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Randall Moffett




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PostPosted: Wed 08 Nov, 2006 11:35 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

James B.,

I agree that as far as piercing a piece of armour that tests in the video were somewhat disappointing. I agree wholeheartedly that much of the value of the armour's protective qualities does come from the defelction by its shape. I think though the fact they used likely mild steel would be ok for testing a low quality breastplate (if it was shaped) verses a higher quality armour (as both Williams works showed, much armour was lower quality and jones found a number of hardened arrowheads). The problem with these shows is they do not make the time nor often the effort to make it right. Some formed breastplates of varying carbon content, style, heat treatment, thicknesses,etc and arrows of various hardnesses, shapes,etc. On the other hand seeing Stanley shoot those arrows over 200 yards from the arrows point of view and be able to regularly hit a small area is good. With my hobbyist background of archery I have shot fairly far but 200 yards is pretty far away for such accuracy.

Vassilis,

That is interesting about drawing past 31 inches. Have you taken videos of doing this? I would not mind seeing it.
RPM
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Dan Howard




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PostPosted: Thu 09 Nov, 2006 3:01 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Randall Moffett wrote:
I think though the fact they used likely mild steel would be ok for testing a low quality breastplate (if it was shaped)

Only if it was work hardened. Modern mild steel plate isn't even as hard as worked wrought iron.
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Randall Moffett




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PostPosted: Thu 09 Nov, 2006 3:52 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Dan,

Good point. Lets pretend I put that in there too .... Big Grin

RPM
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Daniel J. Willis




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PostPosted: Thu 09 Nov, 2006 4:56 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Since the issue of people testing bows on TV history programmes has been raised i looked up what they did for the Weapons that made Britain series.

I couldn't find any video clips just Channel 4's program summary, seems like they believed draw weights were on the lower-high side, between 36-68kg/80-150lbs, and were mostly unable to penetrate plate except at very close range:

Weapons that made Britain wrote:
Arrows can leave a longbow at over 140mph, and their effective range can be as great as 180 metres (590 feet).

Tests at the Royal Military College of Science Testing Ground at Shrivenham investigated longbow performance in both range and against plate armour. It was discovered that the arrow can lose velocity rapidly after leaving the bow and that accuracy and damage were more easily achieved at shorter distances.

In tests against a steel breastplate, a bodkin-tipped arrow would dent the armour at 80m (260ft), puncture it at 30m (98ft) and penetrate right through plate and underlying doublet coat to the flesh at 20m (65ft).


Again the exact details are a bit sketchy but it seems to suggest a much more balanced conclusion, it wasn't impossible for arrows to penetrate some plate armour at very close range (or possibly a freak occurence at greater range or against higher quality armour) but generally its battlefield effectiveness derived from other attributes. Even if this isn't the most exhaustive research on the subject i can't see why so many people (not directed at anyone here) are unwilling to accept a similar conclusion thats fairly consistent with the majority of historical sources.


Randall Moffett wrote:
Daniel,

Who did you study with?


Kendrick Oliver, 20th century US foreign policy. Didn't find out there was someone down the hall writing about medieval battles until it was too late! (Though i'm sure i made a much better job of modern political history than i would have anything else!)
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Randall Moffett




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PostPosted: Thu 09 Nov, 2006 6:23 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Daniel,

I actually have some emails that were passed regarding the weapons that made britain. The testing was done by the Royal Military College. One of the gents I know knows one of the men who was doing the testing. They also tested crossbows there recently. They found armour could be punctured but on certain situations and ranges but I am hoping for more specifics. I am waiting for the full info still once all the testing gets compiled as it was a much larger test than was on TV... (Something fun was that the crossbows did not lose any real force for 80 meters. Thats is with a 400 pound crossbow.)

I know Dr. Oliver! He is a great guy. Are you still around Southampton? I just moved here and am doing some research here (right now supposedly...) What specifically did you study?

RPM
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Bill Tsafa




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PostPosted: Thu 09 Nov, 2006 12:33 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Randall Moffett wrote:
James B.,


Vassilis,

That is interesting about drawing past 31 inches. Have you taken videos of doing this? I would not mind seeing it.
RPM


I do not go past 31 inches. My maximum draw length is 31 inches and my arrows are only 32 inches. If I did get longer arrows I would have to go behind the ear and there is a big risk of loosing an ear doing that... and thats not a joke. It is also likly to break the bow according to the craftsman that made it. My bow is not Yew, it is from Red Oak. It is a bit stiffer and 65 lbs is near its capacity according to the man that made it. I believe Yew is a bit more forgiving.

In order to spare my ears, hypotheticly, I would get a bow that is 65 lbs at 26 inches. By drawing that to 31 inches I would get 85 lbs. That is the 6% effect that we discused earlier.

That makes a wooping diference.
65 x 26 = 1690 (then apply the rest of the equation)
85 x 31 = 2635 (then apply the rest of the equation)

The simplified equation is:

v = (eFx/m)^-2

v = The exit velocity.
e = The efficiency (all force applied in the same direction). We can assume it will be .9 in most medieval bows. Modern bows are close to 1. If the value is 1 is has no effect in the equation.
F= The force to draw the bow fully, commonly known as draw-weight. Keep if mind that for every inch you underdraw a bow, you loose 3 lbs of force.
m= Mass of the arrow. This will vary based on the arrowhead and length.
x= This is the distance that the string will travel from its rest position to its fully drawn position.


Perhaps it is posible that English archers were using 150 lb bows by drawing them to the lower chest. Drawing to the lower chest uses much larger muscles and more leverage. The problem is that one account at least, English archers considered it wimpy to draw tothe chest. Perhaps the concept of overdrawing is what made it posible. Maybe they used 100 lb bow that they normly drew to the ear, but had the option to draw to the lowchest when circumstances required it. By drawing to the chest they loose the ability to aim down the arrow shaft, but that should not matter if shooting into an enemy in tight fromation. Drawing a 100 lb bow to the chest turns it into a 155 lb bow and increase the distance the force is applied over.

100 x 26 = 2600 (then apply rest of equation)
155 x 32 = 4960 (then apply rest of equation)

It is imposible for the people who did the Mary Rose bow analysis to know to what length those bows were being draw to. As I have demonstrated, 6 inches is a 55 lb difference. This was my original theory when I first started archery, but I met a wall of resistance about English pride. I can believe 100 lbs to the ear and I can also believe 155 lbs to the chest. I can not believe 150 lbs to the ear.

No athlete/youth can fight tenaciously who has never received any blows: he must see his blood flow and hear his teeth crack... then he will be ready for battle.
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Benjamin H. Abbott




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PostPosted: Fri 10 Nov, 2006 9:46 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Quote:
It is imposible for the people who did the Mary Rose bow analysis to know to what length those bows were being draw to.


The length of the arrows also found in the Mary Rose is a good indication. They also know, as you say, that the English did not draw to the chest. Furthermore, the bows begin to look right (as described in period sources) at a 30in draw, which was the average length of arrow recovered.

Quote:
As I have demonstrated, 6 inches is a 55 lb difference.


This doesn't mean anything, though, because the archers of old drew 30 inches on average. Actually, you could argue that many of the bows were heavier than the Kooi method suggests, because guys like Simon Stanley draw 33 inches or more. Also, there's the fact that European yew tends to be denser than the Oregon yew used to be make the replicas. Thus, as you can see, there's a better case for heavier draw weights than there is for lower ones.

Quote:
I can not believe 150 lbs to the ear.


Why not? That's what Simon Stanley and Mark Stretton do. Stanley, though, darws a bit below the ear.
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Bill Tsafa




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PostPosted: Fri 10 Nov, 2006 1:04 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

There is a significant difference between using all your strength to get one shot off and then resting 15 minutes vs. laying down continous supression fire.
No athlete/youth can fight tenaciously who has never received any blows: he must see his blood flow and hear his teeth crack... then he will be ready for battle.
Roger of Hoveden, 1174-1201
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Dan Howard




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PostPosted: Fri 10 Nov, 2006 1:07 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Benjamin H. Abbott wrote:
[Why not? That's what Simon Stanley and Mark Stretton do. Stanley, though, darws a bit below the ear.

I believe that Vassilis would argue that these gentlemen are "freaks"; those in the top few percentile of any population who can draw these heavy bows, and are not reperesentative of a typical medieval longbowman. I don't agree. IMO this conclusion is contrary to every piece of archaeological and documentary evidence we have.

If longbowmen were laying down continuous suppression fire then they would run out of arrows in about four minutes (assuming a rate of 12-15 per minute). They would have plenty of energy left to engage in hand to hand afterwards.
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Daniel Staberg




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PostPosted: Fri 10 Nov, 2006 1:38 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Dan Howard wrote:


If longbowmen were laying down continuous suppression fire then they would run out of arrows in about four minutes (assuming a rate of 12 per minute). They would have plenty of energy left to engage in hand to hand afterwards.

A very good point. While documentary evidence sadly is limited what have survived indicates that arrows were a limited resource. Ayton & Preston estimate s that the English archers started the Crecy campaign with about 50-70 arrows each carried in the train in addition to the arrows they themselves supplied. Only a short time into the campaign Edward III found it necessary to order 133.200 replacement arrows from England which suggest that the supply of arrows were adequate rather than abundant.

Even in a well supplied army it's doubtfull that the archers would have enough arrows for more than 8-10 minutes of continous shooting and IMHO much of the shootign woudl not be done at the highest rate simply to conserve munitions. Shootign at the full rate woudl be restricted to critical part sof the battel such as stopign a cavalry charge. On good ground the cavalry would only take 2-3 minutes to cross the area covered by archery. Poor ground and/or undisciplined/poorly trained cavalry would increae the time during which the charge was exposed to archery.

Given that the 'battles' of dismounted men-at-arms lacked the training needed to move rapidly in massed formationsthey would be exposed to archery for a longer period but shooting at them continously during the advance would rapidly exhaust the supply of arrows. At Poitiers the English and Gascon archers and crossbowmen had expended most of their arrows during the first two French assaults, this allowed the third French assautl to move forward essentialy untouched by archery. (Of course the French were aided by the fact that their own crossbowmen remained on the field and seemingly were able to to some degree surpress their Anglo-Gascon counterparts)
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Benjamin H. Abbott




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PostPosted: Fri 10 Nov, 2006 8:15 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Quote:
On good ground the cavalry would only take 2-3 minutes to cross the area covered by archery.


Less than that, I suspect. Even lighter arrows only get out to about 300 yards. They'd have to be going only 5 mph to take two minutes to cross 300 yards. Infantry could probably manage that. At a trot, they could get there in a minute to a minute and a half. At a canter, it could easily be less than a minute.
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Stephen D. Sharp





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PostPosted: Fri 10 Nov, 2006 11:04 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I have just read part way through this thread and must say, I work with an avid archer who had indicated to me that a 150 lb. bow is a 'real' tough pull. I understand that archers were trained 'only' as archers from a very young age in order that they had the strength and ability to do 'their job' effectively. Lacking compound bows, that would mean to me 150 pounds full range of the pull. Man, that'd be hard to aim wouldn't you think. That is why compound bows are so accurate. You can spend less energy on pull and more on aim. Just thoughts from a non-archer. I've tried a non-compount bow of 100 pounds (not being 250 pounds and able to press more than that in body weight) it was real hard for me to aim! If I had to do that more than once, I'd be dead killed by my enemy. It was like trying to fight with a nine pound sword (no way!).
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Bill Tsafa




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PostPosted: Sun 12 Nov, 2006 6:22 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Hi Stephen. I train by pulling a 100 lb cable to the draw position and holding there for about 30 seconds in order to be able to use a 65 lb bow effectivly. I reason that I would have to get my cable pulling excersises up to 200 lbs in order to use a 150 lb bow effectivly.


I weigh about 210, 5'10" and have been a strength atlete for the last 20 years competing in shotput, discus and powerlifting (now fencing and SCA figthing). I can tell you that that would be a near imposible feat for me. Proportionaly, I would have to get my squat from 455 up to about 800, my bench from 315 up to about 600 . If I manage that, I can compete as a world class athlete for my weight class. After 20 years of hard training, that is not likly to happen at this point.


The general pattern is that within 5 or 8 years of hard training a person gets within 5 to 10% of their genetic limit. At that point, you have to train very hard just to stay at that level. I was in Europe and away from the gym for one month and I lost 25% strength. There is a thing such as muscle memory, so I was able to get back that lost strength within a month of comming back. It is very hard to get stronger beyond that. There is a very real concept of demimishing returns in strength training. There are other things that also come into play such as injuries when you get close to you gentic strength potential.

To expand a bit further, stength athetes will train with a higher volume of say 4 sets of 5 repetitions for most of the year because it is less stressful on the ligaments, joints, tendons and muscle fibers. Then 4 to 6 weeks before competition they will start training with lower volum for 6 sets of 2 repetitions to peak their performance. In this pre-competition phase they are training at 95 to 98 % strength levels. The key to this is pre-competition training is timing because it is very stressful and they can not last too long in this phase. It is also a dangerous phase where injusries often occure.

After years of observing myself and other athelts training cycles, I can tell you that this idea that you start training at 12 and continue to prgress untill you pull a 150 lb bow does not fit in with the natural patern of human strength development.

I will yeild a bit and say it may be posible they were pulling 150 lb bows, if it is as some have said that they were only shooting one arrow every 15 minutes durring a battle with ample time to rest, pehaps underdrawing and not really aiming accuratly. In any case that does not qualify as true control over the bow.

No athlete/youth can fight tenaciously who has never received any blows: he must see his blood flow and hear his teeth crack... then he will be ready for battle.
Roger of Hoveden, 1174-1201
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Leo Todeschini
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PostPosted: Tue 14 Nov, 2006 2:45 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Hi Guys,

I have just entered this well along but I would like to add my bit if I may.

I am a longbow shooter over in the UK and so perhaps have a vested interest in the subject but from a practical level rather than an academic. so scanning through the discussion I would like to address a couple of points.

war archery is rarely about accuracy, it is about volume, 14 arrows a minute is easily done and as an average shot I could certainly get in the area of where I wanted it, I might have aimed at Pierre, but if I hit Jean Claude - so what? My few hundred friends would also get something in this sense if you get the shakes because the bow is heavy, again so what? Again people love to talk about the extreme and always have; most arrows would kill because the sheer volume always ensured some riccochets or glancing shots or fools looking up would enable a kill to happen, these are ordinary battlefield deaths not worthy even at the time of note. But the knight who had an arrow out front and back for whatever reason would be remebered and the power of the bow noted. Use a distance shot from the chest or ear with a well stacked bow and use a 30-40% drop off by using a 4" shorter draw from the face for accuracy.

Perhaps the arrow often went through or perhaps not, but it certainly sometimes memorably did. This combined with high casualty rates caused by the high rate of shooting and long reach of the bow made it formidable. As a thought, a man at arms is walking slowly (due to restricted vision from his helm) towards a body of archers over a scrubby field full of trip hazards, grass and spent arrows amongst them. Conservatively the archers can reach 200 yards; at 2 mph this would take the man 3.5 minutes to walk this distance, at 14 shots per minute this is 49 shots per man and at less than 40 yards he would be in big danger from penetration (or maybe not) but certainly from shots to the visor, neck, underarm, groin, etc. Although this would get through arrows rapidly they were resupplied from the the very well organised baggage train.

I have an averagely built, non working out, office working friend who shoots every Sunday and he shoots a 90llb and can draw with difficulty a 120llb. The old ordinanaces required you to shoot every Sunday and Holy Day and it was the only sport that people regularly competed in so you can bet they shot on other days too, so it is not beyond belief to think 150llb was reasonably possible. Don't forget that resting even in the midst of battle is something that people from all sides did with regularity.

I also had a good chat with Hector Cole this summer who has just completed a set of testing with Mark Stretton and Hilary Greenside at the Defence establishment at Cranfield in the UK where they worked with the ballistics reasearchers on exactly this subject. They were working with a 150llb draw and even when the arrow didn't pierce armour the energy imparted was often enough to rupture internal organs.

Tod
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Dan Howard




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PostPosted: Tue 14 Nov, 2006 3:08 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Leo Todeschini wrote:
They were working with a 150llb draw and even when the arrow didn't pierce armour the energy imparted was often enough to rupture internal organs.

I agree with a lot in the above post but this last statement is crazy talk. If this was historically true then there would be piles of dead knights littered around every battelfield in which the longbow was used, dying from ruptured organs. From the sources, it is easy to demonstrate that this was not the case. If the so-called "test" produced this sort of damage then there are serious flaws in the test. Either the ranges used were ridiculously close or the target was not representative of what a typical man at arms wore on the battlefield. How did they actually determine the energy needed to rupture an internal organ?
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Josh Warren




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PostPosted: Tue 14 Nov, 2006 10:59 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

That's something I've been hearing from the bow crowd lately: "Even if it didn't penetrate the plate, it would have sturck with force sufficient to rupture internal organs!"

On what evidence do they base this?

It's not as if the breastplate sits directly on top of the torso. On many, maybe even most, the 'globose' form makes it stand out from the wearer considerably. How in the heck do they figure their arrows are going to rupture organs that way?

The longbow community is impressed with itself lately. Their monster, Stretton, and certain others, are reasserting the supremacy of their pet weapon through some tests I regard as flawed. I don't believe that medieval archers did three-fingered pull-ups in order to increase the poundage they could pull like Stretton does.

Again, just how many millimeteres of steel has this man been able to drive an arrow through? I've seen one or two tests that have demonstrated that either a 120-pound or a 144-pound bow can drive an arrow through a mostly flat piece of 2mm inside of thirty yards. They crow about the arrow having gone "four inches" past the breastplate at those poundages and ranges. Four inches of empty air is not the same as four inches of human torso...

I still want to see the science behind the claim that it would have ruptured organs. SCA fighters take some pretty heavy hits with some thick sticks from strong, heavy men and their organs don't rupture. I'm going to go ahead and call BS on the organ rupture claim. This is just the bow community's triumphalism.

Non Concedo
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Jean Thibodeau




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PostPosted: Tue 14 Nov, 2006 11:03 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Dan Howard wrote:
Leo Todeschini wrote:
They were working with a 150llb draw and even when the arrow didn't pierce armour the energy imparted was often enough to rupture internal organs.

I agree with a lot in the above post but this last statement is crazy talk. If this was historically true then there would be piles of dead knights littered around every battelfield in which the longbow was used, dying from ruptured organs. From the sources, it is easy to demonstrate that this was not the case. If the so-called "test" produced this sort of damage then there are serious flaws in the test. Either the ranges used were ridiculously close or the target was not representative of what a typical man at arms wore on the battlefield. How did they actually determine the energy needed to rupture an internal organ?


If the plate was very tight fitting and with zero padding beneath and almost directly on the skin I can see that some direct energy transfer should the plate deform even a little is at least a possibility ? But as Dan said the plate and backing may not have matched what a Knight would have worn in quality or even in type ?

That it might feel unpleasant enough to be disabling like a heavy punch: Substantial pain with or without bruising ?

Still, I would like more information before I arrived at any absolute conclusions either way.

You can easily give up your freedom. You have to fight hard to get it back!
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Carl Scholer





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PostPosted: Tue 14 Nov, 2006 3:38 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I tend to doubt that a longbow arrow hit, even with 154lbs of pull, is going to do any real internal damage, via blund trauma, to a target through plate armor if it fails to penetrate. The archer may be pulling 154lbs of force but the arrow is imparted with only .81 lbs of force. A baseball pitch thrown by a professional pitcher has nearly twice the momentum of a 60 gram arrow thrown from a 154lbs bow and 50% more kinetic energy. A magnum pistol hits with about the same momentum of a longbow arrow but over five times the KE. In terms of sheer energy bows just aren’t that impressive, you’re much more likely to cause blunt trauma to a plate armored individual by throwing a hefty rock at him than by using a bow.

In order to really hurt a man through plate armor the arrow would have to severely deform the plate or at least partially penetrate it so that its energy can be concentrated on a small area. If it simply compresses the whole plate against the man’s chest it shouldn't hurt him that much.
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Chad Arnow
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PostPosted: Tue 14 Nov, 2006 4:02 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Josh,
Tone it down. Snide remarks and personal slights aren't tolerated here.

Happy

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Josh Warren




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PostPosted: Tue 14 Nov, 2006 4:27 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Sorry.

Blush

I got carried away.

When I said that Mark Stretton was a "monster," I meant it in a good way.

Non Concedo
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