Archery, powerful bows and arrows
By woodlandstv
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http://www.woodlands.co.uk Woodlands archery, powerful bows and arrows. Long bows made from yew were used during the Hundred Years War. Neil Eddiford from Wolfshead Bowmen describes the properties that made yew suitable for the long bow, and how often English yew wasn't used at all. Other woods used for bows were ash and wych elm. He also looks at the arrows with fletchlings of goose feather, a bodkin point or a needle bodkin. These are serious weapons for medieval warfare, and Neil describes the range and penetration power these arrows could have.
Wolfshead Bowmen are a re-enactment group and Woodlands TV met up with them at the Weald Wood Fair at Bentley Wildfowl and Motor Museum.
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Discussion
You're absolutely right mate. Plate armour was quite impenetrable.
@Duncan Demicoli
nope.
this is why he said "people don't realise how powerful these bows are"
what makes you think that these arrows couldn't puncture a thin layer of metal?
@MarcoManiac
Well historically accurate plate armor was only 16 gauge of thickness approximately and back then the metallurgy had a lot of weaknesses. Nowadays we produce much better & consistent metal. Modern tests conducted at the ballistic test site of the Royal Military College of science in Shrivenham resulted that arrows could dent armor at 80meters, at 30 meters just punctured the plate & at most only bruise the knight wearing it & at 10 meters penetrates like 3 inches. No one back in the day had the nerve to shoot that close to an armored knight. So i would say if you were to shoot an armored knight, try shooting at an unprotected area rather than going for the plate. Just saying 🙂
@Duncan Demicoli all the tests people do are with bows of 30-80lbs not 120-180…
@Benjamin Adams
If you can kill the barely armoured horse or even hurt it enough to let it knock the knight off the other horses or even gravity on the heavy armour will do the rest.
There was no efficient way of penetrating their armour But they couldn't stand up when lying on the ground in heavy plate.
@1barnet1 Sorry but 'not being able to stand up when wearing plate armor' is a hugely debunked myth. Plate armor was nowhere near as heavy as modern people think. It was actually lighter than what an average soldier carries on his back. today.
Vccine is right. Even Martin Harvey brought himself up to the test & stood up quickly in full plate 🙂 there's a video of it on youtube
+Duncan Demicoli actually in medieval times, archers shot and practised shooting their target at a much closer range in some instances
+Mecha Deets Very true in most instances. Full plate suit was extremely expensive back then, perhaps only one in 200 could afford it. Also the shield for the common foot soldier was way too small to protect his entire body.
true, some of them weighed up to 1/4lb
weapons and bushcraft
December 17, 2014