Was Crusader Chain-Mail Effective Against Turkish Arrows?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.พ. 2018
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How effective was the chain-mail armor used by the medieval Crusaders? Was it effective against the swift, devastating mounted Turkish archers they so often faced in the Holy Land? We'll explore that issue today.
LindyBeige's video about chain-mail:
• Chainmail - part 2
Song used in the podcast: "Kerak" by J Stephen Roberts:
www.amazon.com/Kerak/dp/B078D...
All you have to do is read the history. Lots of examples. For instance, during one of the battles, Richard the Lionheart was pincushioned with arrows, along with all his personal guard, they said he looked like a porcupine. If his armor couldn't handle it he would have been dead many times over. I cant remember off the top of my head which battle but I know for a fact and could find out quick enough if need be. The Turks were DEADLY archers, if the westerners didn't have the edge in armor they wouldn't have been able to hang. History channel experiments are RETARDED. TOTALLY unscientific, untrue, and usually anti-western. You ever see them use a crossbow on the history channel? They are so weak they wouldn't pierce a leather jacket. Eastern recurve bows are superstrong but longbows are weak on comparison. Yet somehow they are more than strong enough to mow down knights like butter. Supposedly.
Big R battle of Arsuf
"modernly made chainmail" so the terrible but cheap butted mail we see in such "tests" instead of zsing proper historic riveted mail.
MyRkAcc, very good point. Cody had been experimenting with chainmail. He found that the butted kind was easily penetrated by even a small dagger, but brazed mail would easily stop penetration.
The best defensive test from reconstruction, that I've seen, was in the documentary Knights, the shirt did not stop Hungarian arrows, but it was able to stop the penetration of a sword
@@orbitingeyes2540 brazed mail? A dagger is actually a really good weapon for punching through something. Butted mail can be rubbish and tests very rarely have good armour.
Skallagrim, Tod's Workshop, and Thegnthrand's channels on youtube all have tests of proper riveted chainmail against projectile weapons such as bows, crossbows, javelins, etc and against swords and spears.
You could practically tear apart butted mail with your bare hands.....not so with riveted mail.
During the Battle of Jaffa, muslim chroniclers who were present at the battle, witnessed many instances when Saracen arrows would fail to penetrate the crusaders' armor where either they were deflected or simply bounced off. The crusaders, on the other hand, were mostly armed with more powerful armor-piercing crossbows which punched through armor-clad Saracens and their horses alike.
"...drawn up in front of the cavalry, stood firm as a wall, and every foot-soldier wore a vest of thick felt and a coat of mail so dense and strong that our arrows made no impression on them... I saw some with from one to ten arrows sticking in them, and still advancing at their ordinary pace without leaving the ranks" - Bahā'al-Dīn, year 1174
@@ultranium7414 And the funny thing you mentioned about the Crusades but keep in mind they won more battles than lost while heavily outnumbered during the entire Crusades.
Funny thing is King Richard Lionheart thrash5 all the Muslims left and right throughout the Middle East. The main reason why they lost is has to do with the fact that the main father and mother States of Europe slowly stop supporting the Crusader state.
The French King that was part of the Crusade went back home and start attacking King Richard's lands so King Richard had to return and back to Britain to fight the French, that's why he couldn't capture Jerusalem.
@@skatetrooper5285 aye ..
"Armor clad saracens"
Saracens referred to Arabs, who didnt wear much armor
The problem with mail misconceptions is that most test are done with butted mail aka larp costume armor.
I think at at least half of the historic sphere of youtube did videos on the effectiveness of mail.
Also quite the chuckle at : they thougth they had overwhelming numbers, it was a massive crusader victory.
Skallagrim, Tod's Workshop, and Thegnthrand's channels on youtube all have tests of proper riveted chainmail against projectile weapons such as bows, crossbows, javelins, etc and against swords and spears. There are great videos for anyone interested in seeing how more accurate chainmail will perform.
@@Intranetusa Not possible to make replicas of chain mail or armour from the past. Most of the methods used back then are unknown today. Example; Polish Winged Hussars had armour that withstood musket fire yet replica armour made to look exactly the same as armour in museums etc can not withstand musket fire from that era. They obviously had different methods than we are aware of.
@@saintsone7877 It is absolutely possible to make replicas because there are surviving examples of armor from that timeperiod. Making musket resistant plate armor isn't hard - Skallagrim has a video where he shoots plate helmet with modern and pre-modern guns, and it resisted bullets from both. Even lamellar armor made from cheaper manufacturers can resist some bullets from premodern firearms. Modern replicas just have to do it right - the plate armor you're talking about that failed bullet resistance testing (if they were trying to replicate a higher grade cuirass) are mostly for show as a display piece - they aren't exact replicas that replicate the historical item's thickness and steel type.
@@Intranetusa Well, yes, rather convincing replicas of plate, brigandine etc. are very much achievable with modern technology and craftsmen with their research.
Lots of actual period mail is actually ridiculously challenging today, without any existing mail industry, and actually very few people do it today, and if they do they do it for fat thousands of dollars. Making just 50cm x 50cm patch of faithful Gjermundbu mail (in terms of dimensions at least) would require about 30 thousands of rings. Insane amount of work-hours.
That's why mail of small rings of 6mm ID or less is rarely done, while it was very common throughout history, for example
Most of the stuff Skallagrim Tod and Thegn test is, while riveted, mostly rather or very unhistorical Indian stuff, though there are exceptions, like Tod's testing of Isak Krogh's mail.
@@lscibor Yep, smaller rings are indeed more expensive to make and rare today. Though I wonder how modern higher carbon steel rings [stronger and purer] matches up against historical wrought iron/low carbon mild steel rings. In regards to Tod's testing of high quality mail from Iska Krogh, if I recall, those tests showed that even good mail needs to be combined with a thick layer of padding because arrows from strong warbows will still go clean through the mail. The mail blunts the tip of the arrow and then the armor relies on the thick padding to reduce the penetration of the blunted arrow to less-than-fatal shallower wounds.
well as I have stated repeatedly.. if you want to know less about history,,, watch the history channel,,, so you can be completely confused like the rest.
great vid again and thanks... loved it.
Historical patterned riveted mail over gambeson stops arrows consistantly. Even higher draw weights have trouble penetrating at range. You have to be point blank and even then it's a coin flip.
Tell that to the French Knights at Crecy.
+Sagrotan
"Almost impervious". Well, I have reasons to doubt that. Why? Because the Turks were already winning battles against Byzantines who employed lamellar in addition to mail. The Byzantines themselves have been fighting against horse archers for a much longer time than the Crusaders did, even before the Seljuk Turks, they were up against Pechenegs, Bulgars, Avars and others. Most of the Frankish Crusaders never had any contact with forces that employed massed archers, and hit and run tactics. The Byzantines had fought steppe people for a loong time. They were even employing said steppe people as mercenaries, which the Crusaders also started to do after a while.
azmhyr azmhyr wearing armor doesnt guarantee victory over the enemy, heavily armored Frankish knights were defeated by Spaniard javelin throwers who wore little more than a shirt and they specifically mention targeting gaps in armor to defeat the knights, which was also how they defeated Byzantine troops as well as Arab troops. Furthermore, multiple sources mention the effectiveness of maille against arrows including one Saladins biographers at the battle of Arsuf who was impressed by the crusader armors resistance to arrows. Well armored men are still capable of loosing battles, as you pointed out in the battle of Crecy where, although most of the arrows deflected off the French armor, many French knights were either killed by an arrow striking a gap in armor or by english footmen who would outnumber and grapple disoriented French knights in order to take them out
Most of them made it to English lines unscathed thanks to their armor. What the arrows did was disrupt and disorganize their charge, allowing the english to get the upper hand in melee. Arrows had very little stopping power vs unarmored foes and next to nothing vs armored ones. Missile fire up to the Napoleanic wars was there to disrupt, demoralize, confuse the enemy's formation. Then one still had to move on to melee. Not even musket fire could win the day if all you did was hang back and shoot the other guy.
majungasaurusaaaa yup
Turkish arrows can't melt crusader chain-mail
alperen kral Took centuries to do it.
+jud dude
You talk like an inbred yourself.
Like really. "Russians are going to destroy you". Like really?
@Abu Troll al cockroachistan you know ottoman came in 1400 while crusaders left in 1350. Read some history. Also Mongols were a fierce enemy to Saracens
So how did the crusaders die ??? If the turkish arrow couldnt melt crusader chain xD
@@gamerzreunion2922 Just because the Ottomans came doesn't mean Turks didn't. What do you think a Seljuk Turk is? Read some history yourself.
As far as I remember, the Turkish Arrows were mostly tipped with a barbed head and not with a Bodkin.
That makes the penetration much more difficult to get through Maille, boiled leather and a Gambeson/Haketon.
The Mongols used lose-fitting tunics of Silk, and that was quite effective against Arrows.
When you look at Officers during the Napoleonic Wars, the ones that could afford it, used Silk-shirts under their tunics.
Not that that stopped the bullet, but silk simply ripped and didn't get dragged into the wound like linen and then in turn turned septic and eventually to Gangrene.
H.J. Indy Nuding Turko-Mongol archers didn't use bodkins, but they had a different type of armor-penetrating heavy arrowhead with a star-shaped section. Mongols wore coarsely woven silk to help draw the arrowhead out of the wound after penetration, not to prevent penetration in the first place. They did wear armor, often heavier than what crusaders wore, so the silk was for when shit hit the fan. Turko-Mongol arrows used reed shafts that made the body of the arrow light but had heavy metal arrowheads and weighted tails for balance. This meant the shafts tended to break near the arrowhead, which made the head near-impossible to extract. Coarse woven silk would unravel on impact but would not break. The threads would then wrap around the arrowhead and pulling the rest of the garment would extract the arrowhead. The whole point of wearing silk was that it wouldn't rip, unlike linen or the more common cotton garments. The silk shirts worn in the 18th century worked the same way.
You're right I should have phrased it a bit more eloquent. I didn't mean it to sound that they wore "Silk-Armour".
But Silk is very strong.
I read years and years ago about the Battle of Carrhea and the Parthian slaughter of the Roman Legions.
One "Source" said that the Romans learned quite a few Lessons from that Battle.
One Lesson was that they faced afterwards the outside of the Scuta with several layers of Silk.
I do not remember who told them to do it, but I guess it must have been somebody from the Auxiliary Forces from that Area.
The Parthian Arrows had penetrated the Scuta and injured or even killed the Legionnaire behind, but the silk apparently "prevented" the same in later years.
Andrew Suryali How do you come to the conclusion that Mongols were heavier armored than crusaders? Because they most certainly weren't.
Mongol armies consisted mostly of light cavalry, which enabled them to do the hit and run tacticts. No heavily armored soldier would be able to do that.
That's a myth. The imperial Mongol army had an initial ratio of 1:3 heavy vs. light cavalry. By the time of Batu's invasion of Russia this ratio had reached a staggering 4:6. Bear in mind that in the initial phase of Mongol expansion they didn't have infantry at all, so a tumen of 10,000 would have had 2,500 heavy cavalry. The all-cavalry army of 70,000 that Batu marched into Poland had over 25,000 heavy cavalry, more than the total estimated number available to BOTH European armies opposing him combined. Mongol fans today have this image of wily, lithe, geeky horse archers outsmarting slow, ponderous, dumb knights, but that's not how Mongols fought at all. They won every time because THEY had more "knights".
Individually, Mongol heavies were also better-armored. Mongol heavy cavalry wore lamellar armor patterned after the Chinese Jin armor. It was heavier than the mail worn by crusaders at any time during their history and was completely impervious to arrows. Admittedly the crusaders were better protected in the arms and legs, though.
For comparison, the entirety of the crusading army that made up the First Crusade had between 25,000 to 40,000 soldiers, and only between 5,000 to 7,000 of them were even cavalry at all. Some crusader infantry were indeed very heavily armored, but at most they made up 10% of the actual infantry contingent. Most infantry were peasant levies and archers, professionals with shield and spear, and crossbowmen.
Basically, the reason why people thought Mongol armies were all horse archers was because those guys were the ones people saw most of the time, and those guys are the only remnants of Mongol glory we can see today (the heavy cavalry having been abandoned in the 16th century). The heavy cav largely stayed back and only joined the major battles. And that's another thing we have to remember. In ALL accounts of Mongol victories, their primary mode of attack in a field battle was the heavy cavalry charge. The horse archers were only used for harassment and as bait for entrapment.
Andrew Suryali But how do you explain their fast traveling time from Mongolia to Europe then? Ok you had the mostly flat Eurasian steppe, but no heavily armored units can travel the way they did. Or is it for that reason they carried so many spare horses?
One downvote? Must've been a Turk. :D
FUNNY!
Cry
We turks fucked rusaders and thats it GG
@Apathetic Apparition Vlad behead and his head thrown to throne of Mehmet II.
*Shields*, man. I kept waiting for you to bring up shields
Also, Crusader armies would normally have crossbowmen on foot. Sometimes they'd loose using a sort of "chain-firing" system in which men would shoot their quarrels, hand off their bows for reloading to comrades behind them, and then be handed another loaded crossbow, which would allow a quite rapid rate of "fire." Men behind the shooters would be reloading constantly and returning loaded weapons to their fellows. This could be repeated ad infinitum as long as they had enough quarrels.
Rate of fire wasnt important back then for crossbowmen because the crossbowmen were usually standing behind a pavise, in a wagon, or behind a castellation. If they werent, then rate of fire did matter and they were doomed. 100 recurved composite bows shoot more arrows than 100-300 crossbows do
Being a soldier in Iraq...recently, I've had the same lament as the crusader, the enemy would hit and run and not stay and fight...smart of them, they lose every time we can pin them and force them into a direct engagement with us...must have been the same feeling they felt back then
Not really. Pinning down horse archers especially well equipped ones with Medieval equipment is like fighting modern jet fighters with no air support but anti air guns and shoulder mounted rockets. If European knights was compared to Medieval tanks then Eastern horse archers should be compared to Medieval air force. If you want a popular example of elite horse archers, the look no further than Samurais; if you are more well versed in history, then there are better examples such as Mamluks, Mongols of 12-14 century, and Manchu Banner armies of 16th century.
Yup back then use lost and today use lose
It also depends on what kind of maile was being used in the history channel test. Knowing that kind of documentary it was likely butted mail of not significant quality. They would have been wearing actually pretty good quality riveted maile, and for an arrow, particularly the turkish variety, would need a very good well placed shot from relatively close range. And even if you compromise the maile it may very well not penetrate deep enough to be lethal.
Arrows that can shoot through chain mail at close range, often can't at long range as arrows loose some velocity over distance.
The Crusader usually wore at least double-layer if not triple layer of densely riveted chainmail - very different from the loosely riveted single-layer chainmail wore by the Saracens.
Usama tells us in his chronicle that he wore a quilted jerkin sewn with two layers of chain mail inside.
An excellent video, but I think there's a few additional facts worth noting:
1. Most heavy cavalry utilized large kite shields that, if held properly with the horse advancing at an a specific angle to the enemy, would be able to cover almost the entirety of the horse from an archer's perspective
2. While horses did frequently use thick linen armor, it wasn't common in the middle east due to the warm climate: The large bodies of European horses made them less suited than their Arabian cousins to begin with, as they produced more heat and were unable to disperse it as well due to the lower mass/surface area ratio of their bodies. A caparison (or whatever its called) would probably roast a European horse alive.
3. To be fair, bow size isn't necessarily indicative of total power/draw weight. In particular, the eastern concept of composite bows- in which wood was reinforced with animal sinew- resulted in compact, effective bows that were used by a number of nomadic people, including the mongols, their draw weights could be comparable to that of the english long bow, and the recurve would make it possible to use on horse back. Granted, much of this advantage would be nullified if they used improper arrows, as you suggest.
4. I don't know exactly how important this is, and it steps into the idea of physics in a broader context: I doubt very highly that the turks charged straight at the Crusader's they were fighting, because it would be to difficult to change direction. It is more likely they approached at an angle, which would mean 1: the arrow would not receive the full benefits of the horses speed, and 2: The arrow would have a tangential sideways velocity, making it unlikely that the tip of the arrow RARELY directly struck the intended target. This works in the favor of riveted mail, as when struck with force it flexes, taking advantage of the tangential velocity and causing it not only to skid, but SLIDE right off the surface of the armor.
Horse armor was commonly used in that region by the persians, turks, mongols, romans, scythians and pretty much any cavalry power. These powers featured horse armor far heavier than anything western euros brought . So heat clearly wasn't a factor.
I wouldn't say improper arrows. At the beginning the Turks used a different bow with a larger siya too shoot heavier arrows then sometime they switched it up for the opposite. So they shoot light arrows with heavy draw weights like compound bows shoot 5 gpp arrows. It's a very flat trajectory of the arrow. U can shoot farther more accurately but penetration suffers compared to a heavier arrow like that used by the Hun or Mongol
But by far the worst mistake was using costume chain-mail made for Hollywood movies. It was not designed to stop anything. You can find hundreds of examples of chain-mail in castles in my country, the links are so close together you cant push a needle through it. However, it would hurt like hell getting hit by an arrow unless you had padding underneath.
Skallagrim, Tod's Workshop, and Thegnthrand's channels on youtube all have tests of proper riveted chainmail against projectile weapons such as bows, crossbows, javelins, etc and against swords and spears.
These tests that they do in modern documentaries tend to use cheap butted chainmail (where the links are just bent closed) rather than the historically accurate and far more labor intensive riveted (where the links are closed with a rivet). The paynim's arrows weren't designed to defeat heavy armor, and they did not have the bodkin tips that Europeans used to defeat mail.
That being said, I imagine the heat of the desert was as dangerous to the Crusaders as the Turk was. I've fought in the desert wearing modern armor, and it's uncomfortable at best, and requires constantly drinking water. I can only imagine what it would be like to wear steel armor over heavy padding. Must have been like being in an oven.
If chain-mail was ineffective, I doubt they would have used it. The Turks in the early crusades had little to no armor, and yet they were effective. It depends on the tactical doctrine, for lack of a better word, one uses.
They were effective for a long time. The mail has been used for hundreds of years. The problem are these shows that provide poorly done "chain mail" and use it for their tests and then laugh at how idiotic their ancestors were for using such ineffective things.
Chain mail wasn't ineffective, but it was nowhere as effective as the armor that the Byzantines used.
European chainmail was not produced to counter archery, it was supposed to be effective in melee.
They probably did change their design after they encountered to forces that relied on archery, but I'd say that their main protection against arrows were their shields.
Correction: The turkish light cav didn't wear heavy armor. Every faction's heavy cav was clad in mail. It was THE high end armor of the day. If you could afford it, mail was the thing you wore.
The romans used mostly mail as well.
Agreed, Charlemagne was one of the only Commanders to organize and plan his campaigns, thoroughly estimating costs and picking the fields for battles. Which was not the common practice in his region in the dark ages. If he was fighting among men like Hannibal, Edward the I or Nebuchadnezzar, he would not have stood out as much, but the time and area he lived him allowed him to stand out and flourish.
In keeping with the theme of butted maille vs. riveted maille: I make chain maille as a hobby (14 gauge electric fence wiring works well for hobby armor if you want to do all the work yourself) and butted maille won't stop any kind of piercing blow... Period. Riveted or welded would probably be effective against arrows with broad style heads. A target style arrow head might be able to to wiggle through all but the tightest weaves, 6-in-1 or tighter, or small rings.
Crusader chain mail are usually 2 and even 3 layers. Hard to penetrate.
Just an anecdote, and limited in experience, but I'm pretty impressed with chainmail. I've been to a few Society for Creative Anachronism fight practices, and one individual had proper-looking crusader kit, chainmail over padding.
In the SCA's rules, you are supposed to take a hit that you feel was solidly struck, and that seemed like a real wounding blow. The weapons are inch thick rattan batons.
Well, the chainmail was surprisingly slippery. Blows that would be stopped or absorbed into plate or pad just slid right off.
Listening to this channel reminds me why I should not be ashamed of the Crusades or Christianity but instead makes me proud.
A good example of how good chainmail actually was and did it’s job, check out “The Outlaw King”, with Chris Pine.
They show how actual proper chainmail truly protects against swords and arrows too.
Good movie too.
I watched this film on your recommendation , Robert the Bruce played by a wooden actor and the English mail didn't stop arrows ,swords etc . I disagree, it isn't a good example or a good movie too.
I make riveted mail and have not found anyone with a bow able to punch through it. There is a lot to the chain such as material. How "pure" the metal is, the ring size and the diameter of the "wire" also was it heat treated and what was used to cool the chain during heat treatment. Also the forming or the ring was it pressed or hammered. Like I said a lot goes into making functional chain....and yeah butted chain will always give I make decorations out of butted chains nothing more.
The gambison(sp) is very underrated
Exactly it's about mail AND gameson
You mean back when the History Channel showed actual historical documentaries?
The drawn image to the left when you mentionthe gesta regis ricardi and also Usama ibn Munqidh, do you know its origin?
Hey, mr. Real Crusades, I was wondering if you could do a review on the foreign movie, “Arn, Knight Templar” and see how accurate it is...though I expect not very accurate.
Can you put up some sources? I’m curious about the tactics
It was a padded linen some what like a pre cursor to Kevlar it was thick but breathable so the knight wouldn’t roast in his amor
Great video and fun to watch! Actually the tactic of Cavalry being screened by a formation of Infantry is assumed to be a Byzantine invention. Byzantine military manuals such as the Precepta Militaria (written around 970 AD) describe the use of an Infantry square that was used to off set the more mobile Arab light cavalry and to protect the Byzantine cavalry.
Turkish bows could be around the same draw-weight as longbows. At least it was possible. However, arrows are no use for heavy armor, like mail.
byzantines had horse archers long before, but the steppe warrior tactics were that what mattered
I actually also wonder, even if the arrow manages to penetrate mail and padding, how much damage does it do? If it doesn't hit something vital like an artery, they don't really do much at all. Also you always have a tradeoff between wounding capability vs. armor penetration. An arrow that is good at inflicting wounds is typically bad at armor penetration and vice versa (broadhead vs. bodkin e.g.).
Just because you are wounded by an arrow, doesn't necessarily mean you can't fight anymore. I think many people overestimate the damage arrows do. For that matter I think the later muskets were much better at inflicting shock to tissue and cause serious injuries.
I saw that show...the chainmail they used was modern loose rings also instead of tight riveted mail links...HUGE difference. Riveted tight mail would definitely stop a Turkish arrow. There are no spaces going through the mail in riveted mail with almost natural layers of links
You’d think guys especially veterans or serving with veteran commanders would realize that most casualties especially when they have shields and/or armor happen when they run. Like you see so many reports where they say we killed 10k of the enemy and only suffered like a few hundred loses ourselves. Same thing in any battle from antiquity until the advent of effective gunpowder weapons that are used in larger numbers proportionately (more or less nothing is universal obvi) but especially when you are on a horse it’s mad easy to kill people with impunity when their backs are turned
17:56 Aaaand demonetized for teaching the viewers how to defeat Muslims.
That said, it would be demonetized for the title alone.
Ibn Muhammad, actually muslims are already defeated completely. They just don't know it yet.
+Jack
These tactics didn't seem to work in Nicopolis.
Nor, say, in other defeats European heavy cavalry suffered at the hands of the Ottomans. It was the same Frenchmen with their heavy cavalry who lost at Crecy, against massed longbow fire. I.e. lighter, more maneuverable forces will always win at the end. This is how the Rashidun caliphate defeated the much better armored Byzantines at Yarmouk.
Like its not specifically about Muslims, because Muslim forces had heavy assault cavalry by the time the Crusaders were there, these were called "Ghulams" and "Mamelukes" who were dedicated soldiers much like the Knights.
Like, yeah, a successful heavy cavalry charge could definitely rout a number of tribal forces who only participate in the battle just for the loot, as it was with the Turkish tribesman...
But that's all about it.
Combined arms and discipline but most importantly logistic won wars.
Islam as a global existential threat to the rest of the world has been neutralized the moment the ottoman empire declined. Today it is a mere nuisance.
Christians allied with Muslims, Muslims fought other Muslims, and Christians fought other Christians. It wasn't as black and white as Christian vs Muslims.
I suggest putting up a sheet on a cloths-line and throw a rock at it. Watch how the sheet absorbs the energy. Now, look at a Saracen arrow head. It is flat and wide. The arrow head's energy is spread over a larger area. The combination of the chain mail's ability to disperse energy and the lower impact energy because of the greater surface area is what makes the chain effective. If the arrow heads were long and slender, the Crusader would have been skewed through and through. Solid plate iron defeats the spike arrow head. Centuries later the bodkin arrow head was designed to defeat both chain mail with rigid plate iron. Technology has it's role in every war, not just a few.
Turks had different arrowheads and they course had bodkin points. They had tribladed arrows before we thought of it with our modern 3 bladed hunting heads
Bravo
A light bow like the one used by the Mongols etc?
Didn't the Turcopoles who fought with the Crusaders as allies/auxiliaries employ some mounted archers? That would have gone some way toward balancing the Turkish and Arab mounted bowmen.
Arabs didnt have mounted bowmen.
@@civilengineer3349 you're insane lmao of course they did the ARABIAN HORSE!!
Yes and the Turceploes actually were almost half the number of the other combatants.
@@Daylon91 the arabs rode horses but did not use bows while on horseback. Thats a persian and turk style of fighting
@@civilengineer3349arab armies also used turkic mercenaries. so they have horsearchers
The Crusaders also carried large shields.
My ancestor died from an arrow to the knee in The Siege of Antioch (First Crusade).
The mail today is mostly button mail but in middleval time they used riveted mail which is more effective
I wouldn't underestimate the composite bow! When Holy Roman Emperor led the biggest army until that time (1052) into Hungary, his knights were decimated by Hungarian mounted archers. The average draw weight of reconstructions is similar to that of the longbow, 80-120 pounds. The Mongols used the same class of bow, and they did OK, too.
@Abu Troll al cockroachistan Good info, thanks!!
Yep no longbow compares to ANY Composite bow. People look at the literal size of the longbow (like the "historian"/author) and think the smaller bows used by steppe tribes are not as efficient because of their size. It's quite the opposite especially with bows.
Arrows don't need to be able to defeat armor for archery to be effective. Wounding/killing is merely the icing on the cake. The main effect is disruption, confusion and undermining of morale to soften the foe up for hand to hand combat. Light horse archer based armies feature heavy cavalry at roughly a 6-4 light to heavy ratio to finish off the enemy up close. Hand to hand is what decide things even to this day with grenades replacing the bayonet charge during ww1.
Which Crusade are we talking about?
This can be demonstrated with math.
Turkish arrows are around 35 grams, whereas english warbow arrows were around 64-114 grams.
Therefor we can calculate the kinetic energy of the arrow at different speeds with the formula 0.5*m*v^2
35 gram arrow at 75 m/s = 98.43 Joules
35 gram arrow at 72 m/s = 90.72 Joules
35 gram arrow at 69 m/s = 83.31 Joules
35 gram arrow at 66 m/s = 76.23 Joules
35 gram arrow at 63 m/s = 69.45 Joules
35 gram arrow at 60 m/s = 63 Joules
35 gram arrow at 57 m/s = 56.85 Joules
35 gram arrow at 54 m/s = 51.03 Joules
35 gram arrow at 51 m/s = 45.51 Joules
35 gram arrow at 48 m/s = 40.32 Joules
Alan Williams tested a mail gusset from the 15th century with a square head, generating 120 Joules. The mail was supported by 26 layers of linen. The arrow penetrated completely through. The reason he used 120 Joules has to do with the fact that he tested a modern reproduction made of modern steel first and this was defeated completely with 120 Joules. However, with only 100 Joules he penetrated the mail and padding enough to cause a serious wound. The 15th century gusset had alternating bands of ferrite and bainite with a Vickers plate hardness of 168 and 235, respectively. The arrowhead achieved deeper penetration against the 15thC mail than it did against the modern reproduction. From this he concluded that the artifact would have been defeated with less than 120 Joules, but didn't want to damage it more unnecessarily. So around 100 Joules are enough when the arrowhead is a square head at a 16 degree angle. A longer needle bodkin or type 16 head would require less than 100 Joules behind it in order to penetrate.
Arrows from a 150 lb longbow , on the other hand, can penetrate mail armor with ease. Here are some of the data we have on different arrow weights.
108 gram arrow, at 52 m/s = 147 Joules
95.6 gram arrow at 53 m/s = 134.69 Joules point blank, 43.3 m/s at 230 m = 89.9 Joules
74.4 gram arrow, 57.8 m/s = 124.27 Joules point blank, 44.9 m/s at 258 m = 75 Joules
57.8 gram arrow, 62.25 m/s = 111.98 Joules point blank, 48.3 m/s at 295 m = 67.4 Joules
53.6 gram arrow, 64.3 m/s = 110.8 Joules point blank, 48.9 m/s at 320 m = 64.1 Joules
From this it's clear that arrows of these different weights will kill at the given velocities when equipped with a short bodkin:
108 gram arrow at 43.5 m/s = 102.1 Joules
95.6 gram arrow at 46 m/s = 101 Joules
74.4 gram arrow at 52 m/s = 100.5 Joules
57.8 gram arrow at 59 m/s = 100.6 Joules
53.6 gram arrow at 61.5 m/s = 101.3 Joules
This meant that the average livery arrow around 75-80 gram with a long needle bodkin could kill and wound out to 80 meters and beyond. The velocity of an arrow at 25 meters and 80 meters is the same because of the downward trajectory. It's also the same at 120 meters and 255 meters. Because a needle bodkin or type 16 requires less than 100 Joules in order to penetrate, you have reached this threshold with 49 m/s, which give us 90 Joules. A 75 gram arrows strike at around 49 m/s at the 80 meters mark and 44.8 m/s at 255 meters.
Arrows from Turkish bows only had around half this kinetic energy of a livery arrow when striking a target, not enough to penetrate mail armor.
The arrows used by the Turks were not just light as you assume, but as heavy as used in Europe & they had a wide range of heads available for various purposes. They used just as powerful bows as the Crusaders yet the Asiatic composite bow is a more mechanically efficient design, meaning for the same draw weight it would shoot a bit further & hit harder than a self longbow/warbow.
Turkish arrows were very light compared to the draw weights of their bows. Similar to what compound bows shoot. 5 gpp arrows. Turkish bows shot farther and flatter but had less smack on the target but Turks shot lots of arrows and smaller arrows have a better chance of slipping into a gap.
Chain-mail in motion is a better deterrent than when at rest as well.
Chainmail simply blunted a sharp arrow limiting its penetration into the gameson.
Did they use butted mail in the test?
I don't put any trust on anything, that you can see on TV.
If you like military history. Find a copy of ( The encyclopedia of military history) By Dupuy and Dupuy. They are brothers. Great section on the crusades. And the development of both bows and armor. Trust me its a great book. History from the first recorded battle to the present. And no sjw crap just straightforward history. But it is very long at 1400 pages. Not counting index And bibliography. Check it out.
The knights on horseback were enclosed by the infantry. The infantry had heavy shields the took the brunt of most of the arrows.
Knights also had big shields
@@civilengineer3349 but also rode on a way bigger horse, making them bigger targets.
Chain mail with the padding was the biggest edge the crusaders had in battle, virtually made them tanks. I would go as far as say The Crusaders wouldn’t have succeeded without it. If it wasn’t effective the crusaders wouldn’t have worn it in the searing Middle East climate.
Add the wooden shields
It almost sounds like the Book of Maccabees.
Honestly I’m just staring at the right chap’s arm and wondering how we lost the ability to depict basic anatomy after the fall of Rome
Pretty sure that's a modern drawing.
That is something that irritated me with art from this period, people were really arrogant when they told stories about people from ancient times and made them look like themselves, in dress and features (which were not distinctive). Roman sculpting was much more detailed and from what I've seen accurate the dying Gaul next to a bust of Caeser has clear distinction.
Some of the European peasants even fought as slingers--one of the oldest of missile weapons, and one that could cave in a skull or smash in the teeth if deployed with skill.
Slingers are so underrated I think
Was Turkish cannon effective against Theodosian walls?
your memeing all over my favorite channels
You mean Hungarian cannon. The Turks had to shop around to Europe. Even then they got the second rate engineers....for Europe.
+alperen kral
read history based on facts.. it was designed by hungarian
Yep! A guy called Urban who eventually blew up with one of his bombards during the siege... The Venetians after Lepanto either melted or used as anchors the Turkish guns, because they were so bad quality. And that was more than a century later...
Big R
uhmmm...you mean thats what Europeans generally assume and have tendencies to claim things.
The fact is, Ottoman giant cannons were drawn by Sultan Mehmet himself, the Hungarian gun-founder was a mere laborer along with other native technicians. As Mehmet was first and foremost an engineer and also (re)invented the mortar and succesfully engaged targets with it.
Instead of using a dummy, they should have used one of The producers, it would have been fun to watch fake armor fail
And yes the reason why I'm mentioning the Mongols was because this all happen at the same time period of the crusades.....
Crassus had the same problem
Lindybiege is goofy
High lord Silver hand Aye still awesome
Not as weird and degrading as metatron lmao that guy...
Riveted mail over a gambeson stops arrows quite effectively. Cheap butted mail is basically cosplay armour and stops nothing. Many of the armours used in "demonstrations " have been really, really cheap.
Absolutely.
The bows the Turks used were lighter than foot archers of the west but had 2 bows (one for on foot; heavier) with draw weights still in excess of 90-120 ibs and were more efficient than English longbows. Alexander had to incorporate Persian foot archers into his army because they outdistanced his Cretans with their longbows. Turkish bows relied on the speed of the arrow to punch through the target whereas other cultures like the Chinese and Japanese used the weight of the arrow to do so. Different philosophies
that's not really Correct // This Concept that one can't use heavy poundage bows on Horseback is complete nonsense proven false by historic sources as well, As a matter of Fact, one of the main purposes of a stirrup was that it allowed you to use your back muscle's on horseback, allowing you to draw higher poundage bows / the mameluke's during the mameluke sultanate used bows of up to 130 lbs on horseback / the Mongols used bows from 100-150Lbs both on foot and on horseback, The Ottomans did it with 90-160lbs / so did the Mughals, the Tatars, the Timurids, the Samurai too 80-140 Lbs & also the Chinese and Koreans // The Qing Chinese even had rules that Cavalry archers were expected to wield 120 Lbs bows on horseback
So why didn't the Saracens during the Early crusades use them ??? my theory is that an arms race was going between armor & bow and they had not bothered to improve their Arrows & Bows yet because not doing so did not make them really ineffective against the Crusaders / the Short bodkin light arrows & 60-70 lbs composite bows used by the Saracens did manage to go through Crusader chainmail at longer distances but failed to go through the Gambeson, however at closer ranges it did go through both Chainmail and gambeson, However large parts of the Crusader army were not that well armored and still got wounded and killed from those arrows volleys But most importantly the Horses of the knights could still get killed and wounded by the saracen bows & arrows and *a Cavalrymen without a horse is no longer a cavalry men*
@@abisalpha no it's the fact u can pull heavier bows on foot which is why horse archers carried two bows. Shooting from a horse you're balancing so some of your strength is taken up from that meanwhile on foot its alot easier to pull heavier bows
@@abisalpha In 1727 the Chinese emperor railed against a trend among younger men to advance to heavier and heavier draw-weight bows too quickly and to get injured in the process, considering them to be overambitious: ‘If there are those who wish to learn how to use a hard bow, they should practice naturally, gradually increasing the strength of the bow ... Besides, using a hard bow on horseback is difficult, so what is the advantage? A bow that is of strength six [80lb] or greater is enough’ (quoted in Elliott 2001: 180).
@@abisalpha from Adam karpowicz who studies and makes composite bows says 60-80 ibs was typical of horse archer cultures. I'm sorry it's not 100+ lol so many people increase the draw weight more than it really was
@@Daylon91 "I'm sorry it's not 100+" / It is, I'm not asking you anything, I'm calling your statements outright nonsense / Perhaps You should look past your nose and read variety of sources instead of relying on the wisdom of just one Dude / Why would that guy's statements have more credibility then the sources of the military doctrine of the Ottomans, Mughals, Mongols, Timurids, Mameluke's, Manchu which Mention poundage's above 100 on horseback
Turks were the best archers at the time carried over from central asian ancient times archers on horses mongolians also have it
@Abu Troll al cockroachistan Mongols didnt use heavy arrow :D make your research better
@@metinokur142 they did compared to the Turks. The mongols changed their bow design as well too specifically shoot heavy arrows. It's similar to the manchurian bow. Long siyas mean it's meant for launching heavier arrows. Make your research better lmao
quilted and "felted" ??
Felt is comfy 😀👌
Felted is a term variously applied to hairy or otherwise filamentous material that is densely packed or tangled, forming felt or felt-like structures
your point is what ??
You went "Felted?" in parenthesis, I figured you thought the word was made up for some reason. What DID you mean?
often they wore "felt" or "felted" garments under the mail and "helm"
What is this? A video response to some unnamed documentary?
SILK undergarments allow arrows to be pulled out of flesh cleanly.
No it doesn't. Silk does NOTHING to arrows
@@Daylon91 Certainly it can't stop an arrow but the idea was if an arrow pierced armour and didn't penetrate too deeply, the silk, which is a very elastic and strong substance could aid in the cleaner extraction of the arrow which had punctured the skin. I agree, shooting an arrow through a pick of silk straight away could be performed by a five year old.
I LOVE your work but have you thought of ever having your face along side some of the artwork? I dunno I engage more with voice and face for some reason....
Both the Byzantines and Crusaders were heavy armored and slow and this was their weakest point in terms of fighting methodology against the light armored fast Turks.
Both sides had strengths and weaknesses. The Turks relied on the Crusaders making a mistake that would allow them to break up their formation, if the Crusaders remained cohesive the hit and run tactics of the light Turks were virtually useless. The Crusader charge was a powerful weapon that could crush the lighter Saracen forces.
Real Crusades History What about the Mamalukes?
@@RealCrusadesHistory Also like in Battle of Harim, Crusaders defeated by the good'ol faint retreat. Not excatly a mistake, during the battlefield its almost impossible for a commander to halt his army that tries to catch the enemy at that moment.
@@RealCrusadesHistory what the guy above me said^ you underestimate how difficult it is to control thousands of bloodthirsty men without radios or a satlink lol.
Topography matters. In the flat open slow armies have a hard time forcing an engagement when they want it. This is why horse archers dominated the steppes well into the age of gunpowder.
Crusaders avoided fight with Turks they wearing full armor like crusaders they see this and asked permisson go to holy lands
Turks afraided their numbers and gived permisson but they really fighted in Ottoman times not early medieval
It is well known that Norman plate armor was impervious to the Muslim (Turk, Arab, etc.) arrows, and this contributed greatly to their victory in the First Crusade.
+FREEDOMINATOR1776
A much better version of this armor was employed against the Ottomans in the later crusades.
It didn't really help much.
Similarly it didn't help the French Knights at the battle of Crecy. The Yew bow of the English had great range, but low penetrating power, mind you.
Plate armour didn't come into use until the 13th century. The 1st to 3rd+ crusades had mail mostly with a little scale or lamella.
Norman plate armor in first crusade???
Turkish archers could kill the infantry but very rarely they could kill the knights as they aimed for their horses.
They had a lot of trouble killing the infantry because of their shields. And also, the infantry included crossbowmen, who could kill the Turkish horse archers if they got too close.
Turks are not the one who challenged crusaders. Egyptian, Syrians and others of the holy land were not Turks.
Turks ruled those lands