Follow us Twitter and send us feet pics maybe... / operator_inq Who would win... the Pope with knights on horseback or some one eyed Czech with cannons on a stick
Ironically all the cussing and long pauses between firing makes this instantly more accurate than any Hollywood attempt at medieval warfare. Also gunpowder was actually more ‘powdery’ in its early European stage of development, things got grainy a bit later
It would be in a mid quality The coarse powder was harder to dampen The even finer stuff could flash fast outside a chamber The stuff here could be used for both priming and propelling with minimal disturbance
@@davidbakke9293 In medieval times, words involving the body weren't really considered to be shocking, or even to be swear words at all. Which is why one of the most popular fruits in medieval England was simply called an "open-arse" fruit. Religious themed expressions were the medieval equivalent of modern swear words (hence the name), since swearing by God's name was blasphemy as well as trying to invoke his power. The way we would use alternatives for "the F-word" to be polite, medievals would say "By Jove", instead of "oh God!".
@@mistersharpe4375 They probably used a lot of "swear words" that are found in Shakespeare plays (i.e., "fie", sort of like "f*ck" is used today, or "swounds", a condensed form of "God's wounds").
@@mistersharpe4375There were hundreds of streets in England named "Gropecunt Lane", because you could find *ladies of the night* there. They have all been renamed.
Modern black powder is covered by grapite that makes ignition by slowmatch unrelieble. If you use old fashioned powder ignition is 100% relieble. Moreover medieval german texts mentions slowburning powder for priming a touchhole. So, you have enougth time for handling and aiming and shuch kind of powder does not burn your arm
Is that a European specific thing? Black powder imported to the US from manufacturers Poudrerie d'Aubonne in Switzerland along with Schuetzen in Germany do not contain graphite or other compounds to make it more difficult to ignite. Same goes for the US made Goex brand. If the container is specifically labeled "Black Powder" then it'll be the same old tried & true formulation. Black powder substitutes like Pyrodex contain things like graphite in order to make it more difficult to ignite, however. I've tried using Pyrodex in my flintlock muskets & it creates a significant delay between the flint dropping & the charge igniting. Sometimes not even firing at all. Black powder manufactured by Poudrerie d'Aubonne, Schuetzen, and Goex on the other hand do not have this problem & ignite almost instantly.
The thing about the war wagons was that they allowed handgonners to stay relatively safe until enemy approached quite close - not 70m but like 5-20 m, before they fired. Think about how musket tactics later on often called for approaching enemy as close as possible before firing a first salvo - because a salvo was more destructive if fired from up close. It wasn't really used as a primarily ranged weapon - crossbows and light artillery - houfnice, tarasnice - were used for that and far more suitable. There is good reason why hussites used crossbows and handgonnes together, as the two weapons complemented each other, rather than competed. That reason being that a 20mm lead ball from ~10m would punch through a full plate of early 15th century, and it would take a couple decades for new armours that could withstand that to appear. Also, I have no idea why you think handgonnes were mainly used by children and disabled people. They were mostly used by trained handgonners [though training necessary was not extremely high]. When it was expected for children to fight, they were usually trained with and given slings instead [though this is disputed, and I have seen arguments that so called "práčata" were named so not because of slings but because they served a small bolt throwing siege engines in groups instead].
Around 4:10-4:20, "I was primarily aiming for the middle guy, but like, I'm really just looking down a stick" lol. He has pretty amazing aim for a stick at 70 meters. This was a pretty sweet video. It's awesome to see 600 year old technology used now.
The most cutting edge guns we have today still uses this technology. The only thing that has changed is the cycling mechanisms designed to make firing repeat shots faster and easier.
As the proud owner of several period (reproduction) smoothbores, including a couple of handgonnes, I would like to point out that with rapid firing you only patch the first round. The fouling takes care of the "patching" after that. Also, armies were used to archers, not hangonnes. Handgonnes had the addition of "shock and awe". And at close range, a .75 cal lead ball from a handgonne could pierce plate maille. That has already been proven on several other channels that deal with medieval weaponry.
Love the video. If I can offer any helpful advice, I own a handgonne myself in .62. I would suggest at least making your own serpentine powder for a more authentic experience. And try all the different recipes there's at least 4 or 5 that I can think of off the top of my head. It alows you time to actually aim as it burns slower than the modern stuff we can buy off the shelf. It's also truly a "powder" instead of modern alcohol powder which is granulated, one of the earliest recipes has a higher charcoal content making it actually black instead of dark grey, hence the name "black powder".
@@talisdorman.9796 I would love to but I'm sure the RU-vid overlords would frown upon that or at least I would be flagged by a Karen 😒. But I can link a video on RU-vid ironically. I would also suggest making your own slow match and charcoal if you have access to the outdoors and a big soup can.
@@talisdorman.9796 To find other historical recipes I'd just Google medieval handgonne gunpowder recipes. There are a few and they have their own names. I can't remember any of the top of my head and I would post a link but again unsavory people are watching.
One very important point you missed is that these things could go through plate armor. No armor worn at the time of their inception could stand up to a projectile fired from a gun. Knights would be in for a very bad time if they lined up against these. A .50-1.5" lead ball fired from a handgonne is even gonna go through the majority of shields, where soldiers could previously just hold up simple shields to protect themselves from arrows reasonably well.
I wouldnt be so sure about the shield part. Tod did some tests on them and the arrows were going halfway in them - easily through hand behind. Definitely better than being shot straight on but still not even close to something I'd call reasonable protection. Heres the vid: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-y6IlEUm_Eo4.html
there was gun resistance armor for cavalry during the english civil war though i don't think it was designed for handcannons and more designed for arquebusses
Bear in mind these were quite early firearms shown here. I think armor, at least good quality armor, would have had a much better chance of standing up to a handgonne at least at moderate ranges over vital areas. Later arquebuses, with longer barrels than we see here, would have been much more competitive.
Most handgonnes were nowhere as powerful against armour as later muskets. While we don't have exact numbers on the energy behind these rounds, they're expected to range from 250 to 1000 joules, with some outliers. The projectiles are heavy, but nowhere as fast as modern rounds. Speed is key to defeating armour, as is the size of the projectile. Cuirasses from the 15th century are also pretty thick. The armour thickness of multiple extant Italian cuirasses are measured at different points and listed in Matthias Goll's PhD thesis, and they really are no pushover. The center of such cuirasses are generally over 3mm thick and are composed of a plackart overlapping the breastplate. This layered structure also helps in stopping projectiles. Most handgonnes would likely not penetrate the center of these cuirasses. The edges are thinner, at 1.1mm at the thinnest measured thickness, but these surfaces are also much more sloped, making it more likely to deflect projectiles. We have multiple extant cuirasses/breastplates that have been "bulletproofed" by the armourer in the 16th and 17th century. The armourer shot these armours, leaving a mark or dent without defeating the armour. This leaves visible proof that the armour has stopped a bullet, i.e. the origin of the term bulletproof. These armours were significantly heavier and thicker than the ones in use at the time of the handgonne, because muskets have significantly better penetration capabilities than handgonnes.
2:25 "...to ram your balls..." this is actually very realistic, as medieval soldiers demonstrating this technology would have been making jokes just like this 🤣🤣
Thank you for displaying realistic archery skill instead of assuming that behemoths at the max end of human physical capabilities are in any way representative of medieval archery
Fun fact: weapons like this were also called ''píšťala'' in czech. That would translate to ''flute'' however the word píšťala was proliferated so much, that it caught on, eventually evolving into the word ''pistol'' that's now used world-wide. EDIT: Also for the point that you could shoot handgonne much slower than bows: keep in mind that at this time, you'd have mostly crossbows instead of bows and those take longer to reload too. Also keep in mind that you could have several guns ready and loaded, and since hussites especially used it from wagons, it should be no problem to have dozens of them in your wagon, ready to be shot. It'd be interesting to compare speed of shooting them in 2 man team if you have several of them. I'd bet that you could shoot 3-4 until that knight manages to get to the cart.
"General Žižka! The Teutonic Knights are to our front, and Hungarian Cavalry is attempting to flank us!" "Get behind the wagons, boys! The Catholics are coming!" P.S. Jan Žižka is pronounced Yahn Shzeeshz-ka. Ž in Czech diacritics functions identically to Ж in the Cyrillic script.
We usually write that sound as "zh" in English. :) It's the same sound as 'ss' in "fissure" or 'ge' in 'garage' (note that some dialects do these words differently).
You can instantly hear that the gun is really loaded: characteristic BOOM is much more sharp and loud than flaccid WHOMP when the gun is fired without projectile.
Keep in mind that the handgun (píšťala) was mainly anti armor and even tho it was pretty i effective as a ranged weapon, it could shatter even expirienced knights morale, as well as frighten horses. It was more of a tactical tool then actual deadly weapon.
Unfortunately I must disagree. The fellows in the video failed to achieve the accuracy that these weapons have the potential for, painting an inaccurate 😉, picture. The problem is that they're using modern alcohol powder that wasn't invented until much later (the exact date is disputed). The powder they should be using can differ from time and region, but either way it burns much slower enabling one shooter and time to aim properly. I've tested it myself with my own .62 cal handgonne. It's an over simplification also to assume it was an anti armor weapon or that it would scare men and horses. Like the introduction of tanks in WW1 sure it was frightening at first but after a very short time they developed tactics around them, captured them and even built their own. People also assumed they were psychological weapons because they were "mechanically unreliable" also a gross oversimplification. Don't get me wrong I don't blame you, it's perpetuated misinformation that everyone who doesn't have a deep interest in, well meaningly repeats.
Yeah I thought this, this video is good but they are treating it like a sniper even tho it was more made for shooting quick targets like horses and carriages and/or crowds of soldiers; not distant, small, singular targets.
@@masonponton3077 While I agree with the sentiment, you're very much incorrect. Listen I don't doubt you can get very good results with the accuracy of your handgonne, after all, it's still 8-12 in barrel. Moreso, we even have an example in form of a record of a case of a handgonner styling on English, sniping them from a city wall, hitting with good enough accuracy to make it into a record [search Master Jean le Cannonier]. That said, you're not taking into account the harsh realities of the 15th century. If you're supplying an entire [even if small] army with gunpowder, you're focusing on quantity, rather than quality - this usually means that on an especially bad day, your handgonner might get powder with less than half the effect of what you get on a good day [hell sometimes, merchants would dilute potassium nitrate to get more money, and the dilutant wouldn't be equally distributed in the powder]. Not even talking about imperfection of the barrel of mass produced handgonnes and reality that you're not going to always load the same amount of powder - this isn't 16th century with its convenient gunpowder containers hanging from bandolier. This all means that as a soldier you're getting somewhat inconsistent muzzle velocities. That is why early handgonners weren't succesful much outside of Hussite tactics- Hussite tactics allowed them to shoot at the enemies from a very close while staying relatively safe - protected by thick wood of war wagon and polearm soldiers. That also meant far less training was needed to employ them effectively - you don't need as much training to hit a wall of charging mild steel cans at 10-20m than you would need for shooting at 50, or even 100m. The legendary handgonne sniper we have records of was probably a rich citizen who was a handgonne hobbyist, someone who has gotten himself finely crafted handgonne, rather than mass produced one, and more importantly who had gotten very consistent, black powder, out of very finest ingredients. Someone like the aforementioned Master Jean, who shoots a dozen lead balls every two weeks as a hobby could probably achieve similar accuracy to you, but that was not your usual handgonner. Your usual handgonner was given a handgonne of mediocre quality, a bag of black powder of varying quality, and might get a couple shots worth of training before he's expected to fight. Yeah, over multiple battles and in between them he gets more training and experience, but his experience consists of short distance shooting rather than marksmanship and of wisdom that "black powder I get varies in quality a lot". That said, OP is wrong if they think handgonnes were not deadly, in that short distance of 5-20 m where it was optimal to fire them, they were quite comparable to later arquebuses at 50m.
@@Dakerthandark Sorry if I misrepresented myself but I agree with you almost intirely. The only thing I would say to the contrary is, besides conscripts and lords owning the weaponry (which was most common), regardless or where you get your powder from as long as you got a large enough batch you'll get used to the batch your using and the gonne after a couple of shots. Its just common sense. Everything you said about powder is true but after a couple shots on the battlefield you'd get used to where your shots were landing, yes even through heavy smoke if your close target isn't dead or down he's either heavily armored or your doing something wrong.
Amazing to see you could tell it wasn’t the most trained or fastest bowman, yet he still outpaced and out-aimed the guy with the hand cannon by such a considerable amount.
I've long believed that since it's a smoothbore, while it may not be historically correct, loading it with shot (#4 or 00 Buck) would be more likely to hit a target, especially at say 25 yards. 70 yards... that's pretty far for just one handgonne to be effective, but a volley of them, which is how they would have been used back then, I could see it being potentially effective, especially if it's being fired by people with basically no combat experience or have physical issues that prevents them from being able to do anything more.
It actually is accurate to fire shot. They had many projectiles even crossbow bolt like darts which may be more accurate. I've yet to test it with mine.
www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcommons.wikimedia.org%2Fwiki%2FFile%3A10_shot_hand_cannon_(handgonne).jpg&psig=AOvVaw03FkIbTD8wufsGwohOmR9e&ust=1629974455473000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAsQjhxqFwoTCND4lJb-y_ICFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD here is one that shoots more than one
There was no standardised name for firearms even into the 16th century. Handgonne just meant a firearm that could be fired by hand. The inventories 1548 tell us this, where a civilian is doing the auditing in the Tower of london he used the term handgonne for everything that went bang. In the smaller bulwarks and fortress's the military commander who submitted his audit refered to them as Hacbushes, Arqebus, Hagbut, Hookbutts etc etc.
I would like to point out that while untrained soldiers could use guns, it really did require people experienced in their use to make the most of them. Their tendency for accidents also meant that you really wanted somebody who knew their art with the gun and trusted the person who made said gun. Hussites were more of an exception than the rule in this period. In addition there are many nuances to score hits with primitive guns which training would smooth over. Another important aspect is that warbows of the very high poundage are behaving very differently than lighter types. Selfbows like the English longbow also had other issues. A good example for long range accuracy is Joe Gibbs doing it for Todd's Workshop. Using a 140lbs longbow out to 200 yards the arrows spread out 5-6 yards from the center. That is against a stationary target. Releasing a few dozen of those arrows would also wipe out Joe for most of the day. It's a serious physical exercise. Amazingly enough one of his arrows hit its target but it was almost entirely down to chance.I think our modern perception of accuracy is just different from the old times. Even a handgonne like this would probably have comparable grouping to archery. This is without accounting to other factors like faster reaction (especially after matchlocks, tho), way less requirement to measure the range and very little time-to-target. In fact cultures which encountered guns often remarked about their accuracy and range advantage. There's a strong culture to romanticize the Longbow or archery in general. As such I find it important to emphatize that no, archers weren't superhuman nor they could beat everyone else handily in ranged combat. Archery had its niches for sure, especially until the early 16th century. Crossbows also did. For example a crossbow was inherently more accurate and most types didn't tire the user to the same degree as did a warbow. Over the period of a battle the crossbowmen could lease more bolts than an archer could shoot arrows. Of course logistics limitations meant neither side shot many projectiles anyways. Guns had some very startling advantages but with a lot of issues, as well. Yet their combat potential was the least affected. Another annoying myth which I should debunk is their armor penetration, though. This is often overly emphatized.In fact these handgonnes usually couldn't pierce the plate armors worn by knights. More potent guns could, those had a longer muzzle and a hook/beard to brace against the recoil. Lead bullets were also not very popular. Lead was expensive and its density meant a lot of guns could burst if they attempted to fire it. Stone bullets were used until the late 14th century and by the Hussite period I recon they were still an alternative (Hussite armies were pretty scrappy, you see). Wrought iron bullets were generally the most popular projectile albeit the Hussites had a lot of other alternatives. Pistala were the lighter type of guns and they often loaded those up with pellets and/or caltorps. The idea wasn't to kill armored soldiers but to pepper them with a spread of projectiles and cause panic. Almost any Hussite firearm was also utilized as a de-facto shotgun. Most infamously the Houfnice short-barreled stone-shooting cannons often also spread various scrap out of their muzzle.
I play viking conquest and its easier to get large numbers of low tier troops to help fill in the ranks along side higher tier troops than it is to raise the expenses needed to raise a force of high tier soldiers one thing I've noticed this allows for multiple types of attacks from ranged to melee to be brought in at a more closer and effective range because you then have a screen to protect your ranged units
It could alternately be spelled gunne as well, and in some dialects it was pronounced phonetically. Middle English spelling and pronunciation were far from standardized; for example, William Caxton remarked in his writings that many from Southern England couldn't understand Northern Middle English.
It might not have been grains yet at all, corning is a specific process that they figured out after some time. So ironically it might actually be easier to light than this, though at the cost of being much Much more hazardous to handle And the chemicals possibly separating and leading to extremely uneven Shots. One shot might be heavy on charcoal while another might have very little saltpeter and too much sulfur. Where as kernels all have the exact same mix of active ingredients, every time, all the time. They also allow the fire to propagate throughout the entire load much quicker.
meal powder made by tumbling with. 75 caliber lead balls for about 12 hours actually burns quit fast, as a prime in a touch hole it slows a bit, this is medieval powder in my opinion
As others have said, and I will too, there's some very important take aways to the handgunne. As you already said, it takes little training. That is the main advantage that made muskets so prevalent in just a few hundred years, they are easily trained, require little physical ability to actually shoot (carrying around is a different matter), and armor isn't likely to stop the round. Against a much heavily armored army, these will devastate a line of heavy infantry, and it could be effective against cavalry depending on the size of ball. Archers have a far higher rate of fire, more accurate, and work very well against a less armored army composition. But they rely on their range. Crossbows are that mix between the two, they can be even more powerful than the war bows, but have much slower rates of fire. Much easier to train though, but not to a handgunne's level. Either way, archers or crossbows are ranged fighters, up close is a terrible idea for them. Handgunne only become more effective as people close in the distance, up to a point. Issue is that one shot is all you get, then another must be prepared. One volley though can cut down a closely approaching line. If you are not exposed directly to them, say in a wagon, you could likely get another volley off even as they attack you long as you are supported. You never send archers or handgunne unsupported, you always have an infantry line, you likely have archers or crossbows supporting the handgunne as well. That lack of training time is the biggest advantage I see. Sure, the effectiveness of the handgunne might not be quite as impressive as archery, but anyone could pick it up. Anyone could defend their home, and the actual cost to construct these weapons isn't outrageous to arm a mass of normally civilians for military service. The cost for ammunition is higher than arrows, but for a quick and ready army, handgunne and pikemen make the most sense to get a quickly readied army to face a fair more prepared one. Archers are difficult to train due to how long it takes to gain expertise, thus also take longer to recover losses. Crossbows are less difficult to train, but crossbows aren't exactly as simple to construct. There's pros and cons to everything, and during this time period, it's almost rock paper scissors in different combat scenarios for what beats what most of the time, and what supports what to offset what isn't as effective against the unit composition.
Many handgonnes have a hook so it can absorb the recoil which means that its much easier to fire alone as you just have to aim it and not worry about the recoil. So you take up even less space behind cover. If you have multiple you can always have one shoot and the others reload so its a constant hail of bullets. A bow needs way more space and you can practically only shoot standing, also you need to worry about the bow itself as you wouldnt want it to get scratched by you neighbours armor or whatever which could cause it to break with enough damage.
Should have used a crossbow instead of a bow to test against handgonne, because the crossbow had a similar purpose and use to the handgonne, and could be used by soldiers untrained in the bow.
This is great, thanks so much, very interesting. I think one shot per minute is an amazing speed; imagine if many of them fired every minute, that would be devastating. PS: Shouldn't you wear protective glasses ? Are you 100% sure that it will not blow up in your face ? Don't mean to insult your craftmanship, everything looks very professional (and probably is), but it's just that, well, you never know...
If bolth weapons are fireing in volleys at close range you could argue that that gonne has more power to fire through multiple enemies at once just not as accurately as a archer with a bow or even cross bow bolts
@@bigburd875 Medieval kits are available anywhere only. Now, getting GOOD medieval kits are the tricky part. Check reputable places like Kult of Athena and such.
Your arrows are flying crazy cause you might not have found your nocking point on the string where the arrow prefers to be fired from to avoid arrow tail fishing
I think it’s the spin weight, not heavy enough for the draw on that bow. They shoot great from my long bow. Honestly this whole video is one that needs redone
nice vids but some stuff was wrong about what you said and did so you might give it alittle more research about what was used in that time and how it was and why and by who
A very interesting video! Here in Germany such tests you just provided are almost impossible to be done if you aren't a qualified firearms expert... Thank you for uploading. Just a small info: A "Hand(e)gonne" isn't/wasn't called a "Hakenbüchse". A Hakenbüchse ("hook gun") is much heavier and was mostly used to defend positions. The hook helped manage recoil as you could put it onto a wall.
@@Operator_Inquiries What powder load are you using here? I have the same piece but I'm using 30 grains FFF at 15-20 yards. Also, highly recommend a simple stick as a linstock rather than trying to hold the match with your hands!
Totaly wrong... First the handgonne had usually a niche to hook it outiside a rock (castle) or a wood piece (wagon). Second, this weapon, and the crossbow were used by untrained people. Third, the handgonne was used in very near combat - 10 or 12 meter - without taking aim. Forth, they used to fire only once and then use other weapons - that is why there are sampes with three barels.
Ho. Ly. Shit. I assumed the "Handgonne" was just a made up name for the guns in FF14 to "fantasize" them, didn't know it was a real name lmao. Granted the game one is more like a "normal" (heap of salt on calling any final fantasy weapon, let alone a ff14 gun, normal) firearm, in that you can carry it and fire it on your own.
Czechoslovakia which you mentioned, existed only between the years 1918-1993 so during the medieval times and also in the present it was not a thing. Dunno why did you mentioned it then. Maybe you wanna update your Geography texbooks guys.
who would of expected a legit historical video from here? wtf? i've seen so much shit on guns and the midevil but i ain't never seen these guns done this well.
