MILITARY HISTORY : Medieval and Stone Age Weapons

the year is 1400 you and your comrades face a very tough challenge you have to take down the ultimate fighting machine of the Middle Ages in a fight like this an ordinary weapon just won't do you need something extreme something truly bizarre this type was known as the only water sprinkler combines the techniques of a sword with the weight of an axe it was called a Godin card billhook Crow's beak how to win with weird weapons of the Middle Ages say hello to the knight in plate Armour 250 pounds of muscle and precision steel skilled with the broadsword tested in battle one of the finest fighting men in history that is the medieval version of the tank and he's coming to water so how do we defeat him any ideas shoot an arrow acid yeah well we could fire an arrow at him if you an extremely good shot with a very strong bow at close range the arrow might just penetrate that armor but it's likely to bounce off him how else come on he's coming towards us how else well yeah well okay there's a crossbow right there start warning it takes a minute to wind it up and load it I don't think you've got time any other ideas come on he's getting close-up hunka handgun okay well the medieval handgun was incredibly inaccurate and you've just missed him and he's right here he's got through I think you can stop whining mouthing so what do we do we have a knight in plate armor standing in front of us we need to know what weird weapons we can use to win against the plate armored Knight the plate armored Knight was the terror of the Middle Ages time and again armored Knights defeated hordes of unarmored foot soldiers they were such an awesome force that a handful of well-equipped men could defend a castle against an entire army you have a number of choices against plate armor you can crush it with something heavy try and crack it open with an axe or puncture it with a spike alternatively you can try and pierce it with a short sharp stiff blade or you can go for the gaps every armor has them areas that have to remain flexible and cannot be covered by plate unfortunately there aren't very many of them but you can try behind the knees under the armpits up and under the breastplate or indeed any joints of the armor including the visor every armor has a weakness somewhere the trick of course is finding your opponent's weakness before he finds yours so there he is then it suggestions to push him over yeah we could I suppose if we got close enough to him we might just be able to push him over so let's try it now he's used to wearing army he's worn in all his life this armor is fitted to him and he's just going to get straight back up anything else with a really big sword we could do yeah that's a big sword over there hand it over let's see if that'll work now first of all if we want to hit him with something really big we'll have to get close enough to do it if he allows us to so let's try here we go of course he's got his own sword and it's a lot lighter than mine so that's probably the last stroke that I am ever gonna get to make so next idea would a really sharp sword go straight through the armor well it might so let's go find out alright guys this is a sharpened sword of modern steel probably as good as anything they had and here is a piece of plate armor very thin plate armor but Tim thinks that he can thrust this sword through that so let's have a go that should go those arm all right here we go this is a once only Tim get it right yeah ready congratulations Tim at sir arm's length with two hands with all your strength you managed to puncture it by about an inch in the meantime you've been hit three times by the man who's been wearing that plate armor so I think on the whole we need to look for some other ideas do you mm-hmm [Laughter] the evolution of specialized weapons actually began before plate armor was widely used until the 13th century most Knights wore a shirt of male woven out of interlocking iron rings Chris come on up here now your opponent is a male armored Knight he has a weapon you have two choices you either get a longer weapon than he has in which case you can strike him without him striking you or alternatively you have to get inside that guard of his so for that you need a shield if you have a shield in your left hand you can parry his weapon away and move in good now you're close enough to hit him so what are you gonna hit him with well several choices let's try this one an axe now this is double handed axe it'll certainly go through that mail armor but there's no way you can use it with a single hand so with a shield you have to compromise you have to use a smaller axe now that will go through hit him in the shoulder but even a small axe could be unwieldy and inaccurate and it didn't have the versatility of a sword so the armourers came up with the first weird weapon the Fulcher designed to help you win against male armor now a function is a very interesting weapon combines the techniques of a sword with the weight of an axe all the weight is behind here behind the point of percussion now this means that it was an extremely effective weapon against male could cleave right through it [Applause] question is how good was it against plate Armour not very maybe we should try something else another adaption of the sword was this late medieval broadsword it's much shorter than the old cutting sword and it tapers to this extremely sharp point this is a magnificent weapon but needs to be made of the highest quality steel otherwise it will shatter in combat the most extreme version was this the S stock a purely thrusting weapon designed for thrusting into the gaps of armor but frosting swords like the ax stock were only good if you were well-trained and highly skilled in the heat of battle you might need something a little more basic one of the most unexpected weapons of the Middle Ages was also one of the simplest the wooden club apply a bit of technology and you get this the mace usually made of steel between four and six pounds with these longitudinal ribs on the end now these would make sure that any blow against an unarmed man would be deadly it also increased the effectiveness of any blow against plate these came in various styles you could have spherical and oval ones with spikes and even very fancy ones like this this was a knight's weapon for use against other knife but mace with an extremely aggressive weapon but to use it effectively you had to get in close you could even deflect the occasional saw stroke is usually used with a small shield medieval battles often developed as a massive crashes as the rear racks piled in behind and in these circumstances the mace was the ideal weapon to have Miss Manners at my mercy wait now I have to ask myself a question not how do I finish him off but who is he why does it matter you'll find out in a minute here's where we left off this man is at my mercy but who is he so why does it matter well if the man on the ground is a knight from a wealthy family you want to keep him alive you can get big money if he or his family pay a ransom for his safe return on the other hand if this is a man-at-arms not a night than he's a dangerous beast and he could recover at any moment you're in the middle of a battle here he's surrounded by his colleagues you could keep bashing him but he might roll over even grab your weapon so you have to act fast the moment he's down it's got to be on him with this now this is where it gets really nasty every night carried one of these a dagger purely stabbing weapon called a Missouri Court it was called the dagger of mercy that's because when you're about to stab him he could plead for mercy and if you weren't interested you could stab him in the face or his visor was down you could simply step in straight through the ice locks oh oh but kinda way into the armor through the plates under the armpit and in turn all alternatively find some gap in the breastplate and squeeze it in that way okay there isn't one more alternative but that doesn't bear thinking about the mace was a good weapon but you might need repeated blows to actually knock down a well armored man so how do you get the same effect with a single strike the answer is the flail the flail was an agricultural tool of ancient origin it was a wooden club finished by rope or chained to a long staff usually it was used for threshing corn but replace the wooden club with an iron one and you could use it for thrashing men six feet long with a two-foot Swingle the great flail was especially popular in Eastern Europe and Russia but it really came into its own as a single handed weapon the military flail also known as the ball and chain came in many varieties this one here here is a double handed one with a spiked weight on the end this will increase the impact of the stroke enormously an alternative is this one extremely heavy very nasty - spiked balls here with these heavy weights on the end this will be very unmanageable you need at least two hands to use it so the usual one is this very simple short haft some kind of safety chain or rope for your hand because these are very easy weapons to lose in combat a short haft staple attached to a chain attached to the spiked weight now this type is known as the holy water sprinkler very amusing helmet please now as you will find in practice this is an extremely dangerous weapon not just for your opponent in fact you're far more likely they hit yourself with one of these if you don't know what you're doing then to hit anyone else now the flail can strike with enormous impact but it can also strike you so you have to keep your arm extended you need at least one swing to get up to power and once you're up to speed paradoxically it's easier to control that high speed than at low if you have a stop it you lose control of it you've got to keep that ball swinging so let's have a go [Music] [Applause] [Music] the flail is a terrifying weapon to face not only do you have to watch the man you have to watch that constantly circling ball then you can avoid it or deflect it or try and get under it but it's wrong like waiting for a bus just when you're not expecting it one comes along Auto are three oh now it's my turn as good as it is the flail isn't perfect it's a lousy defensive weapon and if you stop swinging it even for a second that's all your opponent needs what's worse it's absolutely exhausting another alternative weapon is the hammer the wooden mallet was a tool for the peasant and for the common soldier it could also be a pretty handy whether the Knightly version was the war hammer this was an excellent weapon you could crack armor with this side the hammer head was often serrated so that it would bite into the armor not glide off it and on this side a long narrow spike that could puncture plate there's another one all steel looking like a can opener these spikes were known as the Beck the Kaaba the crows beak and they were light enough for the old one to one [Applause] this type was called a plus on but a single or double curved spike looked exactly like an icepick and is extremely efficient of course the problem with all armor-piercing weapons is that you only get one chance to get it right because they get completely stuck in the armor that's the problem with alternative weapons just when you think you've got a winner there's a new hitch but no one said defeating an armored Knight would be easy in a moment we go long and lean with a hi-tech spear and a lethal tree trimmer as we've seen most weird weapons were inspired by existing weapons that couldn't quite do the job the spear is a good example against plate armor it was ineffective and the wooden shaft made it very vulnerable what the : foot soldier needed was a weapon that could make him a match for those men-at-arms in their highly expensive armor now the spear was virtually useless for that but he could try this the Isles piece the eels spear now this has an armor piercing point on the end of a very long slender steel blade with this rondelle here to give you some protection this was a magnificent weapon the advantage of the arch piece was a Jew could aim for the cracks and the chinks in the plate armor or you could try and pierce right through it now with the arts piece you could keep coming back because this long steel blade was not easy to break the disadvantages were that it was an extremely heavy weapon and all the way to the business end you couldn't have a shield with it because you needed both hands which meant that you had to absolutely commit yourself to the blow and if you failed the odds seemed stacked against the common foot soldier what he needed was a weapon that could cut thrust and chop at the same time so he found one the billhook was an agricultural tool with a long hooked blade it is still used today for hedging and lopping branches as a weapon it is of great antiquity it was used by some of Alexander the Great's infantry this was the medieval version of the billhook a long single edged blade which curved into a hook spike at the end and a fluke on the back edge of the blade this was the most popular medieval polearm relatively easy to make and used throughout Europe this is the medieval billhook now we infantry when armed in plate like you guys we may have leather and cloth and jacks and maybe some mail if we're really pretty well equipped but nothing like a sort of technology that you've got on your fronts and backs but at least we've got this weapon this can be made by a good skilled local blacksmith the blade itself dividing it to these three the spike the hook the fluke at the back step for a minute but something about Armour which you will immediately notice is you're walking which is that gets caught in things there's lots of bits sticking out lots of cracks that you can hook into yeah and just catch so the elbows there that's the shoulders here there's bits of the body itself that you can hook into and there you've got him like a fish now of course you have to get close enough to be able to do that so what you want to do first is hitting hard either with the spike you'll go straight through armor if you hit him hard enough or alternatively you can use the fluke at the back at high speed would go straight through that armor or say that you were riding by me on a horse so I'm down here as an infantryman right by me and I can sweep you straight out of your saddle now you can use the butt against armor like that to push someone back you can swing it around just to keep the better distance so it's a pretty good all-round weapon but frankly against a really good swordsman you're not going to have much of a chance now I could parry you cut to my head I could parry there but I'm completely exposed do it again so I need to at least do that and clear it yeah the problem is that you're going to come straight back cutting at me so let's have a little routine here we go to the heads I'm gonna clear it straight back in the middle there all right now I chose to parry because I thought he was going to give me a cut he wasn't he was gonna give me a thrust so I'm dead you can see my problem I can only make one mistake our arsenal of weird weapons is just about complete so maybe it's time for a short review first the falchion then the mace followed by the flail bahama and the crows beat the owl Speas the will go they're all good but are they good enough to help our team when it's challenged against the plate armed at night this is one of the weirdest weapons of the Middle Ages a long Club fitted with iron spikes it was a traditional weapon roughly made by local blacksmiths it was called a Godin tag which means good day the Flemish must have had a sense of humor as they hit their opponents they would say button tag it was used for thrusting Godin card for striking rotten tag and for slashing open the flanks of horses doesn't argh very nasty how nasty well in 1302 at the Battle of portray a magnificent French army came face to face with the Flemish gotten dug this absolutely simple homemade weapon wielded by untrained peasants and shopkeepers was up against nailed mounted Knights of the finest army in Europe so who would you put your money on if you bet on the French you lost the Flemish peasants carried the day in the right hands the Gottman dog is indeed a fearsome weapon but there's only one sure way to win against the plate this is where it all began remember before we have the arsenal of weird weapons our team would have had little chance against this armored Knight but now against three Knights with a little help from the cotton tug the flail the crows beat and a few friends when it's hardly a fight at all our team have learned how to win against the armored Knight but all the weapons we've seen in action have one thing in common no matter how weird and wonderful the weapon what matters is the man behind it there was a time deep in history when early man began his dominance of nature what separated us from all the other animals what protected us from wild beasts and from each other what single factor helped us not just to survive as a species but to triumph you may not like the answer weapons now we have to find out how our primitive ancestors beat the odds in the battle of the species we learn how to win with Stone Age weapons all right guys Shawn if you come over here Kristen over there here are two magnificent specimens of the human animal right but you have very few advantages compared to other animals sighs you're not big enough to scare them off speed you can't outrun them you haven't the strength to fight with them you don't have sharp teeth or claws you don't even have a shell to hide in physically you are completely useless but what have you got bruised but some of us have more than others but yet brains and our ancestors use their brains to make two vital evolutionary advances one was to use fire the other was to use tools and some of the earliest tools were weapons and our challenge is to learn how to win with Stone Age weapons and when we've gained some knowledge we're going to use that knowledge to go out hunting all right so I wanna send you out there now into the wild and I want you to find some natural materials to bring back here and to make weapons with to be honest we've given the team some modern hatchets and saws to do the job after all we need to squeeze several hundred thousand years of progress into a single 30-minute time slot most of our team have gone for the first weapon of all the wooden stick it seems simple but not any old stick will do early man was forced to assess which kinds of wood were better than others and just how he would use his new weapon if he shows a straight piece like this he'd have a light and handy weapon but for hunting and killing he'd need something heavier preferably with all the weight at one end now this would be good for clubbing and also for throwing and it's mainly throwing weapons than our team are collecting of course man's brain allowed him to do more than just pick up sticks off the forest floor our team's brains are serving them likewise using the simple tools we've given them they are modifying their finds to make what they think will work as weapons early man did the same thing using stone tools it simply took him longer to finish the job okay so here we have an entire arsenal of the earliest most primitive weapons we've got a lot of different sorts of clubs here here's a weird-looking one whose is this I can say with confidence that our team is at least on the right track some of their found objects seem wonderful for bashing what a horrible mind you have then we have the basic bone Club others are clearly intended to cut and stab there's this which was just picked up off the ground this is another jawbone or something and there's one over here which was clearly made by a sadist who's responsible for this that would be me okay I'm gonna have to keep out of your way good a nice sharp point there the problem is you've made it out of Deadwood that's going to snap in no time at all now we have to start using our brains because our survival as a species depends on us getting these weapons right so let's pick up the weapons and don't find a target and see if they work here we go we are ten paces away from our target which is made from a couple of hay bales covered with animal hide we are pitching our clubs and Spears to see what kind of damage we might have done to a real animal at a time when our ancestors depended on this sort of thing if they wanted to eat all right look at this lot I think you could honestly say that we are completely useless of this right all of those weapon only to actually hit and pierced the target so what went wrong despite our team's hard work and their performance as brave Stone Age hunters their weapons were neither sharp enough nor strong enough to do the job now to learn what they must do to fix the problem we have to find a way of making these points sharper and for that we need fire so I want you two to go away and make some fire for us as one more thing which is that we're supposed to be in a Stone Age people where's the stone early man's first weapons were wood and stone especially flint and this glass like rock called obsidian some flakes of stone can be amazingly sharp some blocks of it occur naturally in an easily handled D shape with one rounded edge and one sharp man discovered he could make other useful shapes on demand just by knocking a hard stone against Flint working with stone in this way is known as napping and using this new technique our ancestors created one of their most important early inventions the hand ax the hand ax is a tool designed to fit into a man's hand it's an all-purpose implement for on cutting chopping up wood carving up game scraping flesh from hides it's also extremely good for um preparing breakfast two of our team members are now busy with their fire making project but rubbing stones together simply will not do instead feel I'm going to offer them a different tool here is a bow drill this is the base the idea is to cause as much friction as possible in that base and create fire that way so in order to make some embers we rub that really hard put some moss around there so that will catch fire put this little top on there so we can hold it and if you put your foot on there so it doesn't move all right let's try this here we go now this takes some time so I'm gonna let you do it all right starting a fire is very difficult the friction has to heat the wood to 800 degrees before it will start to smolder the bow drills string is made of twisted sinew and was one of early man's ingenious uses of animals every dead creature had a huge number of byproducts for Stone Age man the larger bones provided ready-made clubs sharp antlers horns or teeth could all become weapons and strips of sinew and hide were both very useful but fire as man's greatest tool of all so here's where we are we'd made our own hand axes which we use to sharpen our wooden Spears next we harden the points in our fire and hone them by rubbing them against stone but there's more to a spear than a fire hardened point which designs work best short Spears may be good for stabbing but our team can see that longer Spears even crude ones are better for throwing throwing the spear at an elevation gives it tremendous speed and force as it falls but hitting a moving animal requires skill practice and patience will now give it a try on our own hunting grounds all right are we ready for this assault our families are starving we haven't eaten for days there is dinner ready [Applause] [Music] coming up who survives the team or their prey our team have become Stone Age hunters using the crudest of wooden weapons to attack wild game on the open plain so we've got to our bear here and we've got our hand axes ready to carve him up the problem is the bear isn't hurt at all all right those of us who did manage to hit our friendly creature here wouldn't have pissed through his hide primitive man is ready for his next giant step forward the application of Technology early man had to find a way to make his weapons more effectively now as he was working with his hand axes he must have noticed these shards of stone really sharp now out of these he could create blades and points of all types as a skill improved he could produce flakes of stone up to a foot long now these would be kept sharpened at one end and the other blunt end would be wrapped in hide to create a basic dagger with time the working of stone became a true art and the master craftsman of prehistory produced a wide variety of blades and points finished to an astonishing level of detail and beauty I keep saying how razor-sharp stone can be and to prove it I need a shave now we usually try and avoid bloodshed in this program but this time it may be unavoidable aah oh not very comfortable but at least it works this is a breakthrough early man can shave and what's more he now had the means to make a whole new armoury by combining all the techniques that he'd learned and our team are emulating their ancestors using bindings natural glues and wood to create stone tipped weapons more lethal than anything that had come before some weapons probably came about by accident now if you want a fire to burn better you blow on it it's much better to blow underneath it so you get a hollow piece of bamboo you shove it in and you blow on it and then something gets stuck in your piece of bamboo so you blow it out and hey you've invented the pea shooter and then someone gets a really brilliant idea he cuts a bamboo hollows it out makes a small projectile with a flint point buying some material to one end and he is invented the blowpipe and dart and while the first victim may have been the butt of laughter things took a more serious turn when the dart was covered with one of the natural poisons man was also finding out about turning a practical joke into a lethal weapon but our team have spent most of their time making Spears and there's still much to improve upon now we all agreed we had to get more range with our Spears right now early man could see how a sling worked and he was beginning to understand basic aerodynamics so first he tried tying his sling on to the spear as a sort of throwing strap to get more velocity you could also try getting a piece of hide and wrapping it in a spiral around the spear now when he threw it like this it made the spear spin which made it fly straighter these are flights and feathers on the butt these were a good idea too but the best idea of all is this now this little thing is a spear thrower it's called an atlatl this is how it works this little hook goes into the notch at the base of the spear you remember how we found it difficult even reaching that target before well this little machine increases velocity up to five times after this though it is not easy to master the team catches on to use of the spear thrower quickly by exerting force through a longer art than the arm can provide it casts the spear further than ever before now we have a whole new world of technology and experience being applied to our weapons our bear is in serious trouble but who are we kidding your ancestors did not use these weapons just for hunting animals they use them to kill each other Stone Age man at war coming up alright come on you guys you are going to war we're going to make you savages now most primitive societies find the idea of organized warfare completely incomprehensible it's a waste of time it's a waste of resources but it seems likely that as the human population grew pressure increased on territory for hunting now fighting techniques every weapon has its own just a few moments of combat with these you'll find out what works and what doesn't work most of the weapons we've made for ourselves are purely aggressive to have very little defensive capabilities but a skilled fighter could at least carry an incoming blow with your spear jamia thrust and you give me a cut of the head with your club yeah but most of us aren't skilled and we're not aggressive so we all want some kind of protection we've gathered some natural materials and your next job is to make yourself some shields and some body armor go on get going early man had no metal so he depended on nature to provide materials for his armor a suit of reeds for example was light and flexible it could withstand a blow from a club but not a thrust from a spear animal hides stretched over a frame made very good shields if thick enough they could stop almost anything in the stone-age arsenal straight away we're faced with one of the basic problems of personal combat you can carry a shield you can wear body armor but it increases your weight the more weight you have the less agile you are and you lose offensive ability it's a balance now there's something else that these shields do very well I'll show you Sean stand over there will you now usually a missile weapon is the best thing to have but not anymore I want you to throw that spear at me come on throw it right at me [Music] right now I have a shield I can defend myself against missile weapons it forces me to get in close and dirty so that's the kind of fighting we'll be learning all right when fighting at close quarters the Stone Age warrior had to instantly adapt each opponent could have different weapons and defenses so each situation called for different strategies well that's good excellent that's very nice all right now but you got to be careful because I'm gonna come back as soon as I can hitting that shield and it's not a strong shield so come to my shoulder all right I have an advantage which is natural that I'm nice and light whereas you are pretty heavy okay so I can get in close you can hit really hard all right okay and high to fair yeah so when you're gonna hit him hit him hahahaha yeah you come at me savage he'll another go we don't know how often it happened but combat between Stone Age men must have been absolutely brutal to look at them now we would call them savages even if our own times have produced weapons that can wipe out every one of us in a single day it's time to get back to the main reason man needed his weapons to hunt animals shields and armor are useless to the prehistoric hunter speed and surprise are vital our image of hunters is male but there are two women in our group and in the mythology of many societies the goddess of hunting was female all right guys gather your weapons you are all going on a bear hunt now it's not physical strength that catches game it's skill what skills do you need first you have to learn to move and hide in absolute silence but there are snakes and mountain lions out here so watch out second you have to get in close we've discovered that these weapons have a very short range third you're all very smelly it's not a joke you have to stay downwind your target if he gets downwind he will be hunting you and not the other way around fourth and most important you have to plan your hunt as a group that's the only way human beings can survive out here as a group you must ambush him together you must hit him with every weapon you've got all at once you have one major advantage the bear that you are hunting will be me come this way somewhere in the depths of a stone-age forest our team is on a bear hunt I have volunteered to be the bear and their challenge is to find a proper place to ambush me as a group that is the only way early man could successfully cut down prey using his primitive short-range weapons they are looking for somewhere with plenty of cover and a good view of the approaches my eyesight is better than a bear my sense of smell is pathetic and in dense woodland that's much more important in situations like this you have to rely on instinct so let's see if I can find them before they get me the team finds a clearing ideal for an ambush now they must work out how to lure me into it they spread out but I have no idea what they're planning they're out there somewhere they can probably hear me coming you remember the thrill of hide-and-seek how kids love to jump out and surprise you well that thrill is rooted deep within us suddenly we discover skills and sensitivities that most of us never use but are still there lying dormant within us from our earliest evolution the team knows they have to corner me to get close enough for their weapons to make a kill they could be anywhere and my gut tells me they are nearby a bear would have smelled them by now but I continue to depend on my eyesight I see you I'm glad we put the bear in I think I'd be dead come on you've seriously injured our bear these Flint blades would have really ripped into him you'd have to follow him now and wait till he bleeds to death poor beast but you get him in the end and you with the decoy I got up there I thought an escape from you and I come straight down here into your traps very good the plan worked well done you win we've learned how to make our own weapons and how to win there's a Stone Age man in the hunt and in combat these are the same lessons that our ancestors had to learn for real their only hope of survival lay in the defeat of all the forces of nature raised against them and the only things that stood between them and extinction with their brains and their weapons you

Channel: Military History 2015

Views: 350,060

Keywords: Military History (Field Of Study), Stone Age (Literature Subject), Weapon (Interest), Middle Ages (Event), History (TV Genre)

Id: ITFrlv0sbiU

Length: 42min 13sec (2533 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 21 2015