"Impenetrable" leather shield tested with arrows - Part 3 

It seems like that extra layers of leather or leather with glass and iron could be worthwhile over where you arm rests, and then without leather everywhere else so it doesn't get super heavy.

Tod is getting noticeably better with his crossbow aim.... like getting scary good accurate...

I wasn't done laughing at "greased shafts penetrate better" and Tod already hit me with "8 inches through the back, you might wanna stop that" 😂

My grandfather taught me to mix black sand with heated pitch and to use that as a binder for the boiled leather to the planks. He said it was how Northmen made arrow proof shields. He would also sprinkle crushed coal powder on his anvil when forging so maybe he was just nuts. 😂

Tod's genuine authentic enthusiasm for this is infectious 😁

5:50 WHat you have to remember also is that in this test every hit is a complete worst-case scenario; perfect aim, perfect angle, and still it only gets through that little. Also: even if that arrow does manage to wound you, it's a scrape on your arm whereas with a lesser shield it might be arm-shattering damage. It's a bit like complaining that your car's seatbelt is too tight: the alternative is to fly through the windshield. Take your pick.

This shield is one hell of a super early composite armor. And seeing Tod's analysis on the manufacturing side of things always make it super interesting.

Tod struggling to get an arrow out of the target in the intro had me giggling. Of course, for every arrow going in, you need to remove one, but we rarely think aout that bit. 😄

Tod, what if you cover just a small portion of the shield with armor. For example you could cover the narrow arm band in the center with the armor, to better protect your arm, and the upper left corner, to better protect your face and so the arrows don't get in the way when trying to maneuver the shield into a position in front of your face. You could reduce the excess weight of the shield while still retaining the increased pen resistance in the places you would need it the most: The places where the shield is in close proximity to your body.

I could see this shield recipe being particularly useful for a crossbowman with one of those large Pavis style shields. Particularly in a pinch when you don't have time to set up, so you just turn your back to the enemy walls/formation while your reloading.

I suspect the glass and iron fillings are more about dulling blades than slowing arrows, looking forward to the blades against that shield video.

I've seen several sources that indicate the weight of a heater shield as around 8 lbs. That seems like about the weight you might get with the half tanned leather and no glass or iron. That seems like a good compromise between weight and extra protection.

There definitely is a difference between the treated sections and the untreated. I am going to revisit my 100lb Shield test as well now that I have a Ballistic Torso and and am also going to put a light gambeson on it to see when the arrows do penetrate, (like they do in yours and my tests )if they carry enough energy to then also penetrate the gambeson underneath. I think Shields and Gambeson historically was a common combo so we have to remember that while these arrows are sticking out the back, the shield forms the first layer of an overall "composite". I know my tests are with a 100lb bow (80-90j tested on a Chrono with Will Sherman Arrows) so a bit lighter than your simulators but still a very applicable battle weight for the period. Thanks for this test, Tod. Love your work.

If blackened simply means pitch, I imagine it probably has more to do with waterproofing to a certain extent. The last thing you'd want is a soaked gambeson that's twice as heavy and gets moldy after a day. For the shield, even when they poke out it's not that big of a deal, if I were holding it the one place I'd worry about is where the arm straps in. Maybe do a look at Matt Easton's video about 15th century boss griped shields. They may have started to use those because of this exactly, holding the shield out for missile fire, then strapping it close for melee so it doesn't get wrenched away from you. Who knows?

My first thought is to wonder, how does this perform compared to simply a shield made of thicker planks so that it weighed the same? In other words, are the different materials providing a composite effect, or is it simply that the arrow has more stuff to displace and waste its energy on?

I love how he tests everything and if it doesn't work that's okay, also a result. Always great videos and I've learned loads about math, physics and other interesting things I never could get into in school. I try to learn something new each day and Tod, you definitely have helped in that regard many times. Thank you!

Hey Tod, I've been loving this series! A (perhaps idle) thought I had was if the plane of the shield might make a difference when comparing these formulae. I would have to guess that someone using a shield would not necessarily present it so that arrows are striking it head-on, but would likely hold it at an angle. This could have 2 effects, first, just like armor, hits would be more likely to skate off without much damage at all, but second, and more relevant to this experiment, the friction of the iron and glass mixture might matter significantly more when an arrow has to travel further at a diagonal through the shield compared to the shortest possible distance head-on.

Medieval Chobham!

You know what I love about Todd's videos? That he starts with a theory, and then that theory always leads to other theories, all of which he ends up testing. You get so many experiments in 1 or 1 series of videos. It's fantastic. Keep it up.

"Heavy shield day". I love that. I'm now imagining a knight getting with a foul mood and thinking, "today feels like a heavy shield day." Your point about the added weight being a significant downside is a good one. It would be interesting to know what the weight would be if it was all like the orange area, maybe that's the sweet spot between weight and protection. If it's say around 3.5-4 kilos, I can easily imagine a knight who is, let's say "bulkier" asking for a shield made like that.

Very interesting tests! Normally I consider extra weight quite a hindrance in combat, but for that type of shield it's less of a problem. Large center-grip shields like the scutum could easily weigh twice as much as the reinforced heater shield you made (granted, for more protection). A strapped shield is easier to hold, especially with a guige strap. So it might be worth the extra protection. Then again like you said, with armor the arm underneath might be safe even in case of the lighter version.

I've made myself a roundshield once, with a few metal reinforcements. It weighs ~4,5kg and that thing is HEAVY on the arm.

A "Do greased shafts penetrate better" video could really draw some new viewers.

Tod, this was still a successful test of the black gambeson. The result was negative of course, but the test was successfully executed with solid trustworthy result.

Several years ago Thegn Thrand(another RU-vidr) made a shield of just 6mm pine, with rawhide over the front & back. The pine was mostly just a skeleton to hold the rawhide. But the results when tested were amazing. Incredible resistance to arrows & blades. So maybe rawhide is the thing to try rather than leather. It also makes a very light & weildly shield.

Just a thought on that black gambeson not working - it may be too hard. Do you know how a bulletresistant vest works? I is a flexible material with high tensile strength. And the flexibility is what makes it work at least for small arms like pistols. The material doesn’t stop the bullet instantly like an armour plate, it flexes and the fibers stretch a small amount. So it slows the projectile down a bit more gradually. The idea with pitch sounds interesting. That may give the fibers in the gambeson a bit more strength while keeping some of the flexibility. It may also “fill the gaps” in a way that a arrowhead has a harder time penetrating through. Won’t likely be perfect, but reducing the penetration just a few centimetres can save a life… Fantastic video again. Thank you, Tod. ❤

"Do Greased shafts penetrate better", you are entering Matt Easton territory with that one

Only through trial and error will we begin eliminating the wrong answers to find the correct ones. Truly fascinating that the amount of stopping power from JUST the fabric to the glued up, hardened fabric was astounding. You're talking about a 50% difference in penetration. That's insane. I never in my wildest dreams, until I found this channel, would have thought that cloth would be so effective against stopping arrows. Truly astounding.

Maybe the optimal would be to put just a band of the leather where the arm is so the arm is more protected and the rest of the shield as is

Ok, so my impression from these tests is that the leather with the iron and glass filings does make quite a significant difference, but it also suggests to me that the choice to return to bosses and center gripped shields in the coming centuries, as shown by Matt Easton, might originate here: with the improvement of ranged weapons and their power

Looking forward to the edged tools bit. Love the little smile when Tod says " I've got quite a lot of edged tools. "

I love how, even back then, people were keen enough to think about composite materials for protection. It's just goes to show that even though they might have had the same technology, they were still smart enough to puzzle it all out. Awesome video as always!

Again, here you are making great videos, Tod !!!!

always a good day when tod posts more vids, looking forward to part 4 mate!

It takes a lot of the kinetic energy away. That is indeed extremely good.

The orange section did a real good job of deflecting arrows away from hitting it. //snark//

Cool video Tod! For the powdered iron and glass, I'd go with a coarser powder. I suspect its benefit is that the chunks themselves would blunt the arrowheads upon impact, since they would be harder than the steel tip of an arrow.

Thoroughly enjoyable! And not a bad demonstration of how techniques and materials affect outcomes, including when arrows meet shields. Looking forward to the 'edged' episode!

I much enjoy the dissapointed grunts that Tod makes when he misses. Like he feels betrayed by the arrow.

Truly amazes me how advanced their thinking was. They effectively created composite armour which actually worked really well. We didnt come full circle on composites until the 50-60s for tanks!

My guess is that tanned leather would be pretty cheap to make in the period as compared to adding thin metal layer to the shield. Also metal needs to be maintained to prevent it from rusting, so it was time and labor consuming. I think this tanned leather variant could really be something that really was done back in the day. Glass powder however it may be a stretch. In contemporary body armor there is often ceramic involved to break up the bullet, but it really needs to be in a solid form to actually work. In powdered form it is useless. So maybe recipe meant glass chunks rather than glass powder, or powder works but only for stopping the blades. I guess we will see in the next part. cheers

Incredible video as always. I love how professional and scientific you get with these. I have a couple of things to add about the leather shield and the blacken gambeson coming from my Gaelic knowledge On the leather shield. I know the that Irish and Scottish would wrap their targe / target shields in leather. This is most famous in 17th and 18th century Scots but they were doing this in the early 16th century as well. One particular shield that the Northern Irish and Western Scots used were wicker shields wrapped in leather. The youtuber Stoccata has made a couple and says they work great. Now I don't know enough about leather to know what thickness was used or how it was treated but I am curious on the test of wicker shields. Though looking at how the Scots used the targe it may have been used at an angle instead of holding it dead on. This would mitigate a lot of the penetration power of the arrows. As of the blacken gambeson I have a source about Scottish warriors wearing gambeson coated in pitch. " John Major (1512), who wrote that the common people among the highlanders rush into battle having for body armour a linen tunic manifoldly sewn and painted or daubed with pitch, and covered with deerskin." In the book World of the Galloglass by Sean Duffy also mentions about coats being coated in wax. It is theories that the pitch and wax was used to make the coats and gambeson water resistant. Coming from a wet climate and being on the water the gambeson would take on moisture and get really heavy. Duffy also mentions about wanting to experiment wax gambeson to see if they are more buoyant.

Dear Tod, I have literally just signed up to youtube, for tge sole purpose of making this comment. About blackened gambesons, the King's Mirror (Konungs Skuggsja) specifically states that the fabric is soft, as that same cloth that is used for the gambeson, is also used for the warriors underwear. Furthermore, it also specifies that this kind of armour is the best type, when fighting on ships. I therefore find it highly unlikely that blackened gambesons would be hardened with tar or pitch. Personally, I believe iron dye to be more likely. With regards- A history student, currently writing about medieval Danish armour. PS: Subscribed.

So a peasant farmer with a good arm and a war bow can definitely mess up a leather shield

Interesting video, the different bands of treatment on the shield is enginious. I bet it would be worth while to have a bit of extra protection such as the leather (or some metal) over the section in contact with arm, rather than the whole shield. Could also be that certain "ranks" would be more likely to use something like this. In essence an officer who might not need the shield for anything but stopping arrows and wouldn't be carrying it at all times may get more use. Always great fun to watch these videos.

Have you ever considered testing the efficacy of Chinese paper armour?

"Do greased shafts penetrate better?" is SUCH a Matt Easton thing to ask.

The opening shot of the shield getting hit by multiple arrows in quick succession gave me strong "Hawk the Slayer" repeating crossbow vibes. Chunk! Chunk! Chunk! Another fun and informative bit of experimental archaeology.

how much would the weight difference be between full red, full orange and full yellow? It could be that the most extra weight is the red part. I would be fairly happy with a full orange shield over yellow. The penetration difference is quite significant between those two. BTW, the Zulu found out that having wet lether shields helps to stop the British musket fire. Will a wet lether shield perform better versus an arrow too?

The weight is about equal to an FN minimi. Considering all the other crap we carried at the same time, this shield construction seems entirely ok from a user perspective (imho)

"Do greased shafts penetrate better?" is the best video title in the observed universe. Observed by me anyway.

In my head I see Matt Easton smirk when you talk about greased shafts

Dear Tod, maybe I have myth for you to test in a future project. When I was studying mechanical engineering at the universty my professor for material sciences told this story in one of his lectures: in medieval times smithes used to mix iron filings under the food for their ducks. The intention of this was, that the digustive system of the ducks enriched the filings with nitrogen and made an nitrated steel out of it. The duck feces were collected and further processed and forged to a medieval high tech steel for weapons. I have no sources or evidence for that. I'm totally aware that ducks shouldn't be fed iron filings in modern times. But maybe someone can verify that story and some can provide a process to simulate the chemical reaction. Keep your great work up. Greetings from a German fan of yours.

Okay, now follow me on this one. How about, instead of iron filings and glass, you made the outer layers of leather, then a few layers of something readily available in the middle like horse hair. Not just globbed on, but slather the inner layer with glue or pitch and lay on a layer of horse hair or jute running horizontally. Then another layer of glue followed by another layer of hair going vertically. And so on. I think this would essentially be a medieval version of something like carbon fiber or micarta. But I think that a layering of adhesive and fiber between layers of hardened leather would work well and be relatively light. Not sure if anyone would have thought of this back in the day, but I think that you, Tod, could put it to the test with both aplomb and the Lockdown Longbow. Thanks for the content, it's amazing as always!

Easily one of the best channels to show how awesome science projects/scientific theory could be. (I used your channel as curriculum for my son over the summer). Great channel, love your videos.

Always fascinating and interesting content Tod thank you for taking the time to make these videos!

I think its important for everyone to remember that while arrows technically have bladed edges, they are very likely not what was implied when "edged tools" were mentioned.

The most fearsome edged implement to try on this is paper-cuts.

My first thought on the gluehardened gambeson was „yeeeaaah even if you manage to wear it half way comfortable, it seems to be more „brittle“ than the regular one but i could not imagine it gaining enough hardness to defeat an arrow“. So i am not surprised by the results, and even less as i think about mankind, trying to defeat kinetik energy always results in some kind of ductile materials mainly (steel, kevlar, sandbags, polymer in securityglass, …) Another thing that came to my mind is: The additional leather on that shield will certainly not have the same arrow stopping ratio without the wood. I even think you can get rid of the leather on the backside and the difference is unmeasureble. Due to my hobby i shot and pulled out countless arrows in and out of many materials. My guess is, the front layer of leather gets cut by the arrowhead and pulled into the wood along the passing shaft. Could be, the leather works as a kind of glue/seal, improving the friction between shield and arrow. To back that up, it could be tested with: no leather on the back, loose leather on front, ridicilous thick leather and hardened(?) leather.

Absolutely love these practical tests on strange crafting techniques and weapons. More of this please!

That's so cool. I love what you are doing and i wish you luck, Tod!

Tod, these are amazing. This is some great analysis of the technologies and how they actually worked in a practical way. This is priceless info. Thank you.

This is the first I've seen of the series. I'll have to go back to see the others. I really appreciate your thoroughness and candour in your experiments. Always time well spent .

So either William the Silent or Maurice of Orange (can't remember 100%) experimented with bulletproof shields in the late 16th century. Specifically for a sort of Praetorian guard style troop, designed for bodyguarding (which makes me think it was Maurice, following William's assassination). They were spectacularly successful. The soldiers wore half-plate or three-quarters plate, sword, pistol, and a planked shield covered in (I believe) iron. Yet this was considered a failed experiment. The shields were considered far too heavy to be useful. Fatigue and ability to maneuver on the battlefield was considered far more important than the ability to be bulletproof. In other words, a similar experiment a century or two later concluded much like you did: Weight and utility matters as much or more than protection on the battlefield.

Tod's aim is getting quite good now.

Thanks for consistently creating subtitles for your films.

The problem with glue infused gambeson is that it's too stiff to work as a soft armor. That could also be the reason why arrows went deeper on the glued gambeson - it did worse at dispersing the force of the impact. That, and hide glue is not very water resistant. Shields and scabbards were covered with gesso for that reason, otherwise if they were exposed to moisture for a length of time (and we're talking mostly in the context of longbows and British Isles warfare, there's a LOT of moisture on a war campaign) they would soon start to rot, which I think might be the main reason why they opted for quivers to be made just of tanned leather, or other more water resistant materials (early medieval birch bark quiver findings come to mind).

Thank you Tod for all the effort in sketching, building, doing, filming and producing this amazing films. It's a joy to watch really. We transport ourselves into the medieval world and always learn something interesting abot their lives and warfare ways. While watching most RU-vid videos I do it on the go and jumping forward, yours I make time to see and enjoy it. Making myself conformable, with a brew to enjoy the whole way. 😊

Just started watching, and already know that video is awesome.

Nice work Todd!! Keep it coming!

“You really wouldn’t want to get poked with these things”. That’s some good advice 😋🤣

Finally!🎉🎉 We get to see what happens, love your videos.

This one had some particularly satisfying sounds

I'd rather have arrows sticking out of my shield than out of my body. So even when we see arrows penetrate, I always think 'Better the shield than me!' This also explains perhaps why earlier shields had steel bosses. I'd imagine a rounded steel boss would be quite hard to penetrate and would protect the hand gripping a center grip shield, for people who didn't have a lot of armor on their arms.

Hello Tod, I enjoy watching your workshops. If you ever run out of ideas, you can try shields and armor against wizard powers: lightning, fireballs, icebolts and the most deadly spell against every heavily armored knight, quicksands. Weren't those times full of magic? In any case, a good idea to attract an easily bored audience. But you can still check how an ambush in the forest with cutting down trees on a column of soldiers works. Or whether medieval tanks protected against any weapons, I meant Hussite wagons. Or spikes in a covered hole in the ground like pinji traps in Vietnam. Or a collapsed bridge over a river while marching, or in full armor it was difficult not to drown.

FINALLY! I've waited for this so long

It leaves a lot of fine tuning and work to prove anything, but as a pilot study this is VERY interesting!

Very well done, testing, looking forward to seeing how the shield performs against edged tools.

One of my favorite channels. Tod!

I just wanted to say that I love the Bowie knife that I got from you! It is a very useful knife, very comfortable in the hand and well balanced and has a good edge. Thanks very much!

I have an interest in ancient warfare and modern warfare. The U.S experimented with siliceous core tank armour in the 50's and 60's. Soviet tanks had a couple of layers of dense glass fibre in resin as part of their hull armor and used silica sand (Kvartz) and ceramics in their composite turret armour. Basically that layered shield is composite armour in the same way as modern 'chobham' composite armour. Each layer with its different material properties serves a specific purpose. Some layers are designed to blunt the tip of projectile, some are designed to rob it of velocity, while another is designed to redirect its trajectory. My guess is that the layers of leather combined with the crushed glass, iron filings and glue actually work in a similar manner. The sandwich of different materials is designed to slow the penetrating object and fractionally 'turn' it, altering its trajectory and inducing a small degree of shearing force and a tumble to the projectile. I will take a punt that against an edged weapon the sandwich of different materials will induce a twisting motion into the striking edge and so will start to turn the blade a little and reduce its cutting power.

Tod: Takes scope off. Also Tod: Sub 9MOA grouping first try. You're a good shot with iron sights, man.

I will look forward to part four,

i find your knowledge to be really amazing about a really cool subject that never seems to get the deep dive. i really like that you test and have data to backup your claims, and for that i thank you

I wonder how coarse sand would compare to the iron/glass mixture?

Was waiting for this! Can't wait

Great work Tod, bringing history to life again. Stark 👍

As for the gambeson: have glued gambeson on the outside for rapid deceleration and the non-glued gambeson on the inside for the increased stickiness / grabbyness.

Finally the test! Well done.

I love watching these videos. Very interesting to me.

It's always nice to see Tod shooting his crossbow at stuff =)

Keep in mind that the heavier shield includes glass and iron filings in the red section, that could be a fair bit of weight. Also no leather in the yellow section. But a 5kg shield that protects a lot better, seems reasonable. Romans used a 10kg shield I believe.

A casual observation but it seems Tod's becoming a better shot over time!

Todd, great work as usual .The exciting news about the Roman Spathi, Gladius and Pilum found in a dead Sea Cave this week is really amazing.I would like to go to Jerusalem to study them (metal,construction methods etc ) . You should look at that as well.

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

My experience with paper mache and composite layup is the adhesive needs to be applied to each layer, enough to properly wet but not a excess. A roller, squeegee (or vacuum bag) to squeeze out extra adhesive helps. Applying glue to soak into an already assembled quilt would not be the preferred method. Especially with components that won't easily squeeze through the fabric. I've heard of armor made of lacquered silk in the far east. Glued linen seems an obvious western analog if the method were known.

We need some tests with the target angled. Tank armor was tested with a 30 deg angle from perpendicular. They knew even in WWII that 90 deg impact angle wasn't realistic. You're essentially putting the armor at the biggest disadvantage possible. A perfectly perpendicular shot would be a small number of actual hits. There are all sorts of interesting things that can happen when the impact angle isn't perfect. I love the content by the way. Just it could be that much better.

Excellent video Tod! At that range for a target that size, your aim is to be commended! This is the kind of experimental work that we just don't see anywhere else.

Thanks for the vid Tod, great content. Keep up the good work :)

Interesting test. Thank you Tod