If you want to test arrows against armour, you shouldn't make the arrows of sawed planks, but rather of wood you split. If you use modern air-cooled medium carbon steel, the fracture toughness is 320 kJ/m2. Modern mild steel have a fracture toughness of 235 kJ/m2. Medieval wrought iron have a fracture toughness of 120-150 kJ/m2. Medieval air-cooled low-carbon steel have a fracture toughness of 180-210 kJ/m2. Medieval air-cooled medium carbon steel have a fracture toughness of 240-260 kJ/m2. Tempered medieval medium carbon steel have a fracture toughness of 340-390 kJ/m2, with late 15th C armour going as high as 500 kJ/m2. All armour we have cluster around these 4 qualities of armour. Keep this in mind when you test arrows. It matters more than you think. Thickness also matters. It's enhanced by 1.6. If a 1 mm plate takes 100 Joule to penetrate, to get it in percentages, then 2 mm takes slightly more than three times that and 4 mm slightly more than three times that of 2 mm. 100*2^1.6 = 303 Joule 100*4^1.6 = 919 Joule If you can penetrate a 1 mm mild steel plate with a fracture toughness of 235 kJ/m2 with 55 Joule, then a wrought iron plate, 1.7 mm thick, with a fracture toughness of 150 kJ/m2, can be penetrated with this kinetic energy: 55*1.7^1.6*150/235 = 82.1 Joule Only works with big, solid plates though.
Seeing how those “chisle” tips perform would be interesting. The design looks like it would be ideal for defeating the lamellar armor that was prominent during the Jin/Song Dynasties of the 13th century.
A friendly tip, the plate pattern shouldn't alternate between the different levels. If the plate overlaps the one on its left, the entire piece should be used as right shoulder or right thigh armor; if the "armored opponent" faces the archers then you should turn it 90 degrees clockwise to reflect that, and vise versa for the left side.
Oh I am several weeks too late to the party. Since you guys are collaborating with Peter Dekker, may I suggest a future test using Qing-style 梅針箭 (Plum needle instead of eyebrow needle)? Peter Dekker will know what it is.
戰國春秋 thanks. We actually already consulted with him about the Qing plum needle. In general plum needle isn't for armor piercing. More specifically, Manchus mainly faced against armored foes in the beginning of the dynasty, not the middle and later parts. Regulations do specify a special type of armor piercing plum needle that is heavier than the standard plum needle. That said, we were more likely to find a greater variety of armor piercing head shapes if we looked at Ming and earlier eras (hence the three shapes in the vid). Besides the 眉針箭 from the vid is close enough in shape that we can get a rough idea of what an armor piercing version of the plum needle could do.
I know that Manchu/Qing dynasty arrows were really heavy, about as heavy if not more heavy than the ones you guys used in the first episode but how heavy were Tang, Song and Ming dynasty bows?
Hi Peter! Thanks for asking. We still need to film it, but the project has been delayed due to everything involving COVID-19. Hopefully we'll be able to resume when things settle down.
One thing that I've noticed in Asiatic arrowheads is that they're tang construction, compared to the socket construction you see on say European arrowheads. I don't know how this will factor in, but I hope that you'll show some research relating to that.
