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Check out Tod's Workshop youtube channel. It's only entertainment, but he has a far more realistic overall testing of arrows' armour-piercing capability. A lo

Check out Tod's Workshop youtube channel. It's only entertainment, but he has a far more realistic overall testing of arrows' armour-piercing capability. A lot of the tests are firing perpendicularly at plate armour that's held in front of a hard surface with no gambeson underneath. When you take account of arrows often arriving at a slight angle, and humans are a movable pile of meat covered in thick cloth with plate on top, then the ability to penetrate deep enough to cause a significant wound is reduced. Never eliminated though! But if arrows really did pierce plate armour, and I was a knight in a battle then I'd just get myself a 6 foot tall 3 foot wide, heavy wooden shield and hide behind it until I got to close quarters. But the fact is people didn't bother doing this because they found a less cumbersome shield more effective, and that suggests that rich plate-armour-clad knights weren't dying left right and centre from arrow fire.

p_ing 1y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_longbow#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_longbow#History > [I]n the war against the Welsh, one of the men of arms was struck by an arrow shot at him by a Welshman. It went right through his thigh, high up, where it was protected inside and outside the leg by his iron chausses, and then through the skirt of his leather tunic; next it penetrated that part of the saddle which is called the alva or seat; and finally it lodged in his horse, driving so deep that it killed the animal. I wouldn't want to be shot by one, regardless.
- lmm 1y ago
  That's likely talking about a shot at close quarters (from the strongest kind of pre-modern bows in the world), the chausses the arrow went through would have been mail not plate, and horses are much less resilient than humans. Of course longbows could and did kill - they wouldn't have been used in war otherwise! But they did not routinely kill through plate armour at range.
  - cess11 1y ago
    Not sure what you mean by "strongest", but you might want to make a comparison with mongol composite bows. I'm also not sure what you mean by "resilient", but horses running around dragging their intestines on the ground for half an hour is not uncommon in 'gore' material from bullfighting events gone wrong. I have yet to see a human do something similar. Horses are domesticated from prey animals, they are very good at ignoring pain and wounds and still getting away.
    - lmm 1y ago
      > Not sure what you mean by "strongest", but you might want to make a comparison with mongol composite bows. I believe it's generally accepted that the longbows we're talking about delivered arrows with more force than Mongol composite bows. > I'm also not sure what you mean by "resilient", but horses running around dragging their intestines on the ground for half an hour is not uncommon in 'gore' material from bullfighting events gone wrong. I have yet to see a human do something similar. Horses are domesticated from prey animals, they are very good at ignoring pain and wounds and still getting away. Horses are notoriously fragile. The quote does not say that the horse died instantly, merely that it died.
      - cess11 1y ago
        Why do you believe that? No, they're not. One could argue that some of the recent breeds, designed for a particular aesthetic rather than practicality, are, but that's not really within this subject.
        shkkmo 1y ago
        Perhaps because they read the article: > horses are big and react poorly to being wounded: a solid arrow hit on a horse is very likely to disable both horse and rider. And while light or archer cavalry might limit exposure to mass arrow fire by attacking in looser formation, as we’ve discussed, European heavy horse generally engages in very tight lines of armored men and horses in order to maximize the fear and power of their impact. Unsurprisingly then, we see from antiquity forward, efforts to armor or protect horses, called ‘barding’: defenses of thick textile, scale, lamellar, and even plate are known in various periods, though of course the more armor placed on the horse, the larger and stronger it needs to be and the slower it moves. Nevertheless, the size and shape of a horse makes it harder to armor than a human and you simply cannot achieve a level of protection for a horse that is going to match a heavy infantryman on the ground, especially if the latter has a large shield.
pjc50 1y ago
> rich plate-armour-clad knights weren't dying left right and centre from arrow fire. This is the standard simplified narrative of what happened at Agincourt - English archers wiping out French noble heavy cavalry - although it also seems like that was an exception.
- larksimian 1y ago
  They were charging up hill in the mud. Noone really died from arrows, except maybe some of the horses. But a lot of their horses fell and then the knights ran back through their own infantry, though apparently that wasn't that big a deal in the battle. The battlefield killing was done by light infantry wading in with daggers and hatchets apparently during a foot slog up the muddy hill which left the french heavy infantry exhausted. Another wave of killing afaik was when the captured prisoners were all executed since the english position seemed like it might be overrun by some follow up fighting. (keep in mind the battle took hours and there was a lot more going on then just heavy horse riding up against arrows once or twice) Wiki page is worth a read actually
- waisbrot 1y ago
  That's covered in the blog post: First, that archers can actually be more effective against mounted troops than foot: the mounted troops ride close together, horses are hard to fully armor, and one horse getting hit in the leg can cause a lot of chaos. Second, at Agincourt, the French knights _walked_ through the arrow-fire quite successfully, but the effort (physical, mental, cumulative effect of small wounds) tired them enough that the English soldiers could beat them hand-to-hand. And that this ability to inflict small damage before the main fighting is why archers were valuable.

p_ing 1y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_longbow#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_longbow#History > [I]n the war against the Welsh, one of the men of arms was struck by an arrow shot at him by a Welshman. It went right through his thigh, high up, where it was protected inside and outside the leg by his iron chausses, and then through the skirt of his leather tunic; next it penetrated that part of the saddle which is called the alva or seat; and finally it lodged in his horse, driving so deep that it killed the animal. I wouldn't want to be shot by one, regardless.

lmm 1y ago
That's likely talking about a shot at close quarters (from the strongest kind of pre-modern bows in the world), the chausses the arrow went through would have been mail not plate, and horses are much less resilient than humans. Of course longbows could and did kill - they wouldn't have been used in war otherwise! But they did not routinely kill through plate armour at range.
- cess11 1y ago
  Not sure what you mean by "strongest", but you might want to make a comparison with mongol composite bows. I'm also not sure what you mean by "resilient", but horses running around dragging their intestines on the ground for half an hour is not uncommon in 'gore' material from bullfighting events gone wrong. I have yet to see a human do something similar. Horses are domesticated from prey animals, they are very good at ignoring pain and wounds and still getting away.
  - lmm 1y ago
    > Not sure what you mean by "strongest", but you might want to make a comparison with mongol composite bows. I believe it's generally accepted that the longbows we're talking about delivered arrows with more force than Mongol composite bows. > I'm also not sure what you mean by "resilient", but horses running around dragging their intestines on the ground for half an hour is not uncommon in 'gore' material from bullfighting events gone wrong. I have yet to see a human do something similar. Horses are domesticated from prey animals, they are very good at ignoring pain and wounds and still getting away. Horses are notoriously fragile. The quote does not say that the horse died instantly, merely that it died.
    - cess11 1y ago
      Why do you believe that? No, they're not. One could argue that some of the recent breeds, designed for a particular aesthetic rather than practicality, are, but that's not really within this subject.
      - shkkmo 1y ago
        Perhaps because they read the article: > horses are big and react poorly to being wounded: a solid arrow hit on a horse is very likely to disable both horse and rider. And while light or archer cavalry might limit exposure to mass arrow fire by attacking in looser formation, as we’ve discussed, European heavy horse generally engages in very tight lines of armored men and horses in order to maximize the fear and power of their impact. Unsurprisingly then, we see from antiquity forward, efforts to armor or protect horses, called ‘barding’: defenses of thick textile, scale, lamellar, and even plate are known in various periods, though of course the more armor placed on the horse, the larger and stronger it needs to be and the slower it moves. Nevertheless, the size and shape of a horse makes it harder to armor than a human and you simply cannot achieve a level of protection for a horse that is going to match a heavy infantryman on the ground, especially if the latter has a large shield.

pjc50 1y ago

> rich plate-armour-clad knights weren't dying left right and centre from arrow fire. This is the standard simplified narrative of what happened at Agincourt - English archers wiping out French noble heavy cavalry - although it also seems like that was an exception.

larksimian 1y ago
They were charging up hill in the mud. Noone really died from arrows, except maybe some of the horses. But a lot of their horses fell and then the knights ran back through their own infantry, though apparently that wasn't that big a deal in the battle. The battlefield killing was done by light infantry wading in with daggers and hatchets apparently during a foot slog up the muddy hill which left the french heavy infantry exhausted. Another wave of killing afaik was when the captured prisoners were all executed since the english position seemed like it might be overrun by some follow up fighting. (keep in mind the battle took hours and there was a lot more going on then just heavy horse riding up against arrows once or twice) Wiki page is worth a read actually
waisbrot 1y ago
That's covered in the blog post: First, that archers can actually be more effective against mounted troops than foot: the mounted troops ride close together, horses are hard to fully armor, and one horse getting hit in the leg can cause a lot of chaos. Second, at Agincourt, the French knights _walked_ through the arrow-fire quite successfully, but the effort (physical, mental, cumulative effect of small wounds) tired them enough that the English soldiers could beat them hand-to-hand. And that this ability to inflict small damage before the main fighting is why archers were valuable.