@@tods_workshop Tod, I think it's is interesting if you could discover what bow poundage (probably arround 100?) is not wounding a person with real mail and real gambeson beneath.
@@tods_workshop Thanks for all the entertainment and knowledge you guys provide! Sorry if there is an obvious reason and answer to my question, but if we imagine that they indeed hardened the arrows, would anything stop them from doing the same to the protective mail? Has it ever been tested? I still have 6 other parts in my playlist so perhaps the answer is in one of those.
All you guys are doing an amazing job at illustrating aspects of this period of time. And unlike other programs your collaboration and personal passion also allows you to try and form a bigger picture and link all the pieces of information together to try and understand what life in the period was really like and what the motivation of the people was behind creating things the way they did and doing things in the way they did it. That makes it so much better than anything else out there.
When I’m not playing with swords, I am doing science for my day job, and so I really must commend these gentlemen for what they’ve done here. We can always ask for a larger sample size in a perfect world, but this is by far the best demonstration showcasing the difference that two types (qualities?) of mail can offer to a specific insult while controlling for so many possible variables that could confound the results. It’s great to see such an empirical contrast that is easy for everyone to interpret. This remains one of the greatest series in reconstructive archeology/living history out there lads. Keep it up!
I agree that this is awesome and well done overall, I just want to add that -- as a fellow scientist -- I disagree very much with the conclusion that the high-quality mail is "clearly better"; it might be, but with that spread the sample size is way too small for that conclusion. We can conclude though that those mails are not sufficient vs. this bow/arrow combination. :D
@@RealZeratul Aye, I'd like plate, please. 😄 I was quite impressed by that aventail, though. And given the way Joe was slotting arrows in that gap between plates at the shoulder ... if I can afford the better mail, I think I'm going to fork out for it. I'll just lay off the drink and ladies of negotiable affection for this campaign, get myself a reputation for piety. 😅
Arrows vs. armor is a great series, but I would love for you to expand it to various other weapons. From rondel daggers all the way up to pole arms, especially ones that were specialized for fighting against armor. Tests against gambison & coat of plates would be a good addition to the full plate armor & mail you are currently testing.
A follow up to this specific video could be a whole miniseries. For a long time in the Middle Ages, a full mail hauberk was the best protection you could get in a European setting. And we have some accounts (notably from the First Crusade) of that being good enough to stop multiple arrows from lighter bows than this English longbow. Of course, eventually it did prove insufficient as evident by the arms race between armor and projectiles, but I'm curious to see the upper limit that can be stopped by just mail and textile. While you could probably make a rough guess based on modeling the energy transmitted by a bow of varying degrees, we've seen on previous tests on Tod's channel that the arrowhead does make a big difference, and based on the variety in European arrowheads alone I doubt they could model all the Eastern arrowheads this armor also had to face at various points.
Lovely comparison. That said I think that Toby is right in his claim. I think the difference of a really well made, and frankly lower grade mail armour is going to be not in defence against projectiles so much as thrusts in hand to hand. As long as there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the lower grade mail like missing rivets or poorly overlapped rings (as is oft the case with Indian mail but nevertheless), and they are comparable (say 8mm id, 1,2mm thickness or what have you) even compared to the impeccable handmade thing, it is going to shrug off slashes all the same. A 160 lb bow will kill both, as shown here. But will 50lbs one from a poacher turned brigand, or a stray shot from say 80-120lb one from further away? Will a swordpoint go through, a narrow bladed axe? It is these lower power/less concentrated attacks where I think we'd see a real tangible difference. Cheers!
Geeze, How does Joe hit anything with that behind the ear draw - I know, practice, practice, practice. Still, just amazing. I couldn't even bend that bow. Great video all around.
@@stuartburns8657 you'd be surprised what a good stance can do for you. Try shooting your 50# like he does and you should actually notice its a lot easier to pull it. It's strange and fascinating the ways that medieval people devised to lob hunks of metal at each other.
@@chengkuoklee5734 I'll remember that thanks. Sadly issues at home which have prevented me from from shooting these past 2 month, but good to know alternative techniques exist
@@TheGUMMBEAR I'd suggest not drawing a bow designed for a chin or jaw reference as far as Joe's drawing his warbow unless you want to break it and quite possibly injure yourself!
I know a lot of the focus of this series is Agincourt, but these tests against mail shed a lot of light on the effectiveness of the longbow in it's earlier battles like Crecy and Poitiers and Halidon Hill and Neville's Cross for that matter.
I'm sure the mail being worn at Agincort varied from the super fine stuff by masters to rusted old relics full of broken links and mail by a drunken apprentice on a rainy Thursday. I'm glad you guys tested as many variables as you could.
Fantastic to watch! Although as a scientist, with my statistician's hat on, I should say that the *uncertainty on the mean* for the commercial and high-quality averages is 3.0 and 2.1 respectively. Which means that the 20.0 and 17.3 averages are, statistically, not different.
I would really like to see these tests done alongside other types of bows. It's pretty much accepted now and then that English Longbows were a specialist and effective weapon. I would like to see a comparison with other types of bows to really look into this extra renown.
Statistically, I wouldn't say the high quality mail is better than the low quality (the one point makes it hard), but the difference between the mail and textile is impressive. Data like this makes the statistician in me rejoice. I love it!
Would love to see mail tests expanded to include pre-plate mail armour (Saxon/Viking/Norman/etc period), presumably with lower powered bows and maybe a variety of under-mail garments
Norman mail tests would be great. We have accounts of some knights being peppered with multiple arrows during the First Crusade and surviving surprisingly well, but based on the fact they still could be killed by archers in the same campaign it's clear that the mail would not make them invincible. Moreover I doubt Eastern arrowheads are that similar to the West European ones previously tested on this channel - there are no doubt various types with roughly similar roles (armor piercing, wounding, cheap etc.) but the materials and specific design would likely be different.
@@perrytran9504 I like that idea. I've excavated 9th century Saracen arrowheads on a site in Italy, so the form of such things will be well known, with examples to test for metallurgy, etc.
I would really like to see testing of different gages of mail. How does very heavy gage dense mail do against arrows? Also it would be interesting to see how various levels of gambison combine with mail. Do these armors work together to improve each other's efficiency or just stack independently or add diminishing benefits? So many interesting aspects to consider. Hope we see more of these amazing videos and get more insight into how historical arms & armor performed.
This is so very nice. Tod, any chance you can get Matt Easton to punch a type XVa longsword into these maille patches, and Tobias Capwell to jam a poleaxe spike into them as well? That would be a fantastic and important test, too. I never expect any grade of maille to stop a war bow, but they might be able to stop or at least dampen a jab or stab with an armor-fighting longsword or poleaxe spike?
Like somebody said :can't belive I can watch it for free here on youtube. Such good quality, information and entertainment. This should be a TV show like on HBO history. GREAT JOB guys. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much
I know it's outside the bounds of the scenario that you are testing, but I would love to see similar tests done with some more common projectile weapons from the time period. Thank you for the wonderful video, I cannon praise you all highly enough.
Brilliant video! The deductions and additional information given at the end are super interesting. Not just a quick "nope won't save him," but easily understandable insights into differences in mail and the thought process behind making/using it as armor. Thank you. Quality mail does appear to cause a significant increase in variation to the penetration of the arrows as compared to commercially available mail (+40% in this test), which indicates a much greater *ability* to reduce the damage caused by an arrow or other strike. However, I wouldn't use three shots as conclusive evidence of the superiority of carefully handcrafted vs commercial types, considering that the greatest depth reached in both was 23/24 cm. I do wonder what Augusto was about to say at 8:54 though...
It's a very heavy bow at very short range against well backed immovable target. Definitely a real threat during sieges, but no necessarily the most common threat. Lighter bows, long range, lighter arrows, the lot. Since Todd has all those samples, I hope he will do more testing with his crossbow, that can be shot from a stand, and hopefully he will figure out a way to vary the power (adding a loop to the string so the draw length can be adjusted? that sort of stuff). Then we can learn a bit more.
in this case a larger sample size would be needed to make the conclusion you made, since the standard deviation is high. the proper conclusion is to say that they are within the same range of protection. it would be interesting to preform this test on the different weaves of mail.
These side films add so much value to the main film,really great work guys! Not surprised about the arrows penetrating the mail,although I'd much rather be shot wearing it than not,it is probably as Mr.Capwell says towards the end there that its more for preventing cuts and to a smaller degree stabs from melee-weapons. Again,great films guys,it's very much appreciated!
Thanks for answering the questions that have been going through my mind since I started playing D&D and participating in the Society for Creative Anachronism.
This really demonstrates the value of life, in that your life has a value! Seeing the arrows bounce and shatter off the armour in the long video, it was quite sobering on this one to really see how devastating those arrows can be. So, it would seem that if you find yourself charging on the battlefield, and you are wearing any mail, when you see a volley of arrows coming your way, raise your shield! I would love to see further tests on mail designed specifically for arrows. I'd also love to see tests with modern armour and medieval weapons, and vice versa. So much to discover, learn and be curious about here, thank you all for bringing it to us.
The final step needs to be getting a group of archers who can draw 140lb bows so we can get enough hits on mail from 50, 75, and 100 yards. 25 yards is just too close, maybe foot archers could get 1 or 2 arrows loosed at that range but it is exceptionally close. HA tactics as the Mongols supposedly did, riding up to less than 40 yards it might give some indications why HA could be so deadly when they had the training that entire formations could repeatedly do such close shots but all the tests on velocity and energy potential on arrows shot from bows that I have ever seen done show a large loss of energy every 20 yards roughly so at 100 yards an arrow had nearly 1/3 less energy and by 250 yards energy is less than half of the 100 yards while momentum drops off more on the weight and shape of the projectile, slower FPS and heavier arrow also means the drop from a heavy arrow from a warbow, it is not possible to aim at any human sized target much past 100 yards. Asking Joe by himself to take enough shots to generate enough data at those longer ranges is too much for that weight of bow to do in a single session or even over 1-2 days.
If you think about it, the mail is very effective against arrows in one important sense. It forces the archer to give up the wide bladed hunting arrow head that would make a much wider path of slicing damage and be a whole lot more deadly wherever it hit.
@@tods_workshop yep, but only 3 showed up on my bell notification, if I didnt check it twice I might have missed the last video. Awesome stuff, thank you again for doing this.
Dang, wish you told me you were going to do this before dropping a few grand on mail and arrows myself... Btw, can you throw some numbers in the video description? The usual bunch: gauge, thickness, diameter, bow poundage, arrow weight, typology?
Actually all that is coming in a separate document that I have not yet written, but will be soon and housed here todtodeschini.com/youtube-projects/arrows-v-armour-2/
@@tods_workshop Oh gumdrops That'd be swell. Mr Parkes was nice enough to make me a patch representative of the gammertingen mail coat in exchange for only the promise of my firstborn son (a good deal, in terms of arrow resistance and all around durability), and I have had the same aspirations in comparing it to commercial mail (the gammertingen piece, not the unborn child). Loved the main video, btw. Even the presence of will sherman and his fraudulent beard and pernicious appearance didn't detract from it so greatly as to render it unwatchable!
@@adampalamara the Gammertingen sample is very different to the piece here in terms of density, ring thickness etc. and I am assuming different bow poundage so I would be very interested to see the results of arrows Vs Gammertingen mail.
I would love for the guys to actually show the precise draw weight on the bow by using a bow scale, just to make it more official and have it set in stone for everyone watching. I sure don't doubt Joe on the weight but still, it's a simple enough thing to do for next time or maybe an addendum/FAQ video?
@@chengkuoklee5734 Drama over something like that is silly anyway (not counting that most drama is silly regardless), since it doesn't matter too much if i's 140 or 180 rather than 160. In practice bows would have differing draw weights, and you'd shoot from both long and short range, so the results would differ more because of those factors than the exact draw weight. Besides that, we don't know the exact draw weight of the bows they used. We have good approximations, but not exact values. The only time exact values would be particularly important if it was a test about how much draw weight affects the results, with examples of several different draw weights.
@@AnotherDuck it would be interesting to get a fluctuation the other way. The last test was kind of above average breastplate vs above average warbow. This test was average armor against above average warbrow. So how much could it go down in armor and bow strength until they did not bother with it for war (or they started bearing shields and other things against missiles)? I'd be interested to also get a better cross section of how likely they actually considered it to get shot vs other battlefield dangers. Some armors like many Italian are obviously build with the expectation of lance contact above getting shot at or fighting on foot.
@@mangalores-x_x The only thing I believe that can stop a proper lance hit is a jousting armour, and those are much heavier than battle armours. And even then jousting lances are made to break, so I'm not even sure about that. There's just such a tremendous force coming from the weight of the horse and knight. So the best option would be to deflect rather than any kind of proper hit. They also did a test in another video about different draw weights, which I found interesting. More tests are good, especially when they focus on singular variables. As a tangent, with shields I think they do a lot of work working as spaced armour, since they force the arrows to go through entirely to reach the body, unless they hit the arm.
That 23cm penetration through the high-quality mail is an outlier - if you discard it then you have an average penetration of 14.5cm, which I think is much more accurate. I mean sure the arrow went through the links, but those links themselves had no support around them. Absolutely loving these videos btw.
Well, thanks to Dr Toby C I learned something new and interesting: that mail makers were able to produce various types and qualities of mail for one knight, depending on his particular desires. Thanks!
Absolutely fascinating. I wouldn´t have thought it makes so much of a difference. I always thought mail was primarily against cuts, and from the perspective of an arrow resembles a collection of holes to go through. But I see, again, it´s not that easy. Thank you all for teaching me something new.
I don't think you'll will get many aimed shots at your armpits. At least not with a strong bow like this. I think what using a good archer like Joe also really shows is, how much room there is for compromising when it comes to armor. I really hope that this series will be archived at some point. It would be a shame for it to be lost.
I would love to see stabbing, hacking and slashing tests against the riveted mail with a good gambeson underneath. I have seen the tests Thegn Thrand did with riveted mail and observed it can be quite hard to break even when you are stabbing with a sword or spear. Of course, once you have successfully weaponized your body like Joe did, or like many sons of the Yeomen did back then, and are able to pull 140-180 lbs I guess no mail can save your enemy. And even if they have a helmet on, this would probably be like a kick to the head from a horse.
You guys are amazing. Suggestion: Add links to the original AvA 1 videos to the descriptions for the AvA 2 videos. Just makes putting the whole and growing picture together easier for everyone.
Probably a few people saying this about this wonderful video, but the conclusion that the historical mail is better is overstated due to the very small sample size. I mean, intuitively you could easily see more observations erasing the difference between them or drawing them further apart. But with 3 per test, you don't know which way it would go.
I feel that your test may be over estimating the lethality of the arrow vs the mail. The reason is that the whole moving mass dragged by the arrow at the point of impact would have absorbed a lot more of the arrow’s momentum, compared to the tiny strip of mail the test used.
also worth noting that the bow joe typically shoots in these videos is almost for sure heavier than the average war bow at the time, at he is also shooting it from a MUCH closer distance that you usually would be from an enemy
You tease! I need to see the armour test NOW! But then it will be over! I want a dozen armour tests!! The best historical, medieval 'documentary' that I've ever seen... it's put all the highly funded TV documentaries to shame!!
9:43 so when will you do sword vs armour (with different sword types) , or Spear vs armour? :D Or you might do a medieval weapons vs armour, in general. Edit: You could have Hema Experts on foot and on horseback going against the target.
Great video. I’d love to see more testing against the aventail. It looked like it was being penetrated in the full test but taking most of the energy out.
Very very nice videos again. Really love them. About mail in the age of plate: For German cities (and countryside) there are surviving lists of equipment people had to own (burgers but also farmers), with for the least wealthy the required armor was mail. Even though mail was more expensive than plate. I suspect that there still was more easily adaptable mail around, so they could use cheaper inherited or used mail, while plate more often hat to be specifically made
Imagine finding someone with access to a material science lab and time enough to develop a methodology and test the resistance of mail like this... for example pushing a thorn through the mail and measuring the force and movement over time, and comparing that between different sets
Great vid. Any chance in the future for test of double layer mail (there is some historical evidence for it to be used prior to advent of plate armor - Byzantine empire, Kievan Rus, tournament armor) or to find breaking point of mail? Supposededly longbows had up to 70-80 pounds of draw weight during "Viking" era, however to my understanding there is no technological reason to not make 120 or 180 pound longbow instead, but maybe 80 pounds was enough to defeat majority of top armor of that time. Would be definitelly interesting to find out at which kinetic energy level does mail fail and becomes inadequate (or alternativelly at which range is it still protective due to loss of energy at distance).
If you have 3 samples going from 13 to 23, and another set going from 17 to 24, the difference between individual shots still seems a bit to large to get an accurate conclusion from it. Assuming that both bolts have a comparable variation, and we measured the true averages, there is still some math to be done. all the deviations from their respective means were -3, +4, -1, +5.7, -1.3, -4.3 squared these are 9+16+1+32.5+1.7+18.5=78.7 is the sum of squares 78.7/5=15.7 is variance, that makes sqrt(15.7)=4.0 standard deviation. The standard deviation is used to estimate how different an individual measurement is. Standard deviation means that 65% of measurements will be within 1 stdev, and 95% between 2. The calculated averages here are based on 3 measurements, meaning that you can do 4.0/sqrt3=2.3 I am still doing a dirty calculation (not strict enough), yet according to these calculations with a difference of 2.7 between the groups, there's like a ~30% chance that it's due to random variation. If you had had about 10 arrows to base the difference on you could have scientifically shown a difference but right now it's to close to make a call on it tbh.
One thing I'd really like to see as both a hobbyist mail-maker and longbow archer is the minimum draw weight it would take to punch through both mail and gambeson. I've messed around a bit with some of my 16 gauge mild steel riveted mail (pinned directly to a foam target, no padding) and my 47# @28 Hill-style longbow (145gr. field points, 11/32 cedar shafts) and it will badly bend individual rings but not penetrate. I don't think it would take much more than a 60# bow to penetrate consistently at closer ranges. Might be fun to test someday when I've built up to that weight.
I don’t know why, I have a memory of putting on maille gloves, that were like silk; but I do. The grass was light green at the time, and to the corner of my view of the memory, there was a brown horse, with a pleasant amount of white on it’s nose, and a gray stone building with, rather bright white walls on the inside of a room through one of those little slits, on the side of a castle. I can feel the glove on my hand. I have had this memory since I could speak in full sentences.🤷🏻♂️ Also, you know when you grow up, and you see that awkward movement when someone is learning how to punch, or you swing sticks at each other, until one of you gets hit in the hand? Never felt strange to me, never had that hesitant, awkward, thing that most people seem to have in the beginning. I know what that chain feels like, on body hair, too; and I haven’t worn that stuff, in this life.
Can we please have a short explanation on "medieval" mail? We're comparing the high quality stuff to examples seen from history, but how rare are those medieval examples? I'm guessing the very best versions that have survived would be exceptional, rather than commonplace? Would typical mail be of potentially poorer construction than the testing production? Also in terms of metallurgy, is the steel of higher quality with more consistent carbon distribution?
Blimey a complicated question. It came in all qualities and of course where it was position changed things too, but we were using a 4 in 1 weave that was the most common. It was usually made from iron, so often softer than the material we were using, though it could be steel or even case hardened (we think). It could have thin large links or small thick links and everything in between. Very much depends on the quality, but what we showed here was that the very best of modern made mail i.ie mail that is presumably close in performance to original mail is not vastly different to commercially mass produced modern mail.
@@tods_workshop cheers dude! I followed on how you proved that the test bits would be an appropriate comparison. Thanks for the detail! What I'm getting at really, is when we say say something is like medieval armour, are we comparing it to the very best stuff that existed or really what kind of proportion of armoured dudes would have kit of that standard or better? I think it's more for the conclusion really, for example, if the armour was to only just defeat the arrows, it that representative of the better 10% armoured likely to survive or more like 90%? It might be we can't know from only having specific surviving sets of armour and some amount of guess work...
Basic explanation of this issue was made by Dan Howard, for example. My post will disappear if I post a link, but googling "Mail: Unchained" and "Riveted does not equal historical" should produce results. Generally, most modern, mostly Indian mail, is of "soda tab" variety, because it's made out of rings flattened thin for ease of production process, reduction of weight etc. It's not very robust at all, and is incorrect in many ways in general. But other than that, most important factor is the density of the weave. Again, most modern mail is made out of wire 0.8 to 1.2 mm thick at best, with 8-12 internal diameter of rings. While something like "Viking" shirt from Gjermundbu was made of 1.3 to 1.5 mm wire, with ID of 4.8-5.2 mm on average. Surface of "empty' area inside the 5mm ring is going to be well over two times smaller than that of 8 mm ring. About 19.5 mm2 compared to 50. Gjermundbu weave seems to be pretty ordinary, if not light weave for standalone mail - from the same period, rings from Stromovka in Czechia appear to be 0.5 to 0.6 mm in ID, but up to 1.6 mm thick. Then we have something like mail from Stary Jankovci or Chersonesus, made of very robust, massive rings - about 7mm ID, but up to 2mm thick and almost 2.9 millimeters wide. Such mail would be extremely heavy. Then there's something like sleeve/voider from Met Musem that has rings from wire around 0.8mm, but only 2.9 ID. So those are some basics that kinda explain huge variety there was within mail armors.
@@lscibor cheers, but again, the reference is to specific surviving pieces. I'm trying to ascertain if the typical mail worn at the time was similar or of lower quality
@@MyFriendsAreElectric I don't think that there's any reason to suspect that mail being preserved is of any extraordinary quality om average. Most mail, like from Chersonesus, is either as some pretty badly corroded lump, or as loose rings and fragments. Usually indicating it getting lost somewhere, perhaps even in battlefield or due to other violent events. Complete, well preserved mail fragments, are usually 15th century of later, it was generally preserved since it was stored in some kinds of arsenals, to be of use when needed.
Great stuff! One thing to note is that the arrow is probably losing a good amount of velocity over distance. The shots for video are essentially point-blank; if the panels were hit from a couple hundred feet they arrows may have insufficient velocity to pierce the mail.
every test you do for the 15th century raises more questions about previous centuries to me where plate armor becomes less common. though id certainly be interested in seeing the scale/lamilar armor of the byzantine empire, id really want to know about how the knights of the crusade handled arrow fire given the stories of crusaders looking like pin cushions after some battles yet still surviving them. there just seems like a weird disparity to me that armor that goes back to 3rd century bc would constantly be almost useless vs weapons that date back to like 11th century bc or older. surely it wasnt just during the medieval period that archers learned that if they make stronger and larger bows it means that they can now defeat the armor of their opponents. when one question is answered 10 more come to mind.
This is a great benchmark test. I would also argue that in a real situation, mail would be even more protective than this test. People rarely stand straight on, therefore the arrow would often be hitting the mail at an angle. Also, in a battle, people would be moving around, even if only slightly. These two factors might help explain why mail was still deemed as meaningful protection after the advent of plate.
I have to say the single thing I noticed that I thought was unaddressed is the much lower leathality of these heads compared to "broad heads" or other bladed heads. I suspect these would cause very similar injuries to field points though they are larger and strike with more energy. I have no idea though about an unarmored body, part of me thinks at close range they'd go completely through a human and into one behind, how does that foam compare to flesh/ballistics gel if you know?
A Euro a ring WOW that's a lot of money. I know it's a lot of work but would have never thought it cost that much. Another great video Tod!!!!! Enjoyed your video and I gave it a Thumbs Up
Nice video and I can see the full Arrows v Armour 2 video is also released. I'm saving that up for after dinner! One small but possibly significant point - In the shots I could see vs the HQ maille from the front, Joe wasn't quite at full draw, about 1-2 inches short. I went back and saw it was the same for the one shot recorded from the front vs commercial maille, so for the comparative purposes of the video, that's fine. My question is, was it a short draw at reduced power or, longer arrows being used than the rated full draw length for that bow? Eg, 32" arrows used for a bow that is rated at say 160#@30" If the former, then obviously the odds are stacked slightly in favour of the armour. If the latter, then fair enough. In this comparative test it makes no difference but in the "full on can the arrow or can't it penetrate" video, a short draw can make a significant difference. It certainly does when shooting for distance.
Nice! I Made Mail that stops Crossbow Bolts myself. It is so hard to Work with and expensice to build: The Rings are 3,5 mm thick 30mm in diameter and the Rings are hardend. A spuare of 50 mm in 50mm costed me about 20 €. It waigths about 250g.
Two difficult thoughts as I watch this: First, I would love if the patch of armor left after the test gets tested with a 15th or 16th c CD century type matchlock musket. Of if that’s not available a 17th century musket would have also faced armor Second: a couple of years ago you tested bows against sand bags. Testing different fillings in the sandbags. Sand, fertile black soil, clay soil, small gravel, larger gravel, and throwing rock sized stones.
I wonder, how far away would the man at arms need to be for the mail to stop an arrow. Maybe a more technical way to ask it, how much energy does it take to burst an arrow-sized hole in mail, and at what range is that a significant percentage of the remaining kinetic energy of the arrow? Great work Tod, this is fun.
Thumbs up for Joe, who works hard in every setup. Which makes me wonder; how many shots can he deliver in a day with that 160 lbs bow bwgore fatigueing??? How many shots would an average bowman shoot in a battle? Pr. day in a siege?? And soforth.... How tired does Joe get, and how does the 160 lbs bow compare to, say, the 135 lbs bow in terms of fatigue and number of arrows shot? This is SOOO interesting! Keep them coming 👍👍👍👍
I know it is tough to do with limited resources, but I'd like to see a larger sample size before making the conclusion made in this video. I'd also like to see how the mail protects when hit at an angle.
I wonder if the difference in the direction that the two maille samples were hung made a difference - the commercial maille was hung 90° rotated relative to how it would be worn, meaning there would be less contraction of the sample on impact.
Thank you for these videos! Have you ever thought to videos examining and testing pre 14th century archery v armor? Feel like (probably through source and archeological bias) we are over saturated with a later medieval development- and let that influence our perception of the rest of the medieval period. Tod’s made the point before that high poundage longbows-and people who could use them effectively- didn’t come around until 14th century. While mail was still dominate in many situations- re Border Wars- and will remain so for common troops, we never seem to examine archery effectiveness for early periods- when mail was pretty much the only armor available. Purely in an English\Welsh context, there’s whole traditions beforehand. From Norman archery traditions that help win and came with the Battle of Hastings. To the Welsh tradition, which there’s a lot of debate on. To the transitional period of the late 13th century demonstrated during the First War of Scottish Independence. It would be cool seeing how much of a step up the longbow at Agincourt v the period armor would be against the early longbow, used in the context of the transitional, and Norman. Thank you for all the work you do, it’s truly phenomenal.
Here’s an additional test idea for you: We know that shields were used as a defense against arrows. We also know that (sometimes? often?) arrows penetrated shields. What would be interesting to know would be how did various armors perform against an arrow AFTER it had gone through a shield. Like armor I’m sure there was a lot of variation in quality and materials of shields - but it seems like a variety of surrogates could be fabricated. Does this sort of test have merit?
This is fascinating. Thank you Tod! Would love to see the difference between head types against mail - needle bodkins, bodkins, Type 16s etc... Maybe something for AvsA 3? Also would have been interesting to see what damage, if any, the mail itself took.
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It's so wonderful that so many experts in multiple disciplines have come together to make this. Absolutely fantastic work!
Thanks
@@tods_workshop Tod, I think it's is interesting if you could discover what bow poundage (probably arround 100?) is not wounding a person with real mail and real gambeson beneath.
@@tods_workshop Thanks for all the entertainment and knowledge you guys provide! Sorry if there is an obvious reason and answer to my question, but if we imagine that they indeed hardened the arrows, would anything stop them from doing the same to the protective mail? Has it ever been tested? I still have 6 other parts in my playlist so perhaps the answer is in one of those.
I don't believe this,arrows have been used in warfare and have killed plenty of soldiers on the battlefield.
Really nice to see some in-depth discussion on this and time to allow all of you to express an opinion without fast editing for TV. well done.
All you guys are doing an amazing job at illustrating aspects of this period of time. And unlike other programs your collaboration and personal passion also allows you to try and form a bigger picture and link all the pieces of information together to try and understand what life in the period was really like and what the motivation of the people was behind creating things the way they did and doing things in the way they did it. That makes it so much better than anything else out there.
It is just the right amount of talk to content. Tv shows usually have too little content.
When I’m not playing with swords, I am doing science for my day job, and so I really must commend these gentlemen for what they’ve done here. We can always ask for a larger sample size in a perfect world, but this is by far the best demonstration showcasing the difference that two types (qualities?) of mail can offer to a specific insult while controlling for so many possible variables that could confound the results. It’s great to see such an empirical contrast that is easy for everyone to interpret.
This remains one of the greatest series in reconstructive archeology/living history out there lads. Keep it up!
Thank you - that's very kind
Hear hear!
I likewise do science
I agree that this is awesome and well done overall, I just want to add that -- as a fellow scientist -- I disagree very much with the conclusion that the high-quality mail is "clearly better"; it might be, but with that spread the sample size is way too small for that conclusion. We can conclude though that those mails are not sufficient vs. this bow/arrow combination. :D
@@RealZeratul Aye, I'd like plate, please. 😄
I was quite impressed by that aventail, though. And given the way Joe was slotting arrows in that gap between plates at the shoulder ... if I can afford the better mail, I think I'm going to fork out for it. I'll just lay off the drink and ladies of negotiable affection for this campaign, get myself a reputation for piety. 😅
Simply amazing work! Thanks to all people participating!
Thank you
Arrows vs. armor is a great series, but I would love for you to expand it to various other weapons. From rondel daggers all the way up to pole arms, especially ones that were specialized for fighting against armor. Tests against gambison & coat of plates would be a good addition to the full plate armor & mail you are currently testing.
A follow up to this specific video could be a whole miniseries. For a long time in the Middle Ages, a full mail hauberk was the best protection you could get in a European setting. And we have some accounts (notably from the First Crusade) of that being good enough to stop multiple arrows from lighter bows than this English longbow. Of course, eventually it did prove insufficient as evident by the arms race between armor and projectiles, but I'm curious to see the upper limit that can be stopped by just mail and textile. While you could probably make a rough guess based on modeling the energy transmitted by a bow of varying degrees, we've seen on previous tests on Tod's channel that the arrowhead does make a big difference, and based on the variety in European arrowheads alone I doubt they could model all the Eastern arrowheads this armor also had to face at various points.
Gambeson and the plates would be so great to have tested
Lovely comparison. That said I think that Toby is right in his claim. I think the difference of a really well made, and frankly lower grade mail armour is going to be not in defence against projectiles so much as thrusts in hand to hand. As long as there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the lower grade mail like missing rivets or poorly overlapped rings (as is oft the case with Indian mail but nevertheless), and they are comparable (say 8mm id, 1,2mm thickness or what have you) even compared to the impeccable handmade thing, it is going to shrug off slashes all the same. A 160 lb bow will kill both, as shown here. But will 50lbs one from a poacher turned brigand, or a stray shot from say 80-120lb one from further away? Will a swordpoint go through, a narrow bladed axe? It is these lower power/less concentrated attacks where I think we'd see a real tangible difference. Cheers!
Yes, and the other variable is angle, how far from perpendicular will the mail deflect an arrow.
Geeze, How does Joe hit anything with that behind the ear draw - I know, practice, practice, practice. Still, just amazing. I couldn't even bend that bow. Great video all around.
I shoot a humble 50# ELB. Couldn't imagine the strength needed to fire that beast, and with accuracy too
@@stuartburns8657 you'd be surprised what a good stance can do for you. Try shooting your 50# like he does and you should actually notice its a lot easier to pull it. It's strange and fascinating the ways that medieval people devised to lob hunks of metal at each other.
@@stuartburns8657 I suggest you to watch Way of Archery by Justin Ma. He has a clip teaching how to utilise your back muscle to draw heavy bow.
@@chengkuoklee5734 I'll remember that thanks. Sadly issues at home which have prevented me from from shooting these past 2 month, but good to know alternative techniques exist
@@TheGUMMBEAR I'd suggest not drawing a bow designed for a chin or jaw reference as far as Joe's drawing his warbow unless you want to break it and quite possibly injure yourself!
I know a lot of the focus of this series is Agincourt, but these tests against mail shed a lot of light on the effectiveness of the longbow in it's earlier battles like Crecy and Poitiers and Halidon Hill and Neville's Cross for that matter.
I'm sure the mail being worn at Agincort varied from the super fine stuff by masters to rusted old relics full of broken links and mail by a drunken apprentice on a rainy Thursday. I'm glad you guys tested as many variables as you could.
the latter is probably slightly more common lol.
Fantastic to watch! Although as a scientist, with my statistician's hat on, I should say that the *uncertainty on the mean* for the commercial and high-quality averages is 3.0 and 2.1 respectively. Which means that the 20.0 and 17.3 averages are, statistically, not different.
I would really like to see these tests done alongside other types of bows. It's pretty much accepted now and then that English Longbows were a specialist and effective weapon. I would like to see a comparison with other types of bows to really look into this extra renown.
Well, you released the whole bundle...THANKS SO MUCH.
Still got at least 4 more to come
Statistically, I wouldn't say the high quality mail is better than the low quality (the one point makes it hard), but the difference between the mail and textile is impressive. Data like this makes the statistician in me rejoice. I love it!
Would love to see mail tests expanded to include pre-plate mail armour (Saxon/Viking/Norman/etc period), presumably with lower powered bows and maybe a variety of under-mail garments
Norman mail tests would be great. We have accounts of some knights being peppered with multiple arrows during the First Crusade and surviving surprisingly well, but based on the fact they still could be killed by archers in the same campaign it's clear that the mail would not make them invincible. Moreover I doubt Eastern arrowheads are that similar to the West European ones previously tested on this channel - there are no doubt various types with roughly similar roles (armor piercing, wounding, cheap etc.) but the materials and specific design would likely be different.
@@perrytran9504 I like that idea. I've excavated 9th century Saracen arrowheads on a site in Italy, so the form of such things will be well known, with examples to test for metallurgy, etc.
I would really like to see testing of different gages of mail. How does very heavy gage dense mail do against arrows? Also it would be interesting to see how various levels of gambison combine with mail. Do these armors work together to improve each other's efficiency or just stack independently or add diminishing benefits? So many interesting aspects to consider.
Hope we see more of these amazing videos and get more insight into how historical arms & armor performed.
Amazing crew. Thanks for making this happen!
This is so very nice. Tod, any chance you can get Matt Easton to punch a type XVa longsword into these maille patches, and Tobias Capwell to jam a poleaxe spike into them as well? That would be a fantastic and important test, too. I never expect any grade of maille to stop a war bow, but they might be able to stop or at least dampen a jab or stab with an armor-fighting longsword or poleaxe spike?
Like somebody said :can't belive I can watch it for free here on youtube. Such good quality, information and entertainment. This should be a TV show like on HBO history. GREAT JOB guys. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much
I know it's outside the bounds of the scenario that you are testing, but I would love to see similar tests done with some more common projectile weapons from the time period.
Thank you for the wonderful video, I cannon praise you all highly enough.
Brilliant video!
The deductions and additional information given at the end are super interesting. Not just a quick "nope won't save him," but easily understandable insights into differences in mail and the thought process behind making/using it as armor. Thank you.
Quality mail does appear to cause a significant increase in variation to the penetration of the arrows as compared to commercially available mail (+40% in this test), which indicates a much greater *ability* to reduce the damage caused by an arrow or other strike. However, I wouldn't use three shots as conclusive evidence of the superiority of carefully handcrafted vs commercial types, considering that the greatest depth reached in both was 23/24 cm. I do wonder what Augusto was about to say at 8:54 though...
It's a very heavy bow at very short range against well backed immovable target. Definitely a real threat during sieges, but no necessarily the most common threat. Lighter bows, long range, lighter arrows, the lot.
Since Todd has all those samples, I hope he will do more testing with his crossbow, that can be shot from a stand, and hopefully he will figure out a way to vary the power (adding a loop to the string so the draw length can be adjusted? that sort of stuff).
Then we can learn a bit more.
in this case a larger sample size would be needed to make the conclusion you made, since the standard deviation is high.
the proper conclusion is to say that they are within the same range of protection.
it would be interesting to preform this test on the different weaves of mail.
I am looking forward to more videos from this series. What a joy to watch.
These side films add so much value to the main film,really great work guys! Not surprised about the arrows penetrating the mail,although I'd much rather be shot wearing it than not,it is probably as Mr.Capwell says towards the end there that its more for preventing cuts and to a smaller degree stabs from melee-weapons.
Again,great films guys,it's very much appreciated!
This channel is pure gold!
Great work all of you!
Thanks for answering the questions that have been going through my mind since I started playing D&D and participating in the Society for Creative Anachronism.
This really demonstrates the value of life, in that your life has a value! Seeing the arrows bounce and shatter off the armour in the long video, it was quite sobering on this one to really see how devastating those arrows can be.
So, it would seem that if you find yourself charging on the battlefield, and you are wearing any mail, when you see a volley of arrows coming your way, raise your shield!
I would love to see further tests on mail designed specifically for arrows. I'd also love to see tests with modern armour and medieval weapons, and vice versa. So much to discover, learn and be curious about here, thank you all for bringing it to us.
Great stuff as always!
Thank you yet again all of you for another much needed baseline test!
This entire series has been amazing, the amount of work and dedication you all put into it.
The final step needs to be getting a group of archers who can draw 140lb bows so we can get enough hits on mail from 50, 75, and 100 yards. 25 yards is just too close, maybe foot archers could get 1 or 2 arrows loosed at that range but it is exceptionally close.
HA tactics as the Mongols supposedly did, riding up to less than 40 yards it might give some indications why HA could be so deadly when they had the training that entire formations could repeatedly do such close shots but all the tests on velocity and energy potential on arrows shot from bows that I have ever seen done show a large loss of energy every 20 yards roughly so at 100 yards an arrow had nearly 1/3 less energy and by 250 yards energy is less than half of the 100 yards while momentum drops off more on the weight and shape of the projectile, slower FPS and heavier arrow also means the drop from a heavy arrow from a warbow, it is not possible to aim at any human sized target much past 100 yards.
Asking Joe by himself to take enough shots to generate enough data at those longer ranges is too much for that weight of bow to do in a single session or even over 1-2 days.
Surprised there wasn't at least a brief mention of the type of arrows that were used for this kind of test as that would be a big potential variable.
I love these types of tests
If you think about it, the mail is very effective against arrows in one important sense. It forces the archer to give up the wide bladed hunting arrow head that would make a much wider path of slicing damage and be a whole lot more deadly wherever it hit.
2 armor test videos in a day? you really are spoiling us rotten tod
4
@@tods_workshop yep, but only 3 showed up on my bell notification, if I didnt check it twice I might have missed the last video. Awesome stuff, thank you again for doing this.
Dang, wish you told me you were going to do this before dropping a few grand on mail and arrows myself...
Btw, can you throw some numbers in the video description? The usual bunch: gauge, thickness, diameter, bow poundage, arrow weight, typology?
Actually all that is coming in a separate document that I have not yet written, but will be soon and housed here todtodeschini.com/youtube-projects/arrows-v-armour-2/
@@tods_workshop Oh gumdrops
That'd be swell. Mr Parkes was nice enough to make me a patch representative of the gammertingen mail coat in exchange for only the promise of my firstborn son (a good deal, in terms of arrow resistance and all around durability), and I have had the same aspirations in comparing it to commercial mail (the gammertingen piece, not the unborn child).
Loved the main video, btw. Even the presence of will sherman and his fraudulent beard and pernicious appearance didn't detract from it so greatly as to render it unwatchable!
Gammertingen is a good choice, that is a heavy, dense sample
@@adampalamara the Gammertingen sample is very different to the piece here in terms of density, ring thickness etc. and I am assuming different bow poundage so I would be very interested to see the results of arrows Vs Gammertingen mail.
Happy to see a project brought together by crew and fans all motivated by the same thing. Curiosity and historical accuracy. Thanks Tod.
I would love for the guys to actually show the precise draw weight on the bow by using a bow scale, just to make it more official and have it set in stone for everyone watching. I sure don't doubt Joe on the weight but still, it's a simple enough thing to do for next time or maybe an addendum/FAQ video?
They have in earlier videos.
@@legacyShredder1 I know it's 160 as he claimed, but it will be cool to use the scale to measure & show to avoid drama in comment section
@@chengkuoklee5734 Drama over something like that is silly anyway (not counting that most drama is silly regardless), since it doesn't matter too much if i's 140 or 180 rather than 160. In practice bows would have differing draw weights, and you'd shoot from both long and short range, so the results would differ more because of those factors than the exact draw weight.
Besides that, we don't know the exact draw weight of the bows they used. We have good approximations, but not exact values.
The only time exact values would be particularly important if it was a test about how much draw weight affects the results, with examples of several different draw weights.
@@AnotherDuck it would be interesting to get a fluctuation the other way. The last test was kind of above average breastplate vs above average warbow. This test was average armor against above average warbrow. So how much could it go down in armor and bow strength until they did not bother with it for war (or they started bearing shields and other things against missiles)?
I'd be interested to also get a better cross section of how likely they actually considered it to get shot vs other battlefield dangers. Some armors like many Italian are obviously build with the expectation of lance contact above getting shot at or fighting on foot.
@@mangalores-x_x The only thing I believe that can stop a proper lance hit is a jousting armour, and those are much heavier than battle armours. And even then jousting lances are made to break, so I'm not even sure about that. There's just such a tremendous force coming from the weight of the horse and knight. So the best option would be to deflect rather than any kind of proper hit.
They also did a test in another video about different draw weights, which I found interesting. More tests are good, especially when they focus on singular variables.
As a tangent, with shields I think they do a lot of work working as spaced armour, since they force the arrows to go through entirely to reach the body, unless they hit the arm.
That 23cm penetration through the high-quality mail is an outlier - if you discard it then you have an average penetration of 14.5cm, which I think is much more accurate. I mean sure the arrow went through the links, but those links themselves had no support around them.
Absolutely loving these videos btw.
Well, thanks to Dr Toby C I learned something new and interesting: that mail makers were able to produce various types and qualities of mail for one knight, depending on his particular desires.
Thanks!
I really like the way the mail ripples at 7:42. Great video, Tod and everyone.
Slowmo is neat.
Absolutely fascinating. I wouldn´t have thought it makes so much of a difference. I always thought mail was primarily against cuts, and from the perspective of an arrow resembles a collection of holes to go through. But I see, again, it´s not that easy. Thank you all for teaching me something new.
Tod, for God sake please create a playlist with all the AvA2 videos. Some of them don't pop up in my recommedations and I don't want to miss out.
I don't think you'll will get many aimed shots at your armpits. At least not with a strong bow like this. I think what using a good archer like Joe also really shows is, how much room there is for compromising when it comes to armor.
I really hope that this series will be archived at some point. It would be a shame for it to be lost.
yes. i think the archers of agincourt were mostly just aiming volleys in the general direction, and just letting loose.
I would love to see stabbing, hacking and slashing tests against the riveted mail with a good gambeson underneath. I have seen the tests Thegn Thrand did with riveted mail and observed it can be quite hard to break even when you are stabbing with a sword or spear. Of course, once you have successfully weaponized your body like Joe did, or like many sons of the Yeomen did back then, and are able to pull 140-180 lbs I guess no mail can save your enemy. And even if they have a helmet on, this would probably be like a kick to the head from a horse.
Those 4 layers they used were already more than adequate for testing mail, a gambeson would be excessive.
You guys are amazing. Suggestion: Add links to the original AvA 1 videos to the descriptions for the AvA 2 videos. Just makes putting the whole and growing picture together easier for everyone.
Probably a few people saying this about this wonderful video, but the conclusion that the historical mail is better is overstated due to the very small sample size. I mean, intuitively you could easily see more observations erasing the difference between them or drawing them further apart. But with 3 per test, you don't know which way it would go.
Good to see someone actually taking this seriously, the shit you see on TV and "testing shows" is as far from researched as you can go
I feel that your test may be over estimating the lethality of the arrow vs the mail. The reason is that the whole moving mass dragged by the arrow at the point of impact would have absorbed a lot more of the arrow’s momentum, compared to the tiny strip of mail the test used.
Excellent job, really in-depth!
also worth noting that the bow joe typically shoots in these videos is almost for sure heavier than the average war bow at the time, at he is also shooting it from a MUCH closer distance that you usually would be from an enemy
You tease! I need to see the armour test NOW! But then it will be over! I want a dozen armour tests!! The best historical, medieval 'documentary' that I've ever seen... it's put all the highly funded TV documentaries to shame!!
The armour test is out there, check the films list on my channel, you just missed its release that's all
9:43 so when will you do sword vs armour (with different sword types) , or Spear vs armour? :D
Or you might do a medieval weapons vs armour, in general.
Edit: You could have Hema Experts on foot and on horseback going against the target.
Armor testing and archery. Such a fancy combination to watch...
Great video. I’d love to see more testing against the aventail. It looked like it was being penetrated in the full test but taking most of the energy out.
Very very nice videos again. Really love them.
About mail in the age of plate:
For German cities (and countryside) there are surviving lists of equipment people had to own (burgers but also farmers), with for the least wealthy the required armor was mail. Even though mail was more expensive than plate. I suspect that there still was more easily adaptable mail around, so they could use cheaper inherited or used mail, while plate more often hat to be specifically made
Great work again on this one. Well thought out and good to hear all the expertise that goes into each and every little part of this video.
Imagine finding someone with access to a material science lab and time enough to develop a methodology and test the resistance of mail like this...
for example pushing a thorn through the mail and measuring the force and movement over time, and comparing that between different sets
Hydraulic press of some description and a good pressure gauge would really be all you'd need for that test.
For videos at the same time? Tod, you are spoiling us! =)
Excellent production, well done gentlemen
Great vid. Any chance in the future for test of double layer mail (there is some historical evidence for it to be used prior to advent of plate armor - Byzantine empire, Kievan Rus, tournament armor) or to find breaking point of mail? Supposededly longbows had up to 70-80 pounds of draw weight during "Viking" era, however to my understanding there is no technological reason to not make 120 or 180 pound longbow instead, but maybe 80 pounds was enough to defeat majority of top armor of that time. Would be definitelly interesting to find out at which kinetic energy level does mail fail and becomes inadequate (or alternativelly at which range is it still protective due to loss of energy at distance).
Amazingly done! Thanks to all involved.
I've been waiting so long for these videos.
If you have 3 samples going from 13 to 23, and another set going from 17 to 24, the difference between individual shots still seems a bit to large to get an accurate conclusion from it.
Assuming that both bolts have a comparable variation, and we measured the true averages, there is still some math to be done.
all the deviations from their respective means were -3, +4, -1, +5.7, -1.3, -4.3
squared these are 9+16+1+32.5+1.7+18.5=78.7 is the sum of squares
78.7/5=15.7 is variance, that makes sqrt(15.7)=4.0 standard deviation.
The standard deviation is used to estimate how different an individual measurement is. Standard deviation means that 65% of measurements will be within 1 stdev, and 95% between 2.
The calculated averages here are based on 3 measurements, meaning that you can do 4.0/sqrt3=2.3 I am still doing a dirty calculation (not strict enough), yet according to these calculations with a difference of 2.7 between the groups, there's like a ~30% chance that it's due to random variation.
If you had had about 10 arrows to base the difference on you could have scientifically shown a difference but right now it's to close to make a call on it tbh.
Can't thank you enough for these videos. Wonderful.
One thing I'd really like to see as both a hobbyist mail-maker and longbow archer is the minimum draw weight it would take to punch through both mail and gambeson. I've messed around a bit with some of my 16 gauge mild steel riveted mail (pinned directly to a foam target, no padding) and my 47# @28 Hill-style longbow (145gr. field points, 11/32 cedar shafts) and it will badly bend individual rings but not penetrate. I don't think it would take much more than a 60# bow to penetrate consistently at closer ranges. Might be fun to test someday when I've built up to that weight.
I don’t know why, I have a memory of putting on maille gloves, that were like silk; but I do. The grass was light green at the time, and to the corner of my view of the memory, there was a brown horse, with a pleasant amount of white on it’s nose, and a gray stone building with, rather bright white walls on the inside of a room through one of those little slits, on the side of a castle. I can feel the glove on my hand. I have had this memory since I could speak in full sentences.🤷🏻♂️ Also, you know when you grow up, and you see that awkward movement when someone is learning how to punch, or you swing sticks at each other, until one of you gets hit in the hand? Never felt strange to me, never had that hesitant, awkward, thing that most people seem to have in the beginning. I know what that chain feels like, on body hair, too; and I haven’t worn that stuff, in this life.
How does this channel not have millions of subs?
Fantastic..... I've been waiting for this for a long time. I wear maille for work and have always wondered....
Can we please have a short explanation on "medieval" mail? We're comparing the high quality stuff to examples seen from history, but how rare are those medieval examples? I'm guessing the very best versions that have survived would be exceptional, rather than commonplace? Would typical mail be of potentially poorer construction than the testing production? Also in terms of metallurgy, is the steel of higher quality with more consistent carbon distribution?
Blimey a complicated question. It came in all qualities and of course where it was position changed things too, but we were using a 4 in 1 weave that was the most common. It was usually made from iron, so often softer than the material we were using, though it could be steel or even case hardened (we think). It could have thin large links or small thick links and everything in between. Very much depends on the quality, but what we showed here was that the very best of modern made mail i.ie mail that is presumably close in performance to original mail is not vastly different to commercially mass produced modern mail.
@@tods_workshop cheers dude!
I followed on how you proved that the test bits would be an appropriate comparison. Thanks for the detail! What I'm getting at really, is when we say say something is like medieval armour, are we comparing it to the very best stuff that existed or really what kind of proportion of armoured dudes would have kit of that standard or better?
I think it's more for the conclusion really, for example, if the armour was to only just defeat the arrows, it that representative of the better 10% armoured likely to survive or more like 90%?
It might be we can't know from only having specific surviving sets of armour and some amount of guess work...
Basic explanation of this issue was made by Dan Howard, for example.
My post will disappear if I post a link, but googling "Mail: Unchained" and "Riveted does not equal historical" should produce results.
Generally, most modern, mostly Indian mail, is of "soda tab" variety, because it's made out of rings flattened thin for ease of production process, reduction of weight etc. It's not very robust at all, and is incorrect in many ways in general.
But other than that, most important factor is the density of the weave. Again, most modern mail is made out of wire 0.8 to 1.2 mm thick at best, with 8-12 internal diameter of rings.
While something like "Viking" shirt from Gjermundbu was made of 1.3 to 1.5 mm wire, with ID of 4.8-5.2 mm on average. Surface of "empty' area inside the 5mm ring is going to be well over two times smaller than that of 8 mm ring. About 19.5 mm2 compared to 50.
Gjermundbu weave seems to be pretty ordinary, if not light weave for standalone mail - from the same period, rings from Stromovka in Czechia appear to be 0.5 to 0.6 mm in ID, but up to 1.6 mm thick.
Then we have something like mail from Stary Jankovci or Chersonesus, made of very robust, massive rings - about 7mm ID, but up to 2mm thick and almost 2.9 millimeters wide. Such mail would be extremely heavy.
Then there's something like sleeve/voider from Met Musem that has rings from wire around 0.8mm, but only 2.9 ID.
So those are some basics that kinda explain huge variety there was within mail armors.
@@lscibor cheers, but again, the reference is to specific surviving pieces. I'm trying to ascertain if the typical mail worn at the time was similar or of lower quality
@@MyFriendsAreElectric I don't think that there's any reason to suspect that mail being preserved is of any extraordinary quality om average. Most mail, like from Chersonesus, is either as some pretty badly corroded lump, or as loose rings and fragments. Usually indicating it getting lost somewhere, perhaps even in battlefield or due to other violent events.
Complete, well preserved mail fragments, are usually 15th century of later, it was generally preserved since it was stored in some kinds of arsenals, to be of use when needed.
Great stuff! One thing to note is that the arrow is probably losing a good amount of velocity over distance. The shots for video are essentially point-blank; if the panels were hit from a couple hundred feet they arrows may have insufficient velocity to pierce the mail.
Yes they loose, but at 70m they have lost around 10-15% of their velocity and they will still sail through
every test you do for the 15th century raises more questions about previous centuries to me where plate armor becomes less common. though id certainly be interested in seeing the scale/lamilar armor of the byzantine empire, id really want to know about how the knights of the crusade handled arrow fire given the stories of crusaders looking like pin cushions after some battles yet still surviving them.
there just seems like a weird disparity to me that armor that goes back to 3rd century bc would constantly be almost useless vs weapons that date back to like 11th century bc or older. surely it wasnt just during the medieval period that archers learned that if they make stronger and larger bows it means that they can now defeat the armor of their opponents.
when one question is answered 10 more come to mind.
For most of that era shield was the primary defense against arrows, armor being second
Fascinating series guys, well done.
Joe, you're spoiling us tonight. Thank you.
This is a great benchmark test. I would also argue that in a real situation, mail would be even more protective than this test. People rarely stand straight on, therefore the arrow would often be hitting the mail at an angle. Also, in a battle, people would be moving around, even if only slightly. These two factors might help explain why mail was still deemed as meaningful protection after the advent of plate.
Thank you guys
This is fantastic. Welldone
I have to say the single thing I noticed that I thought was unaddressed is the much lower leathality of these heads compared to "broad heads" or other bladed heads. I suspect these would cause very similar injuries to field points though they are larger and strike with more energy. I have no idea though about an unarmored body, part of me thinks at close range they'd go completely through a human and into one behind, how does that foam compare to flesh/ballistics gel if you know?
I'm curious to see mail vs low power bows or a more powerfull one in longer ranges to see how much it could protect to diferent treats
A Euro a ring WOW that's a lot of money. I know it's a lot of work but would have never thought it cost that much. Another great video Tod!!!!!
Enjoyed your video and I gave it a Thumbs Up
Internet making this sort of things possible is such a great thing. Uniting curious people.
Nice video and I can see the full Arrows v Armour 2 video is also released. I'm saving that up for after dinner! One small but possibly significant point - In the shots I could see vs the HQ maille from the front, Joe wasn't quite at full draw, about 1-2 inches short. I went back and saw it was the same for the one shot recorded from the front vs commercial maille, so for the comparative purposes of the video, that's fine. My question is, was it a short draw at reduced power or, longer arrows being used than the rated full draw length for that bow? Eg, 32" arrows used for a bow that is rated at say 160#@30" If the former, then obviously the odds are stacked slightly in favour of the armour. If the latter, then fair enough. In this comparative test it makes no difference but in the "full on can the arrow or can't it penetrate" video, a short draw can make a significant difference. It certainly does when shooting for distance.
always so awesome Tod
Giving me another appreciation for what it takes to shot these bows too.
Thanks for all those videos.
Could you show us how was made the medieval bow strings.
Nice! I Made Mail that stops Crossbow Bolts myself. It is so hard to Work with and expensice to build:
The Rings are 3,5 mm thick 30mm in diameter and the Rings are hardend. A spuare of 50 mm in 50mm costed me about 20 €. It waigths about 250g.
these came out great . really cool videos
Two difficult thoughts as I watch this:
First, I would love if the patch of armor left after the test gets tested with a 15th or 16th c CD century type matchlock musket. Of if that’s not available a 17th century musket would have also faced armor
Second: a couple of years ago you tested bows against sand bags. Testing different fillings in the sandbags. Sand, fertile black soil, clay soil, small gravel, larger gravel, and throwing rock sized stones.
I wonder, how far away would the man at arms need to be for the mail to stop an arrow. Maybe a more technical way to ask it, how much energy does it take to burst an arrow-sized hole in mail, and at what range is that a significant percentage of the remaining kinetic energy of the arrow? Great work Tod, this is fun.
Thumbs up for Joe, who works hard in every setup. Which makes me wonder; how many shots can he deliver in a day with that 160 lbs bow bwgore fatigueing???
How many shots would an average bowman shoot in a battle? Pr. day in a siege?? And soforth....
How tired does Joe get, and how does the 160 lbs bow compare to, say, the 135 lbs bow in terms of fatigue and number of arrows shot?
This is SOOO interesting! Keep them coming 👍👍👍👍
In AvA 1, he claimed he can do it all day with #160; 5-6 arrows if #200.
I know it is tough to do with limited resources, but I'd like to see a larger sample size before making the conclusion made in this video.
I'd also like to see how the mail protects when hit at an angle.
I wonder if the difference in the direction that the two maille samples were hung made a difference - the commercial maille was hung 90° rotated relative to how it would be worn, meaning there would be less contraction of the sample on impact.
Great work. Did you intend to release all videos at once, i.e. does the TH-cam algorithm like that?
thank you so much for these videos!
Thank you for these videos! Have you ever thought to videos examining and testing pre 14th century archery v armor?
Feel like (probably through source and archeological bias) we are over saturated with a later medieval development- and let that influence our perception of the rest of the medieval period. Tod’s made the point before that high poundage longbows-and people who could use them effectively- didn’t come around until 14th century. While mail was still dominate in many situations- re Border Wars- and will remain so for common troops, we never seem to examine archery effectiveness for early periods- when mail was pretty much the only armor available.
Purely in an English\Welsh context, there’s whole traditions beforehand. From Norman archery traditions that help win and came with the Battle of Hastings. To the Welsh tradition, which there’s a lot of debate on. To the transitional period of the late 13th century demonstrated during the First War of Scottish Independence. It would be cool seeing how much of a step up the longbow at Agincourt v the period armor would be against the early longbow, used in the context of the transitional, and Norman.
Thank you for all the work you do, it’s truly phenomenal.
Fantastic work.
Here’s an additional test idea for you:
We know that shields were used as a defense against arrows. We also know that (sometimes? often?) arrows penetrated shields. What would be interesting to know would be how did various armors perform against an arrow AFTER it had gone through a shield. Like armor I’m sure there was a lot of variation in quality and materials of shields - but it seems like a variety of surrogates could be fabricated.
Does this sort of test have merit?
It’s happening lads and lassies! Let’s go !!!
This is fascinating. Thank you Tod! Would love to see the difference between head types against mail - needle bodkins, bodkins, Type 16s etc... Maybe something for AvsA 3?
Also would have been interesting to see what damage, if any, the mail itself took.
I said this on the main video as well, but it would be interesting to see at what range is mail enough to stop arrows.