That is a beautiful and amazing bow Andreas. Utterly fabulous as was the test. It is so useful to know what different energies do. I released an odd film a few days ago where I fitted rockets to arrows, generated a few more Joules than this but with smaller heads and still they struggled to get though and do damage. This is a great film
@@TanGuV123 From what I know crossbow limbs made of horn and sinew are more efficient than the ones made of steel because by being lighter they spring back faster.
Amazing test. It really goes to show how much energy and momentum arrows/bolts require to have a chance of penetrating good plate. But no doubt some plate armour would be worse than this and the results under those circumstances would be different. Thank you for doing this test. It is very informative.
for a good breast plate or helmet perhaps, but limb and shoulder plates were by default thinner and thus required much less to penetrate, It's just like the Modern battle tank where the front armor is the toughest while the top, sides and rear are much less armored
I wonder if this crossbow can penetrate the 3 mm hardened breastplate from another video . That would be best armor vs best crossbow. A 3 mm plate would require almost twice the energy from the same arrow to be penetrated compared to a 2 mm because it's not a linear relation.And being hardened would raise the effectiveness by 1.5.
Die Platten sind völlig unterschiedlich da das Eisen in Rennöfen produziert wurde. Der viel zu geringe Kohlenstoffanteil machte eine übliche Härtung unmöglich. Irgendwie ist es trotzdem gelungen aber das Wissen darüber ging verloren.
My immediate thought upon seeing this was: "I've got to know what Tod would think of this!" So great to see him at the top of the comments. This whole community of living history and experimental archeology is such a fantastic example of the finest qualities of mankind. You all (creators and fellow viewers) have my sincerest well wishes.
2:44 If the crossbow was braced against something rigid, you'd have a little more power-stroke since the crossbow recoils back before the bolt has left the string. Not sure how much of a difference it'd make, but with an already short draw, I'd expect measurable. Great stuff by the way. Very rare to see horn and sinew crossbows in action, let alone a monstrous one like that!
Bolts not tuned to bow and flying perfectly straight and striking with all energy perfectly in line for max penetration. No..I don’t know how to fix that on this monster and I am very impressed with the video!
Excellent Video. Magnificent equipment, all quite amazing. The testing was well done, well thought out, and well explained. Thank you. Doctor George Whitehead (shooting bows for 70 Years)
Awesome video ! I just put the ballistics of this crossbow's bolts into a stopping power calculator, did you know it has 92 TKOF stopping power? That's MORE than a 12 gauge shotgun slug !!! And 5 TKOF is already enough to kill, so your crossbow is really really deadly !
I really, really doubt it would have 92 TKOF. You'd need to know the diameter of the bolts they're firing, to calculate it. What we can calculate, based on mass & velocity is the kinetic energy - at 280g, moving at 52 m/s, these bolts have roughly 380J of kinetic energy. A 70mm Foster slug has about 3200J of muzzle energy.
@@ShokkuKyushu It's sort of a measure of presumed "one shot kill" ability for a projectile. It stand's for "Taylor Knock-out Factor", but how useful it actually is as a measurement is pretty debated.
For reference, a 9x19mm bullet from a full size handgun will produce around 490J, so this crossbow has roughly the energy of a 9mm subcompact pistol (shorter barrel).
Yes. And the breast plate is one of the toughest parts of the full plate armour. If any knight was less lucky, the arrow would pierce both the armor and his body.
@@somerandoinaknightsarmor9938 Modern non-hardened mild steel is a good analogue in terms of strenght to the steel used for armor in the middle ages. Modern processes produce steel of much higher quality than what people were able to make in the middle ages. It is true that the very front part of the breast plate used to be thicker than in this video (2,5mm vs. 2mm) but other parts used to be significantly thinner than 2mm. As well as other parts of full plate harness. If the arrow hit any thinner part of the harness, the penetration would be severe, not just over 3cm.
Well, it still has less energy than most bullets... the momentum is very high though, so it may be right to compare it to hammer strike rather than a shot. On the other hand, the breastplate (together with the padding) will obviously distribute the shock both over the surface and the time, so it wouldn't be like a concentrated strike to one point... seems hard to tell on spot actually. Would be interesting to have some acceleration data from the target, especially from the inside. upd: actually as long as it doesn't actually reach the body to hit/wound it (and breastplate usually have some space underneath, padding included, exactly for the purpose), the fact that it penetrates the armor rather than glances/bounces off makes the hit softer overall.
Would bruises be reflected in the ballistic gel? We can't see any. Either way, if the bolts didn't cause internal injuries or bleeding, you would be just fine.
Super, dass der Kanal jetzt gerade aktiv ist. Gibt glaub ich keinen besseren zeitpunkt für Armbrustcontent als um das Release Date von KCD2 herum. Aber eine Anmerkung zum Alter: Balistae ad tornum (also große Armbruste, die eine Spannbank zum Spannen benötigen) gibt es in den Inventaren schon um 1200, lange vor den ersten Bildquellen.
Danke für die Info - das stimmt schon, die Frage ist nur wie groß diese Armbrusten tatsächlich waren bzw aussahen, denn zu dieser Zeit kam der Stegreif erst auf und die Armbrust wurde noch mit Hilfe der Arme gespannt. Für leistungsstärkere Exemplare ist aber dann jedenfalls eine Spannhilfe nötig.
Judging from some of the comments below I think you need to find a way to measure hydrostatic shock in your gel torso. For example, it is not the schrapnel from an IED that injures but the over pressure inside the body regardless of body armour. Those arrow tips are designed to bite into the plate enough to transfer the kinetic energy of the bolt into the body of the knight.
@@henriknemeth3370 momentum - if plate stops the heavy bolt, then the wearer of the armor would partially have to absorb the momentum, which is bigger than 9x19.
What a beast! Any chance to test it at a longer distance? I keep being amazed by the punishment these plates can endure, from your art's, Tod's or Joe Gibb's strength.
Surprisingly low velocity, a decent recurve 60# bo an beat it. Of course bolts are very heavy but still interesting. Anyway, totally awesome test! Wonderful work with reproduction of this crossbow.
Bow this massive definitely won't be built for speed... I wonder what's the maximum velocity, but danger of dry shot is real. From what I recall even with those massive bolts it still has rather low efficiency.
@@sergeynikolaevich1750ну смотря когда, ближе к концу 15 века стали распространены, и даже наемники вполне себе могли позволить, аристократия так была защищена поголовно... На 14, первую половину 15 века - да, кирассы были еще редки и большая часть была одета в бригантины... Но во второй половине 15 века, 16 век, такие латы, и даже более совершенные, были распространены.
@@PRINCKROVI Ой это слишком оптимистично . Бриги могли позволить себе лишь удачливые мародеры , большинство серой скотинки обходились кожей и тряпкой , и , да , их никто не считал , помнится даже детей отправляли в утиль на святую землю чего уж говорить про остальное быдло ,особенно что в наглии творилось -трэш , угар и содомия .
@@eergegerg23 ну понятно, пехота от полного доспеха быстро отказалась, в нем только рыцари ходили когда спешивались, а вот панцирь(кирассу) и юбку вполне себе носили.
Armour on arms had to be thinner, since it would be difficult to fight with extra weight above 1 kg on each arm. And horse was vulnerable to shots from heavy crossbow too.
Arms armour usually was about 1 mm thick. But limbs armour has much more curved form so shot can be at angle that makes this 1 mm harder to penetrate than 2 mm at breast plate with 90 degree hit.
I wonder why they designed the bolts to have such relatively wide heads. In theory, a bolt with a narrower head would penetrate much deeper. It makes me wonder if these designs were target-shooting bolts rather than war bolts. There's a channel on here of elastic crossbows that achieves impressive penetration despite very low kinetic energy, probably because of the efficient design of the bolts.
For the quality of steel they could produce at the time, I don't think they could make much narrower heads that are strong enough to maintain structural integrity
Against properly designed plate anything with a sharper point with the material of the time (mostly iron) will just have the point tip roll, and penetrate less than this. The "blunter" pyramidal cross section allows some degree of chance of the point maintaining its shape. Any and all properly laid out tests of arrows shot against moderate plate that could be expected to encounter them shows that arrows really can't make it through. Only very low quality or thin plate against very strong bows or crossbows will fail to stop the projectile.
Finer points would have trouble keeping up as far as mass goes and would be prone to rolling and generally not surviving impacts. We've seen it happen. But yeah, it seems that some better compromise could be made. Those are si wide they stick to the surface, pretty much, moving entire breastplate round.
The vicars in my parish are all softies. I'm surprised they are used as a measurement of metallurgic temper. You'd think the scale would be enormous; one breastplate of 10,000 vicars temper = easily penetrated by a mild YT comment section abrasion.
Tolle Armbrust. Der Harnisch ist nicht zu vergleichen mit historischen Produkten weil er aus Industriestahl besteht. Kenne nur einen Beschussversuch eines russischen Soldaten. Hier wurde mit der 7.62 Tokarew Pistole mit etwa 500 joule nur eine kleine Delle erreicht .
Very interesting; that bow is a beast. I'd say our target will probably live thanks to the cuirass, but he's definitely lost all interest in the proceedings and will probably want to crawl off and be very sick somewhere nice and quiet.
Wouldnt be so sure, it has the energy of average pistol bullet, and lots of it gets spent on deforming the armor, so the "kick" to the chest felt is probably less severe than when shot with bullet proof best on.
Zuerst mal geiles Video. Aber dann noch eine Frage: hab ich das richtig verstanden, dass an der Stelle wo sich der obere und der untere Rüstungsteil überlappen, die gesamte Dicke 4 mm ist? Also 2 mal 2 mm?
If you make arrows from stronger steel, sharpen them more, make the tip more elongated, and accelerate the arrow to 70 m/s, it will pierce the body. Low speed and high mass will hit hard, but will not pass
Really hard working test. But I believe if the bolt had a proper cut-on-contact and sharp broadhead, like VPA or Iron Will, it would slice through all that. These medieval tips are pretty dull shaped.
This is difficult because the surviving originals can no longer be used. Only reconstructions can help here and provide an approximation. In any case, tests show that the maximum bolt speed is around 70 metres per second, regardless of the respective draw weight of the crossbow.
the arrowheads used in shooting are made of modern iron, therefore much better than historical ones, but with the breastplate everything is the opposite - only the proportion of carbon is taken into account, but for armor, if they were not made in Milan or in places close to it, therefore also considered Milanese, not any iron went, but specifically "Innsbruck" - mined in the Alps. This iron was not only free from bad impurities, but immediately had alloying additives, which significantly strengthened it.
@@ShokkuKyushu I am saying that anachronisms and weak materials science are allowed in all such tests. Therefore, the shooting efficiency is overestimated - this is typical of all channels
No. These dull and broad heads (called Bodkin) are actually sharp and broad and exactly what was used for maximum armor Penetration abilities. 90° angles all over the place. Make it any thinner and you bend it on impact.
While the original this replica is based on wasn't used with a spanning stand, is this the kind of draw weight/energy you'd expect to see for a crossbow that could be spanned by one?
@@medievalcrossbows7621 Oh yes, like I said, I know the original doesn't have one on it, I'm just wondering if it's technically feasible to span a crossbow of that draw weight with one. I'm trying to figure out the upper limit for a hausspied/garroc as mounted on the French ships at Sluys in 1340.
I'm wondering, could a strong warbow with good bodkin arrows penetrate this armour? Because while this monster crosbow seems really strong, I don't think that it is really efficient.
Very slow arrow speed for that draw weight. 170 fps is a decent but not outstanding speed for a 50lb drawweight recurve bow. The weight of the bolt must be what is producing the impact.
