"Bows: Penetration & Protection" Topic

Writing in Slingshot magazine, Nick Harbud reviews the evidence and concludes:

…good quality body armour (that is, plate, brigandine or several layers of mail) should significantly reduce the effect of archery. Lesser quality armour might also be considered, but not to anywhere near the same extent and one could consider disregarding it entirely.

Do you agree?

"Several layers of mail". Seriously? I've read of two layers on the chest, but no more than that.

Plate is mostly iron or soft steel, until well into the 15th century. Too expensive for a long time for anyone but the filthy rich. And soft steel does not keep bodkins and bolts out at pointblank range. Plenty of weak spots to exploit, especially at the thinner edges….

I'm not sure I understand the question.

Should troops in armour be harder to kill? I'm not sure that's super controversial.

If he doesn't have pratical tests to back up his conclusions…

Say replica equipment, pig carcases dressed in apropriate armor, and shot by decent archers, and proper historical materials, not modern.

In general arrows are a one hit – one kill weapon and a fairly light bow can drive a broadhead clear through.

There are some very impressive studies on arrow penetration and lethality.

Arrows are NOT one hit weapons.

Plenty of soldiers/settlers were wounded by Indian arrows in North America/South America and survived (the wound, infection might be worse,) Not read up enough to know if arrows were poisoned regularly other than hunting in southern continent Amerindian cultures.

apparently Nick did not see the Mythbusters show on paper armor

link

No doubt that armor and shields help. Still a 125lb pull bow shooting a 4oz arrow with a bodkin hardened steel point at over 100mph is frightening. It certainly is lethal to an unprotected target at over 200 yards. An impact like that could easily knock a man down.

Just imagine being hit by baseball thrown by a major league pitcher… There is a reason the catcher wears all that padding and protections. Now reduce the size of the ball by many times…
and then put a sharp point on it.

Joe Collins

The Mythbusters show is worth a look. Very interesting.

An arrow can be as lethal as a bullet, but it's easy to get carried away. Archery could be very effective in the right circumstances; all you had to do was get your enemy to attack you on unfavourable terms.

The arrow may leave the bow at 100MPH, but it slows down a *lot* faster than a bullet.
A shield can stop an arrow, but not a bullet.

I was recently watching a show where a couple of college professors were researching Linothorax. They wanted to know if it really COULD protect an individual from injury or death.

They used linen threads properly made from flax and woven using period methods into cloth. Period types of glue were used to bind several layers together, and a period linothorax was created.

This was then tested against the type(s) of arrow heads used in ancient Greek/Macedonian period warfare. The results were impressive. In short, it stopped both arrows from penetrating, as well as some hand weapons.

Here's a link to series of 7 videos done on this project.

YouTube link

A shield can stop an arrow, but not a bullet.

Depends what the shield is made of …

Another factor that often gets overlooked is the weather; bows made up of wood, particularly laminate bows, can have their performance impacted by moisture very readily. While this was known and troops took precautions against it, extended periods of very wet or very dry weather could and did impact archery performance.

-Will