Arrows vs Armour 2 - Our thoughts 6 months later

I've fallen into the mistake here of doing  something which I hate doing I called these   plate Cutters because everybody knows them as  plate Cutters type nines these are the arrows   that go through armor that's what they're  for they who says who says well in fact   they struck here just above the head snapped  off and then the shaft landed on the eye slit   it was not the head of the arrow penetrating  through the helmet that compromised it [Music]   Hi it's Tod from Tod's Workshop here and  Toby Capwell so we're back to talk about   Arrows versus Armor 2 which is a film  that we made last summer is out in the   Autumn and it's where we took the trappings of  a medieval knight from the era of Asian course   so around about 14 15 we took his armor and  we shot it full weight bow full weight arrows   if you're not familiar with the films go watch  it and I say films because we did a main film   where we did all the shooting at the night and it  was Joe Archer did the shooting and then we did   lots of other little spin-off films where we did  a deeper dive into different areas looking at the   possible plate materials the mail the arrowheads  and so on various other aspects it's a whole body   of work go check it out but this is really to talk  about some of the thoughts that we've had about it   since then some of the thoughts that you've had  about it since then and really just to clarify   some of the points because it was a fantastically  interesting film for us but there's an awful lot   that you might think that it says that it doesn't  and it's really to have a look at that and then   to answer some of your specific questions so  Toby really what is your take on what we did   yeah I mean just to have the chance to reconstruct  certain parts of early 15th century armor you know   the iconic equipment of the Hundred Years War and  then shoot at it with big bows to see what happens   how do the arrows interact with the armor how do  the really distinctive forms that certain pieces   of the armor in this period have how does that  affect the arrows and how does it help protect   the wearer through form as well as through the  thickness of the metal and just just to see it   happening just to see those arrows hitting the  metal sometimes sticking in glancing off blowing   up it's all terribly terribly exciting and it  feels like we're starting to get a window onto   to the real human experience of fighting in a  battle like this but you know in reflecting on   that as well and thinking about it and  also taking the comments from people   I've started to think now we have to temper what  we said a little bit you know consider what we   said you know this is not scripted yeah this the  whole point of this is to get everybody together   and film honestly what happened and talk about  it and sometimes our reactions aren't as well   considered as they might be sometimes language is  is it you know gets mixed up in the moment but now   is our chance to step back and and identify  some things to just be aware of when we're   looking at the film again I'd like to clarify  on a point there that Toby's made which is it   is unscripted just in fact like this is now yeah  the film is unscripted and what that means is that   we can react very well to what we're seeing  so that's brilliant but what it also means is   that if we choose the wrong word or we stumble  it and somebody doesn't pick up on it suddenly   that now becomes part of the film so that's it  happened a couple of times perhaps where we said   things that actually in retrospect maybe we made  too much of a point for something oh we missed   other things I think the first one from my point  of view which I'll then throw back to Toby is   this is not a definitive scientific test it  couldn't be and it was never going to be and that   was not the intention of it this is a complicated  situation with arrows that land in different   places at different speeds at different angles  and the repeatability is never going to be there   to say I've shot 30 arrows at this guy and six  have gone through and that is the answer well next   time maybe no one will go through so you can't  say that what happened is factually the end of   the story it's it's indicative it is just showing  the kind of things that might have happened and   not really any more than that but also I know  that we kept referring to him as a knight and   actually on reflection you felt that was a mistake  yeah I mean it's really hard not to you know armor   I mean look well look at him I mean yeah you  can see that yeah that's the thing it's like the   helmet you take the helmet it's got two uh it's  got eyes it's got nose it's got what looks like   a mouth you know you immediately imbue that with  identity and then when you set it up on a torso   with arms and it stood there holding a spear we  didn't put the spear in to make him look like a   soldier we put the spear in because we thought it  might have you know some something to play in the   way the arrows come in or whatever and what if an  arrow hits the spear we wanted to have a weapon   there but but then of course as well you take your  helmet and when you hit it on the side with the   arrow and it flexes and it flexes back suddenly  you're thinking what happens to his neck yeah but   actually of course it was on a piece of Armature  wire it was not a human neck right the armor   is not a person you know when people go into  museums and you see the armor stood there little   kids will say look at the Knights well they're  not Knights they're empty husks that used to   contain Knights but the armor because it's it's  body shaped and because it has so much presence   and a sense of identity which it's supposed  to have we you know our our minds tend to   immediately make the leap from human-shaped  bits of metal to human being and we started   referring to him as a knight and you know and  some of that was light-hearted of course and   but I think it's important to step back from that  a little bit because you know apart from anything   else we didn't have all the pieces of the armor  he didn't have any gauntlets he didn't have any   leg armor right and ultimately there was no  body inside so it's not a night it's not a   human being standing on a battlefield  it is a technical experimental Target   and and it's designed only to test certain things  not the whole possibility of of a real Knight   being shot at on the battlefield once you're  starting to go down the road of thinking of   him as a knight as a human again spontaneously in  an unscripted way it's very easy for us to start   you know trying to anticipate what injuries he  might have suffered and we've and I did it I did   it I was wrong to start getting excited and say oh  that would have killed him oh he's going to bleed   to death from that you know like the ones in the  leg he gets you know he gets shot through the mail   low down on the Target and we think oh well  that's killed him because it's gone through   the armor but he's got leg armor under there  his other things going on in reality you know   the spontaneity and the excitement of it can  just lead us to go a little bit too far in the   moment and also if if you think that for  your purposes in your research interests   our tests might have some value but they  have other weaknesses that you've identified   we'll just ignore the bits of the test that you  think are irrelevant and take take from it what   you do think is valuable if you think it should  have had a plate skirt we'll talk about that   and we don't then just ignore the shots below  the belt you know or whatever I mean this is a   this is a malleable thing and we need to we need  to make as much of it of of we can but but we must   be clear about what it is and what it is yeah I  I think Toby's just also made a very good point   there that My Philosophy our philosophy with this  is to tell the truth in all ways always we don't   uh we don't try and deceive anybody we say what  we've done and we explain what we've done and   we show what we've done so it's there for you to  make your decisions about and if you don't like   some of the decisions we've made factor that  into what you're doing and how you're thinking   but what we have done we have told you about  so you can see it if you don't like it don't   use that bit don't don't factor that into your  thinking think in a different way do a different   test we want to see a test do it so the next thing  we're going to do is talk about the armor that we   use to do our tests with now there's been a lot  of commentary about why we chose the the pieces   that we did and so on but the first thing to  say is that it it was really carefully made   and not only the materials it was mild steel it's  a modern material we get it but that material we   did one of the spin-off tests we tested against uh  contemporary materials that would have been around   at the time and actually it becomes a fairly good  analog for a reasonable quality steal of period   so that's why we chose the mild steel it was very  carefully made so it is variable thickness just   like the original pieces were so where the major  threats are coming it tends to be thicker where   there are lesser threats on the sides it tends to  be thinner true for the breastplate and the helmet   for sure the arms they are what would seem to be  a ridiculously 1.2 millimeter thick which is what   18 gauge or something in gauge thickness something  like that or maybe even 20 gauge really quite thin   1.2 down to one mil on the arms seems ridiculous  period correct but the thing is the other side   of that is what were the pieces we chose because  we didn't have better use where in fact our test   our test piece suffered quite badly got struck a  lot there we didn't have a lower plate skirt which   they may or may not have done but can you fill us  in on that one yeah I mean the first thing to say   about armor in the early 15th century in Western  Europe is that this is a time when there's a lot   of different new ideas flying around I mean plate  the use of methyl plate armor had been developing   over the course of the 14th century and it was  still evolving in all kinds of ways in the early   15th century so you know a lot of different kinds  of things might very well have been worn in some   different configurations and um you know we've got  to choose one to build so as we were setting out   to conceive the armor for the new film I wanted  to build on the comments and the learning that   we got out of the first film in the first film  we were testing only a breastplate but it was   made out of pretty thick medium carbon steel so  it was representing really a pretty high status   piece of equipment for that time and we got a lot  of comments that said okay yeah fine the prince   is a nobleman might have those but what about  everybody else most of the armor that most of the   people are wearing at Agincourt is going to be of  a lower quality so we took that on board and we're   thinking now we have a chance to build another  breastplate and a helmet and some arm defenses   how can that guide our thinking so we're thinking  okay this is someone in the middle a lower ranking   night or a higher ranking man at Arms who's not  a knight someone who has good armor but someone   who might not have absolutely all the latest most  comprehensive developments in the technology what   is the absolute middle of the road typical armor  that we can conceive that was the goal and the   middle of the road armors are going to have more  weaknesses than the upper end armors so we had to   build that in and we kind of consciously decided  that there were certain things we weren't going to   put on yeah you know the the lack of besigues was  not us forgetting to put on bestigues and besigues   aren't that expensive so it wasn't like it was a  financial restriction that's the use being that   piece of armor there that covers that's it right  but you know it is interesting that you know it   from like the 1420s a bit later than Agincourt  they become much more ubiquitous on Armor in   Western Europe in a way that they really hadn't  been before and you know not to say that in some   people had them at Agincourt absolutely they're  a really good idea but not everybody if you   interrogate all of the different visual sources  specifically French and English sources of the   late 14th and very early 15th centuries pesticus  are harder to find either they're not unknown but   they are not typical I mean what I would say and  this is one of the absolute takeaways I've got   from that film is it absolutely shows why you want  to wear them absolutely and and so you can bet   that there were people on that field that day who  were looking at their friends wishing that they   had better use too but that's a useful thing to  have identified yeah you know we you know as an   armor wearer I know that one of the real dangers  when you're getting attacked if you're getting hit   with lances or arrows or sword points or whatever  it hits you in the breastplate skates one way or   the other and goes between the planes and hits you  in the Gap in your shoulder that's a big thing and   just that how armor works and what it can do and  what it can't do but this is something we wanted   to show there's loads of people where that's  not going to be self-evident we want to show   that if we put the best to use on then we just  lose that whole issue and here we can show just   how dangerous and just how vulnerable that area  is and you can always look at the test results   and then for yourselves you know modify it  according to what other factors you might   want to introduce this is an example of how  that's spontaneous in the moment talk and the   excitement of it can get inadvertently misleading  you know when he gets shot through the shoulder   you know we say oh that's killed him when what we  should have said was yeah but if he'd had vesicus   that would have counted and you know and just  you know and add add that stuff in for yourselves   um it is exciting yeah it is exciting and the  fact is a lot of people didn't have vesicus at   that time so this is a danger but you know  we've we've been able to illustrate that   talking of illustrating uh we have a fantastic  opportunity here and this is not a plug for the   book although it's also a plug for the book it's  not a plug because this one's basically sold out   now anyway but what is important here is that  it's got pictures of exactly what we're talking   about so Toby let's um let's talk through a  couple of the pictures here okay first of all   this is a book called armor of the English Knight  it's not armor of the French Knight what I'm doing   in my books is looking at the English evidence  for what the English were wearing French equipment   is different in certain ways and it's worn in  slightly different ways but overall there's a   lot of consistency and commonality we can still  use the illustrations in my book because they're   convenient and right here and we can also talk  about where you know French equipment might have   differed but it's it's it's really pretty  minor uh you know by by 1400 you've got you   know significant plate and male armor covering  essentially the whole body and this isn't just   for the rich and Powerful this is for anybody  who is a man at Arms that is someone who fights   in full armor with the Lance on Horseback and The  Sword and the Paul ax on foot you know fighting in   the manner of a night but in essence this is what  you're dealing with you have a solid plate defense   for the body you've got the bassinet with its it's  pointy skull and the pointy visor usually the male   aventail protecting the neck and the throat and  the top of the shoulders and then articulated   plate defenses for the arms and legs so this  area here would be where the basic use should be   so it's basically roundish plates they're round  they're oblong they come in different shapes it   doesn't really matter the fact is that although  that technology was known it is not you know   ubiquitous it is not absolutely typical if you go  through and look at French and English sources in   the first 20 years of the 15th century they still  start to become more common but the majority of   sources don't have them so there is that there  is a gap there you know they might have been   very well aware that that was a weakness in their  armor but but new technology takes a while to get   traction and it's one thing to know about a  technology and it's quite another for it to   be all pervasive throughout the military Society  I suppose also when your life depends on it and   you've been all right up to this point you're  going to be quite reticent to adopt new things   that you're unfamiliar with if you set up the best  of use right if you're wearing them correctly and   that's a key point but if you are wearing them  correctly they they give you a really significant   boost in your protection so you're not really  paying for them in a reduction of Mobility or   financial burden or anything else you get a  lot of protective benefit for not very much   cost so you know it's not really surprising that  if you fast forward and you start really getting   into the action Court period like 14 10 to 15  specifically those best of you start becoming   um you know much more common it's it's clear they  do but let's go back let's jump back again now to   our plate skirt so what were the choices for us  not having a plate skirt the plate skirts are   you know a good idea and they appear in the 14th  century they they're it's a known technology in   1415. and I'm sure lots of people at Agincourt had  them on both sides but you know there are separate   elements in this period a little later on the  skirts are getting riveted onto the breastplate   so that's that whole thing is one assembly but in  this period the skirts tend to be worn separate   really so it literally is a skirt in the way that  we would think it can be a separate element now   you know there's a lot of variation and with  looking at the evidence sometimes it's hard   to tell what's really going on but plate skirts  are there you know modern people often make the   mistake of thinking at of your waistline as where  your belt is but actually your waistline is just   below the ribs and this is where the waistline of  an armor is and the so-called skirt of the of the   body armor is protecting you kind of from you know  just below the the navel just below the ribs down   to uh the level of the groin but the plate skirts  are not entirely ubiquitous in this period either   um there's you know because you're thinking  of these things as different elements people   are choosing to wear their armor in different  ways you know so you've got the you've got the   breastplate and sometimes with certain kinds  of rear defenses as one element you've got the   skirt as another element sometimes join  sometimes not but equally again if we're   thinking about those people who might be under  Financial constraints and having to make tough   choices about what equipment they're going to  wear you know wearing the long male shirt with   some kind of tough textile defense underneath and  then a solid one piece breastplate sometimes that   might be what you know you know all that these  people had and there are illustrations of that in   in French and otherwise Western European art of  the period too so our omission of a plate skirt   on the test armor was more down to you know money  and time than it was some kind of grand you know   conceptual choice you know this is still really  expensive stuff that takes a lot of you know time   money and effort to put together and we have to  make choices about where our funds are going but   you can also anticipate you can see you know what  kind of protection the the different plates are   offering and you can start to get a sense of what  a plate skirt would do if you added it in and you   can go through our data and start Crossing off all  the pieces of mail that wouldn't have happened if   there have been plates there it's it's a simple  adjustment that viewers can make for themselves   yeah after deciding if they feel that they should  or shouldn't but is it fair to say most guys on   on the field are actually called most French on  the field at ashgor probably had plate skirts   but there'd also be many who did not would  that be a fair statement as far as we can tell   it's really hard to say um the the hardest  leaps to make in in understanding armor   is is the leap you have to make from the  visual and textural sources that you have   to the human reality on the field you  know from a beautifully Illustrated   um you know French manuscript of the period that  shows Knights and their armor in what seems to be   you know a Clarity and Fidelity how do you know  that's what's really being worn out on the field   and also with the written sources the clerks and  you know the people writing inventories and things   they're not trying to describe reality for us  how how do we anticipate how much old outdated   equipment would there be on the battlefield in  1415 how many guys are wearing gear that was made   in 1375. how expensive you know and difficult to  acquire are those plate skirts Beyond a certain   point I mean this is really difficult stuff we're  getting into now because we're trying to approach   the human reality we are starting to get on to the  verge of what our available evidence can tell us   there are no complete armors surviving from  this period we've got fragments and we've got   artistic illustrations and textual sources but  you know there are some massive hypothetical   leaps that still have to be made and and it's  a guess when you do something like this you   have to make guesses they're informed guesses  I hope but they may not be the same guesses as   some other informed people might make when we  did our test it was very important that we had   as many of the correct elements as we could the  bottom Foundation layer was the Almond coat so   this has been absolutely beautifully made and  carefully made of layers of linen and in some   areas wool as well it's worn under the armor  but some of the armor also hangs off it but   then over that you have the mail here and then  you have the plate armor it's the plate that   you really look at in these tests but the male  was also really important to it because a lot of   the strikes were going straight through this mail  now this is a commercially made male it's not the   beautiful handmade stuff that we used on some  of the aventale and on the standard underneath   but again one of the deeper dive films we did  was we tested handmade male against commercially   available mail and well we compared the difference  and those results are there for you to find but   the arrows were going through this really quite  easily it's interesting because you imagine that   this must be relatively resistant but then you  look at the aventale and that really was resistant   that was I think a couple of shots went through  and I went back later on to shoot again and again   but that fundamentally most of the time almost all  of the time stopped the arrows they did not Pierce   The Adventure so is there anything that we know  that we can learn from things like double mail   because I know that that's a reference in some  of the the discussions about Ash and core I'm not   really familiar with it beyond conceptually what  it sounds like it's it's very hard I mean in the   documents in inventories they usually place the  mail as separate from the plate you can read what   they say about the male defenses in a particular  inventory and sometimes they use terms like double   mail for example or you know there there are a  few other terms but double male is a common one   and you can think well I have an idea of what  that might be it's obviously male that's stronger   and more you know heavily built than the typical  male but what does that mean really is it double   y thickness or double the amount of links or do  nothing exist I'm sure there's lots of people   who have very strong opinions about what that  means but ultimately you can't connect the text   with the surviving objects but we can we can say  a couple of things as far as might be first of all   is not just one material mail is is like metal  cloth and by changing the links that you're using   you can change its physical properties really  dramatically some male can be really light and   super flexible and other male is really stiff and  dense and heavy and protective and often on Armor   The Weave of the male will be varied depending on  what you're doing with it you can't make an entire   armor out of the most heavily densely woven stuff  you can make because it won't move and it's too   heavy so you have to you have to choose where  you're going to put the flexibility and take   sacrifices in the protection and other places  where you've got to have the protection and   you're going to sacrifice some Mobility yeah  so and then there are a couple of different   weaves involved as well the actual way you put  the links together the the absolute majority of   male in the late medieval period is woven on  the the four in one principle where each link   you look at it it's got two links above and  two links below but there is such a thing in   the late Middle Ages as six in one six and one  is exactly what it says but what that means is   that the weave is much much denser there's many  more links covering the same given surface area   and it's heavy and it's inflexible but it's great  for things like a collar and that's exactly what   we use on the test subject as a consequence so so  yeah so the lower part of the collar is in a four   to one but this band here is in a six to one right  it makes it much stiffer and much more protective   as Toby says but the other thing that I I found  really interesting I didn't know until I sent   it away for repair is you can mend four and one  because you can get your riveting pliers in right   six in one is really really difficult or close to  impossible to actually mend a puncture in it it   basically is impossible basically impossible there  we go because you make mail as well yep I've made   six in one mail and you have you can't you can't  construct it and then go back through and rivet   it later because it's so if it's made properly  it's so densely woven you can't get tools in   there to close to put the rivets in or to close  them so six in one male has to be made from The   Edge and you have to construct and rivet as you  go from The Edge and then once it's made that's   it I and one I made for a film recently I I was  going quite far along in the process and then I   realized I'd made a mistake and there was one link  that was only had five links on it instead of six   there's nothing I could do about it I can't cut  it out and change it forget it so it's just it is   what it is yeah so the point is that we can't talk  about mail as some kind of constant we can't say   arrows defeat male arrows always will go through  the mail it's not true if you give a male a good   male maker the task of putting some Arrow proof  mail on a key part of your armor he can do it   he just can't make the entire homework out of that  well he could but the problem would be white so so   the thing is something's possible but it doesn't  mean that you want to do it and it all comes all   the way back if you like to the arm armor yeah  because the arm armor was very thin and and we did   puncture it with arrows you know we showed that at  the end and so you can sit there and go well that   you know that's awful why would you make armor  that thin well you can make it thicker but you   make it thicker and you can't move your arm around  quickly or for a long period of time so suddenly   your armor that defends you actually is the armor  that helps to defeat you because you can't fight   anymore so it always becomes a compromise with  all these sort of things and mail is another one   of these compromises that that might not be  great as a general Arrow proof armor but it   is better than nothing and what it does do is it  defends well against uh daggers and well against   um swords and other things like that there are  other threats that you also have to be taking   into account you can't just say that arrows  will or they will not defeat a piece of mail   because this time they might but if it hits on  the belly maybe it will if it hits on the chest   maybe it won't or the other way around whether  it is flat to the Torso or whether there is a   little bit of bag to it and so on whether it's  folded up a little bit the same male the same   Arrow the same energy same distance sometimes  it will go through sometimes it won't because   the way the material itself is struck and even  you know it could be whether it hits two links   or one link because both things are possible with  an arrow and let's just remind ourselves of one   of the very few but significant things that the  eyewitness accounts of the battle of agent Court   actually say specifically about armor maddeningly  the vast majority of historical accounts of these   battles and things they just aren't bothered most  of the time with saying anything specific about   armor a lot of that they just take for granted and  they tell you what happened and they don't tell us   things that we want to know right but there's an  account of the Battle of Agincourt where they say   um the the French Knights chose to wear  long male shirts the way it's worded you   can't be sure but it seems pretty clear  to me anyway that what they're saying is   of all the ways you can wear the the armor the  plates and everything of this period you can   wear it with the full male shirt underneath or  you can just wear it with a skirt and sleeves if   you're if you're going for a lighter configuration  but the eyewitnesses say they wore those full male   shirts under their plate armor so that says the  they thought it was useful they thought it was   worth the physical cost of wearing it and and they  they seem to think that that was really necessary   it's a second line of defense you know the plate  armor is good protection but it you know in this   case the physical cost is worth having something  underneath and the mail to them is still quite   important so there's a couple more aspects that  I'd like to talk about and the first of those   is the distance that we did the test over now  it's 15 meters that's evidently very short and   I would warrant shorter than almost any fighting  was ever done between a knight and an Archer   however we needed to be able to hit the  target reasonably reliably that means that   we can't do it out at 50 meters or 80 meters  uh whatever flat shooting might be you know   close-up shooting might be and it probably  came a lot closer than that I suspect but   to get the accuracy we need to come close so  we went to 15 meters we did of course try to   give you the information that allows you to think  about what it really means so we shot for distance   in another one of the deeper dive films with  Joe looking at the speeds that we got and the   energies so all of that is there for you to know  about but the 15 meter test yes the energy drops   off but actually it's not that much by the time  you get out to 60 70 meters it was losing maybe   about 20 25 joules I think but it does mean that  the 15 meter test is not invalid against the plate   it couldn't get through so it's not going to get  through at 50 meters or 80. it was getting through   the mail and it would likely get through at 50  or 80 meters still through the mail out there so   it worked well for that and it allowed the  accuracy that we wanted so the next thing   I'd like to talk about the arrows themselves the  arrowheads because I've fallen into the mistake   here of doing something which I hate doing which  is quoting something as fact when I don't know   where that fact comes from right and I called  these plate Cutters because everybody knows them   as plate Cutters type nines these are the arrows  that go through armor that's what they're for   are they so who says who says where where is that  video from 1415 showing us these things doing that   so I am guilty for that and I will put my hand  up however if you ask me who's an engineer what   sort of Arrow is likely to go through armor best  I'm going to say something along these lines it's   a bit like a cold chisel head you know it's it's  got four cutting faces which do seem to go better   through metal than trying to push and and part  the metal you know it's actually cutting the metal   my gut feeling is that is the kind of Arrowhead  that they would have been shooting at Armor so we   made a choice and we shoot this it was in raw time  because we know that there are lots of heads out   there which are wrought iron we find them all  the time they're the museums are full of them   we also made the mistake of saying there are no  still arrowheads of this type so the fact that   there is a steel one out there was highlighted  to me by a guy called Diego Braga there's a note   to his channel in the links thank you very much  for that and it was a great discussion between   himself and will and myself and some other people  about this type of Arrowhead now it's turned out   that there is at least one in evidence that is  of a really high grade steel really carefully   and thoughtfully made wasn't just accidentally  done to be still but what is really important   here is it made no difference to our testing  whether they were case hardened whether they were   um raw time the bottom line is there was an  impact difference there was definitely an impact   difference but the bottom line is the arrows  did not go through the armor so that's what I   mean by it made no difference ultimately it still  didn't defeat the armor but you also find another   military head which has Steel in it which is this  type 16. the type 16 is a military head as well   and those we do find with steel in them now  Matt Easton linked to his channel in the notes   also put together a fantastic film looking at  all of the legislation to do with this because   they didn't when the king or the armories wanted  Aries they didn't just ask for Aries they gave   a specification even back in 1360 and they  said exactly what they wanted and what they   wanted was steel arrowheads quite specific  steel or steel arrowheads they wanted them   they pass the law to get them and there was a  punishment and the more time that goes by the more   laws are passed Matt's film's fantastic for this  and you get the Tudor period the the 16th century   and now they are really strict about it you can  have a conference confiscation of goods you get   massive fines you get imprisonment if your arrows  are substandard they knew they wanted steel arrows   they wanted them they asked for them did they get  them well they also asked for arrows which were   marked by the maker every single one was stamped  I've never seen those so that's something that I   know is not out there at least not in quantity the  steel ones would have to cut up and analyze lots   of arrowheads to really find out but certainly the  norm is in raw iron so that's why we chose that   it leaves an intriguing possibility though  because some of the laws that Matt was looking at   specified that crossbow heads  did not need to be of steal   crossbow heads uh again they're this kind of  diamond section type nine type shape they have   a big socket 12 mil half inch socket suits a water  arrow shaft very well and maybe we're getting   a little bit mixed up in the historical record  between what's a crossbow head that is not Steel   and a longer head which should be Steel are we  going to get to the bottom of it I don't know but   there's a lot more research to look in that area  maybe actually because these heads aren't going   through the armor anyway they're shooting these  steel Barbed ones so we should perhaps go back   and do a bit more testing with that it'd be nice  to see what those actually do let's shoot some of   those and see if the quite noticeable difference  in the design of the head has a corresponding   difference in effect because that's another key  point you can point out what might be wrong here   or what might be wrong there but you also have to  consider whether it actually matters at all some   of these things you change the specification you  think what we did before might not have been quite   right there's no appreciable difference in the  human reality of the experience and you know let's   remember again that the medieval people working  with this technology did not have an established   universal scientific method and they didn't know  what was going on at the microcrystalline level   and they couldn't explain the chemistry involved  in any of this their technology and their world   is about pure empirical skill and observation in  practice and you know that gets you a long way and   clearly they you know they were evolving their  Technologies very rapidly despite all of that   but there's a lot of misconception and and you  know erroneous assumption that's going to fall   into that and they could have thought that the  steel really mattered when it actually doesn't   yeah that's it's a very good point actually it  could be exactly that but they were asked for   this deal because it's harder therefore it  must be better but actually ultimately made   no difference at all I mean they used to do  the same with gunpowder that they would put   different chemicals into the gunpowder that  created more smoke or more flash because more   smoke more flash must be more powerful did nothing  at all if anything it might have watered it down   and made it worse but the perception was that it  was better I do think my gut feeling still stands   that the case hardened the steel ones where  the strikes are marginal like for instance   on an arm which now it might penetrate  through where it didn't before and so on but you know it's going to be a limited  number of shots where that is really going   to be important right and at the end just  to bring it back to the armor that's taken   a hell of a pummeling in all of this you know  it's it will not make you invulnerable nobody   ever claimed that it does all it has to do  is be good enough to make it worth wearing   and you know that's that's clear you can step  back from all of the the very close technical   arguments of this point in that point step  back a bit and remember that armor was still   worn you know for hundreds of years until the mid  17th century you know on the on the macro level   there's clearly a very good reason for wearing it  regardless of what your opponents are shooting at   you Tim one thing that we did forget to mention  actually is something which is which is amazing   irony in the end of all of this was we set out  one of our principal ideas at the beginning here   was to see if the sights and the breaths of the  helmet could be pierced right right and actually   we came very close with the strike here and  this one here but again they did not go through   these two they did not ultimately go through  yeah my starting point with that question was   um you know again the you know the there's  this eyewitness comment about being worried   about the sights and the sides of the helmets  being vulnerable I interpreted the sides the   vulnerability of the sides meaning yeah the metal  might be a bit thinner on the sides but you've   also got the breaths do the breaths enhance  the arrows potential purchase because gaining   purchase and not just slipping off is one of  the big components of this whole process and   do these do the holes provide the purchase and  what happens when they do well as it turns out   not a lot it's not the the punching holes in your  visor doesn't really cause you it doesn't major   problems as far as we can tell having shot this  thing 30 times and I did give it quite a pounding   to the face and then you did shoot more later  yes but the Supreme irony of the whole thing   is it actually actually did not get defeated by  a penetration it was in that fantastic shot it's   struck well in fact they struck here just above  the head snapped off and then the shaft landed   on the eye slit and some went under some went  up and the core of the shaft extruded through   and into basically around the area where his eye  would have been it was not the head of the arrow   penetrating through the helmet that compromised  it it was actually the shaft itself it was a   giant Splinter that did for it but I think that  illustrates something really interesting which is   that you can you can anticipate a threat and you  can design protection to deal with that threat   but in all of these kinds of combat and  any Warfare in any combat there is that   that blurry area of weirdness that the the  possibility for weird random things to cause   trouble and you can't design an armor you know  to protect against that bit of a splinter that   gets lucky and goes through your brain you  just can't that's where that's part of why   total invulnerability is just never never going to  be achievable no but again it was an interesting   thing here that I hadn't accounted for is the  very limited visibility that you've already got   with a strike here and then a further strike  here it closed up the vision in the eye stopped   massively so he's already lost half his effective  vision and then you get the Splinter through and   it's going to be causing trouble onto the other  side as well and so you know without falling   too far into that mistake of saying there's a  guy inside but those two things are definitely   going to be problematic and that was something I  just hadn't considered or on it there are I mean   there are a number of things going on here  where as well as the primary effect of an   arrow there are all kinds of secondary effects  and those secondary effects on the mass scale   could really add up I mean that we've only just  touched on how those secondary effects can come   into play because again the data set in the in is  still relatively small here but it just gives you   a little bit of a taste and if you expanded  this into hundreds of shots with scores of   Bowman shooting at loads of these targets you'd  start to see the a lot of those secondary effects   really starting to add up to something serious  that you know we started out on day one of the   arrows versus Armor project years and years ago  saying this is not as simple as can one Arrow   go through one breast play and I I think you  know the progress of the project has has led   to an appreciation of all of that complexity and  Randomness and weirdness and primary versus second   very effects it's all of that in play it's  not a simple thing reality is complicated   all right reality is comfortable it is complicated  and hard to understand but I think this has taken   us a little way further to that it's not answered  every question it's not solved all the problems of   it but it's given us directions to look in it's  given us things to think about and it has yeah   it's highlighted I mean that was again a point I  hadn't considered actually is the randomness of   an impact like that in the sense of you can design  it to defeat this this and this and this and then   something weird happens and if you if you design  it to defeat that then maybe it opens the door for   some other weirdness to happen you know that's why  the evolution keeps going the evolution there's   new pressures come in every time a new form  develops and then the evolution continues that's   everything really that I've wanted to cover today  just looking at different aspects of that film   but there is of course the burning question is  there going to be an arrows versus Arma 3 and I   could tell you this has used me up badly on this  one so right now today there isn't but if there   was going to be an asthma summer three Toby what  would you be doing well my gut feeling is that uh   another film should go really Beyond Agincourt  now I mean that was a subject that was beaten   well to death long before we ever got to it and  then we've done two very intensive main films and   a whole lot of other secondary supporting films  just on that one battle on that on that one moment   that one fighting context and you know I think we  need to step back if we're going to do more and   look at War archery in the late Middle Ages more  expansively look at you know different moments in   history at different periods or different battles  being fought by different people in different   situations I mean the Battle of Agincourt in  lots of ways was really atypical and strange   and unusual and that's one of the reasons why  it stuck so much in everyone's imagination   but you know let's look at the later 15th  century or let's look earlier at what was   going on before or or just if Agincourt isn't a  typical engagement and it isn't the usual way that   that archers fight what is and what are the other  issues and other contexts that they're having to   deal with and and make different choices in  there's there's a lot more beyond that just   that pure question that we've pursued  that now I think as far as we need to go we've gone as far as we need to go I'll take that  one so Toby all right thank you very much okay and   once again for the backers that actually made  arrows versus ARMA 2 possible thank you because   well it's kept me busy for a year something  like that um but it's been brilliant loads   and loads of films as Toby says I think there's  like between one and two hours armor one and two   something like 15 or 18 different films go check  them out they've all got bits of information   about different specific areas if you like this  kind of stuff you'll be all over that thank you [Music]

Channel: Tod's Workshop

Views: 83,998

Keywords: Medieval, Tod's Workshop, History

Id: EFjGnNywd54

Length: 48min 13sec (2893 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 12 2023