Hi this is Tod's Workshop here and
I'm back with Arrows versus Armour 2 And we are going to be shooting this Knight
here. It might look like ordinary armour, it really isn't. It's been so carefully made by
Augusto our Armourer, it's gonna get carefully shot by Joe our Archer with the arrows that
Will our Fletcher has made and all of this is going to get interpreted by myself and
our Arms and Armour historian Toby Capwell This has been three years in the planning and I cannot tell you how excited I am for this day, we're all so excited to see it getting shot, but before we do that we've got to find
out a little bit more about the armour and the equipment we're going to be using, because
it's really important so you know, we all know, what it is that we're going to see. This is
Arrows versus Armour 2, so of course there's been a 1 and in one we shot a breastplate, a really
singular test. Do arrows go through? Do they not go through? So many questions were left hanging
before, because a knight is much more than just a breastplate. Yeah and to investigate something
as complicated as the battlefield environment in 1415 you've got to go from simple to complex. We
started with one issue, can an arrow penetrate the strongest frontal area of the armour, but
that's not the whole story, there's a lot more going on. Now we can get a little more complex,
you know on the one hand we're saying knights had great armour and great protection and on the other
side we're saying well the longbow is a fantastic weapon. How can you be a fantastic weapon and have
fantastic protection? You know there's got to be something going on in the middle and it's all
about complexity. Yeah one thing that we really do know is that knights got shot at Agincourt and
this will allow us some insights into how that may have happened and that's why what we're doing I
think is important, because this is allowing us to get into issues of the real physical world,
the real human environment what was it like, what did it feel like, what did it sound like?
You cannot get close to this in the archives my friends, you got to get out in the field
and that's what we're trying to do. For me the justification if you like of what we're doing
here is really quite simple. The kickstarter fundraising for the film allows us to buy the very
best equipment and we're going to shoot it with the best archer we can get and the best arrows
we can get and what happens is what happens, but whatever it is it's something I didn't know
yesterday, but by the end of today I will know. Okay let's talk about the armour. I'm here
with Augusto our new armourer who's made all these fabulous plates for us. Overall I'm really
happy with what this looks like and it's kind of no surprise because this is the period that
you're really passionate about isn't it? It is. I've been studying for I guess at least a
decade like originals weight of the originals, trying to find thicknesses, material composition
hardness, studying the art, just trying to follow all the sources I could get. So tell us a bit more
about what specifically we have here, why have we decided to make these the way they are, what are
our sources for this? Of course. The helmet is based on the Wallace Collection A69 which you
might be familiar with. I know it well; that was a good one to choose because we both have had
hands-on access to it and that particular helmet in the Wallace Collection has a chance of being
a specifically French example. The part of the Wallace Collection helmet that doesn't survive is
the original ventail and this was made by a friend of ours wasn't it? Yes this was made by Izak Krogh
based in Sweden and the aventail is a replica of Churburg 15 aventail. Right so the these are
thicker bigger rings with like very heavy duty wire and Churburg Castle in Northern Italy is one
of the most important surviving groups of 14th and early 15th century armour, so it's a really
important reference point for everything we're building here. Right, including the breastplate.
The breastplate is based on Churburg 14, which is one of the earliest surviving
one-piece breastplates. It is absolutely. The arms as well actually from Churburg Castle.
This is based on Churburg 10 but with a spin, because I have put a rotating upper cannon which
is a typical French feature of the time and it will be very interesting to see what an arrow does
when there's two independent layers of thin metal, it's the layering principle. It is, I guess we'll see. They all have variable thicknesses which usually means it's thicker in the front and
thinner in the sides as per originals. The arms for example are one millimeters, the breastplate
goes from three and a half to one, as does the skull and visor. Yeah because one millimeter thick
sounds worryingly thin, but that is what most of the originals are right? Because you have to
balance the weight versus the protection you need; thick plates where you're going to get hit
the most but it can't be thick everywhere, the armour is going to be too heavy. Absolutely,
the whole thing can't end up being more than 25 or 30 kilos in total at the most, so you've got
to make some hard choices about where you put the weight. You do. So what's the plate armour made
out of? This is all made of mild steel. Modern mild steel? Is that the best material to be using?
According to our own tests and to Alan Williams in his book "The Knight in the Blast Furnace", mild
steel is a good representative for cross laminated wrought iron. Yeah in the early 15th century
that's a particularly common material for plate armour. It is. We do have steels but a lot of the
stuff was made of just like iron and that's an important point. Last time we had the same style
of breastplate, but made in medium carbon steel, so it ended up representing, acting as a really
high-end quality breastplate, not the average by any means. This one is much more typical of the
masses of French knights who are on the field, most of them were wearing something made out
of a material more like this. I think it is a pretty fair comparison yes. So the plates provide
some really formidable protection in key areas, but looking at the whole figure, you can see that
he's got vulnerabilities. The the hard plates can't protect everything and in 1415 we're still
in a period when full plate exoskeletons are only just starting to appear. There's a substantial
area below his waist you know his whole lower torso has no plate protection at all, this isn't
us just getting lazy, this is how a lot of armour of this period was actually worn and he's chosen
to leave plates off his lower torso for the sake of being a bit lighter, being a bit more mobile or
just not have having access to a plate skirt. Lots of people didn't, this is a characteristic feature
of this period, rapidly to change later, but we have to be strict about where we are in time.
But one thing we really see here that it's it's not just about thickness, you've got some really
extreme forms, the shape that the armour has gives it a lot of extra strength and protectiveness.
Just looking this figure up and down, your head starts to spin a bit at the
possibilities of what arrows might do when they hit this. It will be really interesting to see
what these very nasty arrows are gonna do. It will be painful, but it will be definitely worth it. As
with everything in the Arrows versus Armour films, we want to know that we're doing it right as
best as we can guess, as best as we can estimate. So Joe Gibbs incredible archer we know that,
but you're shooting what 160 pound bow today, is anything different from the last time we did
trials three years ago? So it's the same bow, so a copy of the ones off the Mary Rose which is
the only data we have to go by. Slightly higher than mid-range, but in there definitely.
Self-yew 160 pounds. As for the target slightly different isn't it? Has that changed in
your head, how you will approach shooting because before you were just shooting at a breastplate. I
definitely have areas that I'm going to be looking at, especially these parts and arrow in there he's
done. For me that's looking really vulnerable. And Will Sherman, extraordinary fletcher. Is there
anything now that you feel has really changed or have you just confirmed really you're thinking
from the first time around. We're using the same arrows, we're using the same iron heads. What has
changed is I've gone away and I've clarified that we're doing it right, so we've gone back through
the records, we've gone back through the museum artefacts and we know that they were using iron
heads. We're still copying an iron head from the time period. We know that heads from Agincourt
were found, one in particular was found that was definitely a bodkin, not a barbed head, so
we're doing that end right, and for me again, we were shooting a breastplate alone the last
time, this time we've got a whole bunch of gaps and more mail in there to see what these heads do
to other areas. Going to be really interesting. Well Tod I've been waiting three years for this
so I'm I'm pretty excited. Same here. I've been thinking about it every day, it just ticks away
and today is the day, so let's shoot. All right! Well Toby this is the moment. Okay let loose Joe. Was right on the breastplate yeah
great shooting Joe. Shot one how do you feel? Oh it's great to finally
get to have a go of it. Square in the middle of breastplate definitely not
going through. No well keep them rolling. Let's put a few more in and then we'll go
down and have a look what we got. Perfect. Into the padding. I felt that the aventail was looking, vulnerable I'm not so sure now actually Just winged off harmlessly. It did, he was just fine Oh now that one is not fine, that one's stuck
in and well, severely wounded and out the fight. I mean that's through his shoulder joint, so
yeah should we go see. Let's have a look. Okay so that second one actually went between his arm
and his body so Toby I mean fantastic strikes in the first round. So number one was here wasn't it.
Yep pretty unmarked tiniest little dent number two under the armpit, well lucky for him. Number
three just caught him up here, but again that shows you the sloping, glancing surface of the
armour really doing its job and barely a dent, barely a dent. Number four; end of battle. So well hang
on he got hit up here as well. I mean they're still, there's still a head in there, so it went through.
Yeah just one one layer of the mail is, skipped past the padding, scraped the breastplate underneath.
Yeah it's gone through all of that, but again you can see here now, you can actually see the
second layer of the mail standard, so even had it gone through the breastplate it would still
have hit the mail standard beneath that and then... oh number four has taken him out of commission. Yeah
and that that's battle over, so straight into the shoulder joint you could probably survive
that, maybe, but you're not fighting anymore, possibly ever actually. That's quite an
interesting spread of numbers to think about. One in four yeah, takes the fellow
out on that first round, but it shows you how this is good armour. It's stopped three
direct hits, but he still hurt. Yeah I reckon we just leave him as he is now, pull this one, go
again see what happens. Okay oh yeah. In enough. Round two go again Joe! Okay. Interesting! Shape shape shape shape strong shape Is that blown a rivet? I'm just
thinking it's just broken the arm. Well he's he's still coming at you. Yeah yeah. Yeah so square on the center of the breastplate. Beautiful right, oh that was great, but we had
some exploding arrows here, lots of them. I want to take Will up. Of course brilliant.
Well come on down, we can have a look at this. Interesting, we had another strike on the
breastplate, total explosion and this is like a wasteland of broken arrows. Tell us the
arrow. I mean you know, because wrought iron heads which are not going through here, but we've
been doing other tests ourselves. Yeah we've got wrought iron through flat carbon steel.
So what we're seeing here is the effect of shaping a piece of armour to deflect
arrows yeah and it's working perfectly And then we've got the eyesight yeah so it's
struck here found stuff but it's done nothing. So my big question this is why I wanted to pull
you down, is your arrows are broken. Yep. Can you make them stronger? You know no. We're kind of
at the limit here, we're making these as as big and powerful as we can to match the big bow. Ash, half
an inch of Ash yeah that's being just shattered. There's a point where the the energy is just too
much for a piece of wood. Yeah and I can, I guess you could make them fatter but then they're going to
be slower and yeah need a bigger bow. Yeah we're kind of in that Holy Trinity of everything working
together, the head weight is about as heavy as we can get, the arrow weight is, the thicknesses, the
spine. It's all come together for Joe to be able to shoot accurately. We're using the right arrows
any heavier and it's not going to work. Okay and I've got one last question that I really wanted to touch on.
There is as we said there is no evidence for case hardening at all. No, not on arrowheads. But we also
suspect that they might well have done it. Yeah. Well these are kind of like grazes rather than
gouges yeah, I think case hardened would have made a much bigger impression on that area, yeah and case
hardening as a process isn't that difficult if you're doing it in a massive batch as compared to
forging it out to bloomery iron, laminated layers and things. But infuriatingly, no evidence. No. Should
we get them to shoot again? Before we do we should have a talk to Augusto about what's happened here.
Yeah he's got some fixing to do. So have I. I'll tell you what, I'll give you a hand with that, we'll
get Toby and Augusto and they can talk about what's going on in the articulation here. That
is interesting and we'll go fix them. all right well we can we can really see armour doing its
job here can't we? Oh absolutely the effects are pretty dramatic. Both of these hits would be really
painful but they're not lethal. I was not expecting this pauldron to actually resist. This is less than
one and a half mm and this is square on, it's the shape. Wow I am I was not expecting this at all.
We're really seeing in all of the shots so far how the shape of the plate armour really ramps up
the protection that the metal gives you. This hit to the visor is really dramatic as well.
It hits right there between the ventilation holes and then skips right up, but this beautifully
boxed, fortified site has done its job and stopped that arrow and it bounced right off it. Does it
absolutely. Does. I am, I was expecting this to go through and stick. Actually the articulations
are jammed after getting compromised in the shoulders. How how are you fighting with this?
There's two things going on here. The hits on the breastplate don't really matter because you know
you're pretty safe in there, but your shoulders have gotten hurt and you've had a couple of near
misses, yeah that have hit you straight in the face. You're still okay, but you're thinking the next
one could go through my eyes, so you know there's, there's really the natural reaction here is
to crouch a little bit and turn the skull of your helmet forward. One of the main English
sources the Gesta Henrici quinti says that after the English started shooting, the French
bowed their heads and crouched down because the shooting was so heavy. That's that's
what I'd do and that's what they did. Then that's what we do next. All right you're gonna have
to take the shoulders off and fix the dents before we go, keep going. I can do that, it's
going to be an easy fix. I think I think maybe we should, yes we should absolutely
have some quick field repairs. Yes that I can do. Toby as we know they were worried about the arrows
coming through the sights and the breaths, so they walked in as if they're walking through a storm,
all hunched down. So I think. "Joe give them some hail"! Interesting that all the significant damage has really been here and here. The arms are
hurt, but those two, both taking them out. Nice! That breastplate is doing its job.
Right over his heart that one. Yeah. So Joe, I'd really love to see his sort of left
forearm if you can whack that and if you don't you've got the skirt behind it. I think that's a
really good pretty good target, I'll give it a go. It's the mail isn't it? Really is the lower, the
lower torso is is as we suspected a key weakness, I mean the mail is doing very, very little. Nothing.
And I think what we know from the the mail test that we did actually was that even the the really
best quality handmade mail that we can source yeah wouldn't stop that. Not remotely.
Yeah what we're seeing here is some really strong motivating factors
behind the evolution of plate armour in the next decade or so, but we're
not quite there yet and he's getting hurt. You say it looks, it looks bad. It is bad! We
had another one explode on the breastplate ac... oh actually that's our biggest dent today.
That's a nice one. Yeah and there's a piece of the arrowhead stuck on him there see that so? That
bit of fragment there, it's hit on the V yeah and part of it's gone that way and part of it's gone
that way. Yeah and do you remember from the other film Arrows vs Armour 1, one how important that V was
at deflecting the arrows; it continues to be. Yeah. I mean it is really interesting how this mail is
working. Now we have to say here again that this is not the best of the handmade mail we could source,
but we did our tests, our comparative tests and we know from that, the kind of mail at this
kind of ring size even in the best handmade we can source is not stopping arrows and you think
about where these are hitting. These are hitting right in the region of the groin, the hips, the
top of the thigh, there's major blood vessels there he gets hit he's gonna just bleed out real
fast. What we're seeing here is an armour where the strong points are really strong, yeah and the
weak points are really weak. You know it's a very extreme extreme spread, if I was walking out of the
lines on that day at Agincourt and I was looking at my friends who had plate down here and I knew
what English arrows could do and I didn't have plate, I'd be really wondering what I was doing
there. Well clearly you should be, because that's a major weakness. Yeah what Joe was aiming for was
a strike on these here and we haven't got that yet. I think that would be a very interesting thing
to see because it's so thin we assume that the arrow should go straight through it, but it has
form in the way that our flat plate tests when we were doing our comparative testing didn't
have form and it was also completely supported behind by the archery foam. It was a good test, but
it's a really good setup if you want to penetrate. That is shaped a little bit, give, not so easy to
penetrate even though it's only one mm. Okay well the instinctual move to bow your head and crouch
down a bit didn't really do this particular individual much good, he still got shot straight
through the shoulder and he's had at least three killing blows to his lower torso so he's pretty
decisively dead and out of it. The French advance has gotten much closer to the English and one of
the effects of that is that the French knights are now passing the wings of the English line and
there are archers who now can shoot at them at much more extreme angles, so I think the next thing
we should do is turn our knight three quarters to Joe's shooting to start to simulate some of that
flanking shooting, because of course the sides of the helmet, the sides of the breastplate are
thinner because you make your armour thicker at the front, thinner at the sides. Right right
Let's turn him, let's shoot again. Okay so Joe, our Intrepid Frenchman, he's coming
alongside your lines, he's walking up towards you. Better shots, better angles
coming in from the side. Okay take it away. I mean it shows why they wear them. Good. Did you hear that!? It's a really weird behaviour of the arrow there too; the sound is
fabulous. Right again please Joe. Oh there's a puff of something there Oh yeah that was a good one again I haven't
tell do this thing that might have actually protected his shoulder a little bit. Yeah well
the the gaps in the in the shoulders, they're not as available to the archer because of the
angle. Yeah and that's true on both sides, but actually if you look around his elbow, the
side of his breastplate to elbow now there is a gap opening up there yeah. So Joe can
you get right in here, right in the crook of the elbow on his right elbow because
there's a there's an opening there now. Yep. Oh nice! That was nice, that's a good one on the
side of the wrist plate, but even the sides are still doing their job. Yeah so far this guy's upset,
but he's still walking right. Oh what a nicely done. Well that's worthy to go and have a look at
isn't it. You coming up Joe? Yeah I'll come up. That's cool yeah, just pushing straight through
the articulation, but that's hitting right on the overlap of the plates too and that's what
50 mm/ two inches, bit more actually going in, so so you're into bone there I think. Yeah that's
shattered his upper arm, so you've gone through the steel, the mail, the padding and you're that
far in. I'm just pleased I got one stuck in him. But it's a good point, that is the first time that
the armour has properly failed. On this one you've seen the armour doing its job, the plate stopped
the arrows a couple of times, the heavy mail on the aventail turned two arrows completely
with no ill effects to the man inside, so you're seeing the dynamic that armour is
working hard and and turning a lot of the shots, but not all of them. Yeah, okay turned that one, lovely
dent there. yeah That's a great, that's amazing It is. So they, the French are
trying to attack this English center. Henry V is there in his gilded armor and the Royal
Arms of England and he's got big French lilies on his helmet and he's saying "I'm the rightful King
of France- come and get me", so all the French are going for the center which means they're just
steaming past the archers on the flanks and you're now going to have the ability to shoot
them straight in the side. Do you want that? Ummm definitely. Again I'll be aiming for here and especially here
where it's nice and flat so hopefully I should be able to get an arrow to grip and really
deliver a punch. So let's turn him. Go again. Okay the knights, now they're walking past your
lines, they're ignoring you, take it away Very unpleasant. Yeah liking that Joe. More of that please! Oh wow Lovely I'm gonna run in and see
if I can get a decibel reading. 90 decibels. This is not actually as loud
as I thought, but the thing is the decibel meter itself is inside, under the arming coif, the lining of the helmet's quite thick yeah, but still I thought it would
be louder actually. Nice shot though. Thanks. Oh yeah his back now, no back plate, completely
exposed so you've got him right in the kidneys That's what I wanted to see, so you've
got two layers overlapping on the upper arm this two millimeters of steel there, yeah turned it, glanced off of something. I think the spear. Nice. shot. Brilliant, see we can have a look at. Okay let's
go check it out. I mean this is fantastic Toby because you know it's been quite a day and we've
basically hit everything that we wanted to hit the side of the visor, side of the helmet. I really
wanted to see what was going to happen when you hit this double layer of one mm thick layers
and it's pierced both of them, but not done a terrible injury I wouldn't have thought. But this
one certainly is bad, that I mean, that is deep in. If, probably if it was flesh; right through. In
honesty this one actually has pierced a hole but the tiniest of holes and that one's done nothing.
In that sense, just a dent again it will leave it open to the question had that been a case hardened
one or a steel one would the result be different? I actually suspect not, pretty amazing results though.
But we've got to go review those because we've got I think it's almost every shot on slow-mo. We're
gonna go and have a look at that see what we can learn from that, so let's go set that up and we're
going to leave the boys to come and uh look at this and talk over it. Okay oh okay, wow okay. Done
some damage. There is some damage, but I thought it would be more, actually. Did you? I thought so.
The aventail, I thought that would be enough because I've seen before how they behave but
the side of the visor I thought it would at least go through like the head, because..... This is really
interesting because it's almost a dead-on shot it is what amazes me is is the fact that the wrought iron
hasn't done any damage at all to it because in the previous test we saw they were just kind of
bouncing off and yeah not really bothering. Yeah. That's a really painful shot. It is, that's done a
lot of damage yes his arms out of action already, Yes and anywhere that isn't plates has gone in
hasn't it? Yes apart from the aventail, but that's what it's designed for, so I mean for example
in here it did penetrate two separate layers of steel which is a really hard by itself. Right.
But it did jam the articulation so you will be able to fight, but you'll start having problems.
His whole right arm is almost immobilized and of course we've seen one archer doing all of this
damage, yes over a distance of time as well in 20 minutes of walking and shooting you will start
finding the gaps. It's quite a terrifying thought really isn't it? So who wins the battle, arrowsmith or
armorer? Well half the time the armourer wins and half the time the arrowsmith wins. He's dead. He's
alive. Shall we go and look at the footage? Absolutely. Let's go for it. Brilliant let's have a look at
this footage then guys, let's see what we got. So that's straight into the left shoulder Case
hardening would that have gone deeper? Maybe, maybe it would have bitten more. Yeah oh yeah.
The angles of the visor are pretty useful yeah. Now he's leaning down to protect his face and he
gets shot through the shoulder. Yeah but it's easy to focus on the ones that stick him through
the shoulder or wherever but let's remember like there again and again, his life is being saved
more times than it's being taken. The piercings are really impressive, but they they are outnumbered
by the successes of the armour. There is a real black and white, if it hits the plate or if it
hits the mail. It was also quite different yeah Oh right in the belly! That's a bounce.
Yes bounce off mail yep that's not bad Oh that's where those two plates came
together wasn't it? Yeah yeah. So back in the top arm again yeah. Just spread the
shoulder lames. Right in the ear. Square on the side of the visor, steel bounced though it
moves his, moves his head, lifted the visor yeah. That's the other one in the side of
the head. Yeah, then straight back out. Wow yeah so yeah, that's on the arm, upper cannon.
yes that that punched through but it bounced out again and it punched through both layers
and that was the glance off the elbow yes and that actually just kicked him in the back as
well as it went through. Yeah and I think that that is our lot lads. So wow! Who wants to see what?,
because we've got one more round of shooting. Case hardening. Definitely case hardening yeah. We want
to see it bite more into the steel of the armour and Toby? I want to see some justification for
the French fear of being shot through the eyes. so far that visor has done a great job of
protecting the guy's face, but they were afraid of the visor being pierced, so I want to see more
shots at the face to kind of understand that. Okay well I'm with you on both of those suggestions so
let's do that. All right, so we're shooting case hardened heads. Now of course we have no evidence
they did it so not it's not really a historical test in a way, but... Yeah but if they could have
they would have and they could. Okay go for it Joe. We are going to have that head left over but... Lovely shot I forgot to say that. Thank you Again nice aventail shot. Yeah I think so,
but it sounded like it hit plate actually, so I'm wondering if it went through the aventail and
touched on the plate. That's sort of a dull thunk. huh Nice. But it stopped it again. It did. We put
him on a fairly loose stand, he's got wheels underneath, the head's on armature wire so are the
arms; you know there's movement allowed in him, which like a body, it makes it
weirdly lifelike too though you know when he got smacked in the head with
the arrow on the slow-mo shot you feel it. Ah right that is interesting, that went through
it didn't it? Didn't hurt him, but there's a hole in this breastplate. They're going to be
ones that aren't as good as that, you know it was a nicely made plate. And there are ones
that are better But that's the first time all day it's got a hole in
it and it's been hit a lot. Last one? Last one! Oh again aiming for the same hole there? Yeah
maybe. So let's go and have a look see what we got. That is just brilliant well done guys, I
think Joe you've got to come up for this one. Wow so that's the one that really
went through and actually look at the thickness of the metal there, I mean
it'd be interesting to measure it but that's pretty substantial. If you
go and have a peer at the hole. Yeah another nice bite there. Yeah and then there's
this... Ah that's gone through the skull. Yeah. so that again I mean it's not pierced in the sense
of gone through and hurt the guy inside, but it's made a hole in that one. Look at that one in there,
oh yeah do that for me this is super significant because that is a normally from today that would
have just been a glancing shot it's still glanced but look at that bite. You're right the glancing
shot that it would have otherwise been is now a biting shot, but there is a vast difference
here. Yep. You don't need scientific equipment to see that these are making a difference, this
is something that's easily perceptible with your regular senses, medieval people have no problem
understanding the effect that that's having. This is a case hardened one which must have
struck, struck somewhere; feel the point on that. Still really sharp and there's no blunting at all
well I think Will's question our question of does case hardening really improve the penetration?
I think that's absolutely been answered and it's been answered in slightly clever ways as
well because it improves the bite not just the straight penetration, the ability of the arrow to
actually catch a bit of metal and push on through. If only we had evidence that they did it. So
I think we've got to keep on hunting that but what we want to do now is come back and see if
the knights really should have been scared about the breaths and the sights of their helmets.
So Joe it's a small target I'll give you that, right about here please! Yeah
yeah let's do it. Thanks guys So Joe, big bundle of arrows.
One knight asking for it. We ask, you deliver. Lovely! Oh nice, well it's a good neck shot.
That's stuck just stuck in there. It is, but again that's it's padding at that
point isn't it, there's no plate behind. Yeah so that might well have been enough to
give him quite a smack on your windpipe and that is delicate. Yeah. And it doesn't take
much to hurt. That's here isn't it? Yeah, it depends how much give it has, the liner and how stiff and
close. Yes we can't know, no it doesn't look great. So close you would have seen
that coming wouldn't he. So close. Lovely and that's true again that looks
like it's through. The guy inside is fine, but the aventail has been pierced. Yeah.
But he now knows... Yes then he goes through.. absolutely. Oh yeah, because we've
assumed that that's pretty safe. Oh that's the same hole. Oh very nice, very nice, really that was
right between the eyes. That was extraordinary shooting Joe. Oh my goodness Okay That's a good one to finish and
that is the end of the shooting. That was incredible, thank you, that was incredible.
Well let's go have a look at it. Goodness that's the first thing I want to talk about.
Look at that hole. Yeah Yeah, it's an unhardened head that's done some damage isn't it? Yeah this
is the thinnest part of the visor, probably is like 1.2/1.3mm absolutely not only is it a big
hole into the helmet it has steel behind it. Yeah had that been 15 millimeters over... That's in
the face isn't it? There that is in the face. Yeah. right into the eye socket. It is. But that one got
stopped, I mean he hasn't actually been killed by any of this, scary and dramatic though it is.
For me that that hole alone says that they had reason to be worried at least from the side,
but then we look at everything else that has occurred and Joe's shooting we all have to admit
was extraordinary and I don't know how many landed on the face here but a significant number and not
one other than that has indicated anything about wanting to go through, not remotely. No. These are
more interesting aren't they? Yeah. Because if he was turned a little bit more towards Joe, these are
going through into dangerous areas. That goes right in yeah and that's, we don't know, but it's around
his throat here and that is a really delicate area to you know to get punched. That's gone all the
way through the aventail and out the other side, in fact I can see the head from the other one
as well, there it is. Right so it has pierced aventail and that's the first arrow that's
done that. And not only that, it's pierced it at an angle, so it's gone through more of the material,
it's gone through the same amount of mail, but it's gone through more of the padding behind
than a straight hit would have done. It has oh yes. Yeah we really didn't think this aventail would be
pierced, when you have it in your hands it seems so thick and dense and heavy. Most shots not,
but that's armour isn't it, mostly it keeps you safe, not always. Right if it is only one faulty rivet,
one faulty ring, then you are dead. So guys we've got to come to some sort of a conclusion about,
well what has been a fantastic day. We, well we can conclude that Joe is a fantastic shooter, but
seriously though, we have actually got to come to a decision here so you know let's talk about it.
Will, what are your final thoughts on this today? I'm amazed how well the wrought iron is
performing. We didn't think it would do anything near as much damage as it has today. Augusto how
do you feel about it? I am amazed on how well the thinner armor fared against the arrows just
thanks to their shapes and the tight curves. and Joe? Firstly I love shooting at the full
armour here and secondly just that the arrows went through the aventail; holding
it earlier it was so thick and heavy. I agree with all of that and and Toby?
The plate armour really did its job. The serious injuries occurred when we hit
the weak points, that we knew were weak points and that they knew were weak points and that they were
rapidly dealing with in the technology of the time. But the plate armour is doing its job. Yeah. Now
I think that's evidently, evidently the case as well. There is one that could have been, could
have been.... but it didn't!...but did it did... it didn't and so that takes me to the last one which is my
one which is case hardening. And it's infuriating, because after looking at this I swear they
must have done it, but there is no evidence and all you curators out there, go digging
through your collections find us some evidence. But really that's it, so I mean it's just been a
fantastic day, so thank you all for the efforts and it has been a massive and a monumental effort
to put this together and also I'd like to say thank you to all of the crew who've worked over
the last few days to make this thing happen and indeed the crafts people who've worked on this
who aren't here today, and the backers out there who allowed us to do this. And thank you to
our French knight; never complained did he? Now this is in fact the first of several films that
are coming, this is the big one, but there's lots of supplemental ones where we dive into little
particular areas. Go check them out too. Thank you.
