ARMOUR DEFEATED! ARROWS VS ARMOUR 2
Thousands of knights were slain by the English archers at battles like Agincourt, even though they wore full armour; we just didn’t know how. The main film of the Arrows vs Armour 2 series went a long way to explaining how this could have happened; but still we had questions. This follow on film goes a long way to explaining how it may have actually occurred.
How vulnerable is the arm armour? Could the neck structures be damaged through blunt force? Are the eye slits and the breath holes vulnerable?
We film it and we show it. No pre-written scripts, no hype, no fluff, no predetermined TV outcomes; just factual truth.
This project generated so many questions that we had to make other films to answer them and these are linked below.
We have also put together a website hosting all the films, documents, supplier contacts and biographies for this series of films todtodeschini.com/youtube-pro...
The Arrows vs Armour films
Main film. • MEDIEVAL ARMOUR TESTED...
Plate tests • ARROWS vs ARMOUR 2 - B...
Mail tests • ARROWS vs ARMOUR 2 - D...
Arrowhead tests • ARROWS vs ARMOUR 2 - B...
How powerful is a war bow? • ARROWS vs ARMOUR 2 - H...
Blunt force trauma. • ARROWS vs ARMOUR 2 - ...
Testing the longbow simulator. • ARROWS vs ARMOUR 2 - I...
Produced by
todcutler.com and todsworkshop.com
Music: Rise - by TwinsMusic - Licenced from Bensound.com
Hi All for the fantastic response to this film, but remember it is actually the last of 8 films looking explicitly at how arrows and armour interacted at the battle of Agincourt. All of the equipment was made to the highest standards we could and funded by a very generous Kickstarter campaign (thank you backers). In 5 of the 8 films Joe Gibbs was shooting his 160lbs longbow, in this we used a crossbow that shoots his arrows with very similar numbers. We had so many questions we wanted answered and spent 3 years on and off thinking about them, so the chances are if you watch through the previous films most of your questions or observations will be answered. If you want to know why the distance was short, or what difference it makes or why the knight was not moving like on a horse or what quality is the armour, or why the arrow heads are that shape, or why I am using a crossbow - all the information is there. Failing all that you will a find a wealth of knowledge at todtodeschini.com/youtube-projects/arrows-v-armour-2/. The first Arrows vs Armour2 film that sets out the whole scene can be found here kzhead.info/sun/l9dmddptpKWvrac/bejne.html. Just so we all know, I think a viewers suggestion for our knights name 'Sebastian' should stick.........a bit like the arrows.
IMHO arrows could make even more damage than this video indicates. I noticed that the stand the armored doll is on is not fully fixed. When you inspect the arrows later in video notice how it swings back and forth from mere touch. And the doll is flabby, the arms etc.. A knight in battle would be all tensed up muscle. Also, would be charging forward adding even more energy in arrow impact. Let alone if it was charging on horseback like in Agincourt.
@@ivorunac they may of faced side on with a shield to protect to get close enough tho
gret werk
What you ever done would be worth for several academic essays and I can't way to read them if there's any
Thanks for testing this. What I already thought in a previous video. Arms are very fragile.. Breastplate almost indestructible. But believe the sides can be pinertratted by a lucky shot The helmet's visor is designed to deflect arrows and sword blows. That she bent over in a rain of arrows is a fact and logical. Understand the fear. If you look at the tests. Sides of the harness are pintrable. By a good hit with so many arrows coming your way. Don't forget there were more weak spots on the legs from the side. Have seen in other tests. That just like the arms went through. And English Archers were masters best of the best who knew all the weak spots
Can we just pause to give homage to the fact, that's the first time anyone has put an arrow through the visor of a bascinet for hundreds of years!! Bloody good show Tod!
As a former member of the white company we where doing tests like this in the late 1990s .. nothing new under the sun .also did penatration tests for the royal armourys at fort Nelson
@@cedhome7945 And you probably weren't the first either. But that is one of the nice things of this media. Things get published and are accessible. Did you film it on VHS? Was it ever digitized? Research paper was public and not behind paywall? Personally I trust the sources that claim a fear of arrows while armoured. They will have known well enough from experience.
Sorry - I don't know about these, but I suspect that the standard of equipment now and then was quite different
@@chubbymoth5810 The eye slit thing, while possible, seems fairly unlikely to happen to many people. The fear/horror may have therefore been puffed up a bit because of how sensational it was and perhaps this even led to knights over-compensating potentially at times to their detriment in battle.
That was a critical hit (:
Apparently the secret to hitting a target is placing a gopro directly behind it. Nice work.
Accuracy increase is proportional to the cost of the camera 😉
Oh so that's why the French soldiers were worried about the visor :P
@@jrrarglblarg9241 and the French nobility was famous for their love of expensive camera kit. Explains a lot!
hahahaha i m French , I hope he will not paint the French flag on the armor hahahahah
This only works for arrows; not trebuchet propelled bowling balls.
i love how the knight looks more and more sad and downbeat as he gets pummeled by arrows, slowly slumping forward
This is a more scientific study- short distance, scope, the target does not move- and doesn´t try to kill you. I am afraid, reality looked a little different.
@@thomaspetersen4105 It's not a battle simulation, it is, as the title says, arrows vs armour. Obviously a battle was different, and it wasn't a 1v1.
@@esoel I have read some comments- it seems, many people think this is what really happened in a battle- more or less.
@@thomaspetersen4105 That's what you call a strawman...
@@esoel more like a tin man _ba dum tiss_
I think the main thing that I've learned from all these videos is that, perhaps unsurprisingly, both arrows and armor work.
true
Only now a man shot from a modern block crossbow with a huge hunting bolt weighing 200 grams.
its in what ways they work and fail that really contains the knowedge. Many conjectures were falsified via these experiments and lets remember its in what arrangements of our universe that are prohibited by a theory that knowledge resides, not in what it permits.
@@tedodor1 He used the same sort of arrows the other guy was using in the other video with a proper long bow. And the force equivalency is extremely close. Tod just isn't the same degree of marksman with a long bow as the other man was,
can we all have a moment of respect for Sir Pericaval Getshitalotwitharrows of Boulogne, he really is the MVP and will do anything for science. that eye shot ouch.
Still giving the bodybuilder pose to the end though.
Very good boy
He truly lives by his classic quote, "'tis but a flesh wound."
A wood splinter deep through the eye slit will kill. That's how Paul Allen died from a lance splinter.
i thought you misspelled "getshotalot" with "get-shit-alot" but now i know you mean "gets-hit-alot". 😅
This channel has become the pre-eminent source for practical historical research regarding archery and armor on the net, as far as I have been able to find. This kind of insight is vital to a more in-depth understanding of historical battles and, in combination with traditional historical research, should form the basis of our knowledge. I am impressed with your dedication to getting the details right, which is vital to getting the correct answers.
It`s like experimental Archeology at it`s finest and if you are interested in that Stuff on a deeper Level, it becomes also very Entertaining. I fevered with every Shot on the Helmet, wondering what actually happens.
Not to mention that it is all presented in such a pleasant way by such a pleasant person.
@@John..18 the difference between science an messing around is taking notes
That poor knight isn't having a great day.
Maybe, yes, but it's still quite limited in scope. It focusses on a very specific kind of armour and a very specific form of archery within a very specific historical context. You won't learn anything here about the effect of Mongol arrows on 13th-century Chinese armour, or the effect of Aztec arrows on 16th-century Spanish armour two give two among thousands of other examples.
Superb experiments. It really feel like the effectiveness of a longbow is a numbers game. Shoot as many as you can and some might do damage or kill. That's why they shot and kept shooting until they ran out. Luck seems to play a big part in what the outcome is for the target.
Having just watched the full arrows vs armour 2 video, that was the same conclusion I came to. In the early rounds it only took 4 or 5 arrows on average to score a debilitating wound. The armour as a whole might be 80% or 90% proof against a single arrow, but that just means if you chuck enough arrows at it you WILL eventually score a good hit. Imagine rolling 2-3,000 D10 dice and every roll of a one is removed as a serious wound. Roll that pack of dice just 6 times and you'll end up with a fair number of ones, thinning down the ranks of the advancing enemy quite substantially. This jives equally well with more modern research about battlefield firearms. Fire enough tiny pieces of metal (bullets and shrapnel) and eventually you'll hit quite a lot of things in the right places.
There is also the psychological impact of being hammered by arrow after arrow. Even if your harness is sound and the armour holds, the constant impacts will be fatiguing and bruising, draining morale. I think that psychological impact made the Long Bow effective way beyond its actual relative leathality
@@robertlong4674 Can you imagine advancing across the battlefield with the dread of knowing what's coming, then watching this volley of arrows swarm up from the enemy lines and arc towards you, trusting in God and your Patron Saint that none of them hits you in a weak spot as you have to wait for them to descend, with no recourse until the battle lines close? That must have sucked, like flying a bomber through a wall of flak several hundred years later. There was a skirmish in the run up to Crecy, some fort that was taken. The English torched nearby houses to create a smoke screen that blew into the eyes of the French defenders and used archers almost to deliver a kind of suppressive fire. Very 21st Century! Makes it reasonable that the Longbow was viewed as much as a psychological weapon as its material effect.
Spray and pray
Agree it's a matter of probability vs shear numbers and dumb luck.
A fun quick idea for a video which wouldn't require any more arrows, but which would still I think be an interesting thing to explore, is if you got someone into that harness, and explored how much mobility remained after so much abuse.
"Live to fight another day" seems to be the overall best way to describe this armor. Considering how many arrows you and Joe put into it and most of them resulting in bruises and maybe superficial flesh wounds, apart from the one (lucky) sure kill-shot, it seems to have achieved its goal spendidly.
As others have put it so nicely again and again: There is a reason why armor was used. I was especially impressed with the breathing holes. I would have thought those were a structurally weak point but didn't seems to be.
@@steemlenn8797 And yet, it's not perfect. It's not 100%. You could have an unlucky day, or a particularly hawk-eyed archer could have wanted a great shot that day, and you get taken out. Or just an unlucky deflection off the helmet puts an arrow in your throat. It gives you a tiny itty bitty idea of how hectic it must have been in actual combat, getting pelted with arrows.
Makes me wonder, when you survived the battle with an armor in a similar state, even without major injuries, you could either scrap it and get a new one, or try to fix it. Now, I imagine the rich folk got a new one, but plenty of not so fortunate individuals had to settle for repairs: and I doubt fixed armor was ever as good as the original one. One thing's for sure, I wouldn't want to walk into another battle in armor in such state. Just a chance of arrow hitting the same weakened spot would be terrifying!
IT shows both "Live to fight another day" and "Throw enough, something will stick" at the same time. Imagine hundreds and hundreds of arrows coming at you, just by pure chance, some will be a super lucky (or unlucky) kill shot, or wound. Even superficial wounds back in those days could end up being a death a week later, like the arrow in the forearm, or the arrow shaft through the eye slot. Even if the arrow shaft cut across the guys face, and was superficial, that could easily have been a prolonged death a 1-2 weeks later from infestation.
Agreed, I am very impressed with how well the armor performed overall. It is definitely better than wearing nothing at all. Another question, was the armor originally designed to stop missiles, or something else? Was there an advancement in bows etc. prior to the battle?
Seeing arrows fly towards the helmet from the GoPro view just gives a whole other reason to keep your head down, that was terrifying!
I dont know how, but I'm both impressed by how much punishment the armour could take and the destructive power of the arrow. That eye shot, while lucky, was also astounding to see.
This whole series has been incredible, fantastic work from everyone who participated. If you ever decide to do another one of these a few years down the road, I think it would be really cool to see how evolutions in armor design in the 50-100 years after Agincourt effects the outcomes, and I also think it would be really cool if the armor was placed on one of the more advanced human body analogues used in ballistic testing and had a medical professional weigh in on what kinds of injuries were caused by the hits. Great work though, it's been so interesting watching all of these tests!
That will be a gr8 folliwup investigation.
Tod, I'd suggest that a hardboiled egg would suffice in this kind of testing, as the shell will still crack visibly under moderate pressure, but it won't create the mess to cleanup afterwards.
I was thinking an apple would give a better idea how much force was transmitted to the neck. You could then drop apples from various heights to match the damage and get a rough idea of the forces involved.
Yes, and this would be closer to replicating the body. In the USA we use the parts off Pigs but in this case, not to mention modern needs the egg is going to be better. You will have less of the animal rights people calling off your KZhead and less violation of the KZhead rules of blood. This is why in hunting videos most people without consistent sponsors/using small mini sponsors like Amazon affiliate links have to go in and make those non profit so the rest of the Videos can make a profit.
How about something more scientific like a digital pressure plate that would actually measure something. Until I start breathing and talking through a fragile chicken egg, its not going to tell me very much.
or go to the company that Tom Scott has visited in a recent video who can '3D' print anatomically correct replicas of organs for surgeons to practice on.
@@csjrogerson2377 If he had hit the throat with a garden spade he wouldn't have needed the arrows.
I'm so glad that the lockdown longbow was found to be a comparable analogue. This series has definitely been interesting, and I'm looking forward to what will come from this.
I am consistently impressed by the plate armor especially the hounskull. You really need to cook up a scenario for it to fail, and that shows how much went into the design.
Thats why they invented so nice variety of halberds and war hammers (also some popular designs from todays germany and switzerland) as the armor get more advanced. Of course there was warbows, windlass crossbows and later gunpowder but its amazing how long have plate armor held its place. Its art.
It's almost like armor took on these shapes over time for a reason...
This test confirms a lot of what historians have said about Agincourt. Bows were certainly effective in the battle but the terrain and conditions of the battlefield were a huge factor in the English winning. Really cool video.
This is something that I keep thinking about but in the last few Arrows vs. Armor videos, it has all been about the "kill" shot. Personally I don't think that is a high priority or ever has been really. What you want is to take as many opposing soldiers out of the fight as you can. Or at the very least limit lessen their ability to fight. The armors job is to keep the soldiers fighting as long as possible. So that should be the utmost consideration. While these may not be "kill" shots they definitely caused damage and would very likely have taken the knight wearing the armor out of the fight, or by closing that eye gap, severely limiting his ability to fight effectively. I would like to thank you Tod and your associates for making these videos. I find them very interesting and informative.
In addition the one that managed to splinter into the eyeslot might not have managed to get all the way in to kill the guy; but there's ?@!# all for optical surgery in those days. You're losing an eye for certain; and if you're "lucky" there's no further infection that close to the brain.
@@danghostman2814 Exactly. Even considering if they had multiple layers and padding that will likely help absorb a great deal of the impact, you are still going to feel it considering the size of those arrows and the power they are hitting at. Especially the shots to the head. Could possibly cause concussion, bruises, and pain. That is certainly going to affect the efficiency of a knight or soldier. Also it's not just one archer shooting but rather hundreds or more. One or two arrows you could possibly shrug off and keep going depending on where you were hit, but 10, 20, or more potentially over the course of a battle, eventually is going to be tough to deal with. I understand what they are doing here and completely support it. It is very interesting to see the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of these shown practically. I just wanted to say that there is a lot more goes into winning a battle not just who has the best armor, though that will certainly help.
Similarly, how many arrows would injure/kill horses enough to throw the rider? Terrible for the horses, but they are the larger and more vulnerable target, especially if a hail of arrows is fired at a mass of riders instead of aimed at individuals.
Congratulations Tod, people have guessed and speculated for years on this topic, and you have done the work of proving or disaproving it practically! Lovely to see so many chip in to fund your project, and doubely so that you have the curiosity to pull thru with it!!!
The helmet POV is what did it for me. Imagine hundreds of arrows flying at you every second as you try push an enemy position. Absolutely terrifying.
The fact that you shoot until you had no more arrows that you could shoot really says a lot about your commitment.
It also says how much fun it was. To both him and us.
Yeah those things are pricey. Seeing them break is
And the fact he was not having to draw a longbow of course, I doubt he would have had the stamina for that .
I love this so much, Tod. Thanks so much. It's more or less confirmed some of my suspicions that have developed after some of your previous videos (again, thanks) and it's so gratifying to see how the plate is pretty much working wherever it is, but not *overperforming,* meaning it's very well honed in to deal with the arrows being thrown it's way. If it were more invulnerable, it'd have to be heavier. The most interesting part to me is probably the arm defence (and presumably this applies for the legs too). If you imagine your archers have heavily bombarded the enemy men-at-arms, even without directly killing or incapacitating many of them, the efficiency of those men-at-arms could be dramatically reduced by the time they meet with your own men-at-arms. If your men-at-arms haven't suffered a similar hail of arrows, that's a much easier fight for them. I imagine that was a *huge* factor at battles like Agincourt!
I think you have it exactly right. The archers were degrading the overall effectiveness of the fighting force. Just the psychological impact of having those arrows hitting your armor, and after each impact having to ask yourself "Am I still ok?". That must have rattled those guys. The fact that the historical record reflects their FEAR of an arrow coming through the eye slots speaks to this psychological bombardment, I think.
men-with-arrows-in-their-arms-at-arms
Absolutely fabulous stuff!
What? The large majority of knights at Agincourt were not killed on the battlefield and especially not by arrows. They were taken hostage and because they were so many (they actually outnumbered their captors) Henry was afraid they might not be able to manage their numbers. And so he ordered them killed when the English had to retreat. There is no need to imagine a hail of calmly fired arrows at last-shot-range, most of which still fail, to figure out how so many knights perished. They were slain while prisoners of war.
That shot through the vision slit was amazing, I could've imagined a splinter making it through but for the shaft to break in such a "perfect" way and embed in the eye was incredible to see. Love it!
I think it was the edge of the angled eye hole that make the split so perfect, acted like a wedge to cleave part of the shaft away so the rest would fit through.
Remember that medicine wasn't wonderful in those days, so that splinter was probably fatal within a few days if not immediately.
@@lwilton I think that it would depend a lot on how wealthy/important you are. A young Henry V took an arrow to the face once and survived both the initial arrow strike and the surgery to remove it from his face.
I imagine this exact thing happened to some French Knights at Agincourt. It would be anything from a nuisance to a killshot. But then imagine that knight having only been irritated and hindered by the arrow then closing on the English line and an English man-at-arms laughing at the spectacle of a barely mobile knight with blocked sight almost stumbling into him. After dodging a wild swing he then just struck the arrow with the flat his polearm and drove it in deep.
He missed the slit, it was a splinter that entered , the arrow pierced above that
Oh you’ve been waiting for that shot for quite a while. Bravo Tod! Thanks so much for bringing us along for the ride!
I wonder if the knights were smart enough to wear glasses which wouldve prevented the only chance of losing an eye. (probably not I suppose)
@@Tom-ol5zz seeing as visors were typically raised when in melee combat probably not, a solid punch to the face and you might have glass dust in your eyes
@@HarrDarr why bother with a visor if you're not gonna use it
@@Tom-ol5zz because it reduces your vision and acuity to like 5%, you can't hear and see anything with that shit down, the primary function is to protect you from projectiles
Not really, it was a miss above , the arrow head hit above and just a splinter of the shaft went through, we still do not know what would have happened with the arrow head going into the eye slot .
By the end of this video that poor chap was looking very sorry for himself. I have been watching this entire series of videos with avid interest. Fantastic, methodical work as ever. All the component parts of a battle broken down to the minutiae and investigated. Absolutely love your work, keep at it and thank you.
There are lots of questions put by readers here that remain unanswered. As Tod reminds us it is just an academic exercise in will an arrow penetrate armour in favourable circumstances. It is great copy but misleading as it gives the impression of Longbow and English supremacy at all times which is quite wrong. In real life the question has been answered in various battles where armour has overcome arrow here is one instance amongst many...(translated from Medieval French). “On 14 Aug. 1852 Bentley and Nesle met at Brenbili, a manor near the little town of Mauron, a few miles north of Ploërmel, the local base of operations of the party of John de Montfort." The French were advancing southwards, while the English, who had come out of Ploërmel, were marshalled facing the north. The Chronique Normande " thus describes the battle. After telling how the English dismounted, and took up a position in front of a hedge with archers on both flanks, it proceeds “Et Guy de Neelle, mareschal de France, descendi à pié, lui et toutes ses gens, devant les Englois, excepté le sire de Hangest, que il ordonna à demourer à cheval à tout bien VII«* hommes d'armes pour courre seure aux archiers.” Hangest's cavalry was on the left wing of the French, while the right wing, like the centre, was composed of dismounted men-at-arms. Nesle's efforts almost succeeded. His dismounted. main body, though much inconvenienced by their march up hill through long grass, pushed the English centre back to the hedge, when they rallied, and after a hard fight won a decisive victory over the French, in the course of which Nesle himself was slain. “The archers on the English left easily scattered the footmen set over against them, who soon fled in disorder. Some justification for employing cavalry against the bowmen of the English right was found in the complete success of Hangest's followers, who rode down their enemy and cut them up completely. Unable to prosecute their advantage by reason of the failure of their fellows, Hangest's victorious troopers retired in good order from the field. Geoffrey le Baker substantially confirms this by telling us that Bentley, who was wounded in the encounter, ordered thirty of the runaway archers to be beheaded for cowardice.” In cavalry against longbows?, longbows win according to those who never get past Azincourt. If you need further proof of real life not imitating art just look for battle of Patay on Utube where the Royal corps of archers were destroyed (2500 KIA) in one heavy cavalry charge for the loss of 150 French knights. It is estimated that 30.000 arrows were fired at them.
Exactly. People keep forgetting or discount the fact that in most of their won battles, the English archers were shooting from prepared defensive positions (on elevated ground, behind prepared stakes or dug ditches, behind muddied terrain, etc.) which slow or impeded attackers (especially cavalry) enough that they get bog down and suffer through a longer duration of incoming arrows at close range. As the Battle of Formigny showed, if you can get the English army out of their defensive positions and into the opening, you can run them down and massacre them with heavy cavalry.
Thanks Rex, some really good points and yes it is just so important to remember that bows were fantastic, but only in certain circumstances
@@kovona No war is ever won by fighting defensivley. Patay, followed by Formigny and Castillon sent us back to the channel ports to collect our duty free. We never hear of these battles 'cos subscribers don't like history that doesn't fit in with their prejudices.
Another brilliant addition to the series. Given the volume of projectiles, and with the recently somewhat reinforced possibility of case-hardened tips, some of these hits are just statistically bound to happen. So you really seem to have answered the Agoncourt question - in that the Longbow couldn't defeat plate straight on, but still could take out knights quite readily given enough time and shots. Thanks for all that effort Tod. This is really valuable research.
Yeah, absolutely. Wardrobe malfunction, needing to extract an arrow from your armor and/or body before proceeding, not being able to see or hear what's going on around you even without being shot at... it's bad enough for the individual soldier or knight, but multiply that by 10, 100, 1,000 or more and I think we understand thanks to this series of videos how disruptive concentrated arrow barrages would be to the enemy marching in formation. i don't really see how it's possible for any of them to eventually reach your front lines still standing shoulder to shoulder. Pure chaos.
@@MMallon425 I believe the real answer is horses, the series has been shooting at short range the same static unbraced target repeatedly while being as large as possible. Hitting multiple times the same knight in a battlefield would be unlikely and accuracy has to be taken in account not to mention that at that range only volley can be fired before the shock impact. Crecy and Agincourt have that in common that, the entrenchement and the terrain (and the brashness of the comanders) prevented the cavalry to reach their target leaving them immobile allowing for short range accurate shots. If the charge is not broken, the result is closer to the battle of Patay.
Volume of Fire is definitely 'a thing' Not only does it mean someone will eventually get lucky along with the receiving end being unlucky, but it will mean some level of trepidation on behalf of those being shot at. Sort of like who wants to go first into a storm of sharp projectiles? Maybe the bloke who forked out a small counties worth of tax revenue on high grade, proofed Italian or German armour, but for the fella that got supplied by the lowest bidder or is in some munition gear from the castle that might not be great or covering as much. Yeah he's definitely not feeling as motivated! Then someone punches you in the throat with an arrow :)
@@Abyssian007 " Hitting multiple times the same knight in a battlefield would be unlikely" No i'd say the exact opposite - a knight being hit repeatedly by a multitude of arrows is almost a certainty in a pitched battle against an army made up predominately of longbowmen.
@@Abyssian007 You forget that a charging knight's velocity adds to the energy of the arrows impact. A Knight on a horse may get hit less, but the impacts will have 20-40% more energy than if he were standing still. What is the result of that? Im not sure. Perhaps more complete splintering of arrows? Perhaps more penetration when a weak spot is hit?
I really like that you keep testing this armor because one thing I rarely see mentioned or tested with medieval armor is: Damage and repairs. Armors are gonna get dented and ad-hoc repaired for decades. In the end that will lead to a lot of weaknesses that wouldn't show up on a test of a new armor.
Sounds like a subject for more vids!
It depends on how the repairs were done. In theory, patching a dent or hole could result in a thickened area that might be stronger.
Well, it depends on the individual. A lot of harnesses were made new for a specific campaign. Though it would depend on the wealth of each man. But you also see older gauntlets on newer harness, mainly because gauntlets are very particular to the wearer, and if you get even slightly wrong, it can have a huge impact on your ability to fight. But undoubtedly, a lot of armour ended up being hand me downs. I can imagine that an older cutlass might eventually find its way into the hands of a more common soldier who had the money for it.
Amazing work! Interesting in so many ways. I was honestly surprised how effective the armour was. That's a serious heavy draw with heavy arrows at quite close range. The armor did an amazing job under that level of attack. With a shield as extra protection it gives me a sense of how frightening these combats must have been for the archers. Praying for a lucky hit as that weight of steel and flesh closed in towards them, and the knights under a withering fire trudging forward getting pummelled by shots and Praying their armor held. Thank you for all the hard work.
Absolutely incredible work you've gives have done! Something that really shocked me was how terrifying the view inside the helmet is, and that is with a single person shooting. Can't imagine the terror they actually felt on the battlefield with thousands of arrows flying.
Fantastic follow-up, that poor knight has definitely seen better days now!
In the DeSoto Chronicles, which is an account of the Spanish in the southeastern US in 1539=1541, one of the things mentioned was that when a rivercane (a type of bamboo) arrow hit mail, the stone point would be stopped but the shaft would shatter around the point and punch splinters through the mail for a very nasty wound.
Tbf though.....mailes kinda alot worse then people think it is. Unless it's hardened rings and even then it's pretty easy to bypass and damage even with not the proper weapon like a rondel. A katana can actually easily burst maile of the European design. Japanese maile was butted but also hardened and thick rings, so you'd expect a katana to bypass that. But even riveted rings. Not many examples are made in reproductions but if you got some of the bigger blade heavy like 11 plus inches out point of balance viking swords...you can cut through maile. Why they didn't bother with pointy tips.
@@bmxriderforlife1234 and yet we have historical accounts of hauberks stopping missiles from crossbows and longbows and also lances. No real test with a katana has been done on historical maille. Japanese maille was butted and also suspected by someone who handled it to be spring tempered. No one has tested Japanese maille.
@Red lol really I've personally done tests against maile with a nihonto. Lol well buddy and his dad who are rich and sword nerds did some testing I went along and didn't mind destroying my shinsakuto if it happened to ruin it. Bloomery steel maile. More accurate then anything most people are using. Also hardened. Lol more expensive maile then most people's plate. XD You realize alot of experimental research in this field is done by randoms and not by yourube channels. Some has been done by universities and shit via students Lol. More types of swords then most people realize will go through maile. And yes. They can stop arrows and bolts. But there's also quality range. And Todd's own testing has shown maile being pierced like butter. There's also the whole distance thing Lol. And weave patterns. And other variables. The highest end densest maile yes. Good luck finding that on the reproduction market. And how many people you think had that on the battlefield. The rich Lol who would also have plate which works way better. Coat of plates was way more expensive then maile for a certain point in history. And yet even amongst more common professionals soldiers vs knights they'd still go for coats of plates. Maile isn't that great. A rondel a dirk a stiletto. Numerous types of swords. Speaks and more. All bust maile like it's a joke.
@Red I also pointed out Japanese maile is butted lol. But katana still bust riveted maile. Lol what do you think the reinforced point was for.....
@@bmxriderforlife1234 how many people had quality maille? probably all knights when it was the primary form of defense. obviously not everything busts maille when we have accounts of the opposite. i severely doubt the validity of the tests you have carried out. If it has not been recorded and done scientifically, it is almost irrelevant.
Brilliant. That answers _everything_ I was in doubt about after the last videos. Great job, Tod. I wish you had more people there.
How excited this guy is makes this video special. Love to watch history type content. I like almost all narrators, hosts, creators because the conten is so interesting. However, what makes this stand out as top quality is how genuinely excited he is to be doing what he is doing. It's contagious. Great content. Thanks
Big shout out to the knight who stand there in the rain of arrows and not bravely run away.
Definitely not Sir Robin! Brave Brave Sir Robin
Fantastic episode. That broken arrow through the eye slit was amazing and conjurs gruesome images. I've been thinking of a couple of things that I would still like to know. If you could get your hands on an accelerometer and a decibel meter it would be very interesting to find out what kind of damage an arrow could do to someone wearing armour in terms of a concussion or hearing loss.
Not even concussion or hearing loss. Just what would the pain levels be? Getting punched in the nose doesn't give you a concussion, but it sure reduces your ability and will to fight for a few seconds.
We had a decibel meter in the first film of this series and it was about 90 I think - not that loud
What a fantastic series. It's great that you went even deeper on a subject after A vs A part 1. The only thing I would like to see as an ending of a series is an edit of all of the shots one after another with fraction of a second Space between them to have an idea of how it would sound with the whole salvo of arrows hitting a charging heavy infantry on the battle field. That had to make a psychological efect on these soldiers.
I have a feeling that film will be coming.....
@@tods_workshop Yesss! That'll be an awesome film.
Not only the psychological but standing ankle deep or further in mud having had many volleys of arrows bruising you up. having run up the field. You are battered bruised and tired. The archers would be relatively fresh and lightweight without armor. Then the armor makes no difference anymore. In fact, it disables you.
I read recently that an estimated seventy-two thousand arrows were shot within the first *minute* of the Battle of Agincourt. Even if it isn't a "one shot, one kill" type of situation with a longbow vs. armor, imagine the effect of that many arrows being shot at you. It's not hard to imagine that "lucky" shots were landing in all of that mix and cutting down knights despite their armor.
it was more the terrain and weather, you need to considder that all these shots are on a very short range
The physics of all those arrows hitting the front line figures too: probably knocked them back and some to the ground, flailing around, losing shields, etc. Or simply fatigued -- armour can be heavy, the weight of the arrows would be like pushing against uneven currents in a river.
That visor shot, assuming the splinter entered his eye, looked as though it penetrated enough to continue into the brain. That's an extraordinary way to go.
It may or may not have been lethal even, eye gone for sure. But I'm not sure you could fight well pinned by your eyeball.
That one's lethal for sure. Granted, it wasn't the arrowshead that went in, but if you look at the momentum of these arrows and how hard their impact is, I think it's save to say that even a splintered shaft would have enough energy and momentum left to easily go through the brain. There is nothing to protect the brain when you go through the eye. If it were skull I would say it's questionable, but the eye is soft and the brain is too, there isn't much resistance whatsoever, that splitered wood is gonna have you meet your maker.@@carbon1255
Wow amazing work Todd, what a lucky shot to the eye that was. Can’t imagine the feeling of you a rich soldier wearing an expensive armor and you get this unlucky in the battlefield. Your videos help me visualize how armor works and how the evolution of the arms race goes for my own future writing projects. Just amazing on this video series, congratulations and hope for part 3 later in the future
Thanks and glad it was of use - damn interesting for me
We know that Henry V was hit in the face with an arrow when he was 16, although I don't think anyone can say for sure what type of helmet he was wearing, if the visor was down, etc.
@@cto1gg it would most likely have needed to have been open faced or with the visor up. He was hit dead on in the cheek, and the arrow head was stuck in there for a bit. If he was wearing a helmet with a visor down, it would’ve been incredibly unlikely to down right impossible to injure him in the manner it did.
@@Specter_1125 ouch wow
Imagine how gutted you'd feel if you spent all that money on the best armour you could get only to lose an eye to essentially a flying splinter. 😕
Thanks Tod and the team this is really impressive work, and defiantly advances our knowledge in this area. What some people fail to grasp I think is that the French knights where hit how many times by arrows in the first minute of battle and consequent minutes. What is surprising is how many where able to survive and still fight after that hail of arrows. As demonstrated it only takes a lucky shot to stop a knight, but the rest were likely just pummelled into being non combat effective by the sheer volume of arrow strikes. Each little degradation of the armour in its mobility/flexibility or protection by each arrow strike reduces the wearers combat effectiveness and opens the wearer up the the next arrow strike been the one that takes them out of the fight. Think of the suit as been a tank of its day a thrown track prevents the modern tank from preforming to its full potential and makes it a sitting target, a lucky shot hitting the gun barrel stops it from been able to use the main gun. Same with a knight who is dazed/concussed/unable to move or use their arms to fight or defend themselves, they become a target. All I can say medieval combat must have been brutal.
I have not missed a Tod's Workshop video in at least 5 years and KZhead knows it. Top of the page, every time. Clicked immediately. Every time.
Thank you Todd and crew this series is absolutely fantastic and fascinating. To see a group of people come together and give such great equipment and shooting is really and truly touching. Thank you again and please continue to give us insight into the this period in history.
A... Men... Thanks Tod!
One of my favourite series of all time...well done!
Phenomenal job! You're providing answers to questions we've all been waiting for!
Just wanted to say your videos are one of those things that make internet a good place. For a month I've been absolutely hooked, I think I have gone through most of the content. Cant wait for more. Btw, one of the most ehem... striking things for me was to witness is how violent are those arrow hits. This thing would go right through you without the armour. PS. how about a catapulta vs armour video some time in the future? :)
That eye slot shot was very interesting. It shows that you dont quite necessarily need to get it -in- the hole for it to be devastating. It's certainly not something i'd have expected to have happened/
Agreed - I was simply not expecting the armour to 'fail' in that way
@@tods_workshop I suppose one test you got to do now is see the frequency of splintered shafts going in to holes in the armour. Was that just luck or was that a real threat? could it happen in the breath holes as well for example? is there any power actually behind it so it could actually cause harm? I can't imagine it would be very comfortable for a knight to advance with a mouth full of wood
@@HiddenRealm oh yeah, that particular shot was as you say one in a million but as you then say, splintering may have occurred enough to warrant things like the V on the breast plate etc. I am curious about the threat of splintered arrows as a whole, not just through the eye slot hence why i said about looking at the frequency of them going in to holes in the armour, not frequency of it going in to the eye slots.
It makes sense in retrospect, though, as the shaft doesn't have to pry open the eyeslit but only hit it and let the wood form itself to the available hole. I find that it's really interesting that knights seems to have been so worried about such an unlikely event happening when they had such larger vulnerabilities. I don't have any conclusions on that, but it is something drawing my attention. They had to have had a rough idea of how vulnerable certain areas were so judging by this, even with these tests I would be so much more concerned about other things that I wouldn't find it so not worth worrying about compared to, say, the shoulder gaps, that it wouldn't be worth the level of written words and smithing devoted to the subject. Is that the human tendency to blow out of proportion a tiny (but graphic) risk that is so close to negated to the distraction of larger risks? Is that an indication that the surviving examples we have are more protective than the average at the time? I don't know, but it suggests something is going on to me.
@@dynamicworlds1 well it depends what is more scary to the person in the armour at the time. Like an arrow to the shoulder, yes could be deadly or life changing etc but its not quite as bad as getting anything to the face, especially the eyes.
Outstanding strat to the New Year: another A v A II video! I'm glad it fell to you, Tod, to finally kill off the French Knight with those last arrows. This episode shows that yes, the English Longbowmen were rightly feared. It only needed one or two arrows to 'get through' - and there were thousands of them raining down on the French. Thanks - and a HNY to you, Tod, and to all who watch your videos and post comments!
There were also thousands of knights. There were only between 2 and 10 arrows per frenchman (depending on which source you go with for the number of archers and french infantry/etc.)
i love how much effort you and your team put into these tests :) ! thanks for sharing!
I love this video. Now for some math, or "maths" as it is said in the better educated parts of the world. I am going to start with the phase "Quantity has a quality all of its own." At Agincourt had Henry had about 8,000 men, 1-2,000 were men-at-arms and Knights with heavy armour, the rest were archers. This leaves 6000 to 7000 archers. I am selecting 6,500 archers for random reasons. I feel it to be a warm and friendly number. So 6500 archers shooting 12 arrows a minute equals 78,000 arrows a minute shot at each wave of the French attack. I have read there were 3 French waves. From a statistical standpoint these lucky shots were a guarantee to occur. There is art evidence that the arms and head were primary targets for the arrows, and now we see why. If the target can't move his arms or is blinded, those daggers come in real handy to finish off fairly defenseless troops. I have read that by the 3rd wave of French attack, the bodies of French dead from the previous 2 waves helped cause the third wave to falter and fail causing another massacre. And remember, each wave of attackers were not comprised of fully armoured knights, lots of folks in much less armoured states in the French waves. And remember, each wave was solely on foot. Ground was too muddy for cavalry of any type. That was a very slow march over a killing field that had been plowed and rained on on for a week. Yes, for those who were wondering, it was incredibly stupid for the French leadership to be goaded in battling on this day over this specific killing field that Henry V had chosen.
I remarked elsewhere that even if an arrow couldn't make it through the eyeslits, a splinter might, and there you have it, if not quite with the visual I expected. The repeat penetrations of aventail were interesting to see, given how surprised they were by the ones that pierced it in the prior video.
I find the splintering of the arrow shafts very interesting. It's like the arrow has two waves of attack, first the point and then the splinters. It looks like even if the arrowhead doesn't get through there's a half decent chance of a splinter going into an armour joint/gap or an eyehole. Multilpy that effect by a Crecy or Agincourt style arrow storm and as well as the arrowheads there must have been a cloud of wooden shrapnel flying around the French armies.
There was a king that died with an arrow to the eye, but i´ll be damned if i remember the name. Richard the Lionheart died from an arrow to the shoulder/neck.
Similar to wooden ships getting hit by cannon balls more people were injured and killed by splinters than the actual cannon balls
@@Biden_is_demented Supposedly Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, I say supposedly since there is no way to prove it, the Bayeux tapestry shows a man taking an arrow in the eye but weather that realy was Harold ...
@@Biden_is_demented King Harold II was reputed to have died from an arrow to the eye at the Battle of Hastings. King Henry V, at age 16 as Prince, was struck by an arrow just below the eye at the Battle of Shrewsbury.
MUCH appreciate the work you have put into this, and your other videos. MANY THANKS and a Happy New Year to you and yours.
I don't think I could ever get tired of these videos. There is something immensely satisfying about watching arrows strike something in slow motion.
Excellent content as always. It would be interesting to see how fast a guy in full armor could close the distance and "kill" the archer, and how many arrows the archer could shoot in that time. In this test (and others) the archer is at a massive advantage because the target is stationary - and that’s fine given what you’re trying to demonstrate, I'm not criticizing your methodology or anything. But in a real-life situation where you have a fully armored man-at-arms (or a thousand) bearing down on you and every second counts, I don’t think it'd be all that easy to disable him before he skewers you 😊
In the real battles there was never a lone archer, they basically stuck together by the dozen all the way at the back
@@jingleding9002 Yes, archers were deployed to battlefields in their thousands, not alone. Thank you, Captain Obvious. But a test on that scale would be prohibitively expensive (again, obviously). As for archers being deployed at the back: Not necessarily, and definitely not if they’re shooting at the flat trajectory that’s been used in all these tests Todd et al. have been doing. They'd be shooting their own infantry in the back.
@@boesvig2258 seems like I got it confused, longbowmen were in the back angling arrows upward and then later on crossbows became more used since they require much less training for equal or more power at a slightly shorter range, enough power that punching through plate mail was a real danger for those facing it since unlike today steel smelting wasn’t an exact science with the same quality every time
Tod, incredible narration points here. Great distillation of the lessons. So many takeaways. First one that comes to mind for me is role of shields.
Thanks and yes shields were used but not universal
Keep up the great work always very interesting to watch all these videos! Great show Tod, that eye shot was epic !
Bloody hell I'm glad you reminded me this video existed, amazed I forgot. THanks to all of you on the team for such brilliant content.
Interesting that a splinter did for the poor chap, and great to see something go through the sight slit!! 😃 If you watch the documentary "A Knight's Tale" it's mentioned in there that jousters were afraid of splinters through the eye hole.
The splinter in the best case scenario (for the knight) would have blinded them for the battle (blood from the forehead into the eyes in a place you can't easily reach). Most likely would have taken out an eye, and in the worst case would have hit the eye square on enough, and with enough force to fracture the eye socket and damage the brain. It might be a 1 in a million shot, but if you had seen it happen to anyone, then it'd strike enough fear for tales to be told.
Not to mention the ensuing infection if he survived the battle
Intraocular injuries aren't normally immediately fatal. It still happens occasionally, often with umbrellas these days, and most people survive with modern medicine. Without that the infection would be horrific.
@@llamatronian101 who was that aimed at? Because all three people who wrote comments in this thread didn't say anything about them being immediately fatal. 1 just talked about how they're frightening (but nothing about a resulting injury), 1 specifically says that getting hit in the eye isn't immediately fatal, and 1 builds off of that to say that the infection might. So who was that directed at?
The intro is already amazing! :o But this makes me wonder, were pierced armors repaired? Or completely rebuild/used as scrap?
Probably repaired for as long as possible, it's just a lot of work to completely remake armor. It's not exactly the same, but imagine you repeatedly crash your car, wouldn't you try to repair the bodywork for as long as it was economical before buying new segments to replaced the damaged ones, or even buy a completely new body?
@@leonardomarquesbellini Mainly wondering about a hole in your armor. Bend it back, braze it? Try to forge weld it together?
As I understand most armor was intended to last one campaign , so i would imagine that it would be repaired while on campaign as best as possible and then after either retired wholly or partially. Like you see in the video some parts will need replacing or upgrading while some, like the breastplate, might last more than one campaign.
@@HereticalKitsune depends entirely on the particular characteristics of the armor on question, the damage inflicted to it and your ability (and I guess willingness) to have it repaired immediately or eventually.
That was probably one of the reason mail became so popular around the world. with decent workshop available, it could be made almost as good as new, or as good as new if the artisan could make exactly the same rings.
Just finished binging all the AvA2 videos, really great to see. Never get tired of experiments like this.
This is beyond excellent work, it is incredibly valuable for historians and I’d wager this will have more impact on our understanding of medieval armor and archery than most of the academic works written about it in the past several decades.
Something's I learned from Goblin Slayer are that: 1. Always put padding like leather under your armor as secondary protection. 2. Even if your armor doesn't stop the penetration completely it can still reduce the damage, your survivability is still up for a magnitude of factors though. 3. Never underestimate your enemies, a lucky shot from an arrow, a sneak stab in your joints and or massive numbers of enemies weak or not can still pose a problem.
Awesome content as always! I am curious if you are planning on testing arrow versus armor effectiveness with the armor moving as it would be with a person wearing the armor? I would hypothesize that movement of the armor (rather than simply a stationary/static armor target) may change the results significantly since the armor in motion will change the impact forces and angle of impact on armor itself. I've never seen anyone test armor in real motion and I think you would do an incredible job of such a test. Thanks for making such engaging content!
Particularly when it’s a knight on horseback charging forwards.
I think they would need to partner with Boston Dynamics for that one. Frontrunner high-tech meets medieval tech for practical research.
@davidcouper7445 That would be interesting although remember that these tests are intended to represent the 1415 Battle of Agincourt.
That would be the next step. Would the arrow have penetrated the lower arm armour if the arm had been moving? How would an armoured person's arm move? Up and down on a horse, probably. But how does an armoured person on foot holding a spear or sword move his arm?
Absolutely loving this series of videos. Subscribed as a result. Brilliant work and great presentation.
Thanks and glad to be of service
Fantastic series Tod. Thanks so much for doing this. Really have learned quite a lot and sparked my interest in this history.
That aventail is by far the most impressive piece of armor to me. What a fantastic design.
Really? I would have said it's the least-worst option. It's better than nothing by far, but even being as heavy and bulky as it was it still didn't offer great protection.
@@Matt_Alaric It did its job by preventing kill shots despite over a dozen shots specifically targetting it - something that would not be replicated in a real situation. It'd also be a much cheaper option than plate.
@@Crimsonfangg There were multiple kill shots though, in both episodes of it. It's much better than not having any armour, but its protection is only partial.
@@Matt_Alaric I don't think we saw the same data. Breaking skin is not a kill shot. There was maybe 1 potential killshot out of all the hits, which still makes it a very effective piece of armor. Breaking an egg is not a kill shot. I could flick an egg and smash it - it doesn't mean anything other than proving that some level of force was applied.
@@Crimsonfangg Maybe you should watch it again then? Multiple arrows went clean through it and buried themselves in padding supporting the armour - all would have been kill shots. And the arrows hitting hard enough to dent plate steel delivering that amount of trauma directly to the throat would probably have been kill shots as well. And that's just with arrows, anything with a bit more mass behind it would be delivering disabling blows right through the armour with every solid hit.
I think it would be interesting if a statistical analysis was done on what % of the knight from the front could be penetrated. Then try to make a guess at how many times a knight would have been hit in the battle by an arrow. With that data you could make a guess at how many knights died or wounded from arrows.
I think that that would take a hell of a lot more funding for Tod, (Or anyone really.) to get ahold of the sheer amount of suits of armour, arrows, bows, archers, etc, to make that happen. Not to mention how long it would take and the importance of terrain and weather on the battlefield. All in all. I believe that it's far too many variables for anyone to TRULY and authentically get the percentages that you're thinking of.
It would definitely be a 'guess' as the quality of armour was so variable (even amongst the knights) that what penetrates one suit wouldn't penetrate another and everything in between. Todd's work with this is excellent and the armour here is relatively high-end of its period but you would need to repeat this experiment with mulitple different period armour qualities and constructions, then work on a statistical average. In other words, it would be very expensive! It would be very interesting to have a statistical analysis of the type you propose but we're not very likely to get it, sadly.
@@501Magnum I think there's a real solution to this: Fight an actual lethal medieval battle, however; That would be illegal of course.
@@Dennell_Mount_and_Blade True lmao 🤣
I think it's possible to have an educated guess from the data. You would be able to claculate surface of hte whole night on picture as 100%. Then define areas with 0% protection. Then define areas with 50% protection, etc... and calculate what percentage of whole area those areas constitute. From that - what percentage of shots will seriously wound. Elephant in the room. The vast vulnerability here is absence of plate below waist and on the back. It is much more important in this case then weak spots tested in these series.
Happy New Year Tod! Appreciate your content
I really enjoy these arrow vs armour films. They're really interesting to see as I practice archery myself. What really makes these videos gold is Tod's enthusiasm and passion.
Even in armour, the thought of having hundreds/thousands of arrows raining down on you is legitimately terrifying...
I would shit myself being under like 5 or 6 no doubt.
Even if the arrow didn't penetrate the mail, I don't think getting shot in the throat would make for a good time or a highly motivated knight. The number of arrows left sticking out of the armour at the end makes me wonder what the French knights looked like at the end of Agincourt. Thanks for this additional video and Happy New Year!
They clearly looked like porcs-épics ;)
@@5peciesunkn0wn 🤣
Amazing series. I find it quite fascinating to see what could have been. Also humbling to get an insight as to how it would have looked to be involved in warfare at this period. It's quite scary to think that the chances of recovery after being hit were small to none. Fantastic stuff Tod.
If you can picture yourself as a French Man at Arms: struggling through the sticky mud at Agincourt, gasping for breath, walking into a hail of arrows - it would have been a nightmare. Unless you had practiced what it felt like to take arrow hits, you would think each blow you felt would be followed by one that would get through your armour. After covering the last 20 yards: you would have several arrows stuck through arm and mail covered gaps in the plate. It's easy to picture a man with at least half a dozen of these hits between his neck and feet. Add to that a sharp blow to the Adam's apple. It's incredible to picture men that endured all of that and reaching the English counterpart with enough energy and ability to engage them at close quarters. Incroyable!
Outstanding video Tod, congrats on the whole testing series. No matter if any of the arrows failed to full penetrate that knight would be having a really bad day. Any way to compare the impact of the arrows on the helmet with the effects of say a punch to an unarmored head?
Yeh, Mike Loades theory of the longbows beating up the knights with blunt force trauma is really becoming more plausible when you look at just how hard that armour is getting hit and dented even when it stops the arrows. I'd imagine you'd feel like you'd gone 12 rounds before you even got to the English lines.
Could you do an overall count of all the shots you have taken throughout the series and how many of them managed to defeat the armor in any meaningful way?
Interesting, I was just thinking along similar lines. All the arrows they've fired for the whole series probably don't even come close to the total volume of a single volley in a real battle. That's where the "small odds" pay off. In volume.
I think they've made 100 arrows. So, 150 shots, maybe? And somewhere around 15 really good hits. Edit: I'm probably wrong about 100 arrows, I don't remember where I get this number from. I thought Tod mentioned it in "Picking up a BIG bundle of BIG arrows" but it seems not
Potential kill shots / minor wounds / disabling wounds / deflections Would be an interesting ratio to see
it was just short of 50 arrows, but many were shot a few times and I had one at the end that just would not break
@@tods_workshop I mean it as a potential follow-up idea, to analyze all the shots with regard to how effective volume fire/shooting might have been. Or conversely, how much total protection the armor provides against more or less randomly placed arrows. The vulnerable spots, in particular the fatal ones, are after all quite small by area from what I gathered from all the footage so far. Another interesting question is, how much could the wearer of the armor do in terms of posture and hand positioning etc. to not expose the most vulnerable areas to the enemy.
Incredible video Tod. So much information. Love it.
Thanks for releasing these continuing videos. The gift that keeps on giving. I have been impressed by how well the armor protected, but i wouldn’t want to be down range from Joe or you, even with the best armor.
Another brilliant video. I noticed that even the arrows that glanced off or shattered caused tiny bits of wood / splinters around the eye slits. Perhaps that would have caused a knight vision problems during battle?
Best to wear safety glasses into battle!
Also interesting that on the helmet shots, the arrows seem to be going through the aventaille much easier. Like there was a point of degradation where after that the armour stopped working as a stop effectivelly. Makes sense as the disruption suffered by nultiple heavy hits will take its toll. Edit: this means that at 20-25m the crossbow hits more akin to a 180lb bow rather than a 160 one. Very interesting
Which of course on campaign is irreparable damage.
@@carbon1255 not really. Armies carried blacksmiths with them for repairs.
Something to consider for AvA3: During a battle, one of those advancing knights would potentially face all of the individual shots from this or any of the films all within a few seconds. I was going to say volley, but I seriously doubt that volleys happened in a "fire, pause, fire, pause" way. In the heat of fire-at-will it was likely random and probably reactive to whichever groups of knights were presenting the most threat. "Those guys are scooting in around the side mates!", focus moves to the 10 guys on the left, each taking dozens of arrows every few seconds until they slackened, due to fatigue or tactics. Just trying to say don't forget that these are battle conditions, and a single archer vs a single target can only simulate something like duel conditions. Excellent work as always Tod. Your dedication to truth is always inspiring.
This series has really showed a fantastic snapshot of history where full plate existed, but wasn't fully mature and what implications that can have on a battlefield. I've watched every video and loved every second of it.
Hi Tod, excellent tests. Did you try to shoot arrows at the target which is moving toward you? This will simulate horsemen in charge. In that case, you have the velocity of the arrow plus the velocity of the horsemen, I would expect that this can increase the penetration power of the arrows ... now question is ... How this will change the results/conclusions from arrows vs armour tests you have done in the past?
Right, that's something which has been overlooked so far. Considering how much energy a charging horse with an armoured person on its back has, the force of a direct frontal impact of an arrow should be multiplied. On the other hand it probably makes shooting from the sides less effective.
Well the energy increase is actually quite substantial. The arrow from the longbow has a speed of around 55 m/s; see Tod's video about the comparison between the 160lb longbow and the "longbow simulator" crossbow. A cavalry charge was usually about 20 km/h fast to keep formation which would be around 6 m/s. 55 squared is 3025; 61 squared is 3721 that is a 23 percent (3721/3025) increase in energy. This is irrelevant for the arrows that were deflected anyway, but the ones that barely made it thru the armor now have some energy left to go deeper into the squishy bits. Since 20+ percent energy increase is not very intuitive to grasp what that really means, you can look at it this way: Lets say the arrow loses 6 m/s speed (I have no idea if that is correct or not) after it traveled a distance of 150 meters, which is usually the distance where knights start their charge. That means that the impact energy of the arrow hitting a charging knight at 150m is the same than hitting a not moving knight at 20 to 25 meters. And the closer you get during your charge the impact of the arrows get more and more serious until you reach the enemy battle line. Maybe that is what happened at Agincourt, the first volley didn't do much damage and the French knights charged feeling secure in their armor and then the armor failed when they got closer than 80 meters.
The energy will be increased but the movement will also increase the deflections and make hitting at all more difficult.
@@zurbaron3226 It's much more than that, we should calculate the total energy of a charging horseman separately and then add it to the arrow's energy.
@@niemandkeiner8057 Not really, entire charging horseman won't be interacting against arrow, just the section of armor being hit. Adding velocity of moving target to arrow is good approximation. Adding bit more energy due to mass of small area of armor contacting arrow would theoretically be in place, but it probably wouldn't change much.
There are drop indicators for shipping that come in a variety of sensitivities. You should look into using them under the armour on various parts of the body as they are shot
He could also put some bladders under it with red ink .Id like to see 100 bowman on one night and then see the damage
Absolutely beautiful series; well done! Congratulations to the entire team that made it possible. While we got to see all of the crafting work that got put into creating the arrows and armor leading up to the battle, I would be curious to see what would come after the battle. Firstly, What would the scavenging effort look like after the battle? Secondly, while we know that arrows were often reused when whole, but with instances where they found shattered arrows, would the head be simply reattached to a new shaft? Lastly, and most importantly, If our knight's armor were recovered after the battle (or by some miracle, he survived), what would the repair process look like? I understand that many of the pieces would likely be replaced as soon as possible, but for an army on the move, I would imagine that the host of smiths and armorers in the retinue would have to make some concessions as a matter of triage. For the larger, more costly, or harder to replace pieces, would the dents and holes simply be bent back into shape, be soldered or welded closed, have a patch soldered or welded over it, or would the damaged area be cut out and a patch welded in?
My biggest gripe about these armor vs videos anywhere on KZhead is that they never show the quality of steel or talk about it. Also some don’t even talk about the thickness of the armor. So i appreciate that this guy has done it. This guy also has some good armor smiths. This stuff definitely seems to be HMB armor which is solid stuff
There's a video going over the material choices here: kzhead.info/sun/dpSNlrePZ3icnHk/bejne.html And in the description of the video is a link to the site for the series, including details about the armourer.
@@cmusgrave ok yeah this guy did a thorough job. Appreciate the link
Something that I've seen done in ballistics testing for body armor is using clay behind the vest. It helps show how much deformation and energy transfer the projectile causes on impact. It could work if you're testing things like chainmail.
I think it would be cool to do an Arrows VS Armor using modern body armor. I think those arrows would make it through lot more Kevlar than people would expect.
Kevlar isn't really stab resistant. Knives easily go through most soft ballistic vests without stab protection, and thats why soft body armour used by police has stab protection in the form of Titanium plates behind the Kevlar inlays. Hard ballistic armor with ceramic, hard fibre composites or steel plates on the other hand easily withstand attacks with knives and arrows.
Kevlar relies on the strength of the carbon-carbon bond, same thing that gives diamonds their hardness. It isn't the same as a sandbag that dissipates energy.
Kevlar is strong but not very hard so arrows would cut through it pretty easily. As for testing it on the channel it could lead to a Slingshot Channel situation. If you aren't familiar with the story an Austrian KZheadr called Jorge Sprave had a channel where he did silly things like making gatling slingshots. But one day he found a "knife proof" vest advertised on the internet and he tested it and found it was resistant to slashes but utterly useless against stabs. A little while later a British police constable (who are typically armed with just a baton and no gun) was killed in a knife attack while wearing one of these vests that had been issued by his department. The British civil servants involved dug up the video by Jorge and went, isn't it terrible how this youtuber is teaching people how to kill police officers. We can't be held responsible when these right wing fanatics are using the internet to spread this kind of information! So just saying that while it would be cool as a video lets not get Todd in trouble with some bureaucrat or politician looking for someone to blame for their screwups.
@@silverjohn6037 Jörg is German, not Austrian.
@@silverjohn6037 I live in America, where I can buy explosives at the sporting goods store... It had never occurred to me that people actually live in Europe...
Thank you Tod and everyone involved in the arrows VS armour.
Thank you for amazing video (and the whole series). This clearly demonstrates the reasons for armor development, especially around the neck. I was wondering, if you can test the mobility of the damaged arm and compared it to the undamaged one. There is a lot of force in the arrows, but so is in the sword or mace blows. Since the hands are always "close to the combat", it would be odd, if few bent plates would incapacitate the person. Slowing down or prevention some specific movements may be unavoidable but elimination from the fight due to the armor damage feels like bad design.
Its amazing how in spite of technology, fundamentals never change. In modern warfare, even if your weapons cannot pierce a tanks armor, one showers it with everything you have. This forces the tank crew to button up reducing visibility. You might even hit the periscopes and sensors which would be the equivalent of hitting the eye slits. Like in modern tank warfare, shower the knight with volley's of arrow fire forcing him to remain buttoned up and eventually an arrow or two will find a weak spot
Interesting - thanks
I think a question that would also be interesting to answer is if the energy of the arrow impacting the helmet flush on the side was enough to concuss the knight wearing it.
Seems really unlikely to me.
The required energy varies a lot based on the angle and point of contact.
Nope
Very unlikely, especially with a helmet that has so much room to move in relation to the head itself. Concussion is more likely to result from an impact from a heavy object (more momentum). Arrows actually have very little force on target, but focus it very efficiently. A human running into you will transfer *way* more overall force, just in a far less concentrated package meaning it's not going to pierce your organs; but it's more likely to cause a concussion due to your body trying to resist all of that momentum
The blunt force angle seems to be massively overblown as shown in previous tests. The plates are rigid and absorb the force and disperse it.
Brilliant! Answered all the questions I[and perhaps dozens of others] posed, just fantastic! Thanks so much.
Hi tod, aware this may take a while but would be really great to see you covering/linking to any research this has been referenced in
Wouldn't a knight of 1415 still be carrying a shield on his left forearm?
Not always there's plenty of manuscripts from this period which dipict knights/man at arms with and without shields in battle. I'd hazard a guess personal wealth played a big part into wether someone would carry a shield to battle in that period those who could afford the best armour would be less inclined to carry a shield.
@@armchairgeneralissimo that could well be but if they were getting hit in the forearm, my guess would be they'd either get thicker armour there or hang onto a shield. Pavises do the job later in the 15th and early 16th Centuries.
Idk when Todd shot the shield, the arrow went through, and went very far. Considering that this armor stops like 99% of arrow shots, I think I'd rather have 2 hands free so that I could move faster and maybe wield a poleaxe or something like that, rather than wielding an additional shield which doesn't even do much to stop the arrows.
Avocado would've been a better throat analog. Decent toughness, not brittle, easy to see any dents.
Tod- it’s just so damn good, this whole series. Well done.
Absolutely brilliant, Tod! Thank you