"War darts. . . real or fantasy?" Topic

I have heard that the late Romans or Byzantines used war darts, but I never heard about the effectiveness. I have seen them mentioned in fantasy, but is there any advantage to them? And when I say war darts, I don't mean those small kung-fu ribboned things, I mean an actual weapon used during war.

OOPS! apologia to all 18th cent. I pushed crossposting too much.

Plumbata or war darts as you call them were certainly used by Late Roman armies. The debate as to how they were thrown is still going on. Could be that they were used as kind of light javelin and thrown not unlike a modern dart. However lately an underhand throw is considered lore likely. In that case they would somewhat replace (missing) archers.

The darts were quite long, a foot or longer. The plunging trajectory and the extra weight from the lead ball in the middle gave them a reasonable penetration factor.

Range is somewhat uncertain but with the underhand throw at least 30-45 meters. Usually 5 were carried on the inside of the shield.

The were real. But don't think of anything you see in a pub game. Think of small javelins, lead weighted, for use at close range.

They were perhaps 3 1/2 foot or so long, as opposed to a javelin's or pilum's 5 foot or so. The lead weight made them bulge in the middle and would have given them extra hitting power. They were probably quite capable of penetrating chain armour, or at least ruining a shield.

Tactically they were used like pilum, loosed by infantry at a high trajectory just before taking a charge or charging at close range.

My guess is they were better at penetrating the better armour the Byzantine's encountered than their predecessors. But a late Roman expert will be able to give more details.

Oops. I over-estimated the length. Thanks Scully

I have seen numerous sources cite darts for both late Roman and Early Byzantine armies. The comparison to short javelins is realistic. Does a feathered end make a dart?

Other armies were also reported as using darts.

These are available sometimes from antiquities dealers. Here's a collection (scroll down a bit):

romanofficer.com/permcol.html

Another in a museum (last item on the page):
rom-museum.de/angriffswaffen.htm

And another:
romancoins.info/MilitaryEquipment-spear.html

And here's one for sale:
rockymountainrarities.net/books_artifacts.htm

Re-enactors practising with them (underhand, it seems):
fectio.org.uk/shows/archeon2004.htm

Allen

According to the websites, they had a longer range than the javelin...

You would think a shower of these things just before contact would at least disrupt the opposing troops. A couple of darts sticking out of your shield would be an inconvenience. Better than one in the eye!

As to their effectiveness one only has to look at the game jarts. In this game players toss a similar item, only blunt, at a ring in a manner similar to horseshoes.

The jart is thrown in an underhand fashion and the closest person to the ring scores a point. Jarts in the ring score more.

The game was outlawed here in Pennsylvania after someone was killed by one of these jarts.

If the Roman darts were at all similar, and sharp to boot, they would have probably made quite an impression on an attacker if thrown in mass.

They used to be called lawn darts. :) But there are a lot of negative conotations with that name now, hard to say how many were true. They were a favorite game once upon a time, and I did know someone who got one in his calve. They have a most satisfying thunk when they go in the ground, and I would be they would have made an effective weapon if sharpened.

Actually, darts were used up to the beginning of WWII, but then as plane-dropped ones. During WWI German pilots dropped loads of small metal darts over Allied trenches, they were dubbed Fliegerpfeile, and were reputed to be able to penetrated a man from helmet to shoesole.

The USAAF ordered their version before the start of WWII, and it is rumoured they were used sporadically early in the war in the Pacific theatre. I bought some from a US dealer about twenty years ago. They consist of a normal rifle bullet with four small but razor sharp tin fins added. I could imagine the terminal (fall) velocity being enough to do some damage, though I doubt it would compare in the least favorable to a gun.

Yep. Lawn Darts. Number One on my "What the heck were they thinking???" list.

Hi

I have made and thrown martiobarbuli against replica armor and tested them with ordinary people for range.

I still have a few.

Mine worked best thrown overhand...i have no idea why people are throwing them underhand unless it is a safety issue of some sort. Grasped by the tail and just throwing them, they give you the lever advantage of a spear thrower without the having to hold onto the useless stick afterword.

It takes ZERO training to get 80plus meters. Now, I threw javelin in school, so when I was testing, I used ordinary people, even small women. ANYONE, take a quick step and throw.

The down side? Most weapons are also excellent hunting weapons. The martiobarbuli thrown like this has great range and effect....but accuracy sucks. No problem hitting a unit. In a skirmish, they would have limited use.

HOWEVER, hitting things is devistating. Popping through armor is easy, smashing shields. Very dangerous.

And, unlike a javelin, one that misses tends to plow deeply into the turf meaning that a man in a formation would be unlikely to be able to pick it up and throw it back.

Rocky

80 meters? Are you sure? Top quarterbacks can't throw a football 80 meters...you had small women chucking these that far?

Maybe Rocky ment feet instead of meters? Anyhow how to apply these to wargaming...?

Johnny

Hi

I would have said 100, but I get tired of posts like "ARE YOU SURE!!!"

Yup. I was surprised. As I said, i threw jav in school, held a state record for a while back in the 60s, but the martiobarbuli is MUCH easier.

Why can you throw a ROCK 100m using a sling? SAME PHYSICS, the mass is at the end of an extension. Just like a spear thrower. You get a lot of centripital force there.

How I use them in gaming is like a javelin with lots of range...but only against massed targets.

R

Still want to be sure I'm following this - the ones you threw had a long tail on them? Then I can definitely buy 80 meters. That would also help keep the point forward after the throw, which would seem like a challenge otherwise on an overhand throw.

Underhanded would give a more challenging trajectory to defend against, but probably with a loss of power. I bet they threw them both ways :) Try to get your shield to defend againt high arc and low arc!

I believe the backyard game was called Lawn Jarts with a "J". We loved them as kids and threw them everywhere and at everything. You'd throw them underhanded, but you could still put a big arc on them sort of like slowpitch softball. I do not think they flew well over handed.

Lawn Jarts had all the weight in the metal tip, with the rest being made of plastic (body, and tail section, with fins). They definitely did not fly well when thrown over-hand style (for me, anyway). The Plumbata had a mass of lead at the tail section, which I assume is where they were grasped, which would change the throwing completely, from what we experienced with Lawn Jarts. The Plumbata would also be much heavier (greater mass, overall), and would thus be better suited to warfare than a Lawn Jart. Still, look at the casualty reports with the metal-tipped, plastic Lawn Jart!

En masse, I could see these being quite effective. The vision it conjures, reminds me of the English archers firing at the battle of Agincourt, in Kenneth Branaugh's, "Henry V". Chilling... I've watched it more than 12 times, and it still sends shivers down my spine to see the dark cloud of arrows in flight, along with the sound of them.

The Agincourt scene was historically incorrect. The arrows they used would not even penetrate the French armour that was worn at that time. It was in fact three factors: the French were forced into a bottle neck to engage the English, The field was a muddy mess which meant people in armour were getting stuck due to the suction of the mud. Lasty the archers were unarmoured and didn't abide by the rules of ransom. Thus leading to a very high casualty count on the French side.

Yep Septon, I also saw that show on the History Channel. Good data.

Hey, it was Bill Shakespeare... It was dramatic, and Branaugh did a superb job on portraying Bill's work. I wasn't concerned with the historical accuracy of that movie, but with the theatrical portrayal of hundreds of arrows filling the sky. May not be effective with casualties, but it certainly would have a morale impact to see/hear the volley approaching you. ;-)

Thanks for the the info. on the real reason the French lost, though. That was somewhat portrayed by Branaugh, though the realities of the bottleneck were not apparent, the mud-sucking battlefield was. Not sure what the ransom reference pertains to, though, as Bill's account portrays the French as slaughtering the baggage personnel, and the boys, of the English army -- '...expressly forbidden by the laws of war.'

"The arrows they used would not even penetrate the French armour that was worn at that time."

Do you mean the arrows seen in the film, or the arrows used by the real HYW English?

The arrows from a longbow COULD penetrate plate armor, at varying distances, certain areas of the armor were vulnerable. At maximum range (c. 250 yd plunging fire) only exposed faces and hands would be vulnerable; even an arrow catching in a joint would be stopped by the mail and padded reinforce behind. At c. 150 yds the thinner armor on the sides of the torso could theoretically be penetrable (in reality, the massed ranks and frontal positioning of the archers would make this highly unlikely to be a targetted area); also the thinner plate on the arms and legs would be penetrable with a direct-on hit; the joints in the armor if hit would lodge arrows and even be wounded in some cases. At 100 yds all the plate except the center of the breastplate and the helmets would be punctured by direct (c. 90 degree) hits; joints would not stop arrows any longer. Also, the forward positioning of the flanking archers would now mean that the French men at arms slogging through the mud on foot would come under enfilading fire. At c. 70 yds the fire would be point blank and rapid by all the front four ranks who could see the French: i.e. 12 rounds per minute. At point blank, no plate would keep out an arrow except one striking an extreme curving surface. The comb on the center of a breastplate would keep out an arrow, as would most hits to helmets, but that is all. The last few thousand rounds the French were taking as they closed were doing a lot of damage to the front ranks.

Yeah I'll bet my neighbor "Mr Burns" still has a pretty good memory of that lovely July afternoon when I pinned his hand to his car bumper, after misjudging the range on that last shot (as it turned out) with our 'thrift store' Lawn dart (Jart? hum that does ring a bell) set.

I for one am unconvinced about the armor penetrating properties of a 'Plumbata'. If anyone has any actual data (by data I mean, information drawn from a series of tests in a controlled and repeatable environment, as opposed to the usual "we all used to drink pints down at the "old felcherts club" and throw our hand made darts through an old Sherman tank parked out back") on this topic I would like to see it.

I have been reading more and more information that supports the idea that ancient and medieval chainmail was far more effective than had been thought in the not too distant past. And I am having a bit of trouble visualizing the best available protection being routinely pierced by a weapon that was "tossed" into the air

I suspect that these were used as a last ditched tool in situations where friendly skirmishers were unable to provide protection from Bow/Javelin armed foot skirmishers, and would have been especially effective at keep mounted (un-armored) horse archers at an acceptable distance.

I did read a long article online just last night about some Legions being singled out for praise because they had been singularly effective using "darts" to drive off enemy light troops. I'll try tracking it down and posting the URL ASAP

Bill AKA yettie..."Otis"

Hi Bill

When I did my tests, I ASSUMED that the british library system had all this information as primary data....but living in the rural west of the United States, I had no access.

Then I spoke personally to Phil Barker when he visited Texas about it and discovered that no one HAD done the tests except me.

I did not publish the paper or document same. (What venue WOULD I publish in?)

Chainmail is a different discussion.

But the short version with weapons and armor is...direct hits are deadly, indirect are not. Unarmored, all hits do damage. Armor increases the probabilty that the weapon will deflect. Your skin doesnt deflect much.

In a knife fight, even a "Levi" canvas jacket is better than being naked.

But not Knife Proof.

Rocky

We also had Lawn Jarts. After a thunder storm some metal roofing came off an old shed. Since sheet metal is a much noiser target than a lawn we spent quite a while heaving the jart down range to very satifyingly plonk thru the metal. Jarts were pretty blunt but as previously described very point heavy. At age twelve I would throw underhand to forty of my paces and pierce three layers of the sheet metal for a good part of the afternoon. Max range was about double that at which I couldn't miss a barndoor, literally. Terribly unscientific I know but useful by way of illustration. Plumbata where smaller overall that Jarts but a little longer. I don't believe I've seen any tails on surviving examples. I'd have to go with the idea that it was thrown both underhand and overhand which ever was best for the soldier at that moment.

Maybe jart is an abbreviation of Javelin and dART?
Having 5 darts on the inside of a shield, as Scully stated, would slightly burden the soldier in movement and maybe in blocking attacks. Has this ever been taken into consideration in any rules?

My neighbor told me that he'd 'start a war' if I didn't put a tarp over my Dart. But that was before I got it running.

Smedley

Um... what!?

Old car reference - sorry, couldn't resist. I'll be good now.

Smedley

Oh. A Dart is a car? Never heard of it, but I live in Australia.

It's an old Dodge - I don't think Chrysler made them for the Aussie market, but they did have a really cool Hemi Charger that we yanks are jealous about!

Smedley

Daimler Dart two seater British sports car of the late 50s, should not be confused with the Jowett Javelin a British sloon car of the mid 50s! ;o)

Look 'em up on google if you don't believe me!

I used to be in a late Roman re-enactment group. In a straight shieldwall fight, its relatively easy to stay alive, keeping track of the opposite spearman and particularly two men either side of him (only one either side if spears aren't long.) As soon as you have to worry about javelins, arrows, darts, rocks or hurled maces (from the later dark ages) winging in out of nowhere, concentrating gets much harder. So anything lobbed at the enemy ups his stress and distracts him, making it easier for spearmen to get a thrust in!

Hi Rocky,

I'm currently making my own plumbata (I'm the guiy shown here in that post from November 27: "Re-enactors practising with them (underhand, it seems): fectio.org.uk/shows/archeon2004.htm") and I've been doing research into all plumbatae found in the UK.

Could you send me your findings somehow? There is not an awful lot of research on testing plumbatae, so I would welcome any new input!

Vortigern

Hi

I am not sure where my papers are from some 25 years ago. I know that a couple surivived somewhere in my garage...

The thing is, you are building them, why not test yourself.

I thought it was a lot of fun to throw and break things!

The short version is that they would smash 1" and 2" pine, crash through 1/2" ply, usually go 80 -100 meters and penetrate turf several inches. Never tried them against a LIVE target.

Grin.

R

Hi Rocky,

I'm currently making my own plumbata (I'm the guiy shown here in that post from November 27: "Re-enactors practising with them (underhand, it seems): fectio.org.uk/shows/archeon2004.htm") and I've been doing research into all plumbatae found in the UK.

Could you send me your findings somehow? There is not an awful lot of research on testing plumbatae, so I would welcome any new input!

Vortigern

Hi Rocky,

But I have been testing them too of course!
I just would like to know (of) all the testing that has been done so far.
Should you ever want to publish these old papers from your garage, just let me know and I'll bang 'em on my website.

Cheers,
Vortigern