Nature of conflict in med.times oppinions needed!

[Bogenschütze]

Hello everyone

I saw this thread a while ago and i thought I had to input my knowledge on the subject of Archery.
I do not claim to know everything or be all knowing on the subject but i do offer my personal expertise on it as i have been doing high level archery for over 10 years now and have always been interested in medieval archery. I for one actually own and shoot almost every sort of period bow you can think of (only one i dont own unfortunately is a japanese yumi, yet.. ) anyway im just saying this to give my background on the information im about to give, im not some self claimed "expert" who thinks they know all about something just from reading about it, nor am I trying to sound high and mighty, but there are a LOT of misconceptions out there on the internet about archery, particularly when its regarding to the military application of archery and which bow is "better" than another etc.

1st important rule: is a bows performance is all depending on the draw weight! very basic yes but ppl overlook this. the truth is any different style of bow can be made to whatever poundage you wish, anything can be made by a good bowyer up to 200lbs, which is the rough physical limit of any human. regardless wether its any of the various types of longbows, horsebows, crossbows (which can and must go much higher, but more on this later). Also regardless of other aspects such as draw length and physical things like that, all those sorts of things are specific to an individual bow for the archer or maker etc. An example iv heard someone argue is that a type of bow has longer range because of the power stroke (draw length) of the bow was longer than a longbows, which isn’t true. Draw length has no impact if it was made that way. An example a horsebow of 100lb at a 34inch draw is the same as a 100lb longbow at a 32inch draw, no difference besides one is made to reach the power desired at a longer draw than the other. Only overdrawing a bow will produce more power, the problem theres is that you don’t do it because its dangerous to overdraw any bow past its intended draw length as it is likely to fail and explode.
Dont get me wrong, the "type" of bow is still important as they all have certain characteristics, but as for saying bow x will out range bow y of the same poundage, simply because they magicly have more range for some reason is false. Although there is a difference which I will go into later, there is not a large difference.

So from this bows can be grouped into different rough groups according to strength.
- bows of about 40 to 60 pounds were used for hunting in all countries, as this is a strong pull (by modern standards where the average Olympic bow is 40lbs) which can efficiently kill game and unarmoured targets, so this is the strength that in game could correspond to lower tier archer units like peasants and militia etc.
- bows from about 70 to 130 pounds were standard military bows, bows used by soldiers and warriors that had the strength to fire further ranged arrows and to importantly fire heavier arrows and different arrow tips to puncture armour and still kill. (By armour I mean everything but plate ill elaborate later). In game this could be the middle tier archers, archers who are soldiers like ottoman infantry or longbowmen or whatever, which are trained soldiers for war.
- finally bows from 130 and over (highest poundage recorded from the Mary Rose for example was 180 something pounds from the replicated bows they made from the find, the world record today for highest poundage drawn is currently at 202lbs) these bows would take very skilled and strong archers to fire them, especially the upper end poundage, these were not common and would be the elite of any archers in an army. In game could correspond to the very best archer units of a country.

2nd I will go over the styles of bows and the characteristics they offer.
Basically for DOTS we can separate bows into 3 large categories, longbows, horsebows, and crossbows. All bow types were made for specific purposes and none are “better” than another, just differing characteristics. Although there are different alterations and styles of each type but they all have the same general characteristics.
- longbows are long bows made from a single piece of wood, most of the time yew. These bows were most commonly used throughout all of Europe for since the stone age. The longbow has the characteristics of being very stable and forgiving to shoot, meaning an average archer will get away with a lot if they screw up a shot or something. But more importantly there main characteristic is that the longer limbs are, on any bow, more efficient at getting the power stored in the limbs and transferring it through the string and into the arrow once released. What this means is that a longbow will have slightly more range than a shorter bow. This is there advantage (although is does have longer range it is not much, when compared to say a horsebow of the same poundage you will find it will only have an extra 30, at max 50, meters extra range, virtually unnoticeable on a battlefield).
- Horsebows are short, extremely recurved bows made of a composite of horn, wood, and sinew. These bows are very difficult and lengthy to make, but they are specifically developed for use on horseback, which is why they are so short (though not only used on horseback!). These bows are commonly found throughout the eastern parts of the maps, with the eastern and Arabian cultures. The horsebow has the characteristic of being short, which allows it to be shot from horseback, a great advantage for troops of such type. Another advantage of the horsebow when compared to other bows is the speed that they spit out arrows. The composite construction, recurved limbs, stiff siahs, sometimes string stools are all components that make the arrow launch out at much greater speed than a longbow. What this means is that a horse bow has more penetrating power. This is due to the higher speed, but one would think that higher speed would also mean longer range right? Wrong, arrows shot from a bow do not fly in a perfect “rainbow” shaped arch, they fly in an arch that drops off much steeper at the other end in a parabolic line. Each bow type has a different sort of flight path and the aforementioned is true especially for horsebows, very fast hard flight, that dies off faster at longer range, whereas a longbow has a much more gradual symmetric flight path, which is due to its even efficient power release as described before resulting in slightly more range for the same power.
- Crossbow is a bow (referred to as a prod) which is fixed to a wooden stock which is fired by a trigger mechanism (rotating nut). The crossbow prod was at first made from composite materials like a horsebow (horn wood sinew) because this is the only way to get a shorted piece of wood to bend without failure (u cant have a solid piece of wood like a longbow) and later made of steel. This was because steel is much easier to make and produced a lot more power, something which a crossbow needs. The crossbow was common in Europe, largely replacing the longbow for most European ranged units as they are much easier to learn than a bow is, takes a lot less training to produce a competent arbalest (crossbow archer) than it does an archer. Also as siege warfare is prevalent in medieval times, crossbows have a large advantage over bows in siege warfare, being able to be kept taught, u can shoot over a parapet fast and efficiently only exposing yourself for a second or two, and they are much more accurate for shooting off individual targets than bows are. As for performance of crossbows over bows, it all depends on poundage again, and with a crossbow its vital. As I described before about the longbow that longer limbs transfer power more efficiently, well crossbow limbs are so short they do this very poorly, so to compensate crossbows need a lot more power, on average they need 3 times more power to equal a longbow. For example for a crossbow to perform like a 100lb longbow it would have to be 300lbs. much past the human ability. So all sorts or cranks and windlasses and crows feet etc were all mechanical devises used to span crossbows. The average crossbow that can be serviced by one man was usually around the 300lb mark, less poundage meant faster shooting but they were not as effective as the standard 100 to 130lb warbow (whenever I say warbow, I mean a bow of any type just one that is used in war, has a high poundage of around 100 to 130 pounds) in terms of distance and penetration, and anything over, which was quite common for heavy siege bows would take longer to reload and fire but would have advantages in power and penetration over standard warbows.

3rd I will talk about general things, performance and use in battle.
- One thing about crossbows that people seems to think they were only shot in a flat trajectory or only shot effectively this way, this is false, you shoot a crossbow the same as u do a bow, for longer distance a crossbow will still fire an angled projection. The misconception I think comes from the fact that the crossbow fires its quarrels very fast and thus has a very long flat arrow arch, but for longer range it is still aimed and shot effectively at any angle.
- Also the range of bows, people think bows can do tremendous ranges and kill armoured knights from 500m away, the truth is no.
An average warbow of about 100lbs will be able to shoot around 300m with a heavy war arrow. This is an arrow shot at 45deg. (yes there are many legends of archers shooting incredible shots, ei across the Bosphorus river etc, which would have been incredible individuals, but maybe also be the work of exaggeration of time.) Arrows do not have too much of an impact on range, lighter arrows fly faster but “run out of steam” faster as well, where a heavier arrow flies slower yet carries momentum so they roughly travel the same distance, which is something I actually found interested when I tested it. The difference being that when the arrow reaches its target the light one will have a hard time with any sort of armour whereas the heavy arrow will hit with a lot more force and drive through the armour.
- penetration is simple really, there are hundreds of different sorts but there’s 2 main groups which arrowheads fall under. Broadheads and narrow heads. Broadheads offer a larger cutting area which results in more damage due to cutting etc leaving a bigger more open wound. Broadheads were mainly used for hunting but in warfare broadheads saw limited use against unarmoured or lightly armoured opponents (ei cloth, leather, soft armours). Narrow heads like bodkins and things were designed to penetrate armour, long needle bodkins were first designed to go through mail and split it, and later evolved to the short bodkin where a stiff sharp small point was used to try to best penetrate plate as best it could.
Arrows could defeat pretty much any armour of the medieval time, given the right arrowhead and a bow of at least 70lb, the only armour which arrows cannot defeat is plate armour. This is very controversial as many argue it can, and technically yes u can penetrate plate, but on a battlefield situation I think not.
At all but the closest of distances plate will always deflect arrows and protect the wearer. High powered bows can penetrate plate from about 50m away and under, but depending on distance this is low penetration, merely the head pokes through not even touching the wearing, only at about 20m if you hit the plate in a square on angle will and arrow penetrate steel plate armour with any lethality, not very common or practical on the battle field.
Archers shoot at there opponent suited to this knowledge however. At long ranges archers aim at the army mass, no sense in trying to hit an individual from so far away, they’re not that accurate and massed fire is a great tactic. Then when the enemy closes to about 100m away archers start to pick individuals to aim at, hoping for a lucky shot to go through an armpit or through the eye slit or something. At about 50m and under you can actually aim and go for the vulnerable openings, they’re accurate enough to hit these small targets at this distance thus going “around” the plate armour. But an important thing to remember is that full plate armour was very expensive and availably to only the very best, so the majority of the army would be wearing armour easily penetrates by arrows anyway.


And that’s the very general overview I wanted to give, thank you very much for reading this if you did, I was contemplating for a while wether I should do something like this or not, in the end I though many people will disagree with me on many things but if I teach some people a thing or two that’s worth it and also if in some way it helps the mod at all im happy.
If anyone would like to know more, or discuss or argue or whatever feel free to pm me ill be happy to talk about archery related things with anyone who wants to.
Im sorry for the massive post but theres so much to cover and I already cut back as much as I felt possible as it is.
Thank you very much
Cheers

[Resurrection]

Very interesting read there! I still find it very dubious though that "arrow could penetrate any armour". The modern tests conducted use faulty methodology where youtube guys place patch of mail of never used poor quality over a solid target and shoots at it from 20m to prove that the bow could penetrate the armour...

I am finding these claims highly questionable because if it was so and the shooting would be simply superior to melee why there never was an army that relied on shooting? The only army that came close was the English army since early 14th century and their tactic was ENTIRELY different because they did not rely on killing power of bows but on morale damage and mass disruption by mass deployment of bows that sent enemy formations into disarray so the infantry could charge in and finish the job. Most killing at Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt was done by infantry that comprised of only about 30% of the army with 70% being archers.

The only explanation I can think of is that the bows were actually not that effective in battle and their power was in disruption of formation. If you are shot at then regardless of your protection you don't like it and you don't have to die or even be wounded to simply abandon the charge... Suppressing fire.

Even the crushing Mongol victories like at Legnica saw minimum battle losses on the "massacred" Polish side and Mongolian principal weapon was horse bow. Again, it would suggest that it was something else and not the killing of the bow. Possibly the superior mobility and Mongol tactics that simply sent the Polish army to route but did not in fact kill very many of the enemy.

This actually fits into my theory that the medieval warfare was extremely crude including bows and to actually kill a man that is defending and in the armour was very very hard to do. That corresponds with notoriously low casualties even for battles that were considered "massacres". Therefore it seems likely that the key to victory was actually disrupting the enemy forces so that the enemy army lost coherence and simply routed because of that. To achieve that you could flank them, break the centre or disrupt them with arrow fire. And there were recorded battles with 0 casualties...

If the bows were such a killing machines or could penetrate any armour (save for plate) the archers would need to be very low in numbers, have very low ammo or I don't know what else. Because otherwise a) casualties would have to be much higher and b) it would swiftly become a chief weapon of any army. Neither is true and in battle descriptions shooting was used as a supportive (sometimes opening stage) of battles.

But perhaps you can give some more insight into it? Or alternative explanation?

[Bogenschütze]

well ur exactly right about methodology of a lot of youtube people, being totally usless as tests, but concerning penetrating other tought armours such as chain mail, is yes quite easy for high poundage bows such as 130-150. iv actually done a test myself where i made a peice of chainmail (yes i made it, rivited mild steel) over a gamberson (i used many layers of cloth to build the thickness) and shot at it from 70m away, with a neddle bodkin it went straight through, as the neddle goes through the links and splits them open rather than "punching" through it. but using any other arrowhead failed or barely did anytthing to it, showing the importance of arrow heads and there design purpose.
but having said that i think mail and soft armour underneither is one of the best protections, that test was relativly close range and ur not always going to have a straight on shot. most of the time i would saw even with needle bodkins it will protect, under battlefeild environments.

I never said it was superior to melee, melee is a much more deadly form of fighting, i guess my post might have sounded like that but i was only talking about archery itself. relative to everything else on the battlefeild id say it is deadly but there are so many variables under battlefeild conditions, and bows and arrows were anything but mass produced weapons of standard performance and relied heavily on the skill of user, reuslts of deadlyness will always vary greatly and there are other resons why they wernt overly power on the battlefeild.

ur quiet right that the english were the closest to such a force and used there archers in such a masses way for exactly that reason, moral and mass disruption etc instead of killing. by the time of crecy piotiers etc there was a lot of hard armour out there like partial plate and plate and lots of heavy mail and that, which will protect rather well against archery and the infantry did do the greatest killing (or the archers using hammers and things).

Bows were never the machine guns of the middle ages or anything like that, they were effective, but could never rule a battlefield alone. theres always a back and fourth between arms and armour and bows ect are just one part of the puzzle.

yes again ur exactly right no one likes to be shot at, its a weapon of extreme power for disruption and disorganisation.

yes at Legnica superior mobility and Mongol tactics did win that battle, but an interesting thing that pops to mind when u say minimal casualties is that arrows rarly kill outright, especially when armour is worn. armour even if it does not stop and arrow it will dramaticly slow it down, only injuring the victim. this happened a lot which is another reason i think that bows wernt the mass killing machines some ppl think they are. because most people that died from arrows were infections. as long as u cut or get the skin open, dirty and whatever can get in infecting the wound, which is something medieval medicine was very weak with. so while being shot on a battlefeild would wound you and put you out of the fight, i dont think you would be counted among the dead, that is until after the battle when records arnt kept when more of people with such a wound would actually die.

I agree with you on that its my theory too that was very hard to kill a man defending himself in armour, as for crude though far from it! i would say brutal yes, but crude not at all. what i mean by this is that men of the time were skilled and fought smart, not bludgoning eachother to death. and interesting thing you might like to read if u havent already about is western martial arts, or kunst des fechtens, or look up the german school or swordsmanship, i do this too and its very eye opening to people who think knights were unskilled bruisers.

i think that yes your theory of a man being very hard to kill, along with i think the whole capture and ranson idea of medieval battles was the reason for low casualties even in such "massacre" battles, and the fact that yes most armys did break and rout losing cohesion in a battle, not a fight to the death.

i agree with this entirely "To achieve that you could flank them, break the centre or disrupt them with arrow fire. And there were recorded battles with 0 casualties... " that also demonstrates an effective tactical use of archer on the battlefeild aswell, how it was used in a deadly way (not casualty wise, more tacticwise)

actually archers in most armys were relativly small in number (in comparison the the rest of the army) and did have few arrows, obviously theres lots of exceptions, but generally. also you cannot stress more the fact of how long it takes to a get good at shooting and b be able to shoot high poundage bows! it takes a long time which isnt realistic most of the time, england got around it by making archery compulsary sport thus having a constant source of archers, but its always been hard to muster good quality archers, another factor that they were not an overwhelming force.

i could talk much more with you, its great i like discusing this, we actually see a lot in common, but right now i have to go, ill elaborate and discus things with you soon hopefully

[RollingWave]

A very interesting post Bogenschütze, but I have some question in mind.

If the Long bow would typically achieve (Somewhat) greater range given the same poundage, why is say...

http://www.usaarcheryrecords.org/Fli...drecords07.htm

as of 2007, the world flight archery record

Unlimited English Longbow : 371 Yard / 339 Meters

Unlimited Complex Composite : 619 Yard /566 Meters

more than a few sources I have read also strongly suggest that in terms of pure range, the Turkish bows generally was way ahead of the English Longbows, I'm guessing arrow probably had a role in this?

[Bogenschütze]

A very interesting post Bogenschütze, but I have some question in mind.

If the Long bow would typically achieve (Somewhat) greater range given the same poundage, why is say...

http://www.usaarcheryrecords.org/Fli...drecords07.htm

as of 2007, the world flight archery record

Unlimited English Longbow : 371 Yard / 339 Meters

Unlimited Complex Composite : 619 Yard /566 Meters

more than a few sources I have read also strongly suggest that in terms of pure range, the Turkish bows generally was way ahead of the English Longbows, I'm guessing arrow probably had a role in this?

Well see those particular flight records are only the americans onesto start off with.
also as both are in the unlimited category we cannot tell what poundage was used for both bows, and you are absolutly right arrows play a large part in flight archery, we dont even know what they were using, for all we know they could have been using ultra light modern carbon arrows.
the turkish bows do pack quite punch, if you look up "flight bows" u will see extremly small recurved bows which are of modern design purely to shoot arrows as far as possible, the arrows are so short that a special plate has to be attached to the bow to hold the arrows in the draw. where im going with this is that turkish bows are the most similar historic bows to what flight bows are and may share some mechanical similarities that allow further flight, yet saying that i have yet to see a turkish bow of the same poundage as a longbow shot side by side, using the same arrows, on the same day (atmospheric conditions play a HUGE role in flight archery, so its also not really fair to compare records which can b decades apart (also flight archery is not the most popular thing to do, there arnt many people that do it so theres not a huge pool of data we can rely on) to represent an entire style of bow) and see it out perform the longbow by such a huge margine.
I own and shoot both a 100lb english longbow made of italian yew, and a 100lb crimean tartar hornbow, and both are incredibly powerful and back what i said before, that the longbow has slightly more rangle, and the horsebow has slightly more penetration, but as i said the difference is minimal, using the same arrows and both are the same poundage.

i hope this offers some insight

[Bogenschütze]

I just did a litte reading aswell to find out what exactly the "Unlimited Complex Composite" class is, its actually not the historical horsebow as such, its the same design but using modern additions mainly extra wooden laminations which was never done in history as it was quite impossible at the time.
as quotes from usaarcheryrecords:

3. PRIMITIVE COMPLEX COMPOSITE BOWS

A.

Primitive Complex Composite Bows: Shall be totally constructed of natural materials, plant or animal without restriction to the quantity of laminations. Back, belly and core laminations are allowed. A backing layer is allowed. Bow tip nock overlays may be added, back and belly. Horn nocks are allowed. The addition of wedges and fade outs are allowed. Wooden handle build up blocks may be added and the handle may be wrapped with leather or other natural materials. Bows utilizing materials such as fiberglass, plastic, nylon etc. shall be disqualified. Metals may be used only for Arrow Points.
B. ARROW RESTS: Overdraws shall be allowed, not to exceed 4 inches in length, measured from the back of the bow to the terminal point of the rest ) Elevated or collapsible arrow rests shall be allowed.

C.

RELEASES: Gloves, tabs, hooks, thumb rings, finger rings and flippers are allowed for Primitive Complex Composite Bow Conventional Flight. These items shall not be made from synthetic materials. Metal is allowed for hooks and rings.
D. Broadhead Flight classes are not scheduled for Primitive Complex Composite Flight Bows.

4. PRIMITIVE TURKISH STYLE

A. Primitive Complex Composite Bow construction qualifies for the Turkish Style Class.

B. A Sipur and Thumb Ring shall be used when entering the Turkish Style Primitive Flight category.

iv highlighted with red which is not historiclly accruate, iv added the turkish part so show theres a seperate class just for it, and for horsebows i would look to the "primaitve simple composite bows" class which is as follows:

A. Primitive Simple Composite Bows: Shall be totally constructed of natural materials, plant or animal. Two (2) only wood laminations are allowed. In addition to the two wood laminations. A backing layer, other than wood such as sinew, snake skin, silk, etc. is allowed. Bamboo is considered as a wood lamination. The addition of wedges and fade outs are not allowed. Wooden handle build up blocks may be added and the handle may be wrapped with leather or other natural materials. Bow tip nock overlays may be added, back and belly, not to exceed 2 inches in length. Bows utilizing materials such as fiberglass, plastic, nylon etc. shall be disqualified. Metals may be used only for arrow points.
N.A.A. Primitive Bow Rules
Page 2
B. ARROW RESTS: An arrow shelf cut out or side rest are the only arrow rests allowed. They may be covered with natural materials only. Elevated or collapsible arrow rests are not allowed.

C. RELEASES: Leather gloves, finger tabs or bare fingers only shall be used in Primitive Simple Composite Bow Flight Competition.

as you can see this class does not allow
1. extra wood laminations
2. limb wedge additions
3. built up handles
4. arrows rests for overdraw
5. mechanical flipper release aid

which are all hisotrically inaccurate and allowed in the "complex" class.
so as u can see you really have to know what ur reading about, a simple mistake that i almost overlooked until i realised that there was complex and simple classes for the composite classes so i decided to take a look.

the unlimited primative simple composite record is 321.72m
and the unlimited English longbow is 339.65m
which makes a lot more sense and backs up my point that there is not much difference, but again these flight records are an iffy thing and i wouldnt use it as a definite comparison, it is interesting though.

[RollingWave]

ic, thx for the info!

[Bogenschütze]

no problem

[+Marius+]

I apologize for the necro, but while reading and laughing at the horrible inaccuracies presented in this thread I stumbled upon this absolute gem and could not resist;

Composite bows was the main reason for eastern europeans to continue use large shields the same time in west shields became more and more rare.
See illustrations of Serbian knights that despite they use Italian of German high quality full plate armors they still have shields!

This is stupendously wrong, there was barely any plate armor in Eastern Europe, we have basically no sources of it east of Bosnia and Hungary so the men who kept wearing those shields did so because they were not armored with plate.

Composite bows could barely penetrate mail armor, they are absolutely 0% likely to do anything to plate armor.



Now, while I'm here, lets do this thread some justice;

Firstly, everyone needs to understand is that there is still much that we do not know(for sure).
Secondly, everyone needs to understand that people in the past were not morons, if they did something, they did it for a reason.

Now;

1)Armor worked.
2)Everyone wanted armor.
3)Everybody who could afford armor, wore armor.
4)There is basically no advantage in not wearing armor.
5)From the Franks to the Mongols, Crusaders, Mughals, Mamluks, Chinese and everyone else, everybody wanted to wear armor.
6)Light cavalry sucks, the only reason why they existed is because they could not afford armor, if they could afford armor, they would wore armor.
7)Everything light cavalry can do, heavy cavalry can do also, albeit slightly slower.
8)Crossbows were not more powerful than bows, their draw weight was nothing but an attempt to mitigate its very short draw length;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxiXHImU4Yk

9)Mail armor was extremely good at protecting from everything, including arrows, I will get to that later though.

10)There are absolutely no sources ever mentioning an arrow or bolt penetrating plate armor enough to kill its wearer...none...0.

This is what happens to "armor piercing" arrowtips when you shoot them at point blank range at plate armor;





Edit: I removed a giant wall of text, meh I will just post the historical quotes, seems like they cannot be argued against;

Padding;

Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville. "I got up, threw a quilted tunic over my back, clapped a steel cap on my head, and shouted out to our sergeants: 'by Saint Nicholas, they shall not stay here!'. My knights gathered round me, all wounded as they were, and we drove the Saracen sergeants away from our own machines and back toward a great body of mounted Turks who had stationed themselves quite close to the ones we had taken from them. I sent to the king for help, for neither I nor my knights could put on our hauberks because of the wounds we had received." - so they did not actually put their armors, but their padding alone kept them safe from harm

Dominic Mancini 1483; "Indeed the common soldiery have more comfortable tunics that reach down below the loins and are stuffed with tow or some other soft material. They say that the softer the tunics the better do they withstand the blows of arrows and swords, and besides that in summer they are lighter and in winter more serviceable than iron"

Louis XI of France’s ordinance of c1470: “And first they must have for the said jacks, thirty, or at least twenty-five, folds of cloth, and a stag’s skin; those of thirty, with the stag’s skin being the best cloth that has been worn and rendered flexible, is the best for this purpose, and these jacks should be made in four quarters. The sleeves should be as strong as the body, with the exception of the leather, and the arm-hole (assiette) of the sleeve must be large, which arm-hole should be placed near the collar not on the bone of the shoulder, that it may be broad under the arm-pit and full under the arm sufficiently ample and large on the sides below. The collar should be like the rest of the jack, but not be too high behind, to allow room for the salade. This jack should be laced in front, and under the opening must be a hanging piece (porte piece) of the same strength as the jack itself. Thus the jack will be secure and easy, provided there be a pourpoint without sleeves or collar of two folds of cloth, that shall be only four fingers broad on the shoulder; to which pourpoint shall be attached the hose. Thus shall the wearer float, as it were, within his jack, and be at his ease; for never have been seen half-a-dozen men killed by stabs or arrow wounds in such jacks, particularly if they be troops accustomed to fighting.”


Early coat of plate armor + mail versus longbow in mid 14th century;

Geoffory Le Baker; "Our bowmen of the vanguard stood safely in the marsh, lest the horsemen should attack them, yet even so those did prevail there somewhat. For the horsemen, as has been said, had the special purpose of overrunning the archers, and of protecting their army from the arrows. Standing near their own men they faced the archers with their chests so solidly protected with plate and mail and leather shields, that the arrows were either fended off directly or broken in pieces by the hard objects or were diverted upwards."


The Military Revolution in 16th Century Europe (p. 12): "Blaise de Monluc found that his pikemen came to no harm when they closed on a body of English archers at Boulogne in October 1544, writing that 'their arrows did no harm at all'.


Mail armor;

Bahā'al-Dīn, describing regular Crusader infantry armor protection;
"..drawn up in front of the cavalry, stood firm as a wall, and every foot-soldier wore a vest of thick felt and a coat of mail so dense and strong that our arrows made no impression on them... I saw some with from one to ten arrows sticking in them, and still advancing at their ordinary pace without leaving the ranks."

Galbert of Bruges on the seige of Bruges (1127-1128): "By the special grace of God no one died in this multitude which was entering." and "I could not begin to describe the crowd of those who were hit and wounded." and "...as to those wearing an armor, they were exempted from wounds but not from bruises."

Odo of Douil concerning the ill-fated second crusade (mid-12th century): "During this engagement the King lost his small but renowned royal guard; keeping a stout heart, however, he nimbly and bravely scaled a rock by making use of some tree roots which God had provided for his safety. The enemy climbed after, in order to capture him, and the more distant rabble shot arrows at him. But by the will of God his armor protected him from the arrows, and to keep from be captured he defended the crag with his bloody sword."

Gentleman from Yelves (Elvas), "An arrow, where it finds no armor, pierces as deeply as a crossbow. ... For the most part when they strike upon an armor, they break at the place where they are bound together. Those of cane split and pierce a coat of mail, causing more injury than the other."



Joinville later recounts an incident involving Walter of Châtillon in which Saracen missiles were ineffective:

"...and whilst the Turks were fleeing before him, they (who shoot as well backwards as forwards) would cover him with darts. When he had driven them out of the village, he would pick out the darts that were sticking all over him; and put on his coat-of-arms again... Then, turning round, and seeing that the Turks had come in at the other end of the street, he would charge them again, sword in hand, and drive them out. And this he did about three times in the manner I have described"


Battle of Byland (1322), Scrymgeour, Robert the Bruce's standard bearer, took a longbow arrow in the arm that did no harm because of his mail hauberk. During the Battles of Dupplin Moor (1332) and Halidon Hill (1333), the English
longbowmen inflicted few casualties because of Scottish armour but caused great disorder by attacking the faces and heads of their foes, many of whom were either not wearing helmets or did not have visors.

Galbert of Bruges; And when he [Benkin] was aiming at the besiegers, his drawing on the bow was identified by everyone because he would either cause grave injury to the unarmed or put to flight those who were armed, whom his shots stupefied and stunned, even if they did not wound.

Chronicon Colmariense (1398), the author states that men at arms wore "...an iron shirt, woven from iron rings, through which no arrow fired from a bow could cause injury."


Now this is mail, plate armor was a completely different universe.
Once you were inside a suit of plate armor you were practically in God mode.

High quality plate armor became so resiliant that shooting it with bows and crossbows became useless and its protective power was firstly shown in the sources of the Hussite wars, where the wagon soldiers firing their firearms were instructed to fire upon the knights horses instead of the riders themselves even at such a short range.

One could argue that they did so to preserve the knights life in order to get ransom, but that argument would be wrong, they did not (usually) take prisoners but would engage and kill the knights by swarming them on foot.


They shot the horses because they could not rely on their firearms to penetrate the knights armor, this is a late 15th century example of a breastplate surviving a musketball barage;



...and you cuties speak of bows penetrating it