Finally some fair test against ranged weapons, and it is no surprise that the results are mostly positive! For those that still held doubts: mail armor works, even at relatively short range, bolts bounce off! The competition was truly fun to watch... one might say "riveting" 😂
I've been doing some on and off research about mail armor also known as "chain-mail", and turns out to be mail armor is a lot better than what people think. From the information I've gathered it looks like in my personal opinion better than scale & lamellar in terms of overall use of mail mostly on the maintenance part. The only thing that scale and lamellar armor has over chain-mail is it's better against blunt force, other than that mail armor is superior in a lot of ways in my opinion especially when it comes to maintenance & repairs. According to historical sources from both sides mail armor with gamberson did pretty darn good against arrows even against powerful bows. In fact according to the sources mail with gamberson seemed to be about almost equal to lamellar armor against missiles more or less. "...drawn up in front of the cavalry, stood firm as a wall, and every foot-soldier wore a vest of thick felt and a coat of mail so dense and strong that our arrows made no impression on them... I saw some with from one to ten arrows sticking in them, and still advancing at their ordinary pace without leaving the ranks" - Bahā'al-Dīn, year 1174 Also "...and whilst the Turks were fleeing before him, they (who shoot as well backwards as forwards) would cover him with darts. When he had driven them out of the village, he would pick out the darts that were sticking all over him; and put on his coat-of-arms again... Then, turning round, and seeing that the Turks had come in at the other end of the street, he would charge them again, sword in hand, and drive them out. And this he did about three times in the manner I have described." -Joinville It's no wonder why it was used a lot for so long by the Romans and medieval Europeans.
actually piercing weapons are the most effective weapons against chainmail and could still cause damage to someone even if it doesn't pierce the chainmail
You're right. I think the dummy and it's mounting also plays a huge role whether we see bolts fly through the air or get stuck. This test certainly wasn't resembling history close enough in all the details to say "And that's how it was in the middle ages". Yet it helps to become aware of the variety of such factors.
This test was conducted with a 220 kg crossbow with a 45 gram quarrel made by Andreas Bichler. The same crossbowmaker's 210 kg crossbow shooting a 57.7 gram quarrel shot at 93.8 joules (his video in "Medieval Composite Crossbow vs Body Armour Ballistic Vest"), so the crossbow in this video would have shot at similar joules. You can cross compare this with Todd Todeschini's test in which a longbowman shot at mail at 130 joules. Or The Way of Archery test in which lamellar armor was shot at 140 joules.
Thanks for this. They really glossed over the crossbow side of the test. It looked like they may have used at least 2 different style boltheads as well as the one shown at 1:33 isn't the same as the one shown pointing at penetrations later.
I have conducted an experiment on my channel using a high-quality piece of mail crafted for me by Phil Parkes. 6.5mm ID and 1.3-1.4mm thick round rings. A 75lb bow producing 55j of ke (Significantly less than the xbow used in this comp) was able to penetrate the mail plus 15 layers of reinforcing linen with ease using Type 7 needle bodkins. In the same test using a 103lb bow (86-90J ke) the armour sample defeated 50% of arrows with a "warbodkin" head (the same type used in the Ironskin comp). There are many moving parts when it comes to how effective mail is that are often overlooked.
People wouldn't have bothered with the cost, the weight and the long production time if all it did was stop cuts. Proper maille was always high end armor. There are far cheaper and faster to make options out there if all one wants to do is stop a cutting blade.
@@drakesomerset129 he is showing that maille was used as it was very good, unlike many movies and shows which have it do nothing, worn as decoration without padding
@@drakesomerset129 It's a reasonable conclusion - it is known that maille was widely used by soldiers from early Roman times until the late medieval period (and far beyond in regions where firearms were not as ubiquitous). It is also a fact that it takes a lot of time to make, a lot of man hours, and therefore it wouldn't make sense for it to have been so popular if it was not particularly effective against the most common weapons of history (the spear and various missiles). That's not to say that all maille can stop all missiles, or that even any maille can stop the most powerful projectiles (I think it's pretty well established that they can't), but there is a great variation in the quality of the metal used and the thickness of rings etc, not to mention variety in the arrow & bolt heads used by archers and crossbowmen. To further the case for maille being effective against penetrative forces, there are accounts (as far as I know, though it is more than a decade that I read of it) from 'Saracens' who were stalking the first crusading armies to arrive in the Levant - they noted with surprise that the heavily mailled crusaders were able to walk along without reacting to the arrows being shot into their backs (presumably from a considerable distance for the safety of the harassers). On the other hand, I remember another account (and it may have been a 'Saracen'/Arab etc once more against a European) where a powerful cavalry lance attack deeply penetrated through his European opponent's maille and severely wounded him. We can speculate that it in both cases that the accounts were considered worth making because they were not common occurrences in the experience of the combatants who passed them on, but it also demonstrates that it is not a simple case of maille being at one extreme of only protection against cuts or another extreme of being nearly as good as plate.
Damn, those Christian's rings fared incredibly in the stretch test. That's impressive. Btw, in those tests, I'd try piercing the mail with a sharp point, say of a rondel dagger. You could build a contraption measuring the weight which needs to be put in in order to bust a ring open. Also, testing with several crossbows of different weight could give us more of a variety of results, instead of "all got 0, one got 2".
Yeah a strong point like a rondel dagger stabbing through the sample into a standardized test media would give you a much better idea of how well they resist penetration especially if you go with the peak force needed to reach a specific depth through slow penetration.
Such many beautiful patterns to see, and great test to understand the quality of this type of armour. I hope you could make the second version soon, so this time the maille can arrive to your hands in time. Kinds regards my friend, and congratulations for your innitiative in this great event. ❤
Yes, hard to be sure from the video, but it seems only one sample of mail got penetrated in any significant way. Rest not at all. We don't know the energy of the bolts. But judging from other Andreas Bichler's works, I imagine that this 45g bolt from 485 pounds crossbow should be at least about 70J.
There is a quite difference between smaller rings patches and bigger rings ones… of course more tight is the mesh better it can resist to tip penetration
I have no clue why your channel has not more subscribers, your content is good and your informative but not boring to listen to. I subbed to you to see what awesome content you will be making in the future.
I've been doing some on and off research about mail armor also known as "chain-mail", and turns out to be mail armor is a lot better than what people think. According to historical sources from both sides mail armor with gamberson did pretty darn good against arrows even against powerful bows. In fact according to the sources mail with gamberson seemed to be about almost equal to lamellar armor against missiles more or less. "...drawn up in front of the cavalry, stood firm as a wall, and every foot-soldier wore a vest of thick felt and a coat of mail so dense and strong that our arrows made no impression on them... I saw some with from one to ten arrows sticking in them, and still advancing at their ordinary pace without leaving the ranks" - Bahā'al-Dīn, year 1174 Also "...and whilst the Turks were fleeing before him, they (who shoot as well backwards as forwards) would cover him with darts. When he had driven them out of the village, he would pick out the darts that were sticking all over him; and put on his coat-of-arms again... Then, turning round, and seeing that the Turks had come in at the other end of the street, he would charge them again, sword in hand, and drive them out. And this he did about three times in the manner I have described." -Joinville It's no wonder why it was used a lot for so long by the Romans and medieval Europeans.
Haçlı saldırında 1101 seferi münasebetiyle görmekteyiz. Bu sefer Haçlı Seferleri Tarihinde Haçlıların neredeyse üç büyük ordusunun tamamen yok edilmesi nedeniyle olsa gerek sıralama da pek sayılmaz. İşte bu savaşlardan birinde 5 Eylül’de Haçlılar, Ereğli Irmağı’nın yer aldığı Akgöl Ovası’na vardıklarında susamış halde ırmağa koşmuşlardı. Bu sırada Türkler yine benzer bir taktik ile pusuda beklemekteydiler. Suyun karşı yakasında pusuda konuşlanan Türkler aniden ortaya çıkarak Haçlıları mutat olduğu üzere ok yağmuruna tuttular. I. Kılıç Arslan, Danişmendli Gümüştekin, Harran Emirî Karaca ve diğer Türk beylerinin idaresindeki atlı birlikler Haçlıları çembere aldı. Kaçışmaya çalışan Haçlılar Türk okçuları tarafından öldürülürken harp meydanında yer alanlar da kılıçtan geçirildi.
This argument being overused so long that someone didn't pay attention to average composite bows being used on horseback. It's just 70lb in draw weight. At that level, lamellar could do just fine while being much cheaper option. In truth people began to cover their mail with brigandine or lamellar once they are known/available. And also not all maille were same, some of these maille that you cited as state of the art are too expensive to be made and equipping whole army.
@@cool06altwell with the right infrastructure, and technology you can equip an entire army with mail, the Romans did it and so did many Mediveal armies did it to a big extent. Also mail has a super long "shelf life" much, much longer than lamellar. Mail can be stored for a long time with very little maintenance, so you can stock more over time for future conflicts or wars and such equipping larger amount of soldiers. Well yeah you can cover your mail, that's not a weakness of it but a added benefit that you can "up armor" your mail. However mail with an arming-jacket underneath will do well for most threats, if not they would have drop mail fast and used something else that was already available like lamellar and or scale armor.
@@landsknecht8654 You need to specfy what kind of mail that you refer. Because for one thing, Roman "8 in 1, 5 mm fused ring" mail as in Lorica Hamata is not same as common medieval "4 in 1 8mm riveted ring" as in mail hauberk. Mail armor were passed from one generation to one generation, thats how their long shelf life advantage is all about. Because to start making mail from scratch is not feasible without the kind of infrastructure from Roman time. Most medieval armies barely equipped with mail. Even late medieval footmen with gambeson opt to just equip with small pauldron of plate, because even small plates are able to be mass produced than small rings of mail. The Norman mail is not your average mail because making 2mm 4 in 1 rings pattern is time consuming practise. Its not great to equip large army unlike lamellar.
@@cool06alt now I'm not completely disagreeing with you especially about the early middle ages. However: I know the Roman mail armors going to be different than the ones with medieval times, I was talking about the production. Medieval Europeans had a lot of infrastructure that the Romans left behind, including its armories. It's not like when the Western Roman Empire fell, everything just disappeared, and medieval Europe had to start from being caveman. For example, the Europeans had draw plates, that helps with producing mail or constructing mail a whole lot easier; this was already being done in Europe longer than anywhere else. To put it in this perspective it is believed that China didn't have draw plates until the 1600s so making lamellar armor for them would be a lot much better option. Draw plates helped the huge production of wire and made production of wire which is a whole lot easier than cutting strips of metal and hammering it into a wire. Such drawplates is the same technology the Romans had to produce mail for their huge amount of Legions. The other production of chainmail was stamping out rings from small plates from armor that were falling apart which is a much faster and cheaper option and it's probably the type of chainmail that many foot soldiers had. Also, you wouldn't have one or two people working on a whole shirt... Mail armor will last a whole lot longer than lamellar armor and coat of plates, thus giving it a bigger number of storage over time, and it's also easier to store and to maintain with very little maintenance on top of that both stored in the Armory or out in the field.
Hallo Sebastian! Ich habe zufällig deinen Kanal gefunden. Es ist immer schön, diejenigen in Deutschland zu sehen, die die Geschichte ihrer Vorfahren rekonstruieren, denn sie sind es wert. Viel Glück und mehr Abonnenten. Mit freundlichen Grüßen vom Russlanddeutschen aus Moskau.✊🤝
Robert here. Thank you. I enjoyed participating in the competition and hope to participate should you have any competitions in the future. It was a great learning experience for me.
Thanks for this. I was going to enter, but family matters forced me not to. I see now I would have come pretty much last. Great video and thanks again!
I wonder if you could manufacture rings in a way that doesnt compromise an area around the rivet, since I assume the thinness there is what causes the failiure
I would be curious as to the future of steel 3d printing and it's implications for making a solid ring maille. No butts, no welds, just solid formed interlocking rings
@Ironskin what are your broader conclusions from the tests? Is any kind of rivet superior? Is there a good ratio of wire and rivet diameter? Provides flattening the rings any advantage? Thank you for this very interesting video. Amazing stuff.
The Spanish with Hernan DeSoto in the Entrada to the American Southeast in what is not Florida, Georgia, SC, and Alabama found that the hickory and osage longbows of the Indians when firing arrows with deer antler tips were shooting through their maille shirts. I always found this fascinating.
Good afternoon. Thank you very much for the video. Please tell us what is the thickness and diameter of the riveted rings of Mr. Asher Terry's rings from the USA and what kind of super steel is there that a crossbow with a tension of 220 kg can withstand?
@@asherterry7173 Hi. Thanks for the reply. It's just that your rings have shown some incredible results. Can I find out the brand of the wire? Did you weld it, by the way?
Thanks for the great testing! It's neat to see the different failure modes. How useful and difficult would it be to measure penetration depth for the crossbow test?
I'm not sure what we would learn from it. If there was a gelatine block underneath, the bolt would partly push rings into it. The entire setup would depend a lot on how tight or loose the mail is mounted. When we started test I was hoping for any results that would make us see a difference between the patches - suitable for a measureable comparison. I wasn't so sure about the outcome.
Workmanship and design aside, id say the metallurgical differences between modern wires and wrought iron could vary considerably from historical models.
The pieces are made of iron with a low carbon content, not too far away from mild steel. That was part of the requirements. I'm talking a bit more about it here: ruclips.net/video/bc-kufntCwE/видео.html
Well now I'm wondering if there's really a point in not going higher ring thickness if it's that much better for its weight. You shouldve compared flexibility, and to an actual shirt or shirt-grade mail vs mail that is not flexible enough to be worn well.
the thickness of the rings doesn't matter as much as the density of the rings in the maille. for example, if the inner diameter if your maille is 9mm or 10mm you will require thicker rings. If you have a dense 6mm riveted maille it can be thinner and still retain the same strength. a 6mm maille shirt is like 30% lighter than a 9mm and stronger
Under the mail there is this dummy which is just a linen bag stuffed with cloth. It may have with its bounciness repelled bolts from sticking, that would have been stuck in a gelatine block.
Two observations: - at least one shot, at around 4:50, seems to be done with different crossbow? Composite one, instead of steel, with very different decoration on a tiller. How do those two compare? Interesting that Terry's and Dullies' mails in particular have very similar dimensions, yet one is apparently almost 40% heavier. Does the difference lie with the rivets and overlap size?
Well observed! We had different crossbows at hand. The weaker crossbow appeared to be the best option to observe different behavior amongst the patches. Only for that one shot we couldn't hold back our curiosity to see the stronger crossbow in action. Yet we didn''t rate that as part of the competition. Asher Terrys wire is 1.5mm and Paul Dullies is 1.4mm. That explains for some of the weight difference. Often a rivet can make up for a quarter of a ring's weight. That also means a quarter of the total weight. If you can tweak that a little, you can tweak your total weight significantly. Same goes for the overlap size.
@@Ironskin Yeah, I made quick search around Andreas Bichler's videos, and I spotted the same crossbow. (I think). It's cranequin spanned, so I assume it's at least around 700 pounds, though sadly it doesn't seem that it's specified anywhere. Would be interesting to see how it performs against same mail.... As far as wire goes, when thinking about it, increasing the thickness from 1.4 to 1.5mm alone increases surface area of ring's cross-section almost exactly by 15% (assuming it's roughly round in cross-section). So this alone is pretty significant.
Interesting video. Do you know the other important traits of the crossbows such as powerstroke or prod efficiency? Crossbow and bow power is determined by 3 main factors: prod efficiency, powerstroke, and draw weight. Knowing the draw weight of the crossbow alone is knowing less than half the equation of determining the crossbows power.
As Andreas Bichler told me, the draw-weight is 220kg, bolt weight is 53,5g, velocity is 49,3 m/s and the resulting energy from that is 65 J. On his channel (link in the description) you find more details about it. I'd be curious to know about powerstroke and prod efficeny. You seem to know more than me. Feel free to explain if it fits in a comment.
@@Ironskin Thanks for the info. Powerstroke is the draw length minus brace height, and efficency is how much energy the prod can transfer into the bolt/arrow...and these factors are as important as the draw weight in determining a bow or crossbow's power. This is shown by Todd of TodsWorkshop's video where his 150lb modern crossbow that can outperform his 960 lb medival crossbow (higher kinetic energy testing both lighter and heavier bolts iirc) due to the modern crossbow's higher powerstroke and efficency. Or videos that show a bow with a significantly lower draw weight shooting projectiles with higher kinetic energy than crossbows that have a higher draw weight but lower powerstroke & efficency. --- Edit: Formula moved to new reply.
@Ironskin - Furthemore, there is a formula to estimate power in inch-lbs: Efficiency x draw weight x powerstroke x 1/2. The inch-lbs can then be converted into joules. For the 220kg (485lbs) Andreas Bichler crossbow, since you already know the velocity (49.3m/s) and weight (53.5g) of the bolt, and that the joules is at ~65 joules...that comes out to 575.3 inch-lbs. We don't know the powerstroke of that crossbow, but most medieval European crossbows have a 6 inch powerstroke (TodsWorkshop/Leo Todeschini's comments on myarmoury says 6-6.5 inch for war crossbows and 4.5-5 inch for hunting crossbows). So if we plug that into the formula, we get: 485 lbs x 6 inch x Efficency x 1/2 = 575.3 Efficency = 0.395. So based on a 6 inch powerstroke, Andreas Bichler's 485 lb crossbow would have about 40% prod efficency to shoot that 54.5 gram bolt at 49.3 m/s. Thus, with this equation, we can estimate the power of crossbows or bows if we know the variables powerstroke, draw weight, and efficency. Draw weight and powerstroke are easy to test on the crossbow itself, while efficency is harder to test but you can extrapolate efficency based on similar designs of very similar bows/crossbows.
An excellent video, but I wouldn't mind knowing more about the test setup for the crossbow test (construction of the dummy, what textile defence was under the mail, etc). I was also surprised at how light the bolt was. For a 220kg crossbow (extremely heavy for battlefield use!) I'd have thought at 60-80g bolt would be more appropriate.
@@lscibor I have to disagree. You can't draw more than a 200-230kg crossbow with manual spanning devices, and that's allowing for belt and pulleys or levels. Cranequins were expensive devices used by mounted men, not infantry as a rule, and art shows simply belt and hook spanning devices in many parts of Europe well into the 15th century. Windlass crossbows, if they were ever used in the field, had a very limited period of use in the 15th century and were probably mostly confined to sieges. 180-200kg would have been much more common for infantry in the 15th and 16th centuries, especially in Central Europe. In Western Europe, they may actually have been 150-180kg for the most part.
Under the mail there was just a bag of linen filled with cloth. Admitedly that does play quite a role in how we see bolts behaving - them getting stuck or bouncing off. For us it mattered most how the pieces of mail would compare to each other - not so much what damage the bolts would do to a block of gelatine or therelike. Of course that is interesting, too.
@@Cahirable What you are saying has merit and is logical. Yet artwork depicts the Genoese Crossbowmen using windlasses, not belt and hook, which implies the use of a very heavy crossbow in very large numbers by well funded armies.
@@Ironskin On the subject of balistic gel. It was developed by the FBI to repeatedly model bullet penetration on soft tissue. Though it would provide a homogeneous medium for testing, I'm not sure that it would provide useful data against the low energy, cutting nature of an arrowhead beyond "how well an arrow/bolt penetrates gel" and it's rather expensive to use. I'd be fine with wet clay block tests (of measured material density) personally, though that would likewise, just show relative penetration in clay. But it might be cheaper and would be retestable. Likewise there are some cheaper, balistic gel knockoffs for sale on the interweb that are of dubious nature for comparison with the FBI stuff, but are at least comparable inside their brand. Just food for thought.
@@Ironskin I would also like to see other categories outside of historical, such as those using modern alloys or patterns found outside of western Europe. I feel it could give insight into why European 4 in 1 was so popular for so long.
The crossbow seems to be a German hunting bow. Not as powerful as a heavy military crossbow. I can understand why this might be useful to compare damage--as a military crossbow at that range would penetrate at every shot, surely? Though, no doubt, it might be compareable at short range, to a military bow at much greater range. Fascinating video!
nothing is clear - on what basis are the chain mail superimposed? The base should correspond to the under-fitting clothes and the body, i.e. not be rigid - if it is rigid, then all the energy goes to the penetration, and if it is not rigid, the elasticity absorbs part of the energy. How deep does the arrow go behind the chain mail ? The task of the chain mail is to protect against a cutting blow by blunting the weapon, and the main protection fell on the under-the-shoulder clothing -gambeson, doublet, etc.. In addition, the historicity of the materials of arrowheads and chain mail is not indicated - at the time corresponding to the crossbow used, both arrowheads and chain mail were iron.
1: These points are meaningless when all mail was tested in the same manner, it shows a direct comparison of how each mail acts compared directly to the other pieces, and that was the challenge, 2: The power of that crossbow would almost certainly stick into any backing, even if it was solid wood if it got good penetration. Tods workshop has shown this many times in his lockdown longbow tests and you see an example of this when the arm is hit on the retial armour used to back the sheets. 3: There are historical examples that have shown heat treating of mail, so to claim it is ALL mail was iron is flat out false and frankly shows a shocking lack of research for someone making themselves out to be an expertly, it took me moments to double check what I remembered and I am a layman 4: To claim all arrow heads were iron is ridiculous, in the 14thC there is much talk of case hardening being used after hints or outright demands given by historical text sources talking about arrow acquisition mentioning steel or steeled arrowheads. Tests show case hardening and waxing heads can make a notable difference to performance, if they could do it easily and it made a big difference they likely did it. As both waxing and case hardening would be lost to time historical examples would appear to be simple iron. In historical texts iron arrows were listed separately to steel and were cheaper to buy than the steel/steeled arrowheads, though the interpretation of 'steeled' varies case hardening seems to be the consensus 5: It's nothing about blunting the sword, that is nonsense. The sword simply can't cut through it. And you REALLY think it was no good against piercing? I mean the spear nd bow were only the main weapons on the battlefield for 1000's of years where chain mail was in use, and but clearly all those people before the coat of plates was invented were just stupid and dumb primitive fools, and all got stabbed to death by all the people on the field with spears. I mean come on use a brain ffs. Mail was even used in early jousting, much like late jousting armour it would likely have been specialist. High quality well made and in particular specialist mail, has incredible piercing resistance, demonstrated by Todsuff when their aventail was able to stop arrows form a 160lb war bow from close range. I don't usually like to go off on people, but you come in here making yourself out to be an expert, making sweeping statements many of which are flat out wrong, even as a simple historical enthusiast, with far less understanding of history than the artisans involved in this video, I was able to see your points missed reality on almost every case This video was a wonderful, and was made for fun, to let masters of their craft from across the world go head to head in test conditions They don't claim this is a good analogy for combat conditions. It was simply a good example of just how much better, hand crafted artiisan mail, is than the mass produced off the shelf variety,
@@jamesj4827 child, what is the manner of arguing with yourself?First, Todd's videos themselves say that only two arrowheads were found in the whole of England. Meanwhile, in our even in the smallest, provincial towns, in local museums, arrowheads, since the Bronze Age, are like dirt. So, less wet fantasies. Further, Tod claims that he is conducting tests, and not a circus - this directly follows from his statements. In addition, I advise you to go to practice hand-to-hand fighting, or boxing, to understand that not every blow leads to a knockout, and with armor - they protected from blows in which full force is not invested. After all, your words can be turned like this - for 1000 years people used swords, spears, bows, that they were so stupid to use them against impenetrable chain mail? Of course, the chain mail was of different quality - there is a letter from the Crimean tsar to the Russian tsar, when there was still friendship between Crimea and Russia (until the 20s of the 16th century), which contains a request to send another chain mail that arrows do not pierce, but such chain mail, they were called armor, were expensive and not even every boyar and not that a knight, a nobleman or a boyar's son could afford them. I will not answer all the semi-literate, purely commoner nonsense, but I will ask you to explain how the chain mail can be made otherwise than manually? Only a person who does not understand how chain mail is made can allocate handmade mail. Yes, if the rings are welded, etc. chain mail will be more expensive, But chain mail is always a piece of work - a medical fact and nothing personal.
But the constant reference to steel and steeled and hardend arrows in historical texts and the punishments outlined for providing arrows that did not met the grade to the crown speak to that. Right now to turn your argument around 'we have found almost no examples of swords with a grip on the hilt from the viking age, so we know they did not use them' Do you even understand what case hardening is? I mean, it was used in several of the videos tod put out so I would hope you bothered to pay attention considering the historical texts seem to support the practice and tod explained how it degrades in his videos and to memory, that his opinion is that case hardening would have been used I practiced martial arts in the past sweetheart, I never said a single blow lands a knock out every time, so again your talking nonessential rubbish to try and bluster your way over the litany of errors you made. Why do you think weapons adapted to increase their penetrative potential as mail become more and more common hun? Look at viking era swords vs late medieval Your like a mask denier 'it's not 100% effective so that means it is useless' As mail became cheaper and more wildly used, weapons adapted to be better at countering it, as plate armour came in, likewise. Mail eventually did become relatively cheap and wildly used, that does not mean this mail was of the same quality of that of a well to do knight. As tod spoke of, and as is blatantly clear. Armour quality varied, through time region, cost and smith. However, I did not say good mail is unbeatable, I said it is restive depending on quality, if your to bone headed to understand the difference in resistive and 'proof', then thats telling. I mean come on, I literally SAID armour varied in quality ffs, now your just repeating what I said and making it like you know more wtf, just take the L bud Fucking hell do you not understand the term ARTISAN vs MASS PRODUCED 'Handcrafted' artisan mail, is a comonly used term refering to the highest quality of mail. Mail taht costs $1000's not $100's. It is leagues apart from the 'handcrafted' cheap off the shelf mail. We see that time and time again in tests, the factors why are many, from the quality of the metal, the quality and uniformity of the produced rings themselves, the treatment of the rings in production. And of course smiths will TAILOR the armour to your requirements, just as HIGH QUALITY mail would have been made, in the classic armour trade off of Protection and Mobility. Ring diameter/thickness. can be addapted to the clients needs, ie if it was armour used in a joust, vs if it was armour in a complex joint. We see this all over the world, some examples even tailoring ring characteristics within a single piece to give the best of both worlds. Now I know you wee raised to think that mail was useless against the stab, and you don;t want to change your mind, your probably old, and old people don;t like to be wrong Personally I used to foolishly believe the same, that all mail was dog to a thrust. However, watching artisan armour being tested, even in this video, and more so by tods aventail. shows it is far more resistivity than many believe Even as far as learning tha with the right weave mail can become stiff and somewhat resitive to blunt force. Such as in artisan mail standards, with heavy duty weaves that will act more like a solid plate, natrually this makes sense to protect the throat, both with layers and stiffer armour. Now I';m not saying I know everything, my point was you came in like yo were fucking Tobias Capwell, but made many provable false claims. I had to double check once or twice, but it was easy to find information from historical source contradicting your blanket statements Rarther than back down, you doubled down and again claimed all arrowheads were iron. When this is not considered fact. Lack of historical pieces does NOT mean it did not happen, as in my example. As another Vikings rarely used shields, as we have few surviving examples of viking shields Or that they didn't use ropes and string as we have very little surviving evidence of any
3:40 You are using the wrong bolt. Piercing mail is done by going into it as if with a needle and popping the ring from its sides. The proper kind of bodkin is usually currently called "needle bodkin": very thin and with sharp sides. Even if failing, the bolts should have got stuck in the armour most of the times, not bounced off like most of the bolts in this video. Todd made a video about this. This is more or less the kind of bodkin you should have been using: ruclips.net/video/Uoz0eggQen8/видео.html You can see the difference between that bolt-head and the quarrel which you used. I tend to think that you would have penetrated the armour very effectively every time had you used a proper bolt. I hope you'll do an other video using the correct bolt-head to see the difference. The other needed change (of course) is that the piece of mail needs to be fastened just as well as if it was a whole armour, otherwise it dissipates the force, reducing penetration.
In the video we wanted to compare the sheets amongst them. It was not the intention to contribute understanding to specific battlefield circumstances. A needle bodkin is a good idea. Maybe it would have revealed more differences between the meshes. Yet it could have been stopped early by the things behind the mail and thus not reveal much. In any way for the video we had to use what we had at hand.
@@Ironskin Yes, but (as I suppose you've noticed as well) I'm seeing A LOT of persons here in the comment that takes this as a "demonstration" that mail armour stops crossbow bolts most of the times (which is certainly not the case historically for a good one-foot crossbow at that distance). I think it's pretty inevitable that persons assume that you are using a bolt optimized for piercing mail. I did too.
The other thing is, of course, that our steel is better than what they had back then (and I surmise the makers used unhistorically very good steel being in competition, sorry for assuming), but I really made this comment because of all the comments I'm seeing about this "proving" that mail armour is good at stopping crossbow bolts point-blank.
@@cernel5799 Not sure why it would not be the case. We have plenty of mentions about mail that was very resistant or almost immune to strong bows, and one foot crossbows were generally considered equal to "hand spanned" bows in proofing system, while winch operated crossbows were generally considered stronger. There was huge variety of mail being made in medieval period, and it was quite apparently. subjected to proofing system, just like breastplates or brigandines. From 1398 we have mention of " camisiam ferream, ex circulis ferreis contextam, per quae nulla sagitta arcus poterat hominem vulnerare." "Shirt of iron, woven from iron rings, trough which no man wielded bow could wound a man". From 1390 we have "Achettez de Simond Brufaler armeur, de mons . . . per le pris de un auberjon d'acier de toute botte." "Steel haubergon of full proof" - that's how "de toute botte" seems to be translated, it literally means roughly something like "of whole blow". Also from 1390 we have mention about mail were every link was stamped with mark of proof that it was " de botte casse". Seems insane, but apparently ,it was done due to the fact that singe plaque with mark could be obviously forged more easily. And we know of Islamic mail with stamp on almost every ring. Italian military manual from around 1450 recommends mail instead of brigandine for light cavalry, because they stop crossbows, bows, spears, swords and handgonnes and cover more area, which is fascinating, particularly firearms were traditionally considered too much for mail, though it obviously all depends on exact energy, distance etc. There are Polish sources about mail stopping bullets, but they seem to indicate that the padding of raw, unspun silk was most important there. As far as needle bodkin goes, it was traditionally considered best against mail, but it may not be the case, after all. We already have some interesting experiment out there: ruclips.net/video/tq_Bvc-0w08/видео.html We can see long needle bodkin curled on some very light mail, 0.65-7mm wire i only about 25% as thick as say, 1.4 mm wire, 1mm wire is about half as thick. That's some kind of delicate wire, almost. If that bodkin hit something like say, mail from Piquia, with 4.7 to 6 mm ID with 1.7mm x 1.84mm thick wire, it would probably get rolled like a party horn. Shorter, stouter bodkin may actually be more optimal here, actually, pointy enough to pry the links open, but more structurally sound.
@@lscibor Let me clarify that I've no personal experience on the matter: I don't shoot medieval replicas of bows or crossbows against anything. >one foot crossbows were generally considered equal to "hand spanned" bows in proofing system I'm not seeing how this can be the case assuming we are actually talking of good horn-and-sinew for the crossbow at least. That statement could make sense if both the bow and the crossbow are made of simple wood and the bow is long (so I guess this statement comes from someone who tested something like that, which is not the matter at hand). Here we are talking of good composite horn crossbows (not wood) spanned by guys that are good at that (so can easily span the 220 kg at this video or more). This video was indeed a very good missed chance of showing how easily a crossbow can pierce mail had a proper bolt-head been used, and (again) the iron they had back then was significantly weaker than what we can get now (which affects the armour more than the bolt-head). Also a simple leaf-shaped head would have done it, provided it was sharp of course. I'm sorry to say because I've a lot of appreciation for experiments like these, but I do believe this video is maybe unintentionally making misinformation, in that persons will unfortunately watch it and think that mail alone protecting you from point-black one-foot strong horn crossbows is a thing at all (which is not). Seeing an arrow or a bolt getting stuck in the armour while failing to penetrate is one thing (and that can happen), but seeing bolts bouncing off mail armour definitely means you are doing something wrong. I don't think I've ever mentioned bows, so those are off topic. Nevertheless, if we want to talk about that, I would agree that bows are very closely matched with mail armour, so either can prevail, and certainly there are cases of mail armour consistently defeating even composite horn bows (as well as cases of bows consistently defeating mail). Side note, I believe accounts of mail stopping arrows do often clarify that the arrows tend to remain stuck in the mail even when not piercing it, which is exactly what we are not seeing in this video.
Finally some fair test against ranged weapons, and it is no surprise that the results are mostly positive! For those that still held doubts: mail armor works, even at relatively short range, bolts bounce off! The competition was truly fun to watch... one might say "riveting" 😂
Yes!!!
I've been doing some on and off research about mail armor also known as "chain-mail", and turns out to be mail armor is a lot better than what people think. From the information I've gathered it looks like in my personal opinion better than scale & lamellar in terms of overall use of mail mostly on the maintenance part. The only thing that scale and lamellar armor has over chain-mail is it's better against blunt force, other than that mail armor is superior in a lot of ways in my opinion especially when it comes to maintenance & repairs.
According to historical sources from both sides mail armor with gamberson did pretty darn good against arrows even against powerful bows. In fact according to the sources mail with gamberson seemed to be about almost equal to lamellar armor against missiles more or less.
"...drawn up in front of the cavalry, stood firm as a wall, and every foot-soldier wore a vest of thick felt and a coat of mail so dense and strong that our arrows made no impression on them... I saw some with from one to ten arrows sticking in them, and still advancing at their ordinary pace without leaving the ranks" - Bahā'al-Dīn, year 1174
Also
"...and whilst the Turks were fleeing before him, they (who shoot as well backwards as forwards) would cover him with darts. When he had driven them out of the village, he would pick out the darts that were sticking all over him; and put on his coat-of-arms again... Then, turning round, and seeing that the Turks had come in at the other end of the street, he would charge them again, sword in hand, and drive them out. And this he did about three times in the manner I have described." -Joinville
It's no wonder why it was used a lot for so long by the Romans and medieval Europeans.
actually piercing weapons are the most effective weapons against chainmail and could still cause damage to someone even if it doesn't pierce the chainmail
Finally? I seen a lot of good tests.
The mail has no give unlike someone wearing it
The importance of shooting a connected garment, rather than an isolated patch, is an important detail, often ignored.
You're right. I think the dummy and it's mounting also plays a huge role whether we see bolts fly through the air or get stuck. This test certainly wasn't resembling history close enough in all the details to say "And that's how it was in the middle ages". Yet it helps to become aware of the variety of such factors.
Thank you for the opportunity to take part in this competition and this awesome video, Sebastian :)
This test was conducted with a 220 kg crossbow with a 45 gram quarrel made by Andreas Bichler. The same crossbowmaker's 210 kg crossbow shooting a 57.7 gram quarrel shot at 93.8 joules (his video in "Medieval Composite Crossbow vs Body Armour Ballistic Vest"), so the crossbow in this video would have shot at similar joules.
You can cross compare this with Todd Todeschini's test in which a longbowman shot at mail at 130 joules.
Or The Way of Archery test in which lamellar armor was shot at 140 joules.
Thanks for this. They really glossed over the crossbow side of the test. It looked like they may have used at least 2 different style boltheads as well as the one shown at 1:33 isn't the same as the one shown pointing at penetrations later.
I have conducted an experiment on my channel using a high-quality piece of mail crafted for me by Phil Parkes.
6.5mm ID and 1.3-1.4mm thick round rings.
A 75lb bow producing 55j of ke (Significantly less than the xbow used in this comp) was able to penetrate the mail plus 15 layers of reinforcing linen with ease using Type 7 needle bodkins.
In the same test using a 103lb bow (86-90J ke) the armour sample defeated 50% of arrows with a "warbodkin" head (the same type used in the Ironskin comp).
There are many moving parts when it comes to how effective mail is that are often overlooked.
Mail armor is a lot stronger then people think. The stuff is amazing.
People wouldn't have bothered with the cost, the weight and the long production time if all it did was stop cuts. Proper maille was always high end armor. There are far cheaper and faster to make options out there if all one wants to do is stop a cutting blade.
Yeah, with the water mill hammers you could make a massive amount of unfitted helmets and breast plates.
@@majungasaurusaaaawhere are you getting these “facts”?
@@drakesomerset129 he is showing that maille was used as it was very good, unlike many movies and shows which have it do nothing, worn as decoration without padding
@@drakesomerset129 It's a reasonable conclusion - it is known that maille was widely used by soldiers from early Roman times until the late medieval period (and far beyond in regions where firearms were not as ubiquitous). It is also a fact that it takes a lot of time to make, a lot of man hours, and therefore it wouldn't make sense for it to have been so popular if it was not particularly effective against the most common weapons of history (the spear and various missiles). That's not to say that all maille can stop all missiles, or that even any maille can stop the most powerful projectiles (I think it's pretty well established that they can't), but there is a great variation in the quality of the metal used and the thickness of rings etc, not to mention variety in the arrow & bolt heads used by archers and crossbowmen. To further the case for maille being effective against penetrative forces, there are accounts (as far as I know, though it is more than a decade that I read of it) from 'Saracens' who were stalking the first crusading armies to arrive in the Levant - they noted with surprise that the heavily mailled crusaders were able to walk along without reacting to the arrows being shot into their backs (presumably from a considerable distance for the safety of the harassers). On the other hand, I remember another account (and it may have been a 'Saracen'/Arab etc once more against a European) where a powerful cavalry lance attack deeply penetrated through his European opponent's maille and severely wounded him. We can speculate that it in both cases that the accounts were considered worth making because they were not common occurrences in the experience of the combatants who passed them on, but it also demonstrates that it is not a simple case of maille being at one extreme of only protection against cuts or another extreme of being nearly as good as plate.
Damn, those Christian's rings fared incredibly in the stretch test. That's impressive. Btw, in those tests, I'd try piercing the mail with a sharp point, say of a rondel dagger. You could build a contraption measuring the weight which needs to be put in in order to bust a ring open. Also, testing with several crossbows of different weight could give us more of a variety of results, instead of "all got 0, one got 2".
Yeah a strong point like a rondel dagger stabbing through the sample into a standardized test media would give you a much better idea of how well they resist penetration especially if you go with the peak force needed to reach a specific depth through slow penetration.
But Ironskin, this can't be right, we all know mail can be pierced by a stiff poke with a finger. XD
😂🤣
@@jamesj4827 modern movies
Such many beautiful patterns to see, and great test to understand the quality of this type of armour. I hope you could make the second version soon, so this time the maille can arrive to your hands in time. Kinds regards my friend, and congratulations for your innitiative in this great event. ❤
Very relaxing video. Nice to see so many different patterns of mail put under tests
Surely points should have been given for bolts that bounced off, even though rings were broken! The maille still would have prevented serious injury!
Yes, hard to be sure from the video, but it seems only one sample of mail got penetrated in any significant way. Rest not at all. We don't know the energy of the bolts. But judging from other Andreas Bichler's works, I imagine that this 45g bolt from 485 pounds crossbow should be at least about 70J.
There is a quite difference between smaller rings patches and bigger rings ones… of course more tight is the mesh better it can resist to tip penetration
This is great. Looking forward to seeing this!
Nice video, very professional. The samples were all so beautiful! Shout out to Mike Cervantes from the US!
I have no clue why your channel has not more subscribers, your content is good and your informative but not boring to listen to. I subbed to you to see what awesome content you will be making in the future.
I've been doing some on and off research about mail armor also known as "chain-mail", and turns out to be mail armor is a lot better than what people think.
According to historical sources from both sides mail armor with gamberson did pretty darn good against arrows even against powerful bows. In fact according to the sources mail with gamberson seemed to be about almost equal to lamellar armor against missiles more or less.
"...drawn up in front of the cavalry, stood firm as a wall, and every foot-soldier wore a vest of thick felt and a coat of mail so dense and strong that our arrows made no impression on them... I saw some with from one to ten arrows sticking in them, and still advancing at their ordinary pace without leaving the ranks" - Bahā'al-Dīn, year 1174
Also
"...and whilst the Turks were fleeing before him, they (who shoot as well backwards as forwards) would cover him with darts. When he had driven them out of the village, he would pick out the darts that were sticking all over him; and put on his coat-of-arms again... Then, turning round, and seeing that the Turks had come in at the other end of the street, he would charge them again, sword in hand, and drive them out. And this he did about three times in the manner I have described." -Joinville
It's no wonder why it was used a lot for so long by the Romans and medieval Europeans.
Haçlı saldırında 1101 seferi münasebetiyle görmekteyiz. Bu sefer Haçlı Seferleri Tarihinde Haçlıların neredeyse üç büyük ordusunun tamamen yok edilmesi nedeniyle olsa gerek sıralama da pek sayılmaz. İşte bu savaşlardan birinde 5 Eylül’de Haçlılar, Ereğli Irmağı’nın yer aldığı Akgöl Ovası’na vardıklarında susamış halde ırmağa koşmuşlardı. Bu sırada Türkler yine benzer bir taktik ile pusuda beklemekteydiler. Suyun karşı yakasında pusuda konuşlanan Türkler aniden ortaya çıkarak Haçlıları mutat olduğu üzere ok yağmuruna tuttular. I. Kılıç Arslan, Danişmendli Gümüştekin, Harran Emirî Karaca ve diğer Türk beylerinin idaresindeki atlı birlikler Haçlıları çembere aldı. Kaçışmaya çalışan Haçlılar Türk okçuları tarafından öldürülürken harp meydanında yer alanlar da kılıçtan geçirildi.
This argument being overused so long that someone didn't pay attention to average composite bows being used on horseback. It's just 70lb in draw weight. At that level, lamellar could do just fine while being much cheaper option.
In truth people began to cover their mail with brigandine or lamellar once they are known/available.
And also not all maille were same, some of these maille that you cited as state of the art are too expensive to be made and equipping whole army.
@@cool06altwell with the right infrastructure, and technology you can equip an entire army with mail, the Romans did it and so did many Mediveal armies did it to a big extent. Also mail has a super long "shelf life" much, much longer than lamellar. Mail can be stored for a long time with very little maintenance, so you can stock more over time for future conflicts or wars and such equipping larger amount of soldiers.
Well yeah you can cover your mail, that's not a weakness of it but a added benefit that you can "up armor" your mail. However mail with an arming-jacket underneath will do well for most threats, if not they would have drop mail fast and used something else that was already available like lamellar and or scale armor.
@@landsknecht8654 You need to specfy what kind of mail that you refer. Because for one thing, Roman "8 in 1, 5 mm fused ring" mail as in Lorica Hamata is not same as common medieval "4 in 1 8mm riveted ring" as in mail hauberk.
Mail armor were passed from one generation to one generation, thats how their long shelf life advantage is all about. Because to start making mail from scratch is not feasible without the kind of infrastructure from Roman time. Most medieval armies barely equipped with mail. Even late medieval footmen with gambeson opt to just equip with small pauldron of plate, because even small plates are able to be mass produced than small rings of mail.
The Norman mail is not your average mail because making 2mm 4 in 1 rings pattern is time consuming practise. Its not great to equip large army unlike lamellar.
@@cool06alt now I'm not completely disagreeing with you especially about the early middle ages. However:
I know the Roman mail armors going to be different than the ones with medieval times, I was talking about the production.
Medieval Europeans had a lot of infrastructure that the Romans left behind, including its armories. It's not like when the Western Roman Empire fell, everything just disappeared, and medieval Europe had to start from being caveman.
For example, the Europeans had draw plates, that helps with producing mail or constructing mail a whole lot easier; this was already being done in Europe longer than anywhere else. To put it in this perspective it is believed that China didn't have draw plates until the 1600s so making lamellar armor for them would be a lot much better option.
Draw plates helped the huge production of wire and made production of wire which is a whole lot easier than cutting strips of metal and hammering it into a wire. Such drawplates is the same technology the Romans had to produce mail for their huge amount of Legions.
The other production of chainmail was stamping out rings from small plates from armor that were falling apart which is a much faster and cheaper option and it's probably the type of chainmail that many foot soldiers had. Also, you wouldn't have one or two people working on a whole shirt...
Mail armor will last a whole lot longer than lamellar armor and coat of plates, thus giving it a bigger number of storage over time, and it's also easier to store and to maintain with very little maintenance on top of that both stored in the Armory or out in the field.
Hallo Sebastian! Ich habe zufällig deinen Kanal gefunden. Es ist immer schön, diejenigen in Deutschland zu sehen, die die Geschichte ihrer Vorfahren rekonstruieren, denn sie sind es wert. Viel Glück und mehr Abonnenten. Mit freundlichen Grüßen vom Russlanddeutschen aus Moskau.✊🤝
Now that i know everything, i’m ready for the next one! 😉😉😅
Robert here. Thank you. I enjoyed participating in the competition and hope to participate should you have any competitions in the future. It was a great learning experience for me.
Hi Robert! I'm grateful to have had you on board! :)
Thanks for this. I was going to enter, but family matters forced me not to. I see now I would have come pretty much last. Great video and thanks again!
I wonder if you could manufacture rings in a way that doesnt compromise an area around the rivet, since I assume the thinness there is what causes the failiure
I would be curious as to the future of steel 3d printing and it's implications for making a solid ring maille. No butts, no welds, just solid formed interlocking rings
@Ironskin what are your broader conclusions from the tests? Is any kind of rivet superior? Is there a good ratio of wire and rivet diameter? Provides flattening the rings any advantage? Thank you for this very interesting video. Amazing stuff.
Good question that you raise! I want to hear more such questions. I'm thinking there should be a follow-up video to sum up what we learned from this.
You can tell,that even with a chainmail armour suit on,them arrows are still gonna leave you bashed up
Couldn't wait for this video!
The Spanish with Hernan DeSoto in the Entrada to the American Southeast in what is not Florida, Georgia, SC, and Alabama found that the hickory and osage longbows of the Indians when firing arrows with deer antler tips were shooting through their maille shirts. I always found this fascinating.
Good afternoon. Thank you very much for the video. Please tell us what is the thickness and diameter of the riveted rings of Mr. Asher Terry's rings from the USA and what kind of super steel is there that a crossbow with a tension of 220 kg can withstand?
Hi. I made my rings out of 16 gauge(1.3mm) rebar tie wire. The inner diameter is approximately 8mm.
@@asherterry7173 Hi. Thanks for the reply. It's just that your rings have shown some incredible results. Can I find out the brand of the wire? Did you weld it, by the way?
@@ВалентинСухов-к1е I bought the wire in 3.5 lb rolls from Home Depot. I riveted my rings with wedge rivets.
Amazing as always my dear friend!!! Great work
I'm glad you like it. Too bad you didn't find the time for making a patch. I would have liked to have you on board.
@@Ironskin indeed, as would I! Perhaps another time when I’m not as swamped with work 😂
Thanks for the great testing! It's neat to see the different failure modes. How useful and difficult would it be to measure penetration depth for the crossbow test?
I'm not sure what we would learn from it. If there was a gelatine block underneath, the bolt would partly push rings into it. The entire setup would depend a lot on how tight or loose the mail is mounted. When we started test I was hoping for any results that would make us see a difference between the patches - suitable for a measureable comparison. I wasn't so sure about the outcome.
I bet that piece of chainmail is huge now! 30k subs wow!
Workmanship and design aside, id say the metallurgical differences between modern wires and wrought iron could vary considerably from historical models.
Excelent work
Didn’t expect the mail to hold up as well as it did this was really cool
also what was the music in your intro?
You find it linked in the video description.
@@Ironskin thanks
Chain mail is like a panzer tank.
Nice video, never stop plsss.
what type of steel is the chainmail made of? :)
The pieces are made of iron with a low carbon content, not too far away from mild steel. That was part of the requirements. I'm talking a bit more about it here: ruclips.net/video/bc-kufntCwE/видео.html
Where's the write up on what seems to be the best?
No "watershed" ridges on the ring overlaps, no oval shaping of the rings. Oh well....
Oh? That sounds interesting. Could you tell the rest of us about that?
Could you show a 22/1 pattern of riveted chainmail
Or instead, grace block riveted pattern(supposed better than.the first one)
Really interesting
Nice designs.
Creating that armor is so time consuming.
Well now I'm wondering if there's really a point in not going higher ring thickness if it's that much better for its weight. You shouldve compared flexibility, and to an actual shirt or shirt-grade mail vs mail that is not flexible enough to be worn well.
the thickness of the rings doesn't matter as much as the density of the rings in the maille.
for example, if the inner diameter if your maille is 9mm or 10mm you will require thicker rings. If you have a dense 6mm riveted maille it can be thinner and still retain the same strength.
a 6mm maille shirt is like 30% lighter than a 9mm and stronger
Can you make a video about tools
Was Male Quenched after the connection?
What was the padding? Also what was under it? Thanks for the video, loved the traction strength test.
Under the mail there is this dummy which is just a linen bag stuffed with cloth. It may have with its bounciness repelled bolts from sticking, that would have been stuck in a gelatine block.
Two observations:
- at least one shot, at around 4:50, seems to be done with different crossbow? Composite one, instead of steel, with very different decoration on a tiller. How do those two compare?
Interesting that Terry's and Dullies' mails in particular have very similar dimensions, yet one is apparently almost 40% heavier. Does the difference lie with the rivets and overlap size?
Well observed! We had different crossbows at hand. The weaker crossbow appeared to be the best option to observe different behavior amongst the patches. Only for that one shot we couldn't hold back our curiosity to see the stronger crossbow in action. Yet we didn''t rate that as part of the competition.
Asher Terrys wire is 1.5mm and Paul Dullies is 1.4mm. That explains for some of the weight difference. Often a rivet can make up for a quarter of a ring's weight. That also means a quarter of the total weight. If you can tweak that a little, you can tweak your total weight significantly. Same goes for the overlap size.
@@Ironskin Yeah, I made quick search around Andreas Bichler's videos, and I spotted the same crossbow. (I think). It's cranequin spanned, so I assume it's at least around 700 pounds, though sadly it doesn't seem that it's specified anywhere. Would be interesting to see how it performs against same mail....
As far as wire goes, when thinking about it, increasing the thickness from 1.4 to 1.5mm alone increases surface area of ring's cross-section almost exactly by 15% (assuming it's roughly round in cross-section). So this alone is pretty significant.
Interesting video. Do you know the other important traits of the crossbows such as powerstroke or prod efficiency? Crossbow and bow power is determined by 3 main factors: prod efficiency, powerstroke, and draw weight. Knowing the draw weight of the crossbow alone is knowing less than half the equation of determining the crossbows power.
As Andreas Bichler told me, the draw-weight is 220kg, bolt weight is 53,5g, velocity is 49,3 m/s and the resulting energy from that is 65 J. On his channel (link in the description) you find more details about it. I'd be curious to know about powerstroke and prod efficeny. You seem to know more than me. Feel free to explain if it fits in a comment.
@@Ironskin Thanks for the info. Powerstroke is the draw length minus brace height, and efficency is how much energy the prod can transfer into the bolt/arrow...and these factors are as important as the draw weight in determining a bow or crossbow's power.
This is shown by Todd of TodsWorkshop's video where his 150lb modern crossbow that can outperform his 960 lb medival crossbow (higher kinetic energy testing both lighter and heavier bolts iirc) due to the modern crossbow's higher powerstroke and efficency. Or videos that show a bow with a significantly lower draw weight shooting projectiles with higher kinetic energy than crossbows that have a higher draw weight but lower powerstroke & efficency.
---
Edit: Formula moved to new reply.
@Ironskin - Furthemore, there is a formula to estimate power in inch-lbs: Efficiency x draw weight x powerstroke x 1/2. The inch-lbs can then be converted into joules.
For the 220kg (485lbs) Andreas Bichler crossbow, since you already know the velocity (49.3m/s) and weight (53.5g) of the bolt, and that the joules is at ~65 joules...that comes out to 575.3 inch-lbs. We don't know the powerstroke of that crossbow, but most medieval European crossbows have a 6 inch powerstroke (TodsWorkshop/Leo Todeschini's comments on myarmoury says 6-6.5 inch for war crossbows and 4.5-5 inch for hunting crossbows).
So if we plug that into the formula, we get:
485 lbs x 6 inch x Efficency x 1/2 = 575.3
Efficency = 0.395.
So based on a 6 inch powerstroke, Andreas Bichler's 485 lb crossbow would have about 40% prod efficency to shoot that 54.5 gram bolt at 49.3 m/s.
Thus, with this equation, we can estimate the power of crossbows or bows if we know the variables powerstroke, draw weight, and efficency. Draw weight and powerstroke are easy to test on the crossbow itself, while efficency is harder to test but you can extrapolate efficency based on similar designs of very similar bows/crossbows.
no 2 in 8 chainmail
Extremely interesting! Thank you for this share! Cheers from best country ever in knight capacities 🇲🇫
An excellent video, but I wouldn't mind knowing more about the test setup for the crossbow test (construction of the dummy, what textile defence was under the mail, etc).
I was also surprised at how light the bolt was. For a 220kg crossbow (extremely heavy for battlefield use!) I'd have thought at 60-80g bolt would be more appropriate.
220 kg crossbow isn't really particularly heavy at all, heavy crossbows were generally 400+ in draw weight and likely larger in dimensions too.
@@lscibor I have to disagree. You can't draw more than a 200-230kg crossbow with manual spanning devices, and that's allowing for belt and pulleys or levels. Cranequins were expensive devices used by mounted men, not infantry as a rule, and art shows simply belt and hook spanning devices in many parts of Europe well into the 15th century. Windlass crossbows, if they were ever used in the field, had a very limited period of use in the 15th century and were probably mostly confined to sieges.
180-200kg would have been much more common for infantry in the 15th and 16th centuries, especially in Central Europe. In Western Europe, they may actually have been 150-180kg for the most part.
Under the mail there was just a bag of linen filled with cloth. Admitedly that does play quite a role in how we see bolts behaving - them getting stuck or bouncing off. For us it mattered most how the pieces of mail would compare to each other - not so much what damage the bolts would do to a block of gelatine or therelike. Of course that is interesting, too.
@@Cahirable What you are saying has merit and is logical. Yet artwork depicts the Genoese Crossbowmen using windlasses, not belt and hook, which implies the use of a very heavy crossbow in very large numbers by well funded armies.
@@Ironskin On the subject of balistic gel. It was developed by the FBI to repeatedly model bullet penetration on soft tissue. Though it would provide a homogeneous medium for testing, I'm not sure that it would provide useful data against the low energy, cutting nature of an arrowhead beyond "how well an arrow/bolt penetrates gel" and it's rather expensive to use. I'd be fine with wet clay block tests (of measured material density) personally, though that would likewise, just show relative penetration in clay. But it might be cheaper and would be retestable. Likewise there are some cheaper, balistic gel knockoffs for sale on the interweb that are of dubious nature for comparison with the FBI stuff, but are at least comparable inside their brand.
Just food for thought.
Very interesting! 4 mm id?
Yes, well spotted. The smallest sample of rings has 4.6mm ID.
@@Ironskin danke. Good luck 🤞
Did anyone do 6 in 1 mail?
what is the diameter of the crossbow bolt?
my arrow went straight though my 9 mm chainmail
the arrows were 5 mm diameter
somebody show this to todd from todds workshop
You have to fix your exposure!
Er du dansker?? 🇩🇰
is there going to be another chainmail Olympics?
Could be, maybe every couple years. Feel free to like this comment to show interest.
@@Ironskin I would also like to see other categories outside of historical, such as those using modern alloys or patterns found outside of western Europe. I feel it could give insight into why European 4 in 1 was so popular for so long.
I think I detect a little homerism in the outcome...
The crossbow seems to be a German hunting bow. Not as powerful as a heavy military crossbow.
I can understand why this might be useful to compare damage--as a military crossbow at that range would penetrate at every shot, surely? Though, no doubt, it might be compareable at short range, to a military bow at much greater range.
Fascinating video!
nothing is clear - on what basis are the chain mail superimposed? The base should correspond to the under-fitting clothes and the body, i.e. not be rigid - if it is rigid, then all the energy goes to the penetration, and if it is not rigid, the elasticity absorbs part of the energy. How deep does the arrow go behind the chain mail ? The task of the chain mail is to protect against a cutting blow by blunting the weapon, and the main protection fell on the under-the-shoulder clothing -gambeson, doublet, etc.. In addition, the historicity of the materials of arrowheads and chain mail is not indicated - at the time corresponding to the crossbow used, both arrowheads and chain mail were iron.
1: These points are meaningless when all mail was tested in the same manner, it shows a direct comparison of how each mail acts compared directly to the other pieces, and that was the challenge,
2: The power of that crossbow would almost certainly stick into any backing, even if it was solid wood if it got good penetration. Tods workshop has shown this many times in his lockdown longbow tests and you see an example of this when the arm is hit on the retial armour used to back the sheets.
3: There are historical examples that have shown heat treating of mail, so to claim it is ALL mail was iron is flat out false and frankly shows a shocking lack of research for someone making themselves out to be an expertly, it took me moments to double check what I remembered and I am a layman
4: To claim all arrow heads were iron is ridiculous, in the 14thC there is much talk of case hardening being used after hints or outright demands given by historical text sources talking about arrow acquisition mentioning steel or steeled arrowheads. Tests show case hardening and waxing heads can make a notable difference to performance, if they could do it easily and it made a big difference they likely did it. As both waxing and case hardening would be lost to time historical examples would appear to be simple iron. In historical texts iron arrows were listed separately to steel and were cheaper to buy than the steel/steeled arrowheads, though the interpretation of 'steeled' varies case hardening seems to be the consensus
5: It's nothing about blunting the sword, that is nonsense. The sword simply can't cut through it. And you REALLY think it was no good against piercing?
I mean the spear nd bow were only the main weapons on the battlefield for 1000's of years where chain mail was in use, and but clearly all those people before the coat of plates was invented were just stupid and dumb primitive fools, and all got stabbed to death by all the people on the field with spears. I mean come on use a brain ffs.
Mail was even used in early jousting, much like late jousting armour it would likely have been specialist.
High quality well made and in particular specialist mail, has incredible piercing resistance, demonstrated by Todsuff when their aventail was able to stop arrows form a 160lb war bow from close range.
I don't usually like to go off on people, but you come in here making yourself out to be an expert, making sweeping statements many of which are flat out wrong, even as a simple historical enthusiast, with far less understanding of history than the artisans involved in this video, I was able to see your points missed reality on almost every case
This video was a wonderful, and was made for fun, to let masters of their craft from across the world go head to head in test conditions
They don't claim this is a good analogy for combat conditions. It was simply a good example of just how much better, hand crafted artiisan mail, is than the mass produced off the shelf variety,
@@jamesj4827 child, what is the manner of arguing with yourself?First, Todd's videos themselves say that only two arrowheads were found in the whole of England. Meanwhile, in our even in the smallest, provincial towns, in local museums, arrowheads, since the Bronze Age, are like dirt. So, less wet fantasies.
Further, Tod claims that he is conducting tests, and not a circus - this directly follows from his statements.
In addition, I advise you to go to practice hand-to-hand fighting, or boxing, to understand that not every blow leads to a knockout, and with armor - they protected from blows in which full force is not invested. After all, your words can be turned like this - for 1000 years people used swords, spears, bows, that they were so stupid to use them against impenetrable chain mail?
Of course, the chain mail was of different quality - there is a letter from the Crimean tsar to the Russian tsar, when there was still friendship between Crimea and Russia (until the 20s of the 16th century), which contains a request to send another chain mail that arrows do not pierce, but such chain mail, they were called armor, were expensive and not even every boyar and not that a knight, a nobleman or a boyar's son could afford them. I will not answer all the semi-literate, purely commoner nonsense, but I will ask you to explain how the chain mail can be made otherwise than manually? Only a person who does not understand how chain mail is made can allocate handmade mail. Yes, if the rings are welded, etc. chain mail will be more expensive, But chain mail is always a piece of work - a medical fact and nothing personal.
But the constant reference to steel and steeled and hardend arrows in historical texts and the punishments outlined for providing arrows that did not met the grade to the crown speak to that.
Right now to turn your argument around
'we have found almost no examples of swords with a grip on the hilt from the viking age, so we know they did not use them'
Do you even understand what case hardening is? I mean, it was used in several of the videos tod put out so I would hope you bothered to pay attention considering the historical texts seem to support the practice and tod explained how it degrades in his videos and to memory, that his opinion is that case hardening would have been used
I practiced martial arts in the past sweetheart, I never said a single blow lands a knock out every time, so again your talking nonessential rubbish to try and bluster your way over the litany of errors you made.
Why do you think weapons adapted to increase their penetrative potential as mail become more and more common hun? Look at viking era swords vs late medieval
Your like a mask denier 'it's not 100% effective so that means it is useless'
As mail became cheaper and more wildly used, weapons adapted to be better at countering it, as plate armour came in, likewise.
Mail eventually did become relatively cheap and wildly used, that does not mean this mail was of the same quality of that of a well to do knight.
As tod spoke of, and as is blatantly clear. Armour quality varied, through time region, cost and smith.
However, I did not say good mail is unbeatable, I said it is restive depending on quality, if your to bone headed to understand the difference in resistive and 'proof', then thats telling.
I mean come on, I literally SAID armour varied in quality ffs, now your just repeating what I said and making it like you know more wtf, just take the L bud
Fucking hell do you not understand the term ARTISAN vs MASS PRODUCED
'Handcrafted' artisan mail, is a comonly used term refering to the highest quality of mail. Mail taht costs $1000's not $100's. It is leagues apart from the 'handcrafted' cheap off the shelf mail. We see that time and time again in tests, the factors why are many, from the quality of the metal, the quality and uniformity of the produced rings themselves, the treatment of the rings in production. And of course smiths will TAILOR the armour to your requirements, just as HIGH QUALITY mail would have been made, in the classic armour trade off of Protection and Mobility. Ring diameter/thickness. can be addapted to the clients needs, ie if it was armour used in a joust, vs if it was armour in a complex joint.
We see this all over the world, some examples even tailoring ring characteristics within a single piece to give the best of both worlds.
Now I know you wee raised to think that mail was useless against the stab, and you don;t want to change your mind, your probably old, and old people don;t like to be wrong
Personally I used to foolishly believe the same, that all mail was dog to a thrust. However, watching artisan armour being tested, even in this video, and more so by tods aventail. shows it is far more resistivity than many believe
Even as far as learning tha with the right weave mail can become stiff and somewhat resitive to blunt force. Such as in artisan mail standards, with heavy duty weaves that will act more like a solid plate, natrually this makes sense to protect the throat, both with layers and stiffer armour.
Now I';m not saying I know everything, my point was you came in like yo were fucking Tobias Capwell, but made many provable false claims.
I had to double check once or twice, but it was easy to find information from historical source contradicting your blanket statements
Rarther than back down, you doubled down and again claimed all arrowheads were iron. When this is not considered fact.
Lack of historical pieces does NOT mean it did not happen, as in my example.
As another
Vikings rarely used shields, as we have few surviving examples of viking shields
Or that they didn't use ropes and string as we have very little surviving evidence of any
3:40 You are using the wrong bolt. Piercing mail is done by going into it as if with a needle and popping the ring from its sides. The proper kind of bodkin is usually currently called "needle bodkin": very thin and with sharp sides. Even if failing, the bolts should have got stuck in the armour most of the times, not bounced off like most of the bolts in this video.
Todd made a video about this. This is more or less the kind of bodkin you should have been using:
ruclips.net/video/Uoz0eggQen8/видео.html
You can see the difference between that bolt-head and the quarrel which you used.
I tend to think that you would have penetrated the armour very effectively every time had you used a proper bolt.
I hope you'll do an other video using the correct bolt-head to see the difference. The other needed change (of course) is that the piece of mail needs to be fastened just as well as if it was a whole armour, otherwise it dissipates the force, reducing penetration.
In the video we wanted to compare the sheets amongst them. It was not the intention to contribute understanding to specific battlefield circumstances. A needle bodkin is a good idea. Maybe it would have revealed more differences between the meshes. Yet it could have been stopped early by the things behind the mail and thus not reveal much. In any way for the video we had to use what we had at hand.
@@Ironskin Yes, but (as I suppose you've noticed as well) I'm seeing A LOT of persons here in the comment that takes this as a "demonstration" that mail armour stops crossbow bolts most of the times (which is certainly not the case historically for a good one-foot crossbow at that distance).
I think it's pretty inevitable that persons assume that you are using a bolt optimized for piercing mail. I did too.
The other thing is, of course, that our steel is better than what they had back then (and I surmise the makers used unhistorically very good steel being in competition, sorry for assuming), but I really made this comment because of all the comments I'm seeing about this "proving" that mail armour is good at stopping crossbow bolts point-blank.
@@cernel5799 Not sure why it would not be the case.
We have plenty of mentions about mail that was very resistant or almost immune to strong bows, and one foot crossbows were generally considered equal to "hand spanned" bows in proofing system, while winch operated crossbows were generally considered stronger.
There was huge variety of mail being made in medieval period, and it was quite apparently. subjected to proofing system, just like breastplates or brigandines.
From 1398 we have mention of " camisiam ferream, ex circulis ferreis contextam, per quae nulla sagitta arcus poterat hominem vulnerare." "Shirt of iron, woven from iron rings, trough which no man wielded bow could wound a man".
From 1390 we have "Achettez de Simond Brufaler armeur, de mons . . . per le pris de un auberjon d'acier de toute botte."
"Steel haubergon of full proof" - that's how "de toute botte" seems to be translated, it literally means roughly something like "of whole blow".
Also from 1390 we have mention about mail were every link was stamped with mark of proof that it was " de botte casse". Seems insane, but apparently ,it was done due to the fact that singe plaque with mark could be obviously forged more easily. And we know of Islamic mail with stamp on almost every ring.
Italian military manual from around 1450 recommends mail instead of brigandine for light cavalry, because they stop crossbows, bows, spears, swords and handgonnes and cover more area, which is fascinating, particularly firearms were traditionally considered too much for mail, though it obviously all depends on exact energy, distance etc. There are Polish sources about mail stopping bullets, but they seem to indicate that the padding of raw, unspun silk was most important there.
As far as needle bodkin goes, it was traditionally considered best against mail, but it may not be the case, after all.
We already have some interesting experiment out there:
ruclips.net/video/tq_Bvc-0w08/видео.html
We can see long needle bodkin curled on some very light mail, 0.65-7mm wire i only about 25% as thick as say, 1.4 mm wire, 1mm wire is about half as thick. That's some kind of delicate wire, almost.
If that bodkin hit something like say, mail from Piquia, with 4.7 to 6 mm ID with 1.7mm x 1.84mm thick wire, it would probably get rolled like a party horn.
Shorter, stouter bodkin may actually be more optimal here, actually, pointy enough to pry the links open, but more structurally sound.
@@lscibor Let me clarify that I've no personal experience on the matter: I don't shoot medieval replicas of bows or crossbows against anything.
>one foot crossbows were generally considered equal to "hand spanned" bows in proofing system
I'm not seeing how this can be the case assuming we are actually talking of good horn-and-sinew for the crossbow at least. That statement could make sense if both the bow and the crossbow are made of simple wood and the bow is long (so I guess this statement comes from someone who tested something like that, which is not the matter at hand).
Here we are talking of good composite horn crossbows (not wood) spanned by guys that are good at that (so can easily span the 220 kg at this video or more).
This video was indeed a very good missed chance of showing how easily a crossbow can pierce mail had a proper bolt-head been used, and (again) the iron they had back then was significantly weaker than what we can get now (which affects the armour more than the bolt-head). Also a simple leaf-shaped head would have done it, provided it was sharp of course.
I'm sorry to say because I've a lot of appreciation for experiments like these, but I do believe this video is maybe unintentionally making misinformation, in that persons will unfortunately watch it and think that mail alone protecting you from point-black one-foot strong horn crossbows is a thing at all (which is not).
Seeing an arrow or a bolt getting stuck in the armour while failing to penetrate is one thing (and that can happen), but seeing bolts bouncing off mail armour definitely means you are doing something wrong.
I don't think I've ever mentioned bows, so those are off topic. Nevertheless, if we want to talk about that, I would agree that bows are very closely matched with mail armour, so either can prevail, and certainly there are cases of mail armour consistently defeating even composite horn bows (as well as cases of bows consistently defeating mail).
Side note, I believe accounts of mail stopping arrows do often clarify that the arrows tend to remain stuck in the mail even when not piercing it, which is exactly what we are not seeing in this video.