Pretty much, never heard that they wore cloth armour over metal armour, makes sense that the french would more than the english as my understanding was that the french didnt use archers as much as the english. The only thing i would have liked to have seen on the test of possible would some way of detecting how much force reached the knights body, was this enough to knock them off of the horse? Would they have been winded? could this still have broken bones?
@@Scasne Well this is material for at least two additional videos I guess. Depends on the draw weight of the bow, was the enemy moving? How was he armored? What was the distance? Was it windy? What kind of arrow head was used? How long was the arrow? How does the energy getting transfered with certain arrow head type? What part of the body is getting hit?
@@jamesnetherian4981 Please dont think i was deriding the video in any way as it was truely interesting, I know there is a limit to the sheer number of variables that are possible, which is why i said about being able to measure the actual effect to the body as then we could have compared to known similiar situations (bullet proof vests for example) but then i dont know how a dummy with sensors in reacts compared to that gel.
@@Scasne Dude... all cool. I'd never thought you'd deriding the video or something. I was just brainstorming how many question arise if you wanna go in that direction of myth busting or testing. :D
Gentlemen that was better produced than many televised living history shows. I was delighted by the honesty, accuracy, attention to detail, source discussions..... & surprised at the outcome. Well done! More please.
The prevailing theory is that what really won Agincourt was the terrain which funneled the French Knights and the mud which slowed them down and the English archers killed them mostly using swords, axes and daggers.
@@linusa2996 No it is not the prevailing theory. They killed them predominately with arrows and finished them off with daggers and mallets. Your theory is not supported by Juliet Barker, Ian Mortimer, Clifford J. Rogers, Michael Jones, John Keegan and Anne Curry to mention a few of the top scholars on this subject. The prevailing theory is that most of the men-at-arms had plate armour made of wrought iron and low-carbon steel. Around 2/3 or more. Limb protection and the side of helmets and breastplates were usually thin - around 1.5 mm. The French men-at-arms formed a solid line, 20 men deep. When the archers started to shoot at them from 100 meters away, the arrows were shot into the formation and came down at an angle of 14 degrees. As they moved closer this angle started to decrease. Most of the arrows struck the highest part of the tightly packed formation - the helmets - and the rate of hits increased as they moved closer. In addition to this, the arrows usually came from the flanks and hit the sides. The result was arrows piercing the side and visors of their helmets, as pointed out by Gesta Henrici Quinti - "... the missiles which by their very force pierced the sides and visors of their helmets ..." (Curry, Sources 36). In addition to this they penetrated plate amour covering the shoulders so that they were unable to lift their weapons. They also pierced the aventail protecting the neck and throat, the voiders protecting the arm pits, the back often covered by mail or a thin plate, and the thinner side of breastplates made of wrought iron. That was the majority of the killing. The archers moved forward to finish them off before they died. The secondary factor was the press in the middle. The third was the melee in the center. The sorces are very clear on this. The arrows did most of the damage. “In the opinion of the French, it was precisely what injured the most their enemies which assured the English of victory, especially the continuous way in which they had rained down on our men a terrifying hail of arrow shot.” The Religieux (Monk) of Saint-Denis. (Curry, Sources 106) The knights and high ranking esquires (sons of knights) of good armorial standing were in the center of the first division and made it to the English lines because they had better armour than the rest of the 10,000 men-at-arms participating. Here the arrows usually came from the front. This decreased their ability to find a weak spots, but they wounded and hampered them nontheless. They numbered scarcely 2,000-3,000 men from a total of 4,800 in this division. Of these, 1,500 or so were taken as prisoners to Calais. The second division had around 1,600 gros valets and 3,400 men-at-arms of lower status. These gros valets had poor quality plate armour and mail. Against them the arrows did the job from 100 meters away.
@@RC_Engineering Yeah, but did you watch the full video? He was definitely struggling to reach full draw, and didn't hold it long at all. I'm not saying it wasn't a mighty feat, since I can't draw more than about 45lbs repeatedly, but you could tell he was working for sure. 😉
"the thinner areas of the armor, like the legs or something, it might start to make a difference" no wonder that arrow to the knee took out that guardsman.
Man, I know a lot of times they were shooting from an elevated position. To me if arrows didn’t work nobody would use them lol. I imagine like anything else, even of that time everything is not created equal.
@@mcflotty agreed, also even though a longbow can’t pierce a piece of plate armour reliably that doesn’t mean it will be pleasant for the wearer I mean it’s still 200lbs of force concentrated in the area of a pen tip, the sheer force behind that will probably hurt you.
Very much so, it's refreshing to see the test done correctly. In Agincourt there were reports of point blank shots to helmets... would be incredibly if they could test that, though safety might be a concern.
ive seen better actual English longbow with actual arrow heads used at the time fired at actual armor not replica it just dented the armor btw armor beat the bow after all it took the invention of a gun to defeat the armor and that ended the age of the knight
Well, snark aside I think there at least some notion in even fairly savvy medieval historical circles that English longbows were the primary method of turning back the French knights and Agincourt. As this video demonstrates, that is probably not the case, at least not directly. Getting a direct hit looks like it was pack a wallop for sure, but the idea that volumes of armor clad French knights were getting mowed down by archer fire seems to be a false one. If anything, it seems like archer fire would be best concentrated on the least armored soldiers on the battlefield as a means to thin them out before melee ensues.
As a 71 year old life-long fan of Medieval military equipment and a former SCA recreation it’s for 25 years (5 years fighting in 15th C armor), this is the absolute BEST experiment of Medieval arms vs. armor I have ever seen. Well done, sirs! Kudos...
22:00 Every time he said "experience," I hear "lives." Every new innovation in armor design was built upon dozens of deaths. I love that they gave us such a specific insight into history. More movies should give us this level of realism in historical stories.
The sound alone! So much more audible than in the movies, where it's always a muted 'tink.' To hear that clang ring out as someone got hit with an arrow, and to watch the arrow explode into bits, would actually be MORE exciting than what we typically see in movies.
When I first saw the "V", I initially thought that its purpose was for bracing & reinforcing the breastplate area. However, the demonstration made it quite clear its real function and that the armourers of that day really knew what they were doing. Impressive engineering and a great video - Thanks!
Yep, absolutely... I guess a lot of people on this and other channels have been anticipating this for a long time, fantastic to see it coming together.
the archer is just amazing, just amazing. I had a go at bows at the Mary Rose museum at Portsmouth and it was almost impossible to draw the easiset bow. For this guy to perform all day long is just incredible.
If we want to nitpick there was a few audio issues, blatant switching from one microphone to another, different audio levels, a few clothes rustling noises; and on the video side on the arrows hitting a faster camera (for better slow motion) would have been better.But I nitpick, and compared to other (especially older Tod's) videos on the "noble amateur in his back garden" variety that is good production value indeed. Good job!
@@LiraeNoir we had three crew, no budget, and about 8 hours to film. Which is significantly less than the cheapest TV production. But you are right there are lots of things that are less than perfect
Oh absolutely. As I said this was good production value for its range. And if you do it again hopefully you can bit by bit remove the little issues here and there.
As a retired Mathematics and Engineering Professor, this testing is fantastic! It would be great to measure the speed and direction of the arrows during deflection, the energy delivered in various areas of the breastplate and ballistic gel, the wave shape through the gel, the possible strikes to the head and face even though there’s the “V” deflector, that’s diverted the arrow, how much wood hit surrounding objects like the faces and hands of comrades, and on and on. This stuff is sexy and needs further study. Thanks for the great videos! Bill from Minnesota, USA.
@@smellypatel5272Please call me Bill. Maybe an arrow with a tip within a tip similar to armor piercing ammo we have today would have success penetrating body armor? The fractured arrow tips you guys found demonstrated the presence of extreme heat as they hit the breast plate: use this information to make an arrow tip of a material that when under high compression produces heat exceeding the melting point of the breast plate material, have a thin heat insulating agent behind that, and a hardened tip behind that. Also, an explosive material compressed behind a hardened tip would easily penetrate the breast plate. Slightly modern day, but definitely a hoot to play with. A third suggestion is to increase the energy of the projectile tip by reducing the size of its tip surface area in relation to the arrow’s total kinetic energy. The smaller the tip, the more energy focused on a tiny spot. The way the breast plate was dented from some of those hits tells me that you probably have high enough energy to penetrate the material with a very small diameter, hard, and tough projectile. Another method might be a siding weight that adds to the punch of the tip at impact, but the problem with this solution is to find the correct slide weight, the best travel length of slide relative to the time of impact, and discovery of the optimal ratio of weight/speed of the projectile to maximize the joules delivered. I’ll be watching. The best of luck, Bill
in addition to being decorative, the jupon had a practical application from these tests. the knight wasnt ALONE, he was in a line with other soldiers. imagine all those arrows exploding everywhere, all that debris flying into the other soldiers to the left or the right. maybe a head glanced into an eye of his mate to the side. with the jupon however, it CATCHES almost all of it, REMOVING the debris as a battlefield hazard almost entirely. i feel it was yet another military invention, aimed specifically at english longbows.
If knights were charging at 25-30km/h horse back it would change the physics. History must be rewritten then may be longbow men could be good swords men. Or tactically used to attract knight charges and skilled at capturing them. Or wars are won black ops raiding , ambush, sabotage, burning of crops more than the battlefield like in movies. If so, even if the french keep winning the battle due to armor theyll loose the war from mobility of light infantry plundering here and theyre knights keep defending in futility tiring them.
Or war could have been won on more verbal manner politically or psychologically. If the french common people support the english or dislike the government like ministers not the crown. Since england could fight european countries and eurpean countries cant fight back due to geography of england. Cliffs and weather anf harsh sea. Like japan to korea snd china
@@ansonang7810 Where do you get this notion that "/.../european countries can't fight back due to the geography of england."? The list is substantially long so I'll just highlight the Normans but if you wanna read on further in the provided link below I'd suggest looking at the Roman and Danish parts. England was conquered by the Normans in 1066 and for several hundred years the newly established nobility in England would continue to speak French while battling France proper with (mostly) English fighters. During that period the Old English language was the tongue of a commoner in England. In fact, the modern English language today takes a lot of inspiration from French language due to this very reason. I'm less knowledgeable about Japanese history and I don't feel like finding sources for this too (I'm sure you can look it up though) so take this with a grain of salt... At one point the Mongols were set to invade Japan but got caught up in a storm so perfect for the Japenese defence that they attributed a lot of mythical properties to their island. It's not unlikely that this could've also made an impact on both contemporary as well as future ideas of invading the archipelago up until the time when U.S.A. parked part of their navy outside. It could've literally been a lot of luck that dissuaded attempts at invasion. Sources: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasions_of_the_British_Isles#Norman_conquest_of_England www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/changlang/activities/lang/norman/normaninvasion.html
@@Olamina-c1y yeah the British isles have been invaded half a dozen times but IIRC not since 1066 have they been invaded by mainland Europeans, so in that sense the present day english, or the norman descendants haven't been invaded. AFAIK he japanese experienced holy winds or kamikaze twice which sunk invasion fleets
"Imagine if you had 40 of those sticking out of you." You know what, if I see a guy with a sword and 40 arrows sticking out of him coming at me. I'm going the other way.
Informative and accurate. Great production values. Specialists worth listening to. No unnecessary drama, “fake excitement”, sound effects, noise or graphics. Exactly what I wish tv was. You’ve earned a subscription from me 👍🏼👌🏽
Most historically accurate arrow and armor test hands down! Especially adding wheels so the armor rig can move to simulate body movement. Great job! The jupon was so interesting, makes sense why they would use it: reduced discomfort of having your armor heat up in the sun, more bludgeoning protection, reduced shrapnel, and reduced denting on your armor meaning less repair for your armor because replacing a textile is much cheaper and faster than plate armor. Oh man could you imaging being in the French army at Agincourt and having volley after volley of those arrows beating away at your armor. By they time you get into actual combat you would be bruised, ears ringing, out of breath/stamina, maybe even dazed if you get hit with one of those in the head, no way would you be fully fit to fight for any decent length of time. Crazy. More Please!!!
Not to mention the Jupon captured the first whole arrow. Now what if you had two or three of those sticking out of you? Are you going to stop in the middle of the field to pull it out? Who's going to hold your weapon? If you don't pull them out, or can't get your buddy to do it for you, how is that going to affect your spear/polearm/mace/hammer/sword play? Can't image it's going to make it any better. I wonder if that jupon would make it easier for your opponent to grapple with you though. Seems like a fantastic grab point.
"reduced discomfort of having your armor heat up in the sun" I dont think so. Putting a blanket on your carroof does not lower the temperature inside your vehicle, it is the ohter way around. "Especially adding wheels so the armor rig can move to simulate body movement." I found this interessting too. But I was thinking, when I get punched at material arts training my uper body use to take most of the force but my feed do not move that much. So would it be more realistic to not put the thing on wheels but make the shaft out of a flexible wood? This would also slithly change the direction of the arrow and probably lead it even more to the throat.
I don't know if the naked armor heating was really a problem seeing all the under layers. My thoughts if anything another insulating layer of fabric may actually be more of a heating problem. Also moisture could potentially be a problem adding a lot of extra weight seeing how porous the outer fabric looked.
I'd imagine heating was always an issue, witness the East Roman 'Klibanophoros' literally translated as "camp oven" or "metallic furnace" being equipped with combinations of mail, lamellar and fabric. France was probably a bit cooler than Anatolia or Syria though!
@@prgnify The English regularly practised archery. I think there was a law that forced archers to practice. The skeletons recovered from the Mary Rose had deformed backbones due to pulling a bow string. The English archer was a professional, probably better than this chap shooting now
@@haroldwebster1459 There was, enacted by Henry VIII from 1511 onwards (ie a hundred years later). Four hours, every Sunday morning, and not just for professional archers, for every able-bodied man. You should remember Henry V was functionally Welsh, raised around the nascent Ordnance base in Monmouth.
with that many hits you would get messed up pretty quickly just from force of impacts. Perhaps tiring knights so foot soldiers could get in for the lucky strikes was one method of taking down what essentially were medieval tanks.
I think its shined in agincourt mainly because the arrows hitting horses in full charge really fucked those french knights up think about it there were at least 3 to 4 lines of cavalry and horses tripping over dead hours and riders flinging riders. I mean armor is movable in its been proven but I wouldn't imagine getting flung off a steed in full charge in a full harness would feel very good you chance of breaking you neck must've been pretty damn high and tbh idk about you guys but after getting slung outta my saddle I don't think I'd have very much fight in me and the French crossbow men probably shit their hosen witnessing that.
Great video! I've been an archer for 50 years now and can say the craftsmanship of the armor and arrows are truly incredible! I've not seen much armor in my day, but this video revealed things I never could have imagined. The arrows - a true work of art and science. Well done!
At last a true experiment based on actual historical reproductions and not cheap low quality tat. Love how it’s been made more realistic too having the test medium have movement back like a person and not solid mounted. Love Tods content
@@pnkssbtz Actually, you can do both at the same time. And its not data, as such, its methodology. Any fool can video himself getting drunk and killed. Getting killed, repeatedly, in pre-planned ways that are designed to narrow down or disprove an intial hypothesis, now thats science. And you can still screw around as long as the test itself remains unchanged. :-)
Damn. That was impressive both in the expertise of the individuals as well as the scientific and historical execution. I think the sound of the arrows hitting the armour surprised me and gave me a new perspective on what medieval warfare was like. Scarry to begin with, but with powerful arrow hits happening all around you, even scarier.
At Agincourt, the arrows of the English archers didn’t need to pierce the French armor to create havoc. The French battle began with cavalry attacking the English archers on the flanks of Henry's knights, followed closely by 4-6,000 French knights as infantry going toward the center of the English line. John Keegan, the military historian, says the archers aimed at the Cavalry horses, wounding them, driving them in pain toward the center of the battlefield. This stampede brought them up against the French infantry, scattering units and knocking down knights. This was confirmed by the account if the monk of St. Denis. The stampeding horses also churned up the mud of the battlefield. The battle took place on a plowed field that was recently wet by rain. The French knights had to struggle through wet, sticky mud that became knee-deep. Some French knights actually died of drowning, not wounding when they fell and then were kept down by the press of their fellows behind. The English archers made this more difficult by forcing the French knights to keep their visors lowered and their heads bent, restricting their vision and keeping them from breathing correctly. The French knights that reached the English line were fatigued and short of breath. Given that the archers loosed thousands of arrows, some of the must have found joints or seams in the French armor, knocking down dozens of knights, creating an impediment for the knights behind them who had to climb over, or step on their fallen comrades, or possibly trip over them making a bigger trip/fall hazard for the knights behind. Then, when they ran out of arrows the English archers with their hammers, axes and knives attacked the French column from the flanks. The column was so compressed the French knights didn’t have room to defend themselves and died at the hands of the English commoners. The true secret of the win at Agincourt wasn’t the English longbow or the arrows, it was the archers themselves, adapting their attack and changing tactics as the situations developed.
good ...also mention the knight who have been "taken prisonnier" in the morning and executed in the rear camp ...when the french circumvention group have menaced the rear camp in the afternoon (with some desapproval of the "mens" who's see their "rancons disapear" )
it was the weather really, and the decision to advance the English line at the last minute, closing it on the rim of the muddy fields. Horses go crazy when they haven't solid ground under them, add the arrow barrage to that, the borken charge and yeah, you got a huge clusterfuck of knights burried under horses and comrades, unable to defend themselves. But the French weren't flanked by the English like you say. The English archers were formed into wedges behind stakes walls with men-at-arms between each wedges: thus they automatically flanked attackers from both sides, and could use crossfire at point blank. When the French got clumped up within those wedges and started to die of suffocate, they just mass surrendered and were massively made prisoners by the English archers and footmen, who saw in them good money from ransoms. They only started slaughtering them when King Henry heard about the French attempt to attack in the back and feared he couldn't both manage the prisoners (in fear of them revolting) and face this new threat from the rear. Then he had to take this harsh decision. But basically, the battle was over already when the French had surrendered. The massacre is quite a part of the battle itself.
The dense English Billmen formations and dismounted foot Knights played a part too, in many battles of the Hundred Years War smaller numbers of elite English Infantry overpowered French Men at Arms.
I'm more with Anne Curry here and less with John Keegan or similar more traditional interpretations. The results of the battle are easier to understand so. The mounted attack of the French was made by very few knights, a few hundreds, with allegedly low casualties. It was a failure but not very important for the battle. The main attack was on foot. The English seem to have had numerical superiority through the whole battle, as the two armies were nearly about the same size and the third French line never entered combat. The arrow storm surely took some effect on the French. I presume during a certain period of the battle, when the French and English men-at-arms were in close combat, some close range precision shooting happened, with penetration through limb armor perhaps or through gaps in the armor. The archers were well trained professionals actually. But the men-at-arms were at least as important for the outcome of the battle as the archers were.
I read somewhere that the French knights in Agincourt were unhorsed by the archers and then subdued by the foot soldiers as they struggled to rise out of the mud.
Rykehuss Wouldn’t there be arrows in the target behind the armor if he missed? Unless he missed by so much that it missed the target too, but given how good he is that seems unlikely.
Rykehuss I mean, sure it’s possible, but now you’re going from saying that they were just editing out the shots that missed to some sort of conspiracy theory where they’re trying to preserve this guy’s reputation as a great bowman. You’re saying they not only edit out the shots that missed but also went and took the arrows out of the target between each shot. It just doesn’t seem that likely. Why would they care about making this guy seem better than he is?
I think your first shot really answered a lot of the questions: it's possible to get into a target if you find the gaps in the armour, but if you hit a plate, the arrow is not going through.
Many tanks starting in WWII had something like that “V” on the frontal armor to deflect shots on the frontal plate to protect weak spots on the tank and the driver.
That first shot is actually a perfect example why the archer is still very dangerous, if they hit somewhere other than the armour you'll have a very bad time
It's not always safe even if it hit the armor though. You would still die or at least heavily injured here 20:43 if the broken arrowhead spin into your neck or face with that momentum.
@@Heavente Not all infantry had shields. Not just due to the weapons they carried (ie: pikes, 2handed swords/hammers, ect.) but shields were just as expensive as armor was, more so in some cases.
@@ShadowRhapsody81 Not saying all of them had shields, and price of shields depended on a quality of it. You can have shield which is just a plank of wood and it can protect you against shortbow
@@Heavente yea, but after it has 10+ arrows sticking into it.. assuming none of them jabbed your arm as they passed partially through the shield, it becomes a bit cumbersome :) Unless your talking something on the lines of the Roman Tower shields, but those were a bit pricy :)
what shocked me the most was that V usefulness actually, I thought it was just some lame looking design choice but it's actually what makes the difference between a wounded/dead on a battlefield and a "I didn't feel a thing" soldier out there, am guessing there has been quite a bit of arrows bouncing off in the face of soldiers before some brilliant guys thought of fixing this.. reminds me of those shoulder pad of samurais going high up to protect from arrows coming from the sides as well. probably ideas came out from really nasty experiences on the battlefield
Yea lol a lot of things in old armors that we see as weird actually had a very important purpose. The armor we have now has a lot less to worry about so it's a lot simpler looking. We defend from bullets, and for the most part bullets only, but these fuckers had to defend from swords, daggers, massive arrows, flails, halberds, and all kinds of insane shit. Old armor had a lot of features that we today see as aesthetic at first glance but they really did have a reason for being there
@@Elmithian oh of course, but that still ties into the bullet. Thankfully fragmentation and such from bullets are the only things we have to worry about now. Spalling is pretty badass tho lol. Does wonders for keeping fragments out of people's necks.
How is a smith and a fletcher along with an archer a dream team for battle? Only the archer is the one who fights while the others stay back still working.
imagine wearing this armor of generations of innovation and experience proven to be impervious to arrows... and the first arrow that flys by hits right underneath it lol
Like the ogre said... "LAYERS!" If you look at a suit of plate at a museum you'll see that the various pieces overlap. Some designs more than others obviously. There may be situations where you wouldn't bother with all the gear, but if you KNOW you're going into battle, you''re not wearing that breastplate on its own.
@@AM-hf9kk Depends on your budget really, only knights and nobles ever get to wear a full set. Men at arms and levies often only wore a chestplate and helmet
@@AM-hf9kk Yeah but how thick is it going to be at every layered place? steel-mastery.com/image/catalog/Description-Photos/AB-01-01/350x546xchuburg-breastplate-xiv-century.jpg.pagespeed.ic.2Cofx8zCAK.webp And that is the armor of a Count! This test proves, conclusively, that if you get shot in the beastplate, where armor is thickest and toughest, you will survive. However, even in modern-day a breastplate can take most rifle rounds. A helmet can take most pistol cartridges pistol cartridges, but if you get hit in the arm or leg there is no armor there. Furthermore, the number of knights that would be wearing full plate would be very small. It was quite expensive, and not something you would want to fight in all day (despite the fact that you were far more mobile in it than RPGs would have anyone believe). Complete full plate armor was rare on the battlefield, think like 1/5 or 1/10 knights. If all the other guys are getting wounded minorly, wounded majorly, or killed by the time you reach the enemy Longbowmen, it is going to decimate morale, and morale is the key to winning battles.
@@pulsarplay5808 yes, the horses were vulnerable, and you still have to remember that event at that level of armor, armor wasn't regularly standardized. Everyone wore what they pleased around some very basic guide lines at best, and even many comparatively wealthy knights couldn't afford everything. And again, what wins the battle is morale. If even 10% of the knights went down due to their horses being killed, or they themselves were wounded or killed, that would be enough to start a retreat or a route.
Shockingly academic. I kept saying in my head "what if, but what if," and then they brought on another expert and another surviving example to replicate. Bravo. I hope this gets the serious academic attention it deserves because this would be tremendously difficult to replicate to the same degree. I admit when I saw Tobias (which I recall from ScholaGladiatora), I knew I was in the right place. This channel certainly deserves my subscription. I was impressed when I saw the ballistic gel behind the doublet. Superb deliberation. This is modern historical and archaeological study gelling in a way it only can in the 21st, and on RUclips of all places.
I concur whole heartedly. I've seen a lot of stuff that's "this vs this" and though they test some things, it's often a pale comparison because they haven't taken into account how things have evolved over time. This experiment had a lot of deep consideration for those variables and was gracious enough to say occasionally, "We don't know." Also, on RUclips of all places. :D
It's weird, what I can't get over is the sound! I knew that sword hitting shields and armor would be loud, but the arrows hitting these plates near constantly would be ROUGH. Not to mention, the camera and mics were a pretty good distance away from impact, if you were the one getting hit, your ears would be ringing for sure! Also, that archery accuracy was NUTS, fantastic work by everyone involved!
I wonder what some comparable impacts might be. One of those arrows cracking on your helmet- is that like a large man cracking a pool cue over your head? 🤔
Well, tbh, that's pretty short range for a longbow. In practice, you had units of archers firing at other units over a distance. Kinda like shooting a shotgun, you don't need to be accurate, you just rely on numbers. Shoot enough arrows at a large target, you're bound to hit something. And that's why there was such a thing as archers gathering up expended arrows. Not all of them hit something hard enough to break them.
@@TheEvilDrR there’s a fair amount of debate about the “massed indirect fire” theory of longbows. Open battles were incredibly rare- the common use of the longbow would have been on raiding (the chevancée) and sieges. I can’t imagine small groups of archers operating in that fashion.
I remember my father teaching me about medieval knights, arms, and armor. A lot of what we thought we knew was disproved here. I wish he had lived to see this (he's have loved it). Thank you guys.
For any student of history this is absolutely fascinating ! I was one of the divers on the Mary Rose and Nick Rule (Margaret’s Son) and I looked at the remains of a quiver of arrows. The outer had gone, as had the arrow heads but the pierced leather plate that kept the arrows apart and the fletchings from crushing each other had circular holes in it. This told us that the arrows had heads like those used in this test. If they had been the traditional arrowhead shape the holes in the plate would have had to have a slot in order to accommodate the blades on the arrowhead. I would have loved to have been there when these tests were done. Brilliant piece of practical archeology!
What wood were the Bows made from out of interest? That can tell us if they were the less powerful English ones, or the far more powerful Welsh ones. For Naval engagements, the English Longbows would probably have been perfectly adequate, though Bladed Arrowheads would have been far more useful, for cutting Sails, Rigging, and Sailors without much, if any, armour? While potentially useful, Firearrows look to have been a complete waste of time, as arrow flight rapidly put out the fire. Otherwise, really handy against sails etc, if they could stay alight. 🙂👍
The Mary Rose was such a magnificent vessel. It's simultaneously a pity that the mightiest warship in Europe went down well before her time and a blessing, because otherwise she'd likely have suffered the same fate as her sister ship(the Peter Pommegranate) and the Henry Grace of God: Broken down for new timber after the end of her career.
Love how the English archer did that passive-aggressive thing right off the bat. He Killed the knight first, by hitting the weak spot, then carried on knowing that the point had been made.
the gaps weren't really significant points, for example being hit in the armpit or thigh is a whole lot less worse than being hit in the chest, armour is meant to cover vitals
I'd like to see you fight after getting shot in the armpit by a longbow. People shot arrows at soldiers for a reason. In fact, armpits are exposed because the inside of joints are almost impossible to cover with plate (and still move your limbs), not because they aren't vital points. Armpit punctures can even pierce a lung or heart depending on depth and angle. Tl;dr weak points on armour can be fatal, but also they are super hard to hit unless the archer gets lucky, so it is still totally worth wearing armour.
Max there’s an artery in the armpit called the axillary artery if they were to hit that you are dead Lol also on the inside of the thigh next to the groin is the femoral artery... another place you do not wanna get hit at.
It's nice to know that armor actually protected the knights that wore it, at least for a while. I think Adam Savage from Mythbusters would really enjoy watching this experiment.
It would be hitting shields, of which are primarily wood so you'd be hearing the thunk more than anything, alongside the screams of the arrows that say, hit someone's hand through it and pinned their hand to their shield, or hit their mostly exposed feet/legs.
@@andrewg4412 not necessarily, i mean, if you are wearing a full suit of plate armour, wouldn't a shield be a bit overkill when instead you could use a Zweihänder. I am of course no expert, but that's just my two bits on the subject. Also, i like to imagine that deafening sound of a volley of arrows hitting an armored formation.
@@thomaspitter3229 you think nobles standing against arrows wouldn't use a shield? Overkill > dead and I'll promise you for full plate there aren't gonna be enough to make a full formation of a large amount of troops.
@@andrewg4412 Many knights abandoned shields altogether because plate was all that was needed for protection. Those who didn't have full plate certainly would still use them.
I'm sure the archers of the day were like this man, started early, pulled heavy bows a lot so there were a lot of men like him. There is evidence in archers skeletons where calcium in the bones was heavier where they were stressed from pulling such massive bows. The bow they made, looks like Yew the same wood, same dimensions as the bows so well preserved on the Mary Rose so I think they hit the mark on the marksman, the bow, the arrows and the armor. But there were many designs of armor, the sharp curvature, the thickness of the example were superb. I've seen armor not so made and the results might be very different. My guess, poorly made armor was likely marginal flat designs doubly so. So like today, the army with the money to arm and armor the soldiers had the advantage.
@@alwaysbearded1 you gotta remember though, most people during the medieval ages was malnourished. But sure, people of higher status probably was built like this dude. But wasn't alot of archers peasants?
@@KevinUchihaOG My guess is yes and no. Nourishment depended on the weather, the fields you grew your food, how fertile the soil was and so on. Not to mention luck. Archers were like other foot soldiers as I remember (been a couple of decades since I studied this period in any detail) were like reserves called up to fight but expected to practice.
@@KevinUchihaOG good point ,the archers of that period did lose efficiency on longer campaigns as a lack of good food and harsh weather conditions, but in general they were bigger country workers who were raised with their bows and physically adapted to them . In battle they only carried no more than 24 arrows after that it was hand to hand with blades ,the knights weren't very mobile once unharmed.
I used to hate how real armor looks like, but people like Metatron, Tobias Capwell and Jason Kingsley changed my mind by showing how practical they are, and this video just made me love realistic armor even more
I love Joe's shooting stance. It looks unmanageable, off-balance, etc, but then you see that the only way he'd be steadier is if he drove a stake through each foot. So much power in that shooter!
@@rvsen5351 You got a citation for that? Longbow was the only legal sport for men in England for about 300 years. Every male over the age of 12 practiced every week. It was what Englishmen did. And we know what weights adults were drawing because of the Mary Rose. Bows don’t last the way swords do, they break or rot. But the Mary Rose had cases of 120-140# bows You’re claiming that for 300 years every man in England had back problems due to archery.
@@siamsasean I got it from a French RUclipsr, so I'm not sure it would be of any help, but, if you go to Wikipedia and search "English longbow", in the "training" section of the "use and performance", they wrote that it's use, due to the strength needed to pull back the rope, their skeleton were affected, and almost every change in human skeleton lead to problems.
yea, that was actually a surprisingly cool demonstration! I bet that helps similarly with melee strikes too.. resist stuff sliding up to the neck and underside of the chin.
This is fantastic science at work. Thank you for showing this collaboration. I love how you take the expertise of each individual in their part of this examination and test them with contemporary limitations. It is so informative why the French wore the cloth garment on the outside of their plate armor against the English longbows when we see this relatively simple demonstration
I think the only way to overcome armor in the time around Agincourt, would be throwing arrows en masse at the knights in hope of getting a lucky shot. Much like the first arrow in this Video just went under the breastplate through the mail and the padding.
@skaindu Nope. The piece of armor was pre agincourt. From around 1390. Agincourt was 1415. They say the field was muddy that day, maybe some went with less armor to be able to move better? We will never know. Until someone invents a time maschine...
I was impressed too when I saw that. Most tests of this sort have multiple glaring flaws in their testing methods. Here they utilized the best available knowledge in this subject and carefully crafted a period weapon, ammunition for it, and armor used to defend against it, and the condition of a person wearing it. They couldn't of done it any better short of having a real man in the armor. I guess volunteers were hard to find ;)
@@frankkolton1780 How about those dudes that volunteer to be the 'target' for the knife-thrower at the circus? I guess they must have been busy that day lol.
is it realistic though, I wonder. someone wearing that armor charging on horseback towards you is essentially galloping into the arrow. there's not gonna be a lot of give, if any.
@@gordonlekfors2708 Horseback charging still relies on your ability to rock back in the saddle, otherwise a couched lance strike would break the rider's back along with the target.
16:17 That peculiar stance he takes to move his legs to the left of the line of fire while bending forward to keep his massive shoulders and forearms directly behind to maximise the force he can apply is so cool.
And it looks very much like what you see in Medieval Art. A lot of manuscript illuminations have this funny looking stance where they are leaning forward like that but it seems to be quite an accurate portrayal of the archers.
@nutyyyy, except they also shot from the other side of the bow for faster reloads and also proven by Thrand and Shadiversity, you can pull the arrow way farther along the bow and not feel too much strain as compared to the other way
I don't believe people living in these ages had the beer belly or at least the soldiers. The way they've trained with these heavy weapons and heavy armors and the hard lives they were living wouldn't allow it
That breastplate would not cover the belly, only the upper torso, or right around where the ribs would be. Hence, breastplate. Because it covers the breast.
:)) There was no plate armor in Third Age Gondor, if you ask J.R.R.Tolkien. If you ask Jackson, on the other hand, it was as if they were wearing nothing at all. I'm never going to be able to watch T.T.T. the same way again.
@@ivandovranic5834 It seems every minas tirith foot soldier was able to afford a full plate armor and chainmail but the son of the steward and first captain couldn't, unlucky.
^this.@@adomv05 not exacly. Boromir has set out in a great hurry on a journey over many hundred miles to reach Rivendell, a lot of it over unknown and potentially dangerous/hostile terrain. It's out of question to undertake such an enterprise wearing all your wargear. In peacetime it would be surely be customary while being on a diplomatic mission, to be accompanied by a retinue of guards and servants, plus several beasts of burden to carry everything (potentially) nessecary, incl extra weapons and armor. P.S. Although yes, as a criticism of what we are seeing in a movie i quite accept your comment as is, apart from that Boromir bit.
@Baron Von Grijffenbourg well, yes. I'm sure filmmakers would probably defend their decisions as artistic choices, something along the lines of "we felt it to be more important (than historical accuracy [in a fantasy movie {snigger}]) to underline overall hopelessness of a situation, and characters being overrun by it" or something like that. So that only characters important to their artistic vision/choices can come across as hardy and heroic. I mean ok it's their movie; mine however is a right to disagree and criticize. The movies are good when they make an effort to be.
This was so interesting. I always love deep diving into specific historical events. Much thanks. Many takeaways but two biggest for me. The gravity that the likelihood that every innovation came from the severe death and torment of real people. Another being the psychological variables of being in a battle in real time. Being able to draw a bow under relaxed, controlled conditions vs thousands of grown men screaming orders and agony and running to kill each other. The hell of battle adding in all the adrenal and survival stimuli cannot be discounted and also effectively measured and duplicated. I have a feeling I could draw a bow a few extra times and if I survive realize later my shoulder is out of socket. What incredible people came before us. Also incredible people for making this very worthwhile video. Thank you
So many of us have been waiting for *so* long for testing videos of this quality. The workmanship, the attention to detail, everything is leagues ahead of so many tests that came before. Thank you so much you guys, for all the work you've put into this test.
Yes, so often these tests by others leave us yelling at the screen that they missed at least two variables. Our guys here thoroughly explored the variables they set out, and made clear what conditions needed exactly what further investigation.
@@donjones4719 They missed a line of archer giving different angles , closer to 90°/straight on to the side .Would expect it corrected later on by the French though ?
lots of shrapnel flying around there from a single impact. must be really insane in a volley. thanks all involved parties for the high quality production.
Well most shots arnt going to hit. As for wood shrapenal. Thats what actualy made canons in ship combat deadly. Not so much getting shot by the ball itself.
What I'm finding interesting is the archer's stance and draw, at 14:10 - it looks almost exaggerated, but also at the same time remarkably similar to how the medieval artists depicted it. It's one of those "no, it wasn't the medium - they really DID look like that when they shot."
A 15th century bishop, Hugh Latimer, wrote: "[My yeoman father] taught me how to draw, how to lay my body in my bow ... not to draw with strength of arms as divers other nations do ... I had my bows bought me according to my age and strength, as I increased in them, so my bows were made bigger and bigger. For men shall never shoot well unless they be brought up to it."
I do a fair amount of bow shooting and the technique he uses is often practiced when shooting heavier bows. This way you use your entire shoulders' muscle potential by doing an upward-like swing.
Yes its a technique that uses all the muscles in the body ; the raise up then down is to help draw the bow fully then release quickly once lowered to the eye level. Helps conserve energy while pulling the bow the most easily at heavy draws
Why is he in such a weird position though? I mean he's leaving his ass behind, it doesn't look stable at all. And just to clarify I'm not hating, it's just that I've never seen such form before.
@@happzy it's such a large draw weight that it's needed, if you look at depictions of longbow men, you see that their in that weird position...it's how you use the longbow
happzy it’s such a heavy draw weight that you can’t just pull it straight back like you would a normal bow. If you did so you are bound to tear a muscle or ligament very quickly. You need to lean your whole body into the bow so you aren’t just using your arm muscles but are also incorporating your legs and your back. I’m not the best at explaining this so maybe go check out Mark Stretton He’s pretty much the expert in shooting warbows and explains the technique behind it. www.blogger.com/profile/08217968119870391206 that’s the link to his blog profile and then go to his “Warbow archery tips, techniques, and seminars”’blog post.
RedBearded T A.) he did hit the shot, it just wasn’t in the time window for them to record a speed and force with the instruments they were recording with. B.) he’s has to precisely aim a 160lb bow shot after shot. You can’t just lock that draw back behind your ear and hold it there, you’re firing very quickly after your draw. Despite the fact that he really doesn’t have more than a half a second to aim, he didn’t miss the target once.
The thing that impresses me most is that breastplate is basically impervious, but the only time it hit maille it went throught it like if it was paper. It literally cut through mail and doublet like if it was going through a cotton t-shirt. So yeah, there was a reason why rich people paid fortunes for plate armour. Because it made a freaking difference.
Well by the early 1400s or late 1300s like 1390 plate armor started to become very common. In one of my arms and armor books that said that by the late 14th century or early 15th century a common Soldier and they poured night start resembling the Knights of the rich in equipment & armor. And it had to do with the fact that the Europeans were making extensive use of their automatic Hammers and automatic Machinery to make armor in vast quantities and cheap yet great quality. But then you're still right the upper class just end up buying more better engineered plate armor such as high Gothic with its fluting and lines to make the armor stronger without making it thicker yet giving it elegance and intimidation.
One more point, head of the arrow was not even suitable for piercing the cotton or mail, it was suitable for piercing the plate. So if head would be switched to for example needle type, it would pierce through mail even with more easy.
As a long -time archer and rpg gamer, I found this fascinating. Very well done. Kudos to all involved, you all are obvious masters in your fields and the level of objectivity you have shown is appreciated. Thanks so much!
I spent most of my aerospace career in the field of combat vulnerability, which is the study of how ballistic threats (mostly) interact with structures and aircrew. The parallels with this video are pretty amazing!
This is one of the best videos I’ve seen in RUclips that studied something I didn’t know I needed to know! Being a craftsman myself and a novice bow-smith it was awesome to see the contribution of the team you assembled, their individual skills and it was truly on the edge of my seat to witness the results! Tremendous presentation with accurate period pieces and for myself surprising results! Very surprised to see the arrows explode on impact. Thanks again for a superb video!
@@CommanderSharpEye Learn to juggle (bear with me) It doesn't make you fitter, smarter, better at your job etc. so you just have to want it for its own sake Once you have put in the hours you get competent, then good, then fancy, and it starts to pay off in strange ways (I'm getting toward the point…) Most people can't comprehend juggling, so firstly you'll find that people are impressed, but secondly you'll find that you're impressed with yourself (nearly there) Because it's such a useless accomplishment that can only be achieved through practice, it really highlights how flexible you are, you can do anything you want, and lots of "gaps" just seem that much smaller You want to be more confident in social situations, well that's something you can do. You want to be a leader at work, well that's just something to practice. TLDR play with your balls
I never knew the " V" was this important to the protection of the breast plate. Absolutely impressive design. As they said, combat experience clearly went into the design on the concept here. A lot of throats being hit .
The most interesting thing to me was how much all the "frills" and seemingly stylised aspects of classical armour were actually the result of centuries of experience and evolution in the craft.
@@tomhg38 i suspect the clothing fashion actually derives from the military, this V shape is what we find in shirt and coat design, maybe it has been influences by what warlords where wearing for fights and parades
It’s interesting that they must have taken after action reports and had smiths make adjustment. Wonder how many knights died before they make that change
@@Nathan-zw7nq I mean generally speaking, most armies are equipped for high mobility on a large scale. Just because you can produce more of better equipment doesn't mean it fits for the era. If non-black powder industrialized countries existed, whoever had the best overall equipment for mobility, protection and offense would be able to win the majority of battles and wars as technically numbers more often than not won wars in such periods. PS a little drunk so playing around with some scenarios.
This video is like watching the "Dream Team" of medieval archery technology. Fascinating if viewers grasp what they are seeing! I also like how it shows modern people arrogant if they believe people in older times were "stupid" b/c they did not have our modern technology. That V-deflector design was an engineering marvel we did not even understand until seeing how well it worked in these scenarios. I personally feel there is a lot of amazing engineering and tech hidden right in front of us when we view ancient devices. These people were laying the foundations for our modern society and were very wise and tech saavy for their own times.
Today we tend to think of our forbears as stupid louts...they were nothing of the sort. IFF they were stupid we wouldn't be here. You live and you learn...or you don't live long.
Why D&D? D&D does not even have any concept of armor penetration. The question whether an arrow does damage or not is ruled about precision solely. Not exactly the best system for accurate weapon physics.
@@Ksorkrax It could still be useful for a DM to describe a scene, as well as add new complications. Lindybeige gave a great example of how he altered a campaign in such a way: ruclips.net/video/7CfyU1mOZ1E/видео.html
@DarkEternal6 Kay, agreeing. But then: D&D has a very steep power curve. Considerations like armor configurations become somewhat less relevant even in pure storytelling if the characters in question are essentially half-gods, running around killing entire orc tribes and dragons. You'd need a more down-to-earth setting and power curve, not the high magic settings like Forgotten Realms or Golarion.
I really enjoyed this video... After reading some of the comments i'd like to point something out. Most of us lump "middle age" battles into one compact fantasy. We must remember that several centuries elapsed during the time period and many of us have this Robin Hood or King Arthur type of movie in our minds. To put it in context, the American Civil War and WWII were only 75+ years apart... imagine how much warfare changed between the two. Some of the battles we discuss may have occurred 2-300 years apart and the imagery in our heads gets easily confused. The type of fighting, weaponry, battle formations, and strategy could have been vastly different between the battles but our minds compress those differences into fallacies. These guys chose a very narrow slice of one of the most historically verifiable battles to analyze and I think they did a great job.
But middle ages are called dark ages cause changes were very insignificant. In 200+ years things changed like between your examples. The force of "hights" telling what is right, standart and godwill mattered. It is most seen in Japan, where swords and armor stayed the same for hundreds of years cause it was a law-restricting thing. But yeah. Armour is definatelly great arrow-protection. Swords would do even less damage. Only pickaxes and looking for joints.
@@Storyfrombolvar on the one hand yes and on the other hand no. the kinds of armour being discussed in the film were very much the pinnacle of of it's technology tree and were leagues apart from the kind of armour tht would have been used in the 1100's and the 1200's. done forget though that helms have visors, with enough arrows flying in some would (through probability alone) find their mark. ditto armpits and other awkward joins. horses eyes werent always completely armoured (and as shown some of those glances flew off with quite a bit of force), you wouldn't need to kill a warhorse to take it out of the reckoning, splinter in the eye or shaft in the withers and you've got a tonne of mobile annoyed horse liable to kick everything round it to death. which they were absolutely trained to do. then multiple that by several thousand, cram them into a tight funnel that's also a mud pool, and probably littered with caltrops and pot holes as well for good measure... well, there's your massacre.
@@Storyfrombolvar The "Dark ages" were hundreds of years earlier than the part of the middle ages this video is talking about. The later middle ages are when the term "dark ages" was coined, referring to the lack of sources from the time (in other words, looking back, the period was "dark" because they had little idea what was happening in those centuries.)
The entire medieval period was a big arms race between the people making weapons and armor to outdo each other. Hurting-people technology definitely wasn't static.
With a range of 350 yrds, archers would be wounding the relatively unarmoured horses, and the less well protected armed servants, etc accompanying the knights..... maddening horses, throwing some riders, messing up the formation, slowing up the charge. With each archer firing up to 12 arrows a minute, (one every five seconds), and the battlefield shaped like a funnel you can imagine the chaos....the few knights that get near to the stakes then have needle Bodkins aimed through the visors etc or at horses heads. 5000 archers could get off 60,000 arrows in a minute, ( arrow supplies allowing), at 10,000 knights etc.... and most formations will retreat before they loose 50% casualties. Keep up the good work. Love the videos.
Everything about this is brilliant. All the makers and their knowledge alongside the Archer's skill. It's one of the greatest things I've ever watched. I love this.
@@Fidel_L.Bousquet1970 not true, it was a requirement for knights to have a set of full plate armor and regular foot soldiers wore at least a breast plate and a helmet. And while knights were mostly landlord's they weren't necessarily nobels.
@@Killerbee_McTitties how on earth were people knighted before the advent of full plate armor then? That makes absolutely no sense. To begin with, the definition of knight varies according to the era we are talking about. Armor and arms were expensive even for knights, and many knights were actually "poor" and thus unable to afford something like a full plate armor set.
I like that before the shooting started, they showed the length they went to make the setup (bow, arrows, armour, etc) as realistic as much as they can.
and the grunts and the screams in pain and possible orders or attempts at communication and swords and blood all over the place... it really must've been a horror, I'm sure any piece of media be it video games or tv/movies don't ever come close to truly representing what it was
Imagine trying to get 300 meters across a field with thousands of arrows clattering on you and your fellow soldiers. With all that arrows you must hold your arms tight to the body and keep looking at the ground to avoid getting hit in the visor. Your vision is no more than a couple of meters and you can't really hear anything useful over the roar of arrows hittin all that armour. When you finally are closing the enemy line you are perhaps exposed to shots from the side and you will have to start raising your head to see the enemy. Now you will be lucky to be in the position you are suppoed to be and having to have had the visor down all the way you are probably very hot and exhausted.
Not to mention the horses going crazy and guys being thrown around after the horses get hit or crushed as the horses fall on them. Ive heard that the horse was a good target for archers because it was a large target, wasnt as well armored usually and unhorsing a cavalryman means hes now just a vulnerable guy on foot.
This is so much better than any TV documentary.
Yup anything with Tobias Capwell is gonna be good.
TV can't even compare to this
The best ;)
You can have more information density when you don't have to dumb everything down to knuckle dragger with 9 second attention span.
It’s better because it’s done by professionals of their respective professions, not by someone who’s job it is to get better fewer ratings ;)
Can we appreciate that they did everything right in terms of how they are testing? Amazing.
Thank you and we tried in a very short time frame
Pretty much, never heard that they wore cloth armour over metal armour, makes sense that the french would more than the english as my understanding was that the french didnt use archers as much as the english. The only thing i would have liked to have seen on the test of possible would some way of detecting how much force reached the knights body, was this enough to knock them off of the horse? Would they have been winded? could this still have broken bones?
@@Scasne Well this is material for at least two additional videos I guess. Depends on the draw weight of the bow, was the enemy moving? How was he armored? What was the distance? Was it windy? What kind of arrow head was used? How long was the arrow? How does the energy getting transfered with certain arrow head type? What part of the body is getting hit?
@@jamesnetherian4981 Please dont think i was deriding the video in any way as it was truely interesting, I know there is a limit to the sheer number of variables that are possible, which is why i said about being able to measure the actual effect to the body as then we could have compared to known similiar situations (bullet proof vests for example) but then i dont know how a dummy with sensors in reacts compared to that gel.
@@Scasne Dude... all cool. I'd never thought you'd deriding the video or something. I was just brainstorming how many question arise if you wanna go in that direction of myth busting or testing. :D
Gentlemen that was better produced than many televised living history shows. I was delighted by the honesty, accuracy, attention to detail, source discussions..... & surprised at the outcome. Well done! More please.
Most tv shows care more about spectacle then information.
Indeed. I've seen some Shit-shows masquerade as "documentary". Please no more 1/4mm costume armor tests with modern bows and arrows
The prevailing theory is that what really won Agincourt was the terrain which funneled the French Knights and the mud which slowed them down and the English archers killed them mostly using swords, axes and daggers.
What do you mean, are you saying ancient aliens isn't true😳
@@linusa2996 No it is not the prevailing theory. They killed them predominately with arrows and finished them off with daggers and mallets. Your theory is not supported by Juliet Barker, Ian Mortimer, Clifford J. Rogers, Michael Jones, John Keegan and Anne Curry to mention a few of the top scholars on this subject. The prevailing theory is that most of the men-at-arms had plate armour made of wrought iron and low-carbon steel. Around 2/3 or more. Limb protection and the side of helmets and breastplates were usually thin - around 1.5 mm. The French men-at-arms formed a solid line, 20 men deep. When the archers started to shoot at them from 100 meters away, the arrows were shot into the formation and came down at an angle of 14 degrees. As they moved closer this angle started to decrease. Most of the arrows struck the highest part of the tightly packed formation - the helmets - and the rate of hits increased as they moved closer. In addition to this, the arrows usually came from the flanks and hit the sides. The result was arrows piercing the side and visors of their helmets, as pointed out by Gesta Henrici Quinti - "... the missiles which by their very force pierced the sides and visors of their helmets ..." (Curry, Sources 36).
In addition to this they penetrated plate amour covering the shoulders so that they were unable to lift their weapons. They also pierced the aventail protecting the neck and throat, the voiders protecting the arm pits, the back often covered by mail or a thin plate, and the thinner side of breastplates made of wrought iron. That was the majority of the killing. The archers moved forward to finish them off before they died. The secondary factor was the press in the middle. The third was the melee in the center. The sorces are very clear on this. The arrows did most of the damage. “In the opinion of the French, it was precisely what injured the most their enemies which assured the English of victory, especially the continuous way in which they had rained down on our men a terrifying hail of arrow shot.”
The Religieux (Monk) of Saint-Denis. (Curry, Sources 106)
The knights and high ranking esquires (sons of knights) of good armorial standing were in the center of the first division and made it to the English lines because they had better armour than the rest of the 10,000 men-at-arms participating. Here the arrows usually came from the front. This decreased their ability to find a weak spots, but they wounded and hampered them nontheless. They numbered scarcely 2,000-3,000 men from a total of 4,800 in this division. Of these, 1,500 or so were taken as prisoners to Calais. The second division had around 1,600 gros valets and 3,400 men-at-arms of lower status. These gros valets had poor quality plate armour and mail. Against them the arrows did the job from 100 meters away.
The fact that this guy easily pulls a 160lb longbow gives me chills. That is so ridiculously heavy.
i came to say the same thing, thas awesome
I'm not sure I'd call it 'easily', but yeah, Joe is a legend.
@@Elmojomo I only say easily since he claimed to be able to do it all day!
@@RC_Engineering Yeah, but did you watch the full video? He was definitely struggling to reach full draw, and didn't hold it long at all. I'm not saying it wasn't a mighty feat, since I can't draw more than about 45lbs repeatedly, but you could tell he was working for sure. 😉
@xionliing sh Yep!
"the thinner areas of the armor, like the legs or something, it might start to make a difference" no wonder that arrow to the knee took out that guardsman.
Didn't even take him out, just ended his adventuring days.
@@AJKecsk Now he just begs for sweetrolls
probably because he needs that knee to carry 150 pounds of armor
Arrow to the knee is also an euphemism for getting married.
Once I was an adventurer like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee
Number 1 rule of firing in 20th century: Always aim center mass
Number 1 rule of firing in 15th century: Aim literally anywhere but center mass
More like don't even aim at a plated knight and focus on their support troops.
1st century - 20th - future century : Aim for the head
Archers in battle did not aim, they fired at 45 degrees angle on the command: "Loose arrows!"
Man, I know a lot of times they were shooting from an elevated position. To me if arrows didn’t work nobody would use them lol. I imagine like anything else, even of that time everything is not created equal.
@@mcflotty agreed, also even though a longbow can’t pierce a piece of plate armour reliably that doesn’t mean it will be pleasant for the wearer I mean it’s still 200lbs of force concentrated in the area of a pen tip, the sheer force behind that will probably hurt you.
This is like.. 10 times better than any documentary on these topics funded and filmed for public television. Well done sirs.
And commercial television as well, sir.
Great! Really enjoyed this one.
Totally agree, never seen anything better on this subject,
Very much so, it's refreshing to see the test done correctly. In Agincourt there were reports of point blank shots to helmets... would be incredibly if they could test that, though safety might be a concern.
this is a scientific experiment, not a show
Can we talk about, that adding a simple V-shaped ridge had an enormous impact on lessening fatalities. It really does play a vital role overall.
No kidding. It seemed like every other arrow shot deflected off that thing and probably avoided a major injury.
V is for vital.
Isn’t that because it functions like a wedge so it moves it aside instead of piercing it
tanks are using same thing to ricochet artillery
@@milandjukic4583 …ricochet artillery?
this is by far the most scientific and thorough test of this type that I've seen. This is a landmark video in the medieval community. Well done!
Yeah except, they're all stationary, frontal targets... that's not very realistic, is it .
Could they not have used steel arrows?
@@Skyrilla A target in motion would be even harder to penetrate, and would accentuate the deflecting effect of the curved breastplate.
except they did not case harden the plate armor
ive seen better
actual English longbow with actual arrow heads used at the time
fired at actual armor not replica
it just dented the armor btw
armor beat the bow after all
it took the invention of a gun to defeat the armor and that ended the age of the knight
Spoiler: The reason people wore armor is that it worked.
Figure of speech.
It would be interesting to see a 200lb draw. The longbow was crazy and the training of archers was mandated for the peasantry.
Haha
Indeed
Well, snark aside I think there at least some notion in even fairly savvy medieval historical circles that English longbows were the primary method of turning back the French knights and Agincourt. As this video demonstrates, that is probably not the case, at least not directly. Getting a direct hit looks like it was pack a wallop for sure, but the idea that volumes of armor clad French knights were getting mowed down by archer fire seems to be a false one.
If anything, it seems like archer fire would be best concentrated on the least armored soldiers on the battlefield as a means to thin them out before melee ensues.
It didn't work out well for the French, all their armor weighed them down and messed up their vision.
As a 71 year old life-long fan of Medieval military equipment and a former SCA recreation it’s for 25 years (5 years fighting in 15th C armor), this is the absolute BEST experiment of Medieval arms vs. armor I have ever seen. Well done, sirs! Kudos...
Hello, my brother! Glad to see a fellow ex-anachronist. I remember when they were doing tests with 110# and it was controversial, now we're at 160# XD
22:00
Every time he said "experience," I hear "lives." Every new innovation in armor design was built upon dozens of deaths. I love that they gave us such a specific insight into history. More movies should give us this level of realism in historical stories.
The sound alone! So much more audible than in the movies, where it's always a muted 'tink.' To hear that clang ring out as someone got hit with an arrow, and to watch the arrow explode into bits, would actually be MORE exciting than what we typically see in movies.
dozens? its more like hundreds, maybe even thousands
“I’ve been shot, with arrows, in armor, for other experiments”. Imagine being able to utter that sentence.
I can utter it ....it wouldn’t be true but I am able
I've been shot, with arrows, in armor, but the arrows were padded and the draw weight was only 35 lbs.
SCAdians... did I shoot you at Estrella?
@@Nik.No.K you shall be silenced by the supreme court
@Andrew Laye And, just- in passing, as t'were.... My exact same thought
When I first saw the "V", I initially thought that its purpose was for bracing & reinforcing the breastplate area. However, the demonstration made it quite clear its real function and that the armourers of that day really knew what they were doing. Impressive engineering and a great video - Thanks!
my dumbass thought that the V was a chevron indicating rank like banneret or bachelor
I immediately realized it's for stopping ricochets.
@@thehuntermikipl1170 wow congrats
@@thehuntermikipl1170 You are so very smart how could anyone ever beseech you in such a way......
@@contraband1543 dont troll
Tod, that was just fantastic... Finally, all the correct pieces come together... You picked the right team, for sure.
britishmuzzleloaders just missing the gunpowder expert. ;) And good evening, nice meeting you here!
Didnt expect to see you here Rob
Yep, absolutely... I guess a lot of people on this and other channels have been anticipating this for a long time, fantastic to see it coming together.
Hi there. Thanks! It was a lot of work to bring all that together. Love your channel BTW
@@Legitpenguins99 Lot's to like at Tod's Workshop!
the archer is just amazing, just amazing. I had a go at bows at the Mary Rose museum at Portsmouth and it was almost impossible to draw the easiset bow. For this guy to perform all day long is just incredible.
Joe is pretty famous amongst archers and bowyers. He's been top dog in the historical archery world for a while now.
You get used to it
@@christopherchurch2653 Used to what?
Time to hit the gym, champ! 😆😆😝
He says in another video it took him 5 years to become that proficient.
That V in thee armor probably saved hundreds of lives.
They had hundreds of years of R&D. I would bet the first plate armors were shit but because some humans are smart they developed over time
V for vendetta? :)
Hundreds of thousands *
It's a feature in WWI trench armor as well.
And those saved hundreds of lifes then took hundreds of lifes.
This is the single best authentic demonstration of archery against armour. Exceptional work, lads. This is a must-see.
Thanks! BTW would love to see a response video from you!
This was very informative. You could add a metallurgist to your team. Excellent research!
Archery against high-quality steel armor.
Тогда как английские лучники уничтожили французских рыцарей при Азенкуре?
@@emoneyemoney5091 yes
Holy production values Batman!! Amazing top quality work!
If we want to nitpick there was a few audio issues, blatant switching from one microphone to another, different audio levels, a few clothes rustling noises; and on the video side on the arrows hitting a faster camera (for better slow motion) would have been better.But I nitpick, and compared to other (especially older Tod's) videos on the "noble amateur in his back garden" variety that is good production value indeed. Good job!
@@LiraeNoir we had three crew, no budget, and about 8 hours to film. Which is significantly less than the cheapest TV production. But you are right there are lots of things that are less than perfect
Oh absolutely. As I said this was good production value for its range. And if you do it again hopefully you can bit by bit remove the little issues here and there.
As a retired Mathematics and Engineering Professor, this testing is fantastic! It would be great to measure the speed and direction of the arrows during deflection, the energy delivered in various areas of the breastplate and ballistic gel, the wave shape through the gel, the possible strikes to the head and face even though there’s the “V” deflector, that’s diverted the arrow, how much wood hit surrounding objects like the faces and hands of comrades, and on and on. This stuff is sexy and needs further study. Thanks for the great videos! Bill from Minnesota, USA.
Thanks Dr. Sutherland. What sort of arrow shape would be best to penetrate armor?
@@smellypatel5272Please call me Bill. Maybe an arrow with a tip within a tip similar to armor piercing ammo we have today would have success penetrating body armor? The fractured arrow tips you guys found demonstrated the presence of extreme heat as they hit the breast plate: use this information to make an arrow tip of a material that when under high compression produces heat exceeding the melting point of the breast plate material, have a thin heat insulating agent behind that, and a hardened tip behind that. Also, an explosive material compressed behind a hardened tip would easily penetrate the breast plate. Slightly modern day, but definitely a hoot to play with. A third suggestion is to increase the energy of the projectile tip by reducing the size of its tip surface area in relation to the arrow’s total kinetic energy. The smaller the tip, the more energy focused on a tiny spot. The way the breast plate was dented from some of those hits tells me that you probably have high enough energy to penetrate the material with a very small diameter, hard, and tough projectile. Another method might be a siding weight that adds to the punch of the tip at impact, but the problem with this solution is to find the correct slide weight, the best travel length of slide relative to the time of impact, and discovery of the optimal ratio of weight/speed of the projectile to maximize the joules delivered. I’ll be watching. The best of luck, Bill
What does this say about the Battle of Towton?
This feels like watching a history channel documentary before it was taken over by aliens
I do miss the hilterlory channel
@Ian Or Hitler mind controlled by aliens.
My History Channel only runs Pawn Shop shows and car repair shows. I don't even know what that has to do with history. Rip me.
Ancient Aliens though is very entertaining. Kind of like The Room, unintentionally hilarious.
I believe this was around the same time when Mtv played music, before it was taken over by teen mom.
"i've been shot with arrows in other experiments" i'm sorry but i'm going to need those videos
Same
@@benjaminbraghtley515 he has we used to a bunch of crazy stuff years ago have known Tobias Capwell for decades
@@tramelius17 link
Would have liked to see them shoot those arrows at modern body armor just for comparison
Correction: shot with arrows in armour.
in addition to being decorative, the jupon had a practical application from these tests. the knight wasnt ALONE, he was in a line with other soldiers. imagine all those arrows exploding everywhere, all that debris flying into the other soldiers to the left or the right. maybe a head glanced into an eye of his mate to the side. with the jupon however, it CATCHES almost all of it, REMOVING the debris as a battlefield hazard almost entirely. i feel it was yet another military invention, aimed specifically at english longbows.
If knights were charging at 25-30km/h horse back it would change the physics.
History must be rewritten then may be longbow men could be good swords men.
Or tactically used to attract knight charges and skilled at capturing them.
Or wars are won black ops raiding , ambush, sabotage, burning of crops more than the battlefield like in movies.
If so, even if the french keep winning the battle due to armor theyll loose the war from mobility of light infantry plundering here and theyre knights keep defending in futility tiring them.
Or war could have been won on more verbal manner politically or psychologically. If the french common people support the english or dislike the government like ministers not the crown.
Since england could fight european countries and eurpean countries cant fight back due to geography of england. Cliffs and weather anf harsh sea. Like japan to korea snd china
@@ansonang7810 Where do you get this notion that "/.../european countries can't fight back due to the geography of england."?
The list is substantially long so I'll just highlight the Normans but if you wanna read on further in the provided link below I'd suggest looking at the Roman and Danish parts.
England was conquered by the Normans in 1066 and for several hundred years the newly established nobility in England would continue to speak French while battling France proper with (mostly) English fighters. During that period the Old English language was the tongue of a commoner in England. In fact, the modern English language today takes a lot of inspiration from French language due to this very reason.
I'm less knowledgeable about Japanese history and I don't feel like finding sources for this too (I'm sure you can look it up though) so take this with a grain of salt... At one point the Mongols were set to invade Japan but got caught up in a storm so perfect for the Japenese defence that they attributed a lot of mythical properties to their island. It's not unlikely that this could've also made an impact on both contemporary as well as future ideas of invading the archipelago up until the time when U.S.A. parked part of their navy outside. It could've literally been a lot of luck that dissuaded attempts at invasion.
Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasions_of_the_British_Isles#Norman_conquest_of_England
www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/changlang/activities/lang/norman/normaninvasion.html
@@Olamina-c1y yeah the British isles have been invaded half a dozen times but IIRC not since 1066 have they been invaded by mainland Europeans, so in that sense the present day english, or the norman descendants haven't been invaded.
AFAIK he japanese experienced holy winds or kamikaze twice which sunk invasion fleets
Absolutely.
Simply put, you're much safer if the people fighting next to you are also wearing jupons over their armor.
The mister pulling and shooting the bow is an absolute monster, 160 pounds is heavy if you've shot a bow, and the accuarcy is fenomenal.
"Imagine if you had 40 of those sticking out of you." You know what, if I see a guy with a sword and 40 arrows sticking out of him coming at me. I'm going the other way.
A knight would only pull out his sword as a last resort on a battlefield, he would rather be wielding a mace, hammer or a flail.
But all the peaasants behind and around you stop you from just saying "Im out, bye suckers!"
BioFake1 Or a pole ax or other pole arm.
@@Skyblade12 I agree, most likely pole arm.
that's how you get court martialed...
Informative and accurate. Great production values. Specialists worth listening to. No unnecessary drama, “fake excitement”, sound effects, noise or graphics. Exactly what I wish tv was.
You’ve earned a subscription from me 👍🏼👌🏽
Very true
Also, to the point, without awful and irritating delays.
@@CESSKAR And still a solid 30min of content.
Excellent comment. I agree entirely. Very well done.
Tv is being run by Aliens :)
Most historically accurate arrow and armor test hands down! Especially adding wheels so the armor rig can move to simulate body movement. Great job! The jupon was so interesting, makes sense why they would use it: reduced discomfort of having your armor heat up in the sun, more bludgeoning protection, reduced shrapnel, and reduced denting on your armor meaning less repair for your armor because replacing a textile is much cheaper and faster than plate armor. Oh man could you imaging being in the French army at Agincourt and having volley after volley of those arrows beating away at your armor. By they time you get into actual combat you would be bruised, ears ringing, out of breath/stamina, maybe even dazed if you get hit with one of those in the head, no way would you be fully fit to fight for any decent length of time. Crazy. More Please!!!
Not to mention the Jupon captured the first whole arrow. Now what if you had two or three of those sticking out of you? Are you going to stop in the middle of the field to pull it out? Who's going to hold your weapon? If you don't pull them out, or can't get your buddy to do it for you, how is that going to affect your spear/polearm/mace/hammer/sword play? Can't image it's going to make it any better.
I wonder if that jupon would make it easier for your opponent to grapple with you though. Seems like a fantastic grab point.
"reduced discomfort of having your armor heat up in the sun"
I dont think so. Putting a blanket on your carroof does not lower the temperature inside your vehicle, it is the ohter way around.
"Especially adding wheels so the armor rig can move to simulate body movement."
I found this interessting too. But I was thinking, when I get punched at material arts training my uper body use to take most of the force but my feed do not move that much. So would it be more realistic to not put the thing on wheels but make the shaft out of a flexible wood? This would also slithly change the direction of the arrow and probably lead it even more to the throat.
I don't know if the naked armor heating was really a problem seeing all the under layers. My thoughts if anything another insulating layer of fabric may actually be more of a heating problem. Also moisture could potentially be a problem adding a lot of extra weight seeing how porous the outer fabric looked.
I'd imagine heating was always an issue, witness the East Roman 'Klibanophoros' literally translated as "camp oven" or "metallic furnace" being equipped with combinations of mail, lamellar and fabric. France was probably a bit cooler than Anatolia or Syria though!
Question : is the modern shaft as hard as historical arrows? It seems that the shaft breaking would dissipate energy like a crumple zone in vehicle.
How did everyone there take the fantastic aiming for granted? 😂
That bow looks proper hard work to use
Simple, they assembled a dream team, and you wouldn't expect anything different from Joe Gibbs, dude's a monster.
@@prgnify The English regularly practised archery. I think there was a law that forced archers to practice. The skeletons recovered from the Mary Rose had deformed backbones due to pulling a bow string. The English archer was a professional, probably better than this chap shooting now
Yes. He has been shooting most of his life and three times a week.
@@haroldwebster1459 There was, enacted by Henry VIII from 1511 onwards (ie a hundred years later). Four hours, every Sunday morning, and not just for professional archers, for every able-bodied man. You should remember Henry V was functionally Welsh, raised around the nascent Ordnance base in Monmouth.
steel breast plate bonus:
- Defense vs Melee: +34%
- Defense vs Range: +67%
- Defense vs Mage: -20%
Especially if the Magic was fire or lightning. The Metal wouldn't be affected by fire, but it would be like roasting something inside an oven.
Upgrades Ranged weapons to Black Powder Rifles: Eat that armor!
Equiped that elven bow and use that armor-piercing arrow.. Cut through steel breast plate like butter..
We have known this ever since Runescape! :D
@@JoseMolina-ij3xx i would disagree if the armor is mail armor and hit by lightning, all those chain would make makeshift faraday gate.
Imagine that sound multiplied by hundreds, thousands of arrows hitting thousands of armored men in battle. Agincourt must've been crazy.
There is even mention of one of the survivors, that is sounded like a hailstorm
it was very, very noisy, I know I was there!!
I can imagine why the French morale got broken, truly terrifying!
with that many hits you would get messed up pretty quickly just from force of impacts. Perhaps tiring knights so foot soldiers could get in for the lucky strikes was one method of taking down what essentially were medieval tanks.
I think its shined in agincourt mainly because the arrows hitting horses in full charge really fucked those french knights up think about it there were at least 3 to 4 lines of cavalry and horses tripping over dead hours and riders flinging riders. I mean armor is movable in its been proven but I wouldn't imagine getting flung off a steed in full charge in a full harness would feel very good you chance of breaking you neck must've been pretty damn high and tbh idk about you guys but after getting slung outta my saddle I don't think I'd have very much fight in me and the French crossbow men probably shit their hosen witnessing that.
This was better content than the History channel has produced in YEARS. 10/10
Was Agincourt really fought by... ALIENS???
"This armor is really effective but was it really designed by humans?"
RobotSlug History channel hasn’t produced anything about history period in years
RobotSlug It has been many years since the History Channel has done any history. It needs renaming to the BS Channel.
The "History Channel" sucks.
Great video! I've been an archer for 50 years now and can say the craftsmanship of the armor and arrows are truly incredible! I've not seen much armor in my day, but this video revealed things I never could have imagined. The arrows - a true work of art and science. Well done!
At last a true experiment based on actual historical reproductions and not cheap low quality tat.
Love how it’s been made more realistic too having the test medium have movement back like a person and not solid mounted.
Love Tods content
13:45: is when the shooting begins
29:30 for the 10m shot at the armour
Thank you !!
Watch the whole thing pussy
The introductory speech was so epic it shouldn't be skipped, friends
Thank you so much mate
@@YOMAMAXXL I did, thats why I knew the time-stamps.
16:55
"There's not enough data yet" Translates to: "THIS IS REALLY COOL SHOOT MORE ARROWS AT IT"
Collecting data is the difference between "screwing around" and "science"...
@@pnkssbtz LMFAO
A real Mythbusters approach :) They just need to start blowing it up to go full MB
stupid grow up
@@pnkssbtz Actually, you can do both at the same time. And its not data, as such, its methodology. Any fool can video himself getting drunk and killed. Getting killed, repeatedly, in pre-planned ways that are designed to narrow down or disprove an intial hypothesis, now thats science. And you can still screw around as long as the test itself remains unchanged. :-)
Damn. That was impressive both in the expertise of the individuals as well as the scientific and historical execution. I think the sound of the arrows hitting the armour surprised me and gave me a new perspective on what medieval warfare was like. Scarry to begin with, but with powerful arrow hits happening all around you, even scarier.
Better production quality than anything on TV.
Yeah of course, Tv is run by Aliens :P
"Armor is so curved it's deflecting it exactly". In other words, it's Arrow-Dynamic!
Wow dude
Very good! Lol
Brilliant Captain! Literally loled
Its stealth armor
Brilliant bro
At Agincourt, the arrows of the English archers didn’t need to pierce the French armor to create havoc.
The French battle began with cavalry attacking the English archers on the flanks of Henry's knights, followed closely by 4-6,000 French knights as infantry going toward the center of the English line. John Keegan, the military historian, says the archers aimed at the Cavalry horses, wounding them, driving them in pain toward the center of the battlefield. This stampede brought them up against the French infantry, scattering units and knocking down knights. This was confirmed by the account if the monk of St. Denis.
The stampeding horses also churned up the mud of the battlefield. The battle took place on a plowed field that was recently wet by rain. The French knights had to struggle through wet, sticky mud that became knee-deep. Some French knights actually died of drowning, not wounding when they fell and then were kept down by the press of their fellows behind. The English archers made this more difficult by forcing the French knights to keep their visors lowered and their heads bent, restricting their vision and keeping them from breathing correctly. The French knights that reached the English line were fatigued and short of breath.
Given that the archers loosed thousands of arrows, some of the must have found joints or seams in the French armor, knocking down dozens of knights, creating an impediment for the knights behind them who had to climb over, or step on their fallen comrades, or possibly trip over them making a bigger trip/fall hazard for the knights behind.
Then, when they ran out of arrows the English archers with their hammers, axes and knives attacked the French column from the flanks. The column was so compressed the French knights didn’t have room to defend themselves and died at the hands of the English commoners.
The true secret of the win at Agincourt wasn’t the English longbow or the arrows, it was the archers themselves, adapting their attack and changing tactics as the situations developed.
good ...also mention the knight who have been "taken prisonnier" in the morning and executed in the rear camp ...when the french circumvention group have menaced the rear camp in the afternoon (with some desapproval of the "mens" who's see their "rancons disapear" )
it was the weather really, and the decision to advance the English line at the last minute, closing it on the rim of the muddy fields. Horses go crazy when they haven't solid ground under them, add the arrow barrage to that, the borken charge and yeah, you got a huge clusterfuck of knights burried under horses and comrades, unable to defend themselves. But the French weren't flanked by the English like you say. The English archers were formed into wedges behind stakes walls with men-at-arms between each wedges: thus they automatically flanked attackers from both sides, and could use crossfire at point blank. When the French got clumped up within those wedges and started to die of suffocate, they just mass surrendered and were massively made prisoners by the English archers and footmen, who saw in them good money from ransoms. They only started slaughtering them when King Henry heard about the French attempt to attack in the back and feared he couldn't both manage the prisoners (in fear of them revolting) and face this new threat from the rear. Then he had to take this harsh decision. But basically, the battle was over already when the French had surrendered. The massacre is quite a part of the battle itself.
@@chrisball3778 Just a small point - Rear ranks were rarely 'more eager' That's why they were in the rear. The eager beavers were up front.
The dense English Billmen formations and dismounted foot Knights played a part too, in many battles of the Hundred Years War smaller numbers of elite English Infantry overpowered French Men at Arms.
I'm more with Anne Curry here and less with John Keegan or similar more traditional interpretations. The results of the battle are easier to understand so. The mounted attack of the French was made by very few knights, a few hundreds, with allegedly low casualties. It was a failure but not very important for the battle. The main attack was on foot. The English seem to have had numerical superiority through the whole battle, as the two armies were nearly about the same size and the third French line never entered combat. The arrow storm surely took some effect on the French. I presume during a certain period of the battle, when the French and English men-at-arms were in close combat, some close range precision shooting happened, with penetration through limb armor perhaps or through gaps in the armor. The archers were well trained professionals actually. But the men-at-arms were at least as important for the outcome of the battle as the archers were.
I read somewhere that the French knights in Agincourt were unhorsed by the archers and then subdued by the foot soldiers as they struggled to rise out of the mud.
That archer’s aim is insane. Being able to consistently hit the breastplate from that distance with such a heavy draw weight- wow!
Joe Gibbs is a member of the English Warbow Society. He makes his own bows, and experiments with a wide variety of draw weights.
Its called editing. Of course they wont show the shots he missed.
Rykehuss Wouldn’t there be arrows in the target behind the armor if he missed? Unless he missed by so much that it missed the target too, but given how good he is that seems unlikely.
Jaxon Burn Those arrows can be removed.
Rykehuss I mean, sure it’s possible, but now you’re going from saying that they were just editing out the shots that missed to some sort of conspiracy theory where they’re trying to preserve this guy’s reputation as a great bowman. You’re saying they not only edit out the shots that missed but also went and took the arrows out of the target between each shot. It just doesn’t seem that likely. Why would they care about making this guy seem better than he is?
I, for one, welcome our new overlord: professionalism.
It's a refreshing change ain't it
"Professionals have standards" and standards these guys have
I think your first shot really answered a lot of the questions: it's possible to get into a target if you find the gaps in the armour, but if you hit a plate, the arrow is not going through.
Many tanks starting in WWII had something like that “V” on the frontal armor to deflect shots on the frontal plate to protect weak spots on the tank and the driver.
That first shot is actually a perfect example why the archer is still very dangerous, if they hit somewhere other than the armour you'll have a very bad time
Then there is a big fuck you called shield.
It's not always safe even if it hit the armor though. You would still die or at least heavily injured here 20:43 if the broken arrowhead spin into your neck or face with that momentum.
@@Heavente Not all infantry had shields. Not just due to the weapons they carried (ie: pikes, 2handed swords/hammers, ect.) but shields were just as expensive as armor was, more so in some cases.
@@ShadowRhapsody81 Not saying all of them had shields, and price of shields depended on a quality of it. You can have shield which is just a plank of wood and it can protect you against shortbow
@@Heavente yea, but after it has 10+ arrows sticking into it.. assuming none of them jabbed your arm as they passed partially through the shield, it becomes a bit cumbersome :)
Unless your talking something on the lines of the Roman Tower shields, but those were a bit pricy :)
what shocked me the most was that V usefulness actually, I thought it was just some lame looking design choice but it's actually what makes the difference between a wounded/dead on a battlefield and a "I didn't feel a thing" soldier out there, am guessing there has been quite a bit of arrows bouncing off in the face of soldiers before some brilliant guys thought of fixing this.. reminds me of those shoulder pad of samurais going high up to protect from arrows coming from the sides as well. probably ideas came out from really nasty experiences on the battlefield
It also helps to spread impact stress.
I'm not sure they didn't feel a thing with these impacts.
Yea lol a lot of things in old armors that we see as weird actually had a very important purpose. The armor we have now has a lot less to worry about so it's a lot simpler looking. We defend from bullets, and for the most part bullets only, but these fuckers had to defend from swords, daggers, massive arrows, flails, halberds, and all kinds of insane shit. Old armor had a lot of features that we today see as aesthetic at first glance but they really did have a reason for being there
@@thugasaurusrex6004 We still need to build body armor with fragmentation spread in mind
@@Elmithian oh of course, but that still ties into the bullet. Thankfully fragmentation and such from bullets are the only things we have to worry about now. Spalling is pretty badass tho lol. Does wonders for keeping fragments out of people's necks.
This was an amazingly well and honestly executed demonstration with a lot of humble craftsmen that represent the best in their field…I got chills!
Joe the archer, Will the fletcher, and Kevin the armorer.
Sounds like a dream team, prepared for battle.
Also sounds like their job titles could have become their surnames
@@derronong9331 If the internet was invented back then, I would have been called something like Robert Shitposter
@@Kensuke0987 Now thats funny.
@@Kensuke0987 Joe Archer, Will Fletcher, Kevin Smith
How is a smith and a fletcher along with an archer a dream team for battle? Only the archer is the one who fights while the others stay back still working.
imagine wearing this armor of generations of innovation and experience proven to be impervious to arrows... and the first arrow that flys by hits right underneath it lol
Like the ogre said... "LAYERS!" If you look at a suit of plate at a museum you'll see that the various pieces overlap. Some designs more than others obviously. There may be situations where you wouldn't bother with all the gear, but if you KNOW you're going into battle, you''re not wearing that breastplate on its own.
@@AM-hf9kk Depends on your budget really, only knights and nobles ever get to wear a full set. Men at arms and levies often only wore a chestplate and helmet
@@AM-hf9kk Yeah but how thick is it going to be at every layered place?
steel-mastery.com/image/catalog/Description-Photos/AB-01-01/350x546xchuburg-breastplate-xiv-century.jpg.pagespeed.ic.2Cofx8zCAK.webp
And that is the armor of a Count!
This test proves, conclusively, that if you get shot in the beastplate, where armor is thickest and toughest, you will survive. However, even in modern-day a breastplate can take most rifle rounds. A helmet can take most pistol cartridges pistol cartridges, but if you get hit in the arm or leg there is no armor there.
Furthermore, the number of knights that would be wearing full plate would be very small. It was quite expensive, and not something you would want to fight in all day (despite the fact that you were far more mobile in it than RPGs would have anyone believe). Complete full plate armor was rare on the battlefield, think like 1/5 or 1/10 knights. If all the other guys are getting wounded minorly, wounded majorly, or killed by the time you reach the enemy Longbowmen, it is going to decimate morale, and morale is the key to winning battles.
@@pulsarplay5808 yes, the horses were vulnerable, and you still have to remember that event at that level of armor, armor wasn't regularly standardized. Everyone wore what they pleased around some very basic guide lines at best, and even many comparatively wealthy knights couldn't afford everything.
And again, what wins the battle is morale. If even 10% of the knights went down due to their horses being killed, or they themselves were wounded or killed, that would be enough to start a retreat or a route.
Plate was effective until gunpowder weapons.
Shockingly academic. I kept saying in my head "what if, but what if," and then they brought on another expert and another surviving example to replicate. Bravo. I hope this gets the serious academic attention it deserves because this would be tremendously difficult to replicate to the same degree. I admit when I saw Tobias (which I recall from ScholaGladiatora), I knew I was in the right place. This channel certainly deserves my subscription. I was impressed when I saw the ballistic gel behind the doublet. Superb deliberation. This is modern historical and archaeological study gelling in a way it only can in the 21st, and on RUclips of all places.
I concur whole heartedly. I've seen a lot of stuff that's "this vs this" and though they test some things, it's often a pale comparison because they haven't taken into account how things have evolved over time. This experiment had a lot of deep consideration for those variables and was gracious enough to say occasionally, "We don't know."
Also, on RUclips of all places. :D
I got like 10 minutes in and threw them a sub lol
@@hollenfeuer1 Me too
It's weird, what I can't get over is the sound! I knew that sword hitting shields and armor would be loud, but the arrows hitting these plates near constantly would be ROUGH. Not to mention, the camera and mics were a pretty good distance away from impact, if you were the one getting hit, your ears would be ringing for sure! Also, that archery accuracy was NUTS, fantastic work by everyone involved!
I wonder what some comparable impacts might be. One of those arrows cracking on your helmet- is that like a large man cracking a pool cue over your head? 🤔
Well, tbh, that's pretty short range for a longbow. In practice, you had units of archers firing at other units over a distance. Kinda like shooting a shotgun, you don't need to be accurate, you just rely on numbers. Shoot enough arrows at a large target, you're bound to hit something.
And that's why there was such a thing as archers gathering up expended arrows. Not all of them hit something hard enough to break them.
@@TheEvilDrR there’s a fair amount of debate about the “massed indirect fire” theory of longbows. Open battles were incredibly rare- the common use of the longbow would have been on raiding (the chevancée) and sieges. I can’t imagine small groups of archers operating in that fashion.
Thank god, a “bow vs. armor” test that isn’t a compound bow being fired at some LARP armor in someone’s backyard.
How dare you
When you picked on a specific timeline for the test, i know this experiment is going to be good.
it was the medieval time i think it was :/
You've done what dozens of big budget TV shows have failed to do. Top quality!
I remember my father teaching me about medieval knights, arms, and armor. A lot of what we thought we knew was disproved here. I wish he had lived to see this (he's have loved it). Thank you guys.
This is a modern tool steel breastplate at 2.5 mm, shot at with arrowheads made of iron. It didn't teache us anything of value.
For any student of history this is absolutely fascinating ! I was one of the divers on the Mary Rose and Nick Rule (Margaret’s Son) and I looked at the remains of a quiver of arrows. The outer had gone, as had the arrow heads but the pierced leather plate that kept the arrows apart and the fletchings from crushing each other had circular holes in it. This told us that the arrows had heads like those used in this test. If they had been the traditional arrowhead shape the holes in the plate would have had to have a slot in order to accommodate the blades on the arrowhead. I would have loved to have been there when these tests were done. Brilliant piece of practical archeology!
Thank you and glad you enjoyed the film and hopefully there will be more to come next year
@@tods_workshop please do more of these, we need more science like this.
What wood were the Bows made from out of interest? That can tell us if they were the less powerful English ones, or the far more powerful Welsh ones. For Naval engagements, the English Longbows would probably have been perfectly adequate, though Bladed Arrowheads would have been far more useful, for cutting Sails, Rigging, and Sailors without much, if any, armour? While potentially useful, Firearrows look to have been a complete waste of time, as arrow flight rapidly put out the fire. Otherwise, really handy against sails etc, if they could stay alight. 🙂👍
The Mary Rose was such a magnificent vessel. It's simultaneously a pity that the mightiest warship in Europe went down well before her time and a blessing, because otherwise she'd likely have suffered the same fate as her sister ship(the Peter Pommegranate) and the Henry Grace of God: Broken down for new timber after the end of her career.
@@jackdaone6469 hey, Mary, go get yer sister, Peter!
Peter Pomegranate, what a name!
So nice to see something that does not treat the viewer as a child.
Amazing work and focus on detail!
Can't wait for the next mythbusting :D
Love how the English archer did that passive-aggressive thing right off the bat. He Killed the knight first, by hitting the weak spot, then carried on knowing that the point had been made.
the gaps weren't really significant points, for example being hit in the armpit or thigh is a whole lot less worse than being hit in the chest, armour is meant to cover vitals
I'd like to see you fight after getting shot in the armpit by a longbow. People shot arrows at soldiers for a reason. In fact, armpits are exposed because the inside of joints are almost impossible to cover with plate (and still move your limbs), not because they aren't vital points. Armpit punctures can even pierce a lung or heart depending on depth and angle.
Tl;dr weak points on armour can be fatal, but also they are super hard to hit unless the archer gets lucky, so it is still totally worth wearing armour.
Yeah.. I think a half inch shaft through the lower intestine would incapacitate most Frenchmen.
Max there’s an artery in the armpit called the axillary artery if they were to hit that you are dead Lol also on the inside of the thigh next to the groin is the femoral artery... another place you do not wanna get hit at.
Exactly! Joe Gibbs is a badass.
It's nice to know that armor actually protected the knights that wore it, at least for a while.
I think Adam Savage from Mythbusters would really enjoy watching this experiment.
The sound of a volley of arrows hitting an armored formation must have been deafening.. and terrifying!!
It would be hitting shields, of which are primarily wood so you'd be hearing the thunk more than anything, alongside the screams of the arrows that say, hit someone's hand through it and pinned their hand to their shield, or hit their mostly exposed feet/legs.
I was thinking about that too. And the terrifying processes of discovery that lead to all these developments in tech...
@@andrewg4412 not necessarily, i mean, if you are wearing a full suit of plate armour, wouldn't a shield be a bit overkill when instead you could use a Zweihänder. I am of course no expert, but that's just my two bits on the subject.
Also, i like to imagine that deafening sound of a volley of arrows hitting an armored formation.
@@thomaspitter3229 you think nobles standing against arrows wouldn't use a shield? Overkill > dead and I'll promise you for full plate there aren't gonna be enough to make a full formation of a large amount of troops.
@@andrewg4412 Many knights abandoned shields altogether because plate was all that was needed for protection. Those who didn't have full plate certainly would still use them.
Absolutely amazing work. I loved it. Very well made, professional, scientific. I wish this got the views national television gets.
Why are you not verified yet
MAMA MIA
I was just about to recommend this to you too Metatron XD. You beat me to it!
😂😂😂 I was looking for you in the comments
Most Noble One! Nice to see you here. Yes these videos really are great.
This documentary was only possible due to the most skilled and strong, high poundage bow archer I ever saw.
I'm sure the archers of the day were like this man, started early, pulled heavy bows a lot so there were a lot of men like him. There is evidence in archers skeletons where calcium in the bones was heavier where they were stressed from pulling such massive bows. The bow they made, looks like Yew the same wood, same dimensions as the bows so well preserved on the Mary Rose so I think they hit the mark on the marksman, the bow, the arrows and the armor. But there were many designs of armor, the sharp curvature, the thickness of the example were superb. I've seen armor not so made and the results might be very different. My guess, poorly made armor was likely marginal flat designs doubly so. So like today, the army with the money to arm and armor the soldiers had the advantage.
@@alwaysbearded1 you gotta remember though, most people during the medieval ages was malnourished. But sure, people of higher status probably was built like this dude. But wasn't alot of archers peasants?
True that!
@@KevinUchihaOG My guess is yes and no. Nourishment depended on the weather, the fields you grew your food, how fertile the soil was and so on. Not to mention luck. Archers were like other foot soldiers as I remember (been a couple of decades since I studied this period in any detail) were like reserves called up to fight but expected to practice.
@@KevinUchihaOG good point ,the archers of that period did lose efficiency on longer campaigns as a lack of good food and harsh weather conditions, but in general they were bigger country workers who were raised with their bows and physically adapted to them . In battle they only carried no more than 24 arrows after that it was hand to hand with blades ,the knights weren't very mobile once unharmed.
I used to hate how real armor looks like, but people like Metatron, Tobias Capwell and Jason Kingsley changed my mind by showing how practical they are, and this video just made me love realistic armor even more
I love Joe's shooting stance. It looks unmanageable, off-balance, etc, but then you see that the only way he'd be steadier is if he drove a stake through each foot. So much power in that shooter!
African bushmen shoot with bows the same way.
And that's also why longbowmen had back problems
You don’t pull a 160# longbow, you push it.
@@rvsen5351 You got a citation for that? Longbow was the only legal sport for men in England for about 300 years. Every male over the age of 12 practiced every week. It was what Englishmen did.
And we know what weights adults were drawing because of the Mary Rose. Bows don’t last the way swords do, they break or rot. But the Mary Rose had cases of 120-140# bows
You’re claiming that for 300 years every man in England had back problems due to archery.
@@siamsasean I got it from a French RUclipsr, so I'm not sure it would be of any help, but, if you go to Wikipedia and search "English longbow", in the "training" section of the "use and performance", they wrote that it's use, due to the strength needed to pull back the rope, their skeleton were affected, and almost every change in human skeleton lead to problems.
The video we’ve been wanting from the HEMA community for years is finally here
Turns out those guys throwing money at smiths to craft proper plate was just not a fluke.
HEMA is a store chain in the Netherlands, pretty funny
@@dhrt5577 do they sell swords and armor? because i'd buy...
really the HEMA has a community?
it's not even such a great store, why is there a community?
I saw the V and thought it was just decorative, turns out it has a very practical purpose.
Me too...
That's the middle ages for you, pretty much everything has a reason. Even those crazy crests were created so you'd be able to recognize a Knight.
yea, that was actually a surprisingly cool demonstration! I bet that helps similarly with melee strikes too.. resist stuff sliding up to the neck and underside of the chin.
Big time. Less than 10 arrows used and it saved 2 of them from tearing into a theoretical jugular/eye/face.
Agree, the V doing exactly what it should was highly impressive. The pinnacle of thousands of years of armed combat until guns changed everything.
This is fantastic science at work. Thank you for showing this collaboration. I love how you take the expertise of each individual in their part of this examination and test them with contemporary limitations. It is so informative why the French wore the cloth garment on the outside of their plate armor against the English longbows when we see this relatively simple demonstration
The misconceptions are crazy about armour. Thank you for doing this. Absolutely amazing
I think the only way to overcome armor in the time around Agincourt, would be throwing arrows en masse at the knights in hope of getting a lucky shot. Much like the first arrow in this Video just went under the breastplate through the mail and the padding.
@skaindu Well, i think i remember that the bulk of the French army at Agincourt advanced on foot actually.
@skaindu Nope. The piece of armor was pre agincourt. From around 1390. Agincourt was 1415.
They say the field was muddy that day, maybe some went with less armor to be able to move better? We will never know.
Until someone invents a time maschine...
@skaindu Maybe. Patching up some old armor would be cheaper then make a complete new one, i think.
The Fairest, most objective test I've ever seen on the subject. Stellar work
The fact that they simulated the give of a real standing human rather than bolting the plate to the target elevates this x100 to me.
I was impressed too when I saw that. Most tests of this sort have multiple glaring flaws in their testing methods. Here they utilized the best available knowledge in this subject and carefully crafted a period weapon, ammunition for it, and armor used to defend against it, and the condition of a person wearing it. They couldn't of done it any better short of having a real man in the armor. I guess volunteers were hard to find ;)
@@frankkolton1780 How about those dudes that volunteer to be the 'target' for the knife-thrower at the circus? I guess they must have been busy that day lol.
And the shape is so important, not a flat target.
is it realistic though, I wonder. someone wearing that armor charging on horseback towards you is essentially galloping into the arrow. there's not gonna be a lot of give, if any.
@@gordonlekfors2708 Horseback charging still relies on your ability to rock back in the saddle, otherwise a couched lance strike would break the rider's back along with the target.
16:17 That peculiar stance he takes to move his legs to the left of the line of fire while bending forward to keep his massive shoulders and forearms directly behind to maximise the force he can apply is so cool.
And it looks very much like what you see in Medieval Art. A lot of manuscript illuminations have this funny looking stance where they are leaning forward like that but it seems to be quite an accurate portrayal of the archers.
@nutyyyy, except they also shot from the other side of the bow for faster reloads and also proven by Thrand and Shadiversity, you can pull the arrow way farther along the bow and not feel too much strain as compared to the other way
Fascinating. As an archer (Olympic recurve) the accuracy of the archer with a 160 longbow is astonishing
Indeed! Joe is crazy good with that longbow.
It's amazing how good you can get shooting with your intuition and muscle memory
and there I thought the armor's curve was made to fit a beer belly. damn.
boob plate
multi-purpose device
I don't believe people living in these ages had the beer belly or at least the soldiers. The way they've trained with these heavy weapons and heavy armors and the hard lives they were living wouldn't allow it
I thought that an armor's curves was to match the massive pecs and stone abs of the Spartans and Channing Tatum.
That breastplate would not cover the belly, only the upper torso, or right around where the ribs would be.
Hence, breastplate. Because it covers the breast.
"Man, I gotta get me one of these!" - Boromir
:))
There was no plate armor in Third Age Gondor, if you ask J.R.R.Tolkien.
If you ask Jackson, on the other hand, it was as if they were wearing nothing at all. I'm never going to be able to watch T.T.T. the same way again.
@@ivandovranic5834 It seems every minas tirith foot soldier was able to afford a full plate armor and chainmail but the son of the steward and first captain couldn't, unlucky.
Important to remember that they were travellers. Imagine wearing or carrying full armour for weeks, plus food and other necessary equipment.
^this.@@adomv05 not exacly. Boromir has set out in a great hurry on a journey over many hundred miles to reach Rivendell, a lot of it over unknown and potentially dangerous/hostile terrain. It's out of question to undertake such an enterprise wearing all your wargear.
In peacetime it would be surely be customary while being on a diplomatic mission, to be accompanied by a retinue of guards and servants, plus several beasts of burden to carry everything (potentially) nessecary, incl extra weapons and armor.
P.S. Although yes, as a criticism of what we are seeing in a movie i quite accept your comment as is, apart from that Boromir bit.
@Baron Von Grijffenbourg well, yes. I'm sure filmmakers would probably defend their decisions as artistic choices, something along the lines of "we felt it to be more important (than historical accuracy [in a fantasy movie {snigger}]) to underline overall hopelessness of a situation, and characters being overrun by it" or something like that.
So that only characters important to their artistic vision/choices can come across as hardy and heroic. I mean ok it's their movie; mine however is a right to disagree and criticize. The movies are good when they make an effort to be.
This was so interesting. I always love deep diving into specific historical events. Much thanks. Many takeaways but two biggest for me. The gravity that the likelihood that every innovation came from the severe death and torment of real people. Another being the psychological variables of being in a battle in real time. Being able to draw a bow under relaxed, controlled conditions vs thousands of grown men screaming orders and agony and running to kill each other. The hell of battle adding in all the adrenal and survival stimuli cannot be discounted and also effectively measured and duplicated. I have a feeling I could draw a bow a few extra times and if I survive realize later my shoulder is out of socket. What incredible people came before us. Also incredible people for making this very worthwhile video. Thank you
So many of us have been waiting for *so* long for testing videos of this quality. The workmanship, the attention to detail, everything is leagues ahead of so many tests that came before. Thank you so much you guys, for all the work you've put into this test.
Yes, so often these tests by others leave us yelling at the screen that they missed at least two variables. Our guys here thoroughly explored the variables they set out, and made clear what conditions needed exactly what further investigation.
@@donjones4719 They missed a line of archer giving different angles , closer to 90°/straight on to the side .Would expect it corrected later on by the French though ?
@@creator7583 True, that would have been great. But it left me wishing at the screen, not yelling. :)
If Age of Empires has taught me anything, its gotta do at least 1 damage.
You forgot limitless arrows!
to the chest, but not necessarily to the head
it’ll probably bruise the person underneath
@Just Watch Well, they did mention that the arrow head tips heat up significanly on impact ...
as long as there is a monk behind the line of knights its all good
lots of shrapnel flying around there from a single impact. must be really insane in a volley.
thanks all involved parties for the high quality production.
Crazy Russian Bot arrowheads and wood shards flying everywhere would be pure chaos
@@leroyjenkins2639 cool to see the V shaped deflector on the armor actually works to keep the stuff away from your face.
Crazy Russian Bot away from the target person. All bets are off for the guys next to him...
Didn't even consider the wood shrapnel untill I read your comment. Slightly terrifying
Well most shots arnt going to hit. As for wood shrapenal. Thats what actualy made canons in ship combat deadly. Not so much getting shot by the ball itself.
This is the Avengers level team of Medieval Arms and Armor. Fantastic work all around.
What I'm finding interesting is the archer's stance and draw, at 14:10 - it looks almost exaggerated, but also at the same time remarkably similar to how the medieval artists depicted it. It's one of those "no, it wasn't the medium - they really DID look like that when they shot."
Yes, you see a few different stances in the artwork, but I have definitely seen a good few that look just like Joe shooting.
A 15th century bishop, Hugh Latimer, wrote:
"[My yeoman father] taught me how to draw, how to lay my body in my bow ... not to draw with strength of arms as divers other nations do ... I had my bows bought me according to my age and strength, as I increased in them, so my bows were made bigger and bigger. For men shall never shoot well unless they be brought up to it."
I do a fair amount of bow shooting and the technique he uses is often practiced when shooting heavier bows. This way you use your entire shoulders' muscle potential by doing an upward-like swing.
Yes its a technique that uses all the muscles in the body ; the raise up then down is to help draw the bow fully then release quickly once lowered to the eye level. Helps conserve energy while pulling the bow the most easily at heavy draws
Can we appreciate the archer skill?!
Why is he in such a weird position though? I mean he's leaving his ass behind, it doesn't look stable at all. And just to clarify I'm not hating, it's just that I've never seen such form before.
@@happzy it's such a large draw weight that it's needed, if you look at depictions of longbow men, you see that their in that weird position...it's how you use the longbow
He can't even hit an accurate shot at 50 meters. He's not that good.
happzy it’s such a heavy draw weight that you can’t just pull it straight back like you would a normal bow. If you did so you are bound to tear a muscle or ligament very quickly. You need to lean your whole body into the bow so you aren’t just using your arm muscles but are also incorporating your legs and your back. I’m not the best at explaining this so maybe go check out Mark Stretton He’s pretty much the expert in shooting warbows and explains the technique behind it. www.blogger.com/profile/08217968119870391206 that’s the link to his blog profile and then go to his “Warbow archery tips, techniques, and seminars”’blog post.
RedBearded T A.) he did hit the shot, it just wasn’t in the time window for them to record a speed and force with the instruments they were recording with. B.) he’s has to precisely aim a 160lb bow shot after shot. You can’t just lock that draw back behind your ear and hold it there, you’re firing very quickly after your draw. Despite the fact that he really doesn’t have more than a half a second to aim, he didn’t miss the target once.
The thing that impresses me most is that breastplate is basically impervious, but the only time it hit maille it went throught it like if it was paper. It literally cut through mail and doublet like if it was going through a cotton t-shirt.
So yeah, there was a reason why rich people paid fortunes for plate armour. Because it made a freaking difference.
Maille ahead; Weakness:peirce
Well by the early 1400s or late 1300s like 1390 plate armor started to become very common. In one of my arms and armor books that said that by the late 14th century or early 15th century a common Soldier and they poured night start resembling the Knights of the rich in equipment & armor.
And it had to do with the fact that the Europeans were making extensive use of their automatic Hammers and automatic Machinery to make armor in vast quantities and cheap yet great quality.
But then you're still right the upper class just end up buying more better engineered plate armor such as high Gothic with its fluting and lines to make the armor stronger without making it thicker yet giving it elegance and intimidation.
@@Reactionary_Harkonnen And don't forget the cod piece attachments too.
And people think a katana will cut through it like a lightsaber xD
One more point, head of the arrow was not even suitable for piercing the cotton or mail, it was suitable for piercing the plate. So if head would be switched to for example needle type, it would pierce through mail even with more easy.
Beautiful video and collaboration. American and British Anglos working together ❤
As a long -time archer and rpg gamer, I found this fascinating. Very well done. Kudos to all involved, you all are obvious masters in your fields and the level of objectivity you have shown is appreciated. Thanks so much!
Glad you enjoyed it!
@@tods_workshop This is very interesting as someone who wonders about a more grounded fantasy game/book/setting/etc.
I spent most of my aerospace career in the field of combat vulnerability, which is the study of how ballistic threats (mostly) interact with structures and aircrew. The parallels with this video are pretty amazing!
god that sounds like a specialized field
Why not use your expertise for good? ... instead of for evil ?
Really excellent comment. Well done for sharing 👍👍
@@adambane1719 He saves lives, even keeping unarmed Medevac crewmembers alive.
@@jimmay1988 Sure buddy.... the military save lives... you just keep telling yourself that. lol
A video of this amazing quality deserves to go viral. Come on people, share it!
This is one of the best videos I’ve seen in RUclips that studied something I didn’t know I needed to know!
Being a craftsman myself and a novice bow-smith it was awesome to see the contribution of the team you assembled, their individual skills and it was truly on the edge of my seat to witness the results!
Tremendous presentation with accurate period pieces and for myself surprising results! Very surprised to see the arrows explode on impact.
Thanks again for a superb video!
"How many layers of armour and padding do you want?"
French Knights: "Oui"
I found this funnier than I really should have 👍
I would like to add : "Absolument"
Agincourt: You sure about that mates?
@@CommanderSharpEye Learn to juggle (bear with me)
It doesn't make you fitter, smarter, better at your job etc. so you just have to want it for its own sake
Once you have put in the hours you get competent, then good, then fancy, and it starts to pay off in strange ways (I'm getting toward the point…)
Most people can't comprehend juggling, so firstly you'll find that people are impressed, but secondly you'll find that you're impressed with yourself (nearly there)
Because it's such a useless accomplishment that can only be achieved through practice, it really highlights how flexible you are, you can do anything you want, and lots of "gaps" just seem that much smaller
You want to be more confident in social situations, well that's something you can do. You want to be a leader at work, well that's just something to practice.
TLDR play with your balls
I'm french, i laughed.
I never knew the " V" was this important to the protection of the breast plate. Absolutely impressive design. As they said, combat experience clearly went into the design on the concept here. A lot of throats being hit .
The most interesting thing to me was how much all the "frills" and seemingly stylised aspects of classical armour were actually the result of centuries of experience and evolution in the craft.
@@tomhg38 i suspect the clothing fashion actually derives from the military, this V shape is what we find in shirt and coat design, maybe it has been influences by what warlords where wearing for fights and parades
@@RickieBeubie You mean the V-neck sweater I have on right now is a sort of vestimentiary echo of a knight's armour?
@@oscarfranklin6534 Yes
@@oscarfranklin6534 damnn kinda cool to think about it that way lol
i thought that v shape on the armor was a decoration, but it turns out to be a functional piece protecting face!
I think people tend to forget that things are made with practical reasoning and purpose especially when it comes to military equipment.
It’s interesting that they must have taken after action reports and had smiths make adjustment. Wonder how many knights died before they make that change
@@Kevlar_soul knights and others in armour duelled, and trained together. Odd that you'd think that they wouldn't be testing their own armour.
@@NarutoMagicCyclops And most especially military equipment in periods before industrialization
@@Nathan-zw7nq I mean generally speaking, most armies are equipped for high mobility on a large scale. Just because you can produce more of better equipment doesn't mean it fits for the era. If non-black powder industrialized countries existed, whoever had the best overall equipment for mobility, protection and offense would be able to win the majority of battles and wars as technically numbers more often than not won wars in such periods.
PS a little drunk so playing around with some scenarios.
This actually looks too professional for RUclips, very well done sir/s.
This video is like watching the "Dream Team" of medieval archery technology. Fascinating if viewers grasp what they are seeing!
I also like how it shows modern people arrogant if they believe people in older times were "stupid" b/c they did not have our modern technology. That V-deflector design was an engineering marvel we did not even understand until seeing how well it worked in these scenarios. I personally feel there is a lot of amazing engineering and tech hidden right in front of us when we view ancient devices. These people were laying the foundations for our modern society and were very wise and tech saavy for their own times.
Agreed - We stand on our forebears' shoulders.
Today we tend to think of our forbears as stupid louts...they were nothing of the sort.
IFF they were stupid we wouldn't be here. You live and you learn...or you don't live long.
Very informative, I thought that most V shapes & other armor attachments were decorations. Great D&D and writing material.
Oh, hell yes. Definitely going to start applying this to Pathfinder.
I remember learning about it in school
Why D&D? D&D does not even have any concept of armor penetration.
The question whether an arrow does damage or not is ruled about precision solely.
Not exactly the best system for accurate weapon physics.
@@Ksorkrax It could still be useful for a DM to describe a scene, as well as add new complications. Lindybeige gave a great example of how he altered a campaign in such a way: ruclips.net/video/7CfyU1mOZ1E/видео.html
@DarkEternal6 Kay, agreeing.
But then: D&D has a very steep power curve. Considerations like armor configurations become somewhat less relevant even in pure storytelling if the characters in question are essentially half-gods, running around killing entire orc tribes and dragons.
You'd need a more down-to-earth setting and power curve, not the high magic settings like Forgotten Realms or Golarion.
I really enjoyed this video... After reading some of the comments i'd like to point something out. Most of us lump "middle age" battles into one compact fantasy. We must remember that several centuries elapsed during the time period and many of us have this Robin Hood or King Arthur type of movie in our minds. To put it in context, the American Civil War and WWII were only 75+ years apart... imagine how much warfare changed between the two. Some of the battles we discuss may have occurred 2-300 years apart and the imagery in our heads gets easily confused. The type of fighting, weaponry, battle formations, and strategy could have been vastly different between the battles but our minds compress those differences into fallacies. These guys chose a very narrow slice of one of the most historically verifiable battles to analyze and I think they did a great job.
But middle ages are called dark ages cause changes were very insignificant. In 200+ years things changed like between your examples. The force of "hights" telling what is right, standart and godwill mattered. It is most seen in Japan, where swords and armor stayed the same for hundreds of years cause it was a law-restricting thing.
But yeah. Armour is definatelly great arrow-protection. Swords would do even less damage. Only pickaxes and looking for joints.
@@Storyfrombolvar on the one hand yes and on the other hand no. the kinds of armour being discussed in the film were very much the pinnacle of of it's technology tree and were leagues apart from the kind of armour tht would have been used in the 1100's and the 1200's. done forget though that helms have visors, with enough arrows flying in some would (through probability alone) find their mark. ditto armpits and other awkward joins. horses eyes werent always completely armoured (and as shown some of those glances flew off with quite a bit of force), you wouldn't need to kill a warhorse to take it out of the reckoning, splinter in the eye or shaft in the withers and you've got a tonne of mobile annoyed horse liable to kick everything round it to death. which they were absolutely trained to do. then multiple that by several thousand, cram them into a tight funnel that's also a mud pool, and probably littered with caltrops and pot holes as well for good measure... well, there's your massacre.
Medieval warfare changed much slower than between the American civil war and ww2
@@Storyfrombolvar The "Dark ages" were hundreds of years earlier than the part of the middle ages this video is talking about. The later middle ages are when the term "dark ages" was coined, referring to the lack of sources from the time (in other words, looking back, the period was "dark" because they had little idea what was happening in those centuries.)
The entire medieval period was a big arms race between the people making weapons and armor to outdo each other. Hurting-people technology definitely wasn't static.
With a range of 350 yrds, archers would be wounding the relatively unarmoured horses, and the less well protected armed servants, etc accompanying the knights..... maddening horses, throwing some riders, messing up the formation, slowing up the charge. With each archer firing up to 12 arrows a minute, (one every five seconds), and the battlefield shaped like a funnel you can imagine the chaos....the few knights that get near to the stakes then have needle Bodkins aimed through the visors etc or at horses heads. 5000 archers could get off 60,000 arrows in a minute, ( arrow supplies allowing), at 10,000 knights etc.... and most formations will retreat before they loose 50% casualties. Keep up the good work. Love the videos.
Everything about this is brilliant. All the makers and their knowledge alongside the Archer's skill. It's one of the greatest things I've ever watched. I love this.
You lot should now test Tod's crossbow, just for comparison of the power of impact.
Movies: Only heroes don't die easy.
Reality: Everyone is a tank.
Everyone who could afford an armour
Not everyone. Only nobles and kings could afford an armour.
@@Fidel_L.Bousquet1970 not true, it was a requirement for knights to have a set of full plate armor and regular foot soldiers wore at least a breast plate and a helmet. And while knights were mostly landlord's they weren't necessarily nobels.
@@Fidel_L.Bousquet1970 Not everyone was fully armored, but not everyone was fully naked. Only this armor on video is a big thing to have.
@@Killerbee_McTitties how on earth were people knighted before the advent of full plate armor then? That makes absolutely no sense. To begin with, the definition of knight varies according to the era we are talking about. Armor and arms were expensive even for knights, and many knights were actually "poor" and thus unable to afford something like a full plate armor set.
I like that before the shooting started, they showed the length they went to make the setup (bow, arrows, armour, etc) as realistic as much as they can.
The sound of 6000 of these being fired at once and hitting 5000 knights.......Jeez...the SOUND of that would have been heard for miles.
and the grunts and the screams in pain and possible orders or attempts at communication and swords and blood all over the place... it really must've been a horror, I'm sure any piece of media be it video games or tv/movies don't ever come close to truly representing what it was
Imagine the adrenaline. You'd be dead from an adrenaline overdose. It would be awesome. Those guys must of had balls of fucking steel. Respect.
Imagine trying to get 300 meters across a field with thousands of arrows clattering on you and your fellow soldiers. With all that arrows you must hold your arms tight to the body and keep looking at the ground to avoid getting hit in the visor. Your vision is no more than a couple of meters and you can't really hear anything useful over the roar of arrows hittin all that armour. When you finally are closing the enemy line you are perhaps exposed to shots from the side and you will have to start raising your head to see the enemy. Now you will be lucky to be in the position you are suppoed to be and having to have had the visor down all the way you are probably very hot and exhausted.
Not to mention the horses going crazy and guys being thrown around after the horses get hit or crushed as the horses fall on them. Ive heard that the horse was a good target for archers because it was a large target, wasnt as well armored usually and unhorsing a cavalryman means hes now just a vulnerable guy on foot.