I seem to remember reading that the reason Japanese Yoroi armour fell out of favour was because the steel armour could stop musket balls but not well placed arrows, and the silks were no good because they could prevent fatal injury from arrows but musket balls went right through them. So you were dammed if you did, dammed if you didn't. If memory serves this was around the 16th century? Any substance to this claim? When was European armour essentially dropped and why?
i agree 98% of the time. if, however, the archer was say five feet from me and i had a sword...different outcome.
And do you really think that a swordsman is going to stay in the same place all the time and not displace or look for cover? Also, add stress, adrenaline and fear to that. Will he be able to fire accurately with these variables? One solitary archer vs. a swordsman, maybe there's a chance - depends on the bowman's skill and ability. A rank of archers in formation from a distance, ala Takeda-ryu from Kyushu, Japan - Absolutely NO CHANCE.
Here's a theory I've heard, and it makes sense to me: European armour was dropped with the rise of towns. When armour was abandoned, it was still largely proof against firearms. However, towns started hiring commoners for defense. Commoners couldn't take knights or nobles for ransom, so instead of being captured, they started getting executed. Nobles then decided that warfare wasn't as much fun as it used to be, and passed it off to civillians. Civillians could't afford as much armour as nobles could, so it gradually fell out of use, since nobody was ordering the stuff anymore. How's that? -Mark
Good theory ... very economically motivated... Why couldnt the commoners take knights and nobles for ransom?
Commoners were not allowed to. Only a noble could take a noble for ransom. Just societal conventions. -Mark
As to why commoners couldn't take nobles for ransom, well it all boils down to social class and behavioural norms. A noble surrendering to another noble could be reasonably sure that if a ransom was presented by his 'house' then his captor would return him (and arms and armour usually) to 'freedom'. There would be no such guarantee with commoners for a variety of reasons. Firstly, a noble would (almost literally) rather die than suffer the embarassment of surrendering to a non-noble (it's a reputation thing ). Secondly, a noble house would be unlikely in the extreme to cough up the small fortune a ransom represented to someone not born to their class (again, it's a reputation thing). Thirdly, when dealing with a commoner, a noble would be within his rights to treat the agreement to pay as being extorted under duress and not hand over the loot once the family member was recovered. Plus, the commoner would be without the necessary military wherewithal to stop the nobles house from simply taking the prisioner back again. Fourthly, offering surrender to someone at the bottom of the social ladder could be a risky affair as they were just as likely to stick a knife in you and take your sword rather than accept it (see reasons One,Two and Three for an inkling of why that might be ). Fifthly (and most importantly) only those of noble houses could actually trade ransom's legally (it being part of the Knightly Code). If commoners went through the trouble to take prisioners it was their Lord that got the benefit, not they themselves. Hence the "Stick 'im and 'ave done with it" attitude. The arrows versus armour debate has happened many times on martial fora, as has been mentioned already in this thread. The consensus is that arrowfire was only a nuisance to fully armoured troops (and even their horses once they got the benefit of steel coats too). Of course, the exact balance of power between offence and defence varied over the centuries but once 'proper', good quality, steel plate armour was available a knight could apparently take arrows with practical impunity. The same could not be said for the 'lesser' troops and levies, which is why the bow as a weapon of light indirect fire artillery did not leave the battlefield for some time.
Around the 17th century, so you could have a point I think that eventually the musket made armor obsolite (but I'm no scolar on this, so I could be wrong). Fhe first hand-cannons were (according to a dubious source of mine) less acurate than crossbows, had lousier rate of fire, and less penentration than crossbows. BUT they were cheap to mass produce and easy to operate, so as the armies grew and became proffessionalised in the 16th and 17th century, the crossbow were gradually phased out. Remember that knights became outdated far earlier than plate armor (plate armor were used until the end of the cold war; helmets ) But as firearms became more and more accurate and with higher and higher penentration, plate became less and less common. I think that some kind of mail were used by some troops as late as WWI, but as far as I can remember, the rose-wars in england in the 17th century were one of the last wars where plate were relatively common (mostly on foot soldiers; chestplate and leg-protection + helmet)
I agree with the rest, the first video, some points: 1. The bow must have a draw weight of about 15Lb, if even that... the arrows go so slow it is small wonder the guy can hit them. I have little doubt most poeple with good focus and reactions could catch the things fired like that. 2. The bow, pathetic as it is, is only being pulled about half draw if even that. Remember in kyudo you pull to the EAR... heh? She was about 6 inches in front of her face. 3. The way they were fired in a high arc (due to having 0 power) so the guy could see them. If you are faced with an arrow point on, you can't see it. If that bow was pulled fully the old dude would be a dead old dude
As for longbows not hurting plate armour... the example someone gave was with a 80lb longbow. Bear in ming english archers tended to shoot 160 - 180 Lb longbows, so heavy in fact it deformed their bodies. Its a matter of physics, if I wap out my notes I could maybe even calculate it. 180Lb on a good arrow with a sharp heavy tip. You get it into the air, once gravity takes it it starts accelerating downwards with still a near complete Horiztonal Component of Force. So what you get is the arrow rocketing at immense pace from 100 yards or so in the air with a heavy sharp tip. The pressures involved etc.. mental. And yeh, Agincorp (sp?)
A welsh yeoman (longbowman, most of the best English archers were Welsh if I remember correctly) had a longer range than a crossbow or musket, and a faster rate of fire than either as well. They were also quite capable of punching an arrow through plate armour at ridiculous ranges, and in fact this is largely why the English army was so successful in many of its battles.
To the last two posters: The (welsh) longbow had it's heydays in the 12th, 13th and 14th century, an era when plate was rare and chainmail was the stuff used by knights. Full plate armor was becoming common by the end of the 14th century. Now; have any of you done any tests with bows? Isn't it funny how the longbow starts getting phased out as the full plate was introduced to the battlefield? I do not mean to insinuate that fully plated knights made the bow obsolite, but I do think it proves that the bow wasn't good enough to make people give up the thought of fully plated armor. Fully plated armor is heavy; between 30 and 40 kilos. Now why on earth would anybody bee so stupid as to wear that kind of extra burden if an averidge archer could punch it at any range? I'm willing to bet my armor on the following: If you take a plate put a 2cm thick stuffed panzer behind it, tuck it over a pig's leg, and place it at 2* angle, then set this target up dangling from a rope (to simulate that few knigths were welded to walls in their armor). Then place this target at -say 50 meters (far closer than any archer would like to have an opponent and faaaaar closer than mr.The Count suggests with his fantastic belief in volley-archery-armor-penentration) If you manage to even dent the armor, I'm willing to consider changing my believs. But until anybody sets up this experiment and videotape it, I'm not going to change my mind. I've seen what happens to an arrowhead and a spearhead after having had a rough encounter with plate armor; have you? I allso doubt that the previous two posters have bothered to read the entire thread, because they pull out both myths that I've allready commented on earlier in this thread: #1 -that welsh archers were superhumans able to pull bows faaar thougher than anything possible to pull today (a 180 pound bow means that you pull 90kg with your shouldermuscles, and that's heavy) #2 -that Agincourt was won by the whisseling arrows of the welsh archers. I've described what actually happened in that battle earlier in the thread -BTW; it's fun how the strength of the bow should influence on penentration-capassity when shooting volleys. I actually shoot with bow, and an arrow cause friction and will actualy loose speed because of the feathers attached. As the arrow reaches the top of the arc, it starts falling back towards the earth, and as most that have had physics in school knows, weight doesn't matter on falling objects; air-resistance do. It's a reason why shooting mass volleys of arrows on soldiers on re-enactment-events like Hastings is safe to conduct
Black powder weapons were invented Yes, they got a quick education though Remember they LIVED by hunting. They spent 14 years or more developing themuscles for it. And if you want go the goddamn archaeologicalsites where they found the bows. They didn't have machines to do anything for them, everything was manual hence most people of that day and age were many times fitter and stronger than most people these days. Look at older people and long dead people, thicker wrists, heavier set shoulders, before microwaves and power screwdrivers were invented. I look about and I can't find anyone in my university with wrists as thick as the older professors. Anyway, me and some buds did this today... I will see if I can remember it all. F=ma a = (v1+v2)/t so therefore with an average modern bow firing aat only 290fps with not even a third the draw weight: 85m/s -0 / 0.5 presuming it accerlates at 0.5s. Then you have the arc, providing both angles are equal you can factor gravity out of the equation(if you understand geometry etc you will udnerstand why.) And so you have this arrow, at 100 Metres with a 2oz(56g) tip and 1oz shaft. Thus its momentum if I remember is approximately 7.6 kgm/s and when it impacts you get the pressure. Pressure is F/A, say the area of the tip of the arrow is 1mm square, that is 0.001m2 then you get an Impact pressure of about 15000 pascals. That is a heck of a lot. And yeh,with its momentum you are effectively getting hit in the chest with a 7.6kg Clubbel. Either way you look at it, it is gonna knock the guy over and hurt him a lot or its going to pierce his armour.
Just try it out in practise, and then we'll just wait and see. You and your buddies are obviously better than me in math, but I've seen ACTUAL TESTS performed and that convinces me more than peoples forumlas on a forum. I'm no professor on this, but people have convinced me and until someone can provide me with any evidence (not formulas), I'm still going to be convinced of anything else than that a plate armor from the late 15th century were good enough to deflect incoming arrows. Despite my lacking in math, I'll try and pick at your formula : "Anyway, me and some buds did this today... I will see if I can remember it all. F=ma a = (v1+v2)/t so therefore with an average modern bow firing aat only 290fps" Provided that I understand what you mean; what do you mean by averidge modern bow? The experiments should (and is) performed by the same bows that were used in the medieval times. A bow should be made by the one using it, so that it's stiffness is perfectly adapted to the one drawing it. (So if an archer makes a bow, then starts lifting(pulling) weights, he'll probably gonna have to make himself a stronger bow as his strength increases) I have made a bow for me, and it is so stiff that I barely manage to pull the arrow back to my chin. The speed of the arrow consists of the pull-weight of the bow+the design(air resistance) and weight (mass) of the arrow.) "...with not even a third the draw weight: 85m/s -0 / 0.5 presuming it accerlates at 0.5s. Then you have the arc, providing both angles are equal you can factor gravity out of the equation(if you understand geometry etc you will udnerstand why.)" ...Hmmm; have you taken DECELERATION into your formula? I cannot see that, but it could just be that I don't know enough math to see that in your formula. The arrow actually starts loosing speed imideately after it's launched (unless you put some sort of enging onto the arrow; which I doubt they had in the medieval times). "And so you have this arrow, at 100 Metres with a 2oz(56g) tip and 1oz shaft. Thus its momentum if I remember is approximately 7.6 kgm/s and when it impacts you get the pressure. Pressure is F/A, say the area of the tip of the arrow is 1mm square, that is 0.001m2 then you get an Impact pressure of about 15000 pascals. That is a heck of a lot. And yeh,with its momentum you are effectively getting hit in the chest with a 7.6kg Clubbel." ...I think this number is too high, due to the loss of velocity that I think you've forgotten to put into the formula. So what do you say? That one can test this by attaching an arrowhead to a 7,6kg weight? I think you will realize that beaten steel is so hard that the forged iron-arrow-head will disintegrate/bend under the preassure created. It's just as shooting with paintballs; they too have a deacent velocity, but no matter how fast you shoot it, the plastic will disintegrate on impact. If the arrowheads were made of wolfram/depleted uranium; I would give the arrowhead more of a chanse (modern tanks use APFSDS (depleted uranium arrows) when shooting other tank's) "Either way you look at it, it is gonna knock the guy over and hurt him a lot or its going to pierce his armour." ...I'm afraid this is another myth. People endure much harder punches than this in an averidge boxing-match; even on the head, without be knocked over. If you punch somebody in the chest, you generate much more than 7,6 kg preassure, and if we forget about solar plexus for a moment, I doubt you be knocked over by someone pitching a 7,6 kg ball on your chest. As for the medieval guy beeing much stronger than us, is somthing that we cannot know for sure. The welsh archers were commoners, deseases were common, a less than ideal diet, etc.etc. I'm sure that the english on occation have had proffessional /scemiproffessional archers from the peassant-caste available, that trained regularely, and who were able to pull very tough bows. But I allso do think that things have been exaggerated in the victorian age, and romantisized. In norway, we have sagas, telling about "Einar Tambarskjelve" and "Olav Tryggvason" having a shooting competition. According to local legend Tryggvasson did shoot some 800 meters, but Tambarskjelve shot allmost 900 meters. The same Tambarskjelve did alledgedly shoot through the oak side of an enemy Viking-ship at the battle of Svolder. It's a cool story, and I'd love it to be true. But there are simply no science supporting the possebility of theese stories to be true; the famous "1 feather turning in to 7 chickens". I do shoot with ash-bows, and I like archery. Archery is(was) an effective way to knock out lightly armoured opponents. But just as we should not buy the victorian myths about the Vikings, we should either buy the victorian myths about the supernatural welsh archers, that could shoot through 2-4mm beaten steel+17-30layers of linen and wool. (finally, just to comment on the archaeological "evidence" of 180lbs bows: a bow looses it's quality over time, and a 800 year old bow will not have much left in it, making it highly difficult to calculate what it's original pull-weight was)
-Just to show that we agree on somthing; the longbow was actually tougher than MOST crossbows and EARLY blackpowder-hand-weapons. (The bow have higher rate of fire than either and deliver arrows at very high velocity.) There is in principle no upper limit on how high velocity you can generate with a crossbow, it all comes down to the gearing (speed) of reloading it. Most people I've discussed armor penentration and medieval firearms agree that the thoughest crossbows shooting massive iron-bolts/bolts shorter and thicker than an arrow probably could penentrate plate armor, but the reloadingtime was very long, so that in practice, they worked best as one-shot point blank-defence against enemy charging (armoured) formations. The bow-advantages: long range, high rate of fire, deacent hitting-power, accurate (if the archer is trained) The bow-disadvantages: difficult to achieve accuracy. Require much maintainance to last long. Relatively time-consuming/complicated to make good quality arrows. The crossbow-advantages: long range, deacent hitting-power, accurate, easy to train crew to an acceptable standard. The crossbow-disadvantages: Complicated to make, slow ROF The (early) hand-cannon-advantages: cheap and easy to mass produce+easy to opperate The (early)hand-cannon-disadvantages: inaccurate, create smoke, makes much sound, slow ROF, poorer hitting-power than the crossbow/the longbow. One final note; the crossbow was invented by the (late) romans, and they had one version that did shoot metal "bullets", that could penentrate bronze-plate-armor. They allso had stationary crossbows called siege-arbalests, operated by a 2/3 man crew, firing jarvelins.
Damn straight. In the crusades, maille and a gambeson was enough to stop Muslim arrows. The crusaders' armour was pincushioned, but not penetrated. Plate is even more resilient. And it's not going to knock you over. A modern firearm won't knock someone over, so a quarrel or arrow won't, either. Especially if you're wearing armour. -Mark
Decceleration : Basic Geometry if you have a curve where the angle at the starting and ending point is the same angle such as 30 degrees then you have two half-curves, one side is effected by gravity negetively and the other positively so for the sake of simplicity you cancel this out. Edit: If you do factor in full wind resistance blah blah into its two components of movement you will find this is in fact significant but really, i can't be bothered Average modern bow: As in a half decent recurve will fire at 290fps - 300fps at a draw weigh around 35lb. While a recurve in terms of energy transfer is more effective than a longbow you can safely say that this is considerably less powerful than an english longbow. I'm not trying to highlight your lack of maths, but the arrow has a MOMENTUM (not pressure) of 7.6Kgm/s, that is kilograms / metre/s on an arrow travelling at around 80m/s (on the example I used). I'm not sure about the transfer but either way it is going to hurt the boy a lot. The fact that he would get killed or knocked over is taking account of the fact the arrow may disintegrate. It could well dent the armour too depending on the deformations (that stuff is 3rd year ) My example didn't take account of air resistance but really, if you think that I was using a rough example that probably is much less powerful than older longbows then you can just ignore that heh. Yeh, as for them being stronger. Again archaeologists have found the skeletons of medievil people. A lot were malnourished, but still they were heavier built than modern day folk. Their brain cavity was also a reasonable bit shorter than ours, so you can see the evoloution. Archery wise at my arechery club I could maybe get a loan of the 55lB longbow someone draws and try that. If I can get my hands on some scrap steel etc that is. As for your 'I want to see an example, not formulae' well.. physics and maths are based on the observation of the known world so if maths/physics isn't true then we are all pretty screwed
Don't forget if I remember rightly the english longbow is rather a lot bigger than the muslim used bows. Its bigger and also it was heavier... unless I am mistaken the muslim arrows weren't designed for armoured opponents, they were given barbs etc to take down light infantry. An english longbow arrow was essentially a dart, and a very heavy one.
