tue 12 Jul, 2011 6:17 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| David Clark wrote: | Just my 2 cents regarding helm weight from what I have experienced.
I have fought in the SCA for years, and I love it, but I can say that as far as a real melee fight goes, SCA helms would NOT be my first choice, as they are overbuilt. They are ridiculously heavy, though they are bomb proof. They average around 10-12lbs from what I have experienced!
However, the issue of loss of balance is a very real problem with most thin or normal weight fighters. This can cause unexpected toppling or an inability to move the upper body as quickly as with a lighter helm. Those with a 'lower' center of mass don't suffer from this 'top heaviness' quite as much.
Personally, I would rather have a lighter helm in a life or death situation. The loss of dexterity and head reactionary speed due to weight ratio disruption would not be worth the added protection IMO.
Of course, SCA helms are the thickness they are because ya get bludgeoned on the head a LOT week after week...and we can't afford to just up and buy another $400 helm after every few fights.
But if ye wonder if 1mm is thick enough to protect, just try to stab or slash through a basic skillet. I know I can't. And that's a cooking implement, not armour! |
I argree SCA armor tends to be over-built which is one of the many reasons I'm not in the SCA. (no offence). As for the skillet, well my hammer backed war axe did a number on a steel plated shield a while back, and I keep that blunted as per the rules in our group. So 1mm might not do much. The weights that I have seen quoted here for the most part are crazy heavy. I can't quote the the exact weight of my cuirass, but I know that it's no 30 lbs. Heck my hauberk only weighs 23lbs. I've found bronze armor to be heavier than comperable steel armor. One of the knights in our troop uses bronze armlets, and they seem to hold up VERY well. So I'm really undecided on just how thick a cuirass of bronze would have to be to be worth while. I would imagine that they would have been kept thin to allow for the movement needed by infantry. Charioteers might have worn heaier armor since they don't have to move as much on foot. So out of the examples that have been found, does any one know what type of person would have been wearing it? Just some random thoughts.
I opperate a website for my reenactment troop it's www.orderoftherouseclan.org Be sure to check out our forums www.orderoftherouseclan.proboards.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
Timo Nieminen
|
| Posted: Wed 13 Jul, 2011 12:34 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Justin Lee Hunt wrote: | | So I'm really undecided on just how thick a cuirass of bronze would have to be to be worth while. I would imagine that they would have been kept thin to allow for the movement needed by infantry. |
I haven't seen any good figures for bronze, but copper alloys can be quite acceptable armour. 70/30 brass (70% copper, 30% zinc) requires about the same energy to penetrate as mild steel. Similar performance for the same thickness means that bronze wouldn't be much worse for the same weight. 1mm will stop lots of stuff. Not high-energy arrows and javelins (from the energy these have compared to what is needed to go through 1mm iron), and not spears at the charge (from literary evidence), so the shield is necessary.
"In addition to being efficient, all pole arms were quite nice to look at." - Cherney Berg, A hideous history of weapons, Collier 1963.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum
|
All contents © Copyright 2003-2024 myArmoury.com — All rights reserved
Discussion forums powered by phpBB © The phpBB Group
Switch to the Basic Low-bandwidth Version of the forum
|
This is a standard topic