ARROWS vs ARMOUR 2 - Can arrows knock you over?

[@UntiltedName]

We need a bonus episode with Joe in a period correct archer uniform shooting that bow.

[@travistowner7340]

All I want for Christmas is a Yeoman Joe!

[@inthefade]

I get the impression that isn't his style.

[@martinhg98]

I second this motion

[@katecapek3116]

While the thought is appealing, it might be easier to convince him to discuss proper archer form and technique.

[@jm9371]

I think he's too cool to wear that stuff. He is a technical master of the war bow, not a historical reenactor.

[@SanchoPancho979]

Whenever I get paid for something I enjoy doing, part of me questions if Im not running some kind of grift. As a donor to this project, I just wanted to say, that I got more than my money's worth. This whole series is amazing. I hope you find the time to produce more content of this kind.

[@esoel]

Aboslutely, I kinda feel bad now for how little I paid 😅. I'm going to have to save for one of those awesome crossbows...

[@danielrobbins5834]

The tales of people being knocked down or back from arrows likely come from people witnessing either a CNS(central nervous system) shot or from a psychological stop due to realizing they are injured. To an observer it may look like the blow knocked them down. These are known phenomena with firearms which also don’t carry enough energy to knock someone down or back.

[@connordickerson6815]

Exactly what I was thinking!

[@YouTubalcaine]

That's the FIBS (F**k I've Been Shot) factor. The gel torso could well be _more_ stable than a living person precisely because it doesn't have a brain whose ordinary function can be disrupted by a traumatic injury.

[@Specter_1125]

@@YouTubalcainebut then there’s also people who don’t even notice they’ve been shot at all until someone points it out to them.

[@spamhere1123]

It's also Hollywood and their typical nonsense. Guns blasting people off their feet, etc.

[@QuantumHistorian]

With firearms it's apparently (in part at least) caused by TV and films. People subconsciously expect to fall down when shot, so if they see themselves being shot, they do as a psychosomatic reaction.

[@dlatrexswords]

Tod, this really is the most unexpected Christmas gift. Thanks for continuing to revisit this from different angles!

[@lmonk9517]

It's not christmas yet.

[@Inquisitor_Vex]

I say he needs another go at this one with the big bow. The 160-70ish lb bow.

[@dlatrexswords]

@@Inquisitor_Vex This test was using his "Lockdown Longbow", which is a compound crossbow that releases the arrow's at the same speed/energy as a ~160lb Longbow. kzbin.info/www/bejne/eIebnKdjl6mrpM0

[@Inquisitor_Vex]

@@dlatrexswords is it 160? How come only 135lbs of force transferred then?

[@pompmag]

@@Inquisitor_Vex 135 Joules, not pounds. Being British Tod seamlessly switches back and forth between measuring systems, as is regular in the UK (e.g ordering steaks to be cut between 1cm and 0.5 inches thick)

[@ButterBallTheOpossum]

You can buy G-Force stickers that are designed to detect any damage that might happen to a package during transit. They are quite cheap and it would give you an rough approximation of how many G-forces the arrows inflict on the body. The technical name for them are shock indicator stickers.

[@AllanMacMillan]

You'd be surprised just how abusive you need to be to a high mass package to get one of those to go off. As an example we had ones on our crates going out at work, I can't recall exactly, but I think they were 5-g. Our crates were being damaged in transit, and we had these things to see if they were being abused. What we found was that our customers were receiving half demolished crates, but the stickers didn't "go off". In order to see if it was worth continuing to use these, we packed a crate with some scrap glass product and applied the sticker, and I had at it with our forklift, trying to get the sticker to pop. slamming it up and down, spearing it with the forks, nothing. In the end, I dropped the crate ~5' to the ground off our loading dock... crate was busted, the sticker was fine. Takeaway I guess, is that those stickers are probably useful for lightweight items like lightbulbs and musical instruments, but not so much for massive objects.

[@johnbennett1465]

G-force measures how fast it accelerates not how much force it receives. Being knocked over requires force. Enough force at 0.1G can easily knock someone over. A localized 5-G acceleration on the body would cause injury. Being knocked over by it would depend on where and how it was applied. The force needed to give a 5-G acceleration to the whole body is huge. A car hitting that hard might kill you. On the other hand being in a fighter jet doing 5-G maneuvers would be unpleasant, but is unlikely to injure you.

[@EdBruceWRX]

Just read you need about 75Gs in the chest for a male to be lethal.

[@johnbennett1465]

@@EdBruceWRX what is the context of this? Slowly lower a 10 ton weight onto someone's chest will crush them without generating even one G. Hitting them with the supersonic tip of a bull whip will easily cause a small piece of the skin to experience more than 100-G for a short time. It will create a localized wound, but not kill them. For injury it is the force applied, the area it is applied across and the exact part of the body that matter. The G force is a symptom of the impact, not the cause of injury. Note that I am not talking about full body G force. That is a different situation.

[@ButterBallTheOpossum]

@@johnbennett1465 Yeah but it would be interesting to see one placed on a dummy head with a flexible neck inside a helmet. I'd be willing to bet that even though the helmet is stopping the arrow that the impact would probably whip your head back and maybe cause a severe concussion,knock them unconscious or possibly even kill them. Wouldn't the stickers work for something like that?

[@JedediahCyrus]

It feels like this question was asked by those who may be a little too heavily influenced by Hollywood. I'm glad you were able to go through this and demonstrate the actual results to hopefully clarify this for some people. I think in terms of falling off of horses by being hit with an arrow comes to the overall fact that an individual was hit most likely in a vital organ with an arrow. That would probably cause somebody to fall off, but not that the arrow pushed them off.

[@Darkkfated]

Yeah, the guy who gets unlucky and takes an arrow to the mail - where it penetrates straight through into his body - is probably not going to remain upright. But the force of arrow impacting a breastplate? Not only is that force being spread over the whole plate, it would have to (somehow) transfer through the mail underneath, and the padding underneath that, then your skin, then your muscle, etc. Can a solid blow from a Mace do that? Absolutely. But an arrow? No way. Not enough mass, too small of a surface area at the point of contact.

[@jessecunningham9924]

Nice! Finally what we’ve all been wondering! Great job here, Tod. Excellent tests and explanations. Thank you for everything you do and how much you contribute to this community!

[@tods_workshop]

A pleasure - I just film what I also wonder about

[@chrisgriffith9252]

@tods_workshop Is this calling out those who have done shows on the history Channel saying the hit after hit of blunt force trauma may have killed French knights at agincort?

[@adamschaeffer4057]

There's a scene in Kingdon of Heaven where Godfrey during the forest battle is shot under his right armpit into his chest and he's wearing just heavy fabrics. Other than the pain, he doesn't even move from atop his steed. I think that's the most accurate depiction of being shot with a longbow arrow in cinema.

[@iseeyou1312]

That would've been about the only historically accurate thing in that movie lol.

[@adamschaeffer4057]

@@iseeyou1312 The armor wasn't bad, lol. But yeah it's definitely Braveheart for Crusaders 😆

[@aburoach9268]

blunt trauma from arrows might only be an issue when getting hit at the helmet But blunt trauma from Slings, that's a nightmare / Spanish conquistadors despite their bullet proof cuirasses were outright terrified of Aztec slingers, a hit from their stones could make a man collapse on the ground from the sheer shock, so much so that they picked up Aztec shields of dead braves to protect themselves / the stones could also immediately kill Horses in one hit and shatter swords

[@DidMyGrandfatherMakeThis]

In army of darkness (yes, that film with Bruce Campbell) one of the Knights is hit repeatedly by arrows that end up stuck in his armour but does not move or flinch from them. From years of reenactment and HEMA and also archery I would say that in such a ridiculous and stupid film they get armour (and the confidence you have from wearing it) absolutely spot on.

[@adamschaeffer4057]

@@aburoach9268 I recall stories of slingers going back as far as Alexander the Great. I know, from experience, getting hit in the head by an 8 ounce projectile at even moderate (10-20mph) speed is no joke. Anything more than... whew... your skull is getting cracked no doubt, helmet or no.

[@vladdracul2379]

I wouldn't think it would cause blunt force trauma to the chest- as Tod stated, the breast plate is wide so it evenly distributed the energy. What I DO wonder is how does a neck stand up to having the helmet struck. I've often wondered how fragile necks are if they are armored and struck by an arrow. Now we've seen the result of shooting armored helms and they typically result in just ricocheting off. So who knows. This is all just interesting and fun. Wonderful lesson as always.

[@tods_workshop]

Film coming.....

[@gigaslave]

IIRC some configurations of armor include neck protection with padding and sometimes support. Old-school armor may or may not have it, mind.

[@Chiburi]

Nothing happens. Go look at a game of American Football. Or a boxing match, or do some boxing yourself. Tod really shouldn’t have to prove these points, this is armchair nerd fantasies.

[@calebacrutto9601]

Having the head hit by an arrow or bolt whilst armoured would be less energy than getting hit by, say, Mike Tyson.

[@williampanagopoulos656]

@@calebacrutto9601 and thats not even counting a lance impact or a poleaxe... Whicch people could resist the impacts of we know they fought on after being struck, but it was still a bad time

[@lyndonwortley6329]

I'm glad that you and your team were able to bring these "background" videos to the fore. Thank you for taking this project forwards.

[@roballister5269]

Todd much love from Texas and I have absolutely love your arrows versus armor series. Quick question, do you think it would be possible to do a lance versus armor? I'm sure you could perhaps get Jason from medieval history TV involved? And additionally, I think we would all love to see a crossbow bolt versus armor series as well ♥️

[@tods_workshop]

Lance vs armour could be a thing being talked about.....

[@jkre]

Crossbows being more effective than a warbow is just a myth. Tod has already done speed tests on them, and even a 1000 pound medieval steel crossbow doesn't reach as high energy numbers as the 160 lbs longbow used in these videos. It is not going to get any better results that that longbow. But yeah, it would be interesting to watch anyway. Maybe the shorter bolts would stay in one piece better than arrows upon impact, but would that be enough to make a difference, i cannot say, but doubt it.

[@leow.2162]

@@tods_workshop Now I'm wondering what a Lockdown Lancer would look like

[@Lurklen]

@@leow.2162 Todd on an atv 4 wheeler screaming his lungs out with every charge.

[@1Mutton1]

Like the idea of a Lance.

[@kokogdak8151]

I'm a physicist and a small arms ballistics fan. I like this film I really do. Thank you so much for including momentum. We grow up watching movies where pistol bulletrs make people fly. Well, no. Nothing like that. Thank you for the great job you do.

[@knightshousegames]

I was interested in seeing the result of this, because I had already seen the stuff with the dude getting shot in the vest, and had seen the old video on this channel about the transfer of energy, and seeing the big medieval bolt make a block of ballistic gel jump up, but not fall over, and was interested in seeing a more detailed demonstration like this These films really help inform my sense of how this armor was designed and the purpose of it. It's really creating a picture in my mind of what their priorities were, and how it actually worked in practice

[@Twigster54]

Tod - Great video as always and thanks for doing these in response to questions, it's really interesting. On one of the AvA2 videos I asked a similar question about the effect arrows have when hitting armoured men, but it had a different slant to this and was more about the massed effects of impacts to the head of knights. As a hobby, I race motocross so being hit in the head by multiple small objects being thrown at speed is something I'm used to (we call it roost, it's the mud, stones and other debris thrown at you from a bike in front). While I can tell you wearing a helmet and goggles stops any of that from causing pain (except when it hits a gap in your body armour) the concussive forces are enough to make you look away, to naturally try and shield yourself from those impacts and sometimes can hit hard enough to make you hesitate momentarily or to knock your head enough to lose balance (very briefly). I mention this because to me one of the most understated effects, especially at Agincourt where the field was ploughed and horrifically muddy must have been the massed fire of arrows into the men walking forwards and the 'ripple' effect that will have had as those men tried to shield themselves or if a strike was hard enough with enough rotational energy to disorient. I'd love to see a test which examines that type of force (on head impacts especially in a cumulative 'multiple strike' sense) and if that would be enough to stun, stagger or disorient. One can assume on the day at Agincourt, you would have had men tripping over each other, knocking into others and falling only to be trampled and buried in that mud. If the arrows could cause enough of that confusion, they still may have been a decisive difference maker in battles even if the direct lethality is less than previously assumed.

[@RakeshMalikWhiteCrane]

Another great mythbusting video :) I knew what the answers were going to be due to experience in martial training. Though an arrow hit COULD cause an armored knight to fall or fall off of a horse, it's not because of the impact or momentum, it's due to other side effects. As your test showed it IS enough to affect balance, so if you're lucky enough to time your arrow hit when an armored target is off balance or walking across uneven terrain, you might be able to cause him to fall. But on its own, the strike won't do it. We did an experiment in our dojo once. We had a Japanese breastplate on hand, so we put the only person in the dojo who could fit in it put it on. She was relatively petite and trained in Jujutsu. I pulled out my six foot bo staff; I'm quite a bit bigger and stronger than she, and I'd been training in Kobudo for more than 30 years... so I know how to deliver a hit. I gave her some rather hard hits with that staff. Hard enough to be quite deadly after I ramped up the impact. It shook her up a bit (hard not to, with hits that hard), buffeted her around the dojo a bit, but didn't even knock the wind out of her. Just like a kevlar vest, the way that armor protects its wearer is to first prevent piercing damage which is as we all know how both bullets and arrows cause harm, and second to dissipate the impact of the projectile by spreading it around a large area. Of course, when the arrow penetrates the armor, there isn't much impact, but as you've shown that's even rarer than most of us, myself included, expected.

[@Jutte777]

Know of a guy who was in the New York Swat back in the day. He got shot in the back with a .22 pistol into his soft kevlar vest. He said it hurt like really bad - but didn't penetrate. The number two guy in the stack took care of business after that. He said it really really hurt...

[@samuelotero3279]

Thank you, Tod, for addressing this. I thought the first hit had the greatest chance of breaking the pre-cracked egg, but so much of its energy was lost in deforming the plate itself. I wonder if people forget that, though the best way to protect is to not get hit and the second-best is deflection, if you have to take the hit then you want your material to give and deform. The deformation is weaker against subsequent hits, but it takes so much energy out of the hit that it really protects the squishy inside. That's why modern cars crumple so much, gotta protect the squishy people inside!

[@mrbouncelol]

There is no "best", there are tradeoffs because this is engineering. 1. An armour which never deforms might be too heavy and expensive. An armour which deforms tremendously (your implied ideal) might be light and cheap (or not) but perhaps isn't effective against further strikes, or the crumpled armour affects the soldier's continued capacity to fight. 2. Consider that a car only needs to crash once before being discarded or repaired. If the car could deal with the energy and momentum without harming the occupant or being damaged, that would be amazing! Consider the example 3. A ceramic plate in modern body armour might only need to stop a single high powered projectile before being rendered ineffective if struck in the same spot. A different plate might be able to withstand many, but be heavy or expensive, so the soldier/army makes choices based on the circumstances of typical combat and economics. Contrast with 4. A knight who is being struck in the chest by many arrows over the course of a battle cannot accept armour that perhaps crumples and impairs his breathing with a single arrow hit. So to conclude 5. While some level of crumple may be permissable given the overall constraints of the problem, I think to talk about "best" or "second-best" is a confusing matter of perspective. Perhaps the real best way not to get hit is to have overabundance of resources so that humans don't come into conflict ;-)

[@TonberryV]

I had always attributed getting pelted with arrows while in armor to be far more psychological than can be reasonably tested. The people getting shot at are aware their armor will do it's job until it fails, but the question of when will this fail has to creep up after every strike. Excellent stuff as always!

[@trikepilot101]

But the result of Agincourt was deaths, not retreat or desertion.

[@lscibor]

@@trikepilot101 Huge portion of French casualties at Agincourt were men executed while in captivity, it's mentioned clearly in the sources. Gnarly stuff. So death was result of surrendering/getting captured/beaten down in this case.

[@robo5013]

@@trikepilot101 The French didn't suffer many deaths, if any, from the archery volleys, they were attacked in the flanks by the archers using melee weapons once they were engaged with the English knights. The longbow wasn't the decisive factor in the battle, it was the longbowmen using hand weapons.

[@TonberryV]

@@trikepilot101 While this is true, the effectiveness of a fighting force can hinge greatly on morale. If their main plan suddenly starts looking like it's going to go sideways because the archers have slowed them down or force a less effective formation, that could reasonably be expected to damage morale and make them far more likely to make mistakes.

[@post-leftluddite]

Not to mention that that constant noise of those concussions inside the armor must be disorienting....but here's what I really want to know....so one arrow might not have an effect, but what about when it's two dozen arrows at the same time? At Crecy they estimate there were around 7000 archers, so what's it like for the targeted knights to be hit with a volley of 7000 arrows simultaneously?

[@QuantumHistorian]

Good explanation of the difference between momentum and energy Tod! The terms are used interchangeably in casual conversations, but they mean very different things in physics. Arrows (like bullets) are simply too light to carry much momentum. Without that momentum they simply can't push things hard enough or for long enough to either move them much or do any blunt trauma.

[@tods_workshop]

Thanks

[@QuantumHistorian]

@@tods_workshop Wow, you really don't lie about reading every comment here!

[@adambielen8996]

You can see the difference in momentum vs energy in a joust. As the "knights" have massive amounts of momentum and even then they don't always unhorse their opponents. So what chance does a little arrow (compared to a lance) have of doing that.

[@Matt_Alaric]

"Without that momentum they simply can't push things hard enough or for long enough to either move them much or do any blunt trauma." The fact that blunt arrows are used to hunt with on a daily basis across the world is a pretty good indicator that this isn't true...

[@Intranetusa]

I would like to see someone measure or calculate the momentum of an arrow coming out of a high draw weight Manchu warbow. Those bows are specifically built to shoot big, heavy arrows and require a minimum Grains Per Pound (GPP ) of 15-16 and some shoot even heavier at 20 GPP. With a 160 lb bow and a 20GPP, that comes out to a 3200 grain or 207 gram arrow (7.3 oz, or almost half a pound). HIstorical Manchu war arrows could be huge at ~42 inches and basically resembled small javelins.

[@nextphasetkd]

One thing to bear in mind is that although people can brace, adjust and regain balance they can sometimes also move and react in ways that mean they lose their balance. I have seen a 20 stone man knocked over by one well placed paintball. As he moved around some cover the paintball hit him square in the visor and the shock, and his flinch response to that shock, took him backwards off his feet. Not through momentum or kinetic energy but because of a physiological response. Where, and when, the arrow hits a person would have quite different effects and I'd imagine anything hitting the helmet, vision slits, etc would be more troubling than hitting directly into the breastplate. Even more so with the splintering we're seeing.

[@pavementsailor]

Would love to see Tod set up multiple simulation bows shooting in sequence at the plate targets, and again all at once. Multiply the impact sounds to possibly mimic the hundreds of arrow strikes.

[@Sableagle]

I've seen this demonstrated with shotguns. First volunteer swaggered up, picked it up, loaded it, aimed, fired and went about ten feet backup the range. Next shooter leaning into the recoil and didn't get moved at all.

[@shieldmate7444]

How big stones are we talking?

[@ianbruce6515]

@@Sableagle Yep! I designed and built my kayak with the possibility in mind that I might be shooting a 12 gauge at a duck--sideways to the kayak. I need not have worried. It would have been fine in an even less stable kayak. Something totally unexpected might have you over--but not the expected recoil.

[@captainahab5522]

Imagine getting hit in the side of the head by the arrow whilst trying to ride a panicked horse Very easy to fall off

[@chrisnewhard5863]

Great job on the video! I appreciate the efforts y'all go to explore how the physics and science interact with and influence the material cultures. One thing I find important to add, is that knights relied on a larger organization in order to be effective, and this could be another area where bows and crossbows are successful. The knights might be able to shrug off the arrows, but less-armored support troops probably won't. After all, I believe we also see in an another video that the shields they might also be using are also only effective up to a certain point. Thus, bows and crossbows could have been used as a way to get rid of a knight's supporting retinue, and make them less effective. Another thing that's important to consider is human nature. Even if you're kitted up in the best gear available, it's also human nature to be wary of possibly dozens of sharp arrows heading towards you. A parallel can be seen in armored fighting vehicles; I recall several accounts where soldiers are well-protected in tanks and other vehicles, but are still unnerved by the rattling of bullets hitting the armor. In addition, seeing less-equipped comrades get wounded and killed by the same arrows can have a general demoralizing effect. Even if the nights aren't attached to them, people don't like to see themselves lose, especially when the losing outcome is dying.

[@lindybeige]

A sudden movement of the brain in a jolted head can be nasty, even if the skin over the head is not even the tiniest bit bruised. An arrow that fails to penetrate mail might break a bone, possibly. When I commented about the difficulty of walking forward, I had in mind two things: an 'arrow storm' in which a knight is being hit by many arrows in a short period; and a test I was told about by David Edge at the Wallace Collection, in which the suited up a rugby player and shot blunts at him, and apparently, he struggled to advance.

[@tods_workshop]

HI Lindy, The head point is valid and we may come back to that. All I would say to the "struggled to advance" part is that these arrows are about 1/20th to 1/25th of the energy and less of the momentum of a bullet from and AK/AR15 etc and the guy barely swayed ......

[@MgelikaXevi]

or it could be more of a psychological thing. So he could struggle to advance simply because he had it in his head as a "factor" or a risk , so he braced for impact too much. Hard to tell without seeing video. I don`t think that he was actually "thrown back" in a significant way, more likely he was just tense and extra cautious while waiting to be hit by an arrow (blunt or not) - something that is pretty new to any rugby player :D

[@heatherkuhn6559]

Honestly, I wouldn't be that concerned about blunt force trauma in general, but after watching how the head of the test dummy moved in a previous video, I did wonder about traumatic brain injury, primarily of the "third collision" variety. The three collisions in a motor vehicle accident are 1) the vehicle vs. whatever it hit, 2) the occupant's head vs. the windshield, and 3) the brain vs. the inside of the skull. I think the arrow vs. helmet is most closely analogous to the second collision. The thing about the third collision is that it's often on the opposite side of the skull from the second collision impact. It's all about the transfer of momentum.

[@peterlively8269]

Tod, great video! I loved the slow-mo of the arrow stopping dead and just kind of quivering in mid-air. I think it's pretty clear that a knight would know they got hit by the arrow, but it wouldn't hurt them. I think it might throw them a bit off balance, but only a bit.

[@walkir2662]

It will proably also annoy the guy next to him.

[@Tom_Quixote]

Pretty sure any knight would be a "he" back then.

[@Duiker36]

@@Tom_Quixote Specifically on the field of Agincourt? Sure.

[@paavobergmann4920]

@@Tom_Quixote "they" as in "any knight".

[@ScottKenny1978]

Depends on the armor. Friend of a friend makes armor for the SCA. Historical armor, and he's well respected enough in the historical circles to have been given access to one of the King Henry's tournament armor, for disassembly, cleaning, and conservation. He made templates of it, and made a close copy of that armor for a Pacific Northwest SCA heavy fighter. The fighter was well known for being the most honorable man on the field before this. He got the new armor, made out of pickle barrel plastic because that's easy to work with and will let you know if you need to make any adjustments to the fit before you start cutting metal. It's beautiful, all curved and fluted and shaped. First event after the fighter gets the armor, all his opponents are wondering why he's all of a sudden not calling any hits, because that's not like him at all. But they don't ask him, because it's really insulting for another experienced fighter to ask why you're not calling hits. Fortunately for that tournament, a very new fighter asks the dude with the good armor, "milord, what am I doing wrong?" So they take a stop to the official fight and the two start fighting. Dude still isn't calling hits. "You haven't hit me yet." "Milord, if I hit you any harder I'm afraid I will break my sword!" So the dude stops, drops his guard, and tells the kid to hit him as hard as he can, if the sword breaks the dude will buy/make the kid a new one. Kid stops, puts down his shield, and chokes up like it's a baseball bat, before swinging for the bleachers, right through the dude's chest. *WHAM!* "Okay, I watched you hit me, and I _still_ didn't feel it." Dude walks up to the Marshals, the guys officiating the tournament, and says, "I withdraw from the tournament. I do not have armor suitable." That royal tournament armor was able to channel force around a person so well that a hit with a 2" diameter chunk of rattan at 60ish mph/100kph wasn't enough to feel. Late medieval armor, the serious full plate? The good armors would laugh at an incoming arrow, and maybe even an incoming lance. Note: sorry, don't remember which king it was, nor do I remember the names of the cast, it's been almost 20 years since I heard that story.

[@chasetheninjasniper]

Great video. As a Buhurt fighter, I would love to see the comparison of blunt force trauma for maybe a future video using the mele weapons found on the battlefield at Agincourt and how they would perform against the same armour. We know that archers played an integral part in the battle, but we also know the English fought heavily on foot and seeing a halberd, pollaxe, war hammer against the same helm/breastplate would be a great insight to see the specific damage caused and potential injuries sustained by the average French knight

[@elgostine]

i mean as a buhurt fighter youre probably seeing hits well and truely in the historical ballpark given your weapons are usually way heavier than the originals.

[@chasetheninjasniper]

@@elgostine exactly. Im fully aware of the impact I/we take in our sport with the armour we wear and weapons we use. A close historical analogue of both armour and weaponry would be interesting as a comparison for context of the fighting on foot in my opinion.

[@Virgule]

Hi, great video as always, just a small comment about the balistic gel shot: The arrow penetrates which increases the "impact time" and distributes the force over a longer time period; this does not change the result at all as seen with the breastplate but it is important to say that the impact is going to be more brutal if the arrow is stopped immediatly as with plate armour rather than penetrating the target. Once again, the result would be the same anyways but I felt like it was important to note Thank you for the experimental archeology, it was greatly insightful

[@tods_workshop]

Ok - agreed, the duration of energy imparted is different

[@post-leftluddite]

@@tods_workshop Would being hit with a volley of two dozen arrows simultaneously have a greater effect? They estimate there were 7000 archers at Crecy, and if they all loosed at once, you have to imagine there were soldiers and knights being impacted by many arrows at once....would that have more of an effect?

[@trevorcallahan6106]

I must begin by saying that these videos are a delight to watch. One issue I have though is the fact that only one person is shooting an arrow at a time. Now real life battles did not contain the Hollywoood "knock, draw, loose" cliche we see so often. Some people have called what really happened a "fire at will" situation where archers loose their arrows at their own pace. We have seen what one person loosing arrows at a full set of armor does but now I would like to see multiple people loosing arrows at the same suit of armor. It will definitely be more chaotic but that is how battlefields were. It will also be more expensive as now your local fletcher will have to make 5 times as many arrows if you wanted to shoot the target as many times as the main video but with 5 archers this time around. I don't expect the result to change very much but this is the closest thing we can get to simulating a real battlefield without having real people possibly getting hurt if you wanted to doa one-to-one recreation.

[@michaelold6695]

Could you test if an arrow to the head could cause concussion? The head is typically pretty vulnerable even when protected with a helmet, it is also relativelyweakly supported by the neck. But I don't know if the arrow has enough momentum to create the whiplash effect to cause concussion. I think that a side shot would probably have the best possibility. Would using shock stickers be a viable test protocol? Thanks

[@1Mutton1]

Think of a cricket ball to a helmet. Can cause confusion at the right angle but it's rare. Anything less than 100kpm you can't feel it.

[@ScottKenny1978]

That's part of what a good helmet deals with. They're heavy, and if anything modern SCA helmets are _heavier,_ so that it takes more force to slosh your brain the same amount. Using easy numbers: a helmet weighs 5 lbs. Your head as a whole weighs 20 (8lbs of brain, 12lbs of bone and muscle. Eyes are a couple ounces each). The amount of whiplash you get with a bare head is 20% less due to the weight of the helmet.

[@lscibor]

@@ScottKenny1978 Human brain generally weighs 4 pounds at most, usually closer to 3. Entire head apparently weighs bit more than 10 pounds. Helmets, at least European, late medieval and Renaissance closed, or mostly closed ones were often heavier than 5 pounds. So helmet would actually usually add much more weight to your head.

[@ScottKenny1978]

@@lscibor thank you for the corrections. So you might be looking at a modern SCA helmet doubling the weight of your bare head, easily halving the whiplash you suffer.

[@squidwardo7074]

I think if it leaves a large dent in the helmet its possible, but otherwise no, the force is spread out over the whole helmet and thus your whole head

[@kpmathis71]

It's too many 70s/80s/90s movies where a tiny pistol hits like a 100 ton tank (but has no recoil). Everyone's view of physics is screwed up. Thanks for this film & all the rest. Well done as always!

[@zworm2]

Another well thought out video. I was more interested in the effect on the more tender parts of the skull and therefore the brain of arrow impacts. I read in reports on the battle of arrows raining down in unbelievable numbers on the advancing French forces. It is a pity you cannot reproduce such an effect. Thanks as always

[@LolTollhurst]

This is also an excellent demonstration of what was so special about the arrival of light battlefield cannons during the 30 years war. Because even those light cannons _do_ have these other effects (and more!) that people wonder about with handheld weaponry.

[@stuart9514]

Got to love the look of satisfaction when you say 'Blunt force trauma! ' Great content as always 👌

[@andymiller6020]

I can’t express how much I’ve enjoyed this series. It’s just fantastic to see and so interesting. Thank you so much for these videos.

[@Zakuznapper]

The egg-method certainly works for me, but I just remembered Mythbusters had some sort of a disposable g-force sticker they would slap on their dummies as an indicator of blunt force trauma. Maybe those could be useful. Love the work!

[@tods_workshop]

I will look into these - not seen them before - thanks

[@stevewebster5729]

At last! It's about time that some of this silliness was put to bed. Nice one Tod

[@thcdreams654]

It's crazy you posted this because it's something I kept thinking about when Joe was targeting the head area. I've seen people get concussions over minor impacts during football and basketball. Thanks for the content.

[@Riceball01]

Yah, getting in helmet is going to be a bit different. But at the same time those helmets weren't being worn right against the head either. They had liners/suspension systems in them that weren't all that different from old steel military helmets. Somebody wearing a Medieval/Renaissance helmet would be likely wearing a padded coif underneath the helmet and the helmet itse;f wouldn't have any direct contact with the head itself. SS I think that a hit anywhere but around the lelve of the temple where the liner actually touches the helmet itsef, the wearer isn't going tofeell much.

[@sfshilo]

The ground and/or a person can deliver way more energy than people realize. 180+ pound man running at top speed is a ton of energy. (It's why so many people died in the early days of American Football.) 180 pound person running 18 mph can deliver up to 2600 joules lol.

[@Archaic-Arms]

That's when you need a big stone and sling ;)

[@nitebones1]

@@Riceball01 i think it might be siumlar to getting hit in the head with a baseball or what ever wilst also wearing the helmet from that, it might dase you more in the sence "what the hell was that" rather than feeling the hit. i think a veturan wouldnt affect much. but if it is your first battle and you take a shot to the head you would think oh god i hope that didnt go in let me hold my shield and be more careful that sort of thing

[@elgraid]

@@Riceball01 Yeah wearing an helmet without a paded coif behind? what kind of dumbass would do that, a paded coif is so much cheaper they would all do it. So I think you are 100 % riogth. Blunt force of arrow may be an inconvenience, ringing ear, maaaaybe knocking wind (I doubt it) but in my mind they were much more likely to fall tripping over uneven ground, mud and downed knigths than by any number of arrow ^^

[@theriddler1168]

Hey there Todd, I would like to say I appreciate the effort you put into increasing the quality of your production. Better cameras and better sound. It is very noticeable. Great job

[@jonsmusiclist541]

The "flinch" or "stumble" mentioned by other posters might be a little more significant in the context of Agincourt. Bear in mind that the ballistic gel torso would not be situated on Tod's sturdy table but atop a pair of human legs. These do indeed have an ability to maintain and correct balance but, in context, were doing so in slick medieval shoes while traversing a muddy field.

[@TaxTheMonkey]

I was one of those asking about the effect of being struck by an arrow that doesn't penetrate. You have comprehensively answered my question. Thank you very much.

[@tods_workshop]

A pleasure

[@meatpuppet5036]

I remember an old article on ballistic vests, they all had a "blunt trauma" layer in the form of softer layers behind the main plate. The gambeson especially seems to act as this "diffuser" of the remaining force.

[@paavobergmann4920]

I guess so, too. especially if mallets or maces are at play. If you wear mail without gambeson, even out of the fight, you´ll end the day with a nice fishscale-impression on your shoulders... ;-)

[@ApfelJohannisbeere]

Again such great content and proof by science what really happened in the medieval tales and that shooting someone from the saddle has to be all thing aligned of being hit where no wearing armor, moving with hands/body into the direction of the shot, being heavy enough arrow, the knight not weighting enough, the knight not being experienced enough with a horse etc. XD Still would love to see the arrow hitting the slit in the helmet and directly hitting a hole of the side! Even so massive props to how you give us the information we search for!

[@mikegregory2492]

Try Kevin Hicks History Hit. : kzbin.info/www/bejne/jWKQdH5unMeYf80

[@ApfelJohannisbeere]

@@mikegregory2492 Sadly not within the slit, but under. Which makes me curious. Thanks though for that video!

[@piotrmroczkowski2324]

Where was Tod 20 years ago? I remember discussing this content (also some swords myths) with some fantasy enthusiasts. "Longbow arrow could penetrate through knight in armour, also through his horse, and three peasants standing behind him" (of course I'm being sarcastic). Two or three videos from Tod would shut them up instantly. And we argued for hours... At least it was fun, like watching this brilliant video. 😃👍

[@foldionepapyrus3441]

Well depending on the quality of his armour, the size of horse etc its not entirely stupid - high power bow will shoot through an awful lot of fleshy stuff, and lots of us fleshbags is made up of the lungs - just sacks of air which won't do much to slow an arrow. That gel torso is I would expect massively more resistant than a person would be (assuming you don't hit the rib/spine). All Tod is doing is proving some decent plate armour works well, that chainmail and gambeson don't do much at all against the right type of arrow. So playing devils advocate your sarcastic suggestion isn't impossible, just really damn unlikely.

[@MtRevDr]

This is a strength of the West, to experiment with things as realistic as possible to find the truth or more evidence to the reality.

[@adamsbja]

I know 10 years ago he was doing this sort of stuff for PBS. I rewatched the Nova episode about Bombing Hitler's Dams recently and was surprised to see a familiar face working out how to make the bouncing bomb work.

[@tods_workshop]

That was a fun job and I got to make an airgun with a 4m x 0,3m barrel!

[@justskip4595]

Did Tod 20 years ago have more hair? I am not saying Matt Easton look is bad, I go with that in summer personally. Winters make me not go for it here near arctic circle though.

[@ShinPG]

Going back through and rewatching some of these films for a second time already. It really brings me back to my childhood when I used to watch mythbusters .

[@Uncle_T]

If you think an arrow, even from a longbow or crossbow, would knock you off your feet or off your horse, I feel like you have seen too many characters get thrown back vehemently by shotgun blasts in Hollywood movies and thought that that is how physics work in real life. 😁

[@engineeredlifeform]

I came here to blame Hollywood, and knew someone would have beaten me to it : -) But yeah, the old shotgun blast lifting the bad guy off their legs thing, clearly defying the laws of physics when the shooter isn't flying backwards too,..... but then Hollywood also shows us spacecraft making zoom noises and swooshing around like they are flying in air, so they get everything wrong, from the historical to the fantastical.

[@RichWoods23]

@@engineeredlifeform Hollywood understands its audience all too well.

[@Sk0lzky]

Medieval equivalent of post 1980s wild west movies :D

[@hulkkrogan420]

Myth busters covered this very thing and obviously Newton's law still applies.

[@grantbaugh2773]

To be fair, most of us don't see people get shot in real life so Hollywood is all we have to go on 🤣

[@anakiir]

I'm a simple guy, I see Tod's new video, I press like before watching. Mr. Tod, all videos are really good but, subjectively, this last series is *exactly* what I need. Keep it up!

[@andrewjack4857]

Tod, brilliant series so far. The following for your information. There is somewhere in the terrestrial television archives a controlled experiment showing a bodkin tipped arrow penetrating a steel breastplate. This experiment using a very high speed camera, was carried out by the technical dept. of one of the northern universities sometime in the 1980's. The arrow was shot from a longbow at a range of approx 15 feet under controlled conditions. I cannot now state the drawweight nor the materials used in the breastplate only to say it was very similar in shape to the one used in your series and looked old. The bodkin was of square steel twisted 1/4 turn clockwise with a rounded chisel point. The second most surprising result was that the arrow penetrated the breastplate, fully emerging out the back and sticking in the backstop. The big surprise came with the high speed camera results. The chisel point split the armour and stopped but the shaft continued to rotate clockwise until it could turn no more but opened up the split slightly. The shaft then rotated in the opposite direction until stopping again and this action was then repeated several times until the chisel point had opened up the split sufficiently for the arrow to pass through. A truly amazing result as I had heard of arrows drilling through armour but had discounted this as spurious. Andy

[@alexeyrb1807]

Thanks a lot for clarifying and demonstrating energy vs momentum aspect! Also a very clear manner of explaining throughout the whole video! At the end my brain was kind of expecting the "Busted" plate/label :)

[@SirGibbels]

I'd love to see the Arrow --> Armor test accounting for forward movement. So if a knight is riding towards the archer: Speed of Arrow + Speed of Horse. Would be a challange to test, suppose you'd need a pully system. What fun to watch though :)

[@Harrier_DuBois]

Great point!

[@Markus__B]

Not really a challenge to test. Speed simply adds up. A horse with a 100kilo Lad on top runs what? maybe 30 mph? Add those 45 fps to the 160 arrow does and there you have it.

[@HomoErectusIsAFunnyName]

Wouldn't change much. A racehorse can travel around 17 m/s tops. Now if we add a 80-100kg guy on its back plus factor in that War horses were usually smaller horses who weren't "optimized" to speed then we'll have something around 11-13 m/s. And arrow shot from an English longbow travels around 50 m/s. So adding an extra 15 m/s (which is generous) to it wouldn't change it significantly I'd assume. It definitely wouldn't be enough to send someone flying off his horse. Maybe getting a hit on the head would be bit more nasty. Also, you don't need a complicated contraption to test it out. You just have to shoot the arrow a bit faster. You yourself said that it's just the sum of the two speeds.

[@SirGibbels]

@@Markus__B Hay that's a great point! And this makes it accessible enough to test without change to the set up at all :)

[@AveragePicker]

It shouldn't make any difference, especially considering the rider should be pretty firmly planted on the horse and his speed is going to impart on the arrow too. The difference is negligible and should come out in the wash. On my motorcycle, going about 80mph I've been hit with things ranging from bugs to drinks thrown out windows, to a windshield wiper, to a taillight assembly that bounced off a tow truck. None of them even caused much of a change in the general line I was holding. Granted those objects weren't fired out of a bow, but neither is a horse doing 80mph.

[@SMac86]

If you got pelted with multiple arrows from an odd angle I could see it knocking you over. I was going to bring up the gun test videos but you got there. However, those gun tests are usually centre mass, not to the head, legs mid step, etc. and the testers are expecting the hit to be in that exact area and area able to brace appropriately. Another great video, plenty to speculate about. Now get out your ballista!

[@stalkingtiger777]

Wait there's more!?

[@gmanbo]

But.......

[@DIREWOLFx75]

Good attempt at showing the difference between momentum and energy. Making the direct comparison with the brick was (hopefully) a good way of getting more people to realise it's two different things. But annoying that this was the first time since "Trebuchet vs longbow" that youtube deigned to suggest anything from your channel. So now i have to figure out some time to catch up!

[@chadherbert18]

I think a lot of what ‘throws’ people off their balance is their own flinch-reaction. If you flick someone on the nose, some will hardly react at all, while others react by tossing their head backwards violently as if to dodge the flick, even though it’s already happened. I’ve seen MMA fighters basically throw themselves off their feet when a light jab connected. I’ve been knocked off my feet standing on ice when I saw a snowball coming to strike me out of the corner of my eye - it hit someone like ten feet away, but I flinched and threw myself on my butt/hip. 😂 I’ve seen it in HEMA when a sword thrust hits the mask and ‘knocked’ the target off his feet - I could see it happening on horseback, if the rider wasn’t secure or riding vigorously and got tagged by an arrow, or even surprised by a small branch if they reacted by flinching and tossing their head back violently - tough to test that one? 🤔😂

[@erikvarela2045]

Another great experiment! The durability and effectiveness of the armor continues to surprise me, even in situations where I'm expecting it to work.

[@GuusvanVelthoven]

What does this tell me? That eggs embedded in a ballistic gel torso look hideous... 😳

[@TheUncleRuckus]

Awesome video as always Tod, thank you for uploading!!👍👍 On the blunt force trauma bit I feel a good point to make is that with the breastplate there's a space in between the breastplate and the wearers chest so it's not in contact with the body and any impact is absorbed by the plate itself. But if the impact was on a part of the armor where there is less of a gap or no gap between the plate and body like on the arm or leg that the impact would have more of a chance to cause some blunt force trauma. That said outside of an extremely lucky impact I don't think it would do much.

[@REALdavidmiscarriage]

Tod I was thinking, what would have happened if will had improved the bloomery steel arrow heads by case hardening them, you think they might have stood a chance of punching a hole into the breastplate from the test? because the case hardened mild steel ones were able to make 1 or 2 small holes if I recall correctly. Also Lars Anderson made a video in which he was shooting arrows with metal shafts at a breastplate and was able to penetrate pretty deeply. What are your thoughts on that?

[@ramennight]

Metal shafts would be way too expensive.

[@Acroballistics]

Thanks for making these videos they are awesome! I was recently reading about crown or flower shaped bolts used with torsion machines also (quote)"During excavations in the Papal Palace in Avignon, a box was found with bolt tips and iron flat rings mounted on them. Obviously, these rings were designed to prevent the bolt from sliding on the curved plate armor".( I don't know if the source is trustworthy) I think you have tried crown bolts with a crossbow but if I remember correct they weren't sharp. it would be cool if you tried some sharp flat faced arrows, or sharp flower shaped against armor. imagine the flower shape more like a pointy crown with 4 or more points pointing forward.

[@Acroballistics]

here's a video from joergsprave showing that a flat faced tip penetrated more than a pointy one. kzbin.info/www/bejne/e5qui5tnraZkoZo

[@tods_workshop]

Most likely the bolt tips were later as there were basically 15th and 16thC things and the quote "obviously" immediately teels me the writer has an agenda, so I would be very careful

[@Acroballistics]

​@@tods_workshop Yes that quote seems strange and the aerodynamics of these points would be very bad for long ranges. Τheoretically a flat faced arrowhead perpendicular collision happens faster in comparison to a pointed arrowhead and could exert more force for the same momentum F=dP/dt but theory is better at explaining than predicting, an experiment would be interesting.

[@zerentheunskilled]

Here's an idea you might be able to try that could simulate opponents closing in on archers. Set up your target on a wheeled platform that you can pull with a rope. Have some archers see how many accurate shots they can get off on the target as it closes in and reaches a certain point. If they manage to get past the armour in a way that would incapacitate the target, such as shot to the gap in the shoulder, they survived the charge. If not, the knights have closed in on their position and overran them.

[@slaiggmeron2847]

Interesting idea and nice to watch. Like some other tests this would be no proof for any big-scale theory, because on the battlefield if 100 archers take out 10 out of 30 knights they might still have a problem ;) (but a nice indication nontheless ^^)

[@Specter_1125]

Knights didn’t charge in a single rank though. Even if you manage to kill the guy in front by the time they got to you, there was normally at least one more behind him.

[@squidwardo7074]

@@Specter_1125 It's quite difficult to get 10s of archers and knight armors with such a low budget operation though :)

[@stevenpick9869]

I'm glad they made this video. As a mechanical engineer, in the other videos whenever they are talking about Joules/energy I'm just like "who cares?" The important things from and impact like this are A: momentum, B: Impulse (basically how long it takes for the arrow to impart it's momentum), C: Pressure during the impact (the area the force is being applied over) and maybe D: type of impact (elastic/inelastic). Without those details the energy is pretty meaningless, for example a punch and a bullet have basically the same amount of energy in them, but one of them is gonna do a lot more damage to you.

[@tods_workshop]

Thanks and unfortunately I am only a partial engineer, so I understand some of what is going on, but not all and little did-bits like this help me to understand

[@treadhead1945]

What I would like to see is the effect of several arrows hitting at once. Probably not enough to knock you down, but I would think it would stagger the person

[@foldionepapyrus3441]

Humans also have this thing called a flinch reflex - might well add up to enough extra force to upset your balance enough, especially if you are now wearing lots of heavy armor to upset your ability to correct overbalancing.

[@Dimli_Gloinssohn]

A Test would be nice but I think the result is almost the same... We , reenacters etc., get attack with longpoles etc with all force and u do feel it but it doesnt hurt, except forr the case if it hits a softspot or weakness. If its 90° on the breastplate.... not really much... U do feel it but naah... and those have WAAAY more momentum than any reasonable amount of arrows u can get hit at at once. And btw multiple Arrows hitting at the exact Time and almost same Place? not realistic AT ALL. Still and interesting Idea and I would like to see a test too^^

[@treadhead1945]

@@Dimli_Gloinssohn I agree that hitting all at once is unrealistic, it would be more like a hail storm to my thinking.

[@Jexorz86]

Or something hitting you on the side of your helmet, i think that might make you trip, not from the raw force but i've seen people fall over from getting hit with tennis ball lol

[@jrbcodes]

He said that a force of a bullet is 30 to 40 times the amount of momentum of an arrow yet it still fails to stagger a man. So I don't think even 30 to 40 arrows landing all at once if can do it even if such a feat is practically feasible. I hope this answers the question somehow

[@Deadknight67]

Love your videos, not sure why ppl would think and arrow would knock someone down or injure their internal if it was stopped by the armor, but in any case great video.

[@bobito8997]

If an arrow had the force to knock a knight over, it would also knock the archer off his feet when he shot it. "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." Newton

[@eric2709]

Think there's a bit more to it than that. You could probably throw a bowling ball at someone hard enough to knock them over without falling over yourself.

[@deltasieben]

The equal and opposite reaction is drawing the bow

[@euansmith3699]

Indeed, just like Hollywood Shotguns, that can hurl their target 6' through a plank wall. 🙄😄

[@CrimsonEclipse5]

1:59 spoken like true physicist Tod. Next thing you'll be talking about spherical knights in a vacuum. Also with regards to the energy transfer through the armour, I think a big mitigating factor is the energy loss from the deformation of the plate. Denting and stretching the metal like that requires a considerable amount of energy which is then not able to be transferred to the body beneath. Plus of course, as you said, the arrow bounces off and shatters, taking even more of the energy with it.

[@adambielen8996]

This showcases exactly why I love this channel.

[@ender3284]

This is great Tod! Love to see all those videos. I just wanted to add something about this notion of “people being knocked out or hurt” by the “transfer of mass” You say the energy from a bullet is so much different. And although it IS different in mass/speed and so on, the result on a bulletproof vest is still the same than your arrows on the cuirasse. (you even provided examples in the video). The protection (armor or bulletproof jacket) is precisely made to deflect the force. The Joules of the projectile are transferred into the armor and spread out roughly in a perpendicular manner all around the impact, only then the whole armor/vest surface is pushing against you. But at this point, the push is very little. I sincerely doubt that even a finger would be broken by the transfer of force coming from an arrow. A mass, an axe or similar weapon would generate much more Joules though and we know could easily break a finger if landed correctly. Keep creating all this wonderful tests! We love it!! Cheers!

[@kristianheckel171]

Tod, I thank you very much for this episode. I alway assumed, and asked in te comments, that concentrated fire of several archers on one knight flip them out of the saddle. You proofed for me, what really happens - and why archers are so afraid of a cavalry charge.👌

[@TaucelinkR]

Best video on this subject that's ever been made

[@BMichaelGalloway]

I had an idea about this video, but now you have revolutionized the way I have to present to my Dungeons & Dragons players the truth of it. Video shared and saved.

[@BobT36]

Oh wow lol this is exactly what I wanted! :D This was REALLY interesting as they hit with such a THWACK, I'd have expected a stagger at least. Also with them punching those dents in the armour I'd have expected some concussive force to be transferred. HOWEVER one forgets the knight is wearing mail and then gambeson underneath, and that will probably absorb and dissipate a lot of the force. The armour itself is also designed specifically to spread out the force around the edges. If any arrow was going to do some blunt-force damage though it would be those ones you're using, Todd as those looks beasty. The bow shoots those huge tree-trunk arrows so hard it's hard to imagine them not doing more then penetrating damage, but then again the armour is just as great and designed specially to deal with it. Interesting to see they're so protective. Makes sense people stopped bothering with shields when full plate came along. Also interesting is even bare-chested it doesn't seem like they'd knock you over (probably hurt a LOT though!). Seems arrows are all about the penetration rather than force delivery, and lol those gunshot vids, always makes me laugh that in movies people go flying from 9mm pistol shots, same in the medieval movies too, that shows this isn't true. Thanks for this, Todd! Really answers a burning question. The fact those eggs were just fine says it all.

[@doug-Hakura]

Great work there.n I enjoy your videos. A suggestion for more info would be to ask a pathologist what forces are needed to cause the impacts of knocking of a horse or blunt force trauma.

[@FireStormOOO_]

I think most of the remaining questions are around the points you can't add plate easily and/or compromises are required for mobility. If we make the aventail robust enough to prevent penetration does the arrow still collapse the windpipe? Immobilize a shoulder? etc. The value of steel plate is kind of beyond question at this point, it's just down to what's the minimum thickness for a given threat, and how good was quality control on consistently hitting that thickness. And then lots of interesting trade-offs on thickness vs mobility and weight.

[@mbyard356]

A while back, I took part in a HEMA battle reenactment, that included archers. I was hit in the chest with a rubber tipped arrow from about 20 yards, from a 45# bow. Through hardened leather armor that felt like being hit with a hammer. It won’t knock you down, but it’s certainly distracting.

[@jakab174]

Hm. Yes, it will not push your whole mass that is clear, but if you are standing the inertia is much bigger, here at your test the target center off mass is almost exactly where you shoot it. If you are standing or walking into the shot. Your center of mass is roughly at the abdominal level. If there is a good shot at your head/neck, or upper chest, I assume it can get you off balance very easily. But I think probably a slippery/mudy terrain or even tripping over missed arrows are more likely. Great video!

[@TheGeezzer]

Great camera work, great narration with a good microphone to give crisp clear audio. All appreciated in what is a professional production!

[@tods_workshop]

Thank you

[@TheGeezzer]

@@tods_workshop YW!

[@RallycrossGT]

this is by far the most entertaining video I've ever seen in this channel. well, all of them are super entertaining... but this one is just amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@danielbrown9368]

Have to remember conservation of momentum and energy, and that you can't get something from nothing. Oversimplified, if the sender of the projectile is not at risk of getting knocked over, the receiver will not get knocked over. If the sender has to really brace their feet or else fall backwards, there is probably a small chance. But if you think boxing, the sender has to have his feet planted to knock the other guy back. But the difference is that the boxer is in contact with the ground and the receiver at the same time, so he has the ability to push from the ground through his receiver to exert force to push them over through the punch. Now, a projectile fired from a scorpion will do the job, but a human could not hold and fire one from an energy and mass standpoint. A human holding and firing a scorpion would end up on their rear. Hence the point. Great video though, and many thanks.

[@nathanscatts9976]

Thanks so much to Tod and the Team for this, this has been on my mind since the very first arrows vs armor video! The shockwave created in the ballistics gel in the first video was pretty impressive, which is why it made me wonder if it could have resulted in internal injury. With what you demonstrated there, it looks like you'd have to be a pretty unhealthy individual for the shockwave to do anything other then maybe take your breath away momentarily.

[@philrobbie1670]

great video, i didnt expect the arrows to knock a man back, or off a horse, in your previous videos i was impressed how ell the armour deflected and simply stopped the blows, the whole concept of armour being that it spreads an impact across its surface, this is just as true of modern armour and we know(as you demonstrated) that men are not sent flying by bullets except in movies. but i do wonder if a man could be felled from a horse, or indeed standing, by an arrow to the helm, much as a punch can knock a man over. having worn a SCA helmet and had my head mercilessly bludgeoned, i know that while protected, it still hurts. if the helmet was poorly fitted or previously damaged, i can imagine an arrow to the temple might feel like a hammer, and indeed leave a mans toes pointing skyward.

[@alexbogle2871]

i love this channel so much! ive always wondered about this stuff

[@markkringle9144]

That's awsome. I would have expected alot more blunt force trauma. It really shows the armor doing its job.

[@vladdracul2379]

It's all about the energy. It's like when you shoot various Kevlar vests. The fabric may have stopped the round from passing through, but the person wearing it is dead. Why? Because the vest just moved back with the bullet... into the soft, meaty support behind it. I found it surprising how good some Kevlar are at stopping various calibers. The person is still ultimately dead from the blunt force trauma, but the material held up which is amazing.

[@JonathanFergusonRoyalArmouries]

Fantastic work as always Tod.

[@ac1dflare937]

Hi Tod, love your work, one slight issue with your testing, when the torso's were free standing they wore no armour and as such two problems arose, 1) time of energy transfer was massively increased, not just impact as it travelled through the gel and 2) leading on as the arrow passed through the gel it was stopped by friction heating surrounding gel rather than transferring physical/moving force. While I overall agree with your results it would be great to see a retest even just one, with armour, freestanding as noted it had support pole to cover all based

[@driesvanoosten4417]

For the momentum transfer this would matter much. In the case of armor, the momentum transfer is larger (with a upper limit of twice as large) than with only soft target.

[@leoscheibelhut940]

Another brilliantly done experiment! Congratulations, this is better done than the one I thought out, the eggs were a sparkling idea! Pretty definitive. The thud of the arrows on the breast plate inflect no physical damage although I feel confident that each thud increases the knight's fear as he thinks about what would have happened if it had hit in one of the gaps. Combined with some of the other Arrows vs Armor2 videos this certainly disabuses us[myself included] that an archer could down a knight at distance with a single arrow or knights in a minute with six arrows. Even an archer as good or better than Joe Biggs would need six to a dozen arrows or perhaps more to hit a knight in a vulnerable spot. An interesting additional experiment would be to assemble Joe and some other excellent archers[ perhaps shooting lighter warbows ranging from 120# up to Joe's 160# bow] and have them shoot at an array of knight or mounted knight targets to see how many effective hits they could get with 2 dozen arrows each at several ranges.

[@trilobite8589]

this is such a wonderful series, thank you so much for these. While watching the main video my question was if the arrow delivered enough energy to the head to concuss the knight, that seemed to have the most potential of injuring the night through the plate armor to me.

[@oneshotme]

Another great video Tod!! Enjoyed your video and I gave it a Thumbs Up

[@johng1097]

Love these types of tests. It’s good to know what the capabilities of various weapons were. Not just how many people think something.

[@aethelstan3279]

Well that is a very convincing answer to my question from Arrows vs Armour 2. Really cool stuff.

[@tods_workshop]

Glad to be of service!

[@Vespuchian]

Oh nice, I've been wondering since the main film was released if taking an arrow hit to the head (especially the side of the head) could cause a concussion, even if the helmet does its job and deflects the arrow. Thanks for doing this deep(er) dive!

[@Angel0fSleep]

Things to consider: pain response, sudden shock response (whether or not you know it's coming, and being prepared) if you don't know it's coming, and then sudden impact and pain occurs, can you stay on your feet?

[@dannap8831]

a great practical demonstration here! very entertaining and interesting. I just wanted to mention that in the case of the point-blank rifle shot, the brave (foolish) man who agreed to be the target did not receive all of the bullet's energy. Far from it. Nearly all of the bullet's energy was dissipated in the armor. The target only received the momentum from the many tiny fragements of bullet that ended up caught in the vest. The arrow would succeed in delivering 100% of its energy onto the target so long as it sticks. The craziest part of the rifle shot to me was the fact that he didn't get blasted in the chin with lead. I can see a few spots on his vest which seem to shred just after the initial impact. I can't believe none of those fragments hit him in the face.

[@snowpdx]

Great work Tod, keep 'em coming.

[@V4zz33]

Awesome video series! Thanks to you and for the rest of the team!

[@CommanderRedVega]

This is awesome! If you read this comment, I'd like to make a suggestion and that is the use of a Morningstar! Now not a flail morning star, a spiked head attached to a solid handle. I'd love to see what kind of damage it could do with a historically made Morningstar!

[@ANDELE3025]

Thank you for putting on the gambeson on and even showing it in vid.

[@rovingapothecary7708]

Gotta love your videos Todd, every one well thought out and explained... Lock Down Long Bow kept me going through lock down and beyond... Just keeps giving... THANK YOU THANK YOU

[@tomtruesdale6901]

That was very enlightening, I thought that the blunt force trauma might have been a bit greater. Only thing I think the armored knights might worry about was if a whole bunch of arrows were coming at them the one "lucky shot" through the eye slits

[@bigutubefan2738]

It would be great to see some proper measurements and benchmarks for the impact of headshots, Tom. I totally agree an arrow won't knock a knight over - even if all momentum of the mass of the arrow (~100g) transfers 100% efficiently into a change in momentum of the mass of the armoured knight (~100kg), the change in speed of the knight after collision will be 1000 times less than the arrow's impact speed (100kg / 100g). Worst case scenario: a 100g 120mph (53 m/s) arrow will cause a 100kg knight to charge at you 0.12 mph slower. Really good set of experiments though - always the final decider as you rightly say

[@turretlizardinthesun957]

Great work Tod! You have established beyond question that a ballistic gel dummy is in fact a Weeble, thus settling centuries of academic debate.

[@beezo2560]

Well done. Thanks Tod.

[@SorryImFromOhio]

You guys are spoiling us and I'm here for it!