ARROWS vs ARMOUR 2 - Best metal for armour?

‘Arrows vs Armour’ is back and we are shooting medieval war arrows at the top half of an armoured knight using armour and arrows that are correct in every detail. The main film shows exactly what happened to the armour and the arrows.

Of course plate armour could be made from a variety of iron and steel types – they are not all the same, there was not just one choice. What difference in their protective qualities do the different materials have?

We set up a comparative test shooting against wrought iron, bloomery iron, bloomery steel and a modern mild steel and a modern carbon steel to see how they all perform and use the results to help inform our discussions.

Produced by

[akosmaradi]

As an engineer I may or may not have a solution as to why the arrows less deep when the material used should indicate otherwise. What you have not taken into consideration is the shot placement. Shots landing towards the middle are penetrating less because flexing, the displacement of the of the plate absorbs the kinetic energy of the projectile. The bending moment grows as you get more and more towards the centre of the plate with your shots that absorbs more KE thus reducing penetration.

[dlatrexswords]

To all the crew who did this, your efforts to eliminate variables that would sway the results is really admirable. Great setups that you have done for your testing!!!

[LuxisAlukard]

It's official - there are better history documentaries on YT than on TV!

[dlatrexswords]

What a wonderful series! We are spoiled by how much data is being collected this time.

[goranvujnovic]

Great work Tod and team and thanks for all of this.
P.S. Drach you've been had mate, that plate is not a part of U-534

[stuartburns]

So pleased I was able to support this important historical effort.
Well done to all those involved, simply outstanding 👏👍

[bobrobinson]

This is such valuable historical research. A big thank you to all involved.

[scottv]

Thanks again to all of you! An honor to be even a tiny little supportive part of such a fantastic piece of work.

[stav]

Breakdown of metal types found in 14th century plate armour by percentage
Williams provided a metallurgic analysis of 48 pieces of 14th century plate armour.

Of these 48 pieces of armour, the following breakdown was observed
Wrought Iron: 14 pieces or 29% of the sample
Low Carbon steel: 17 pieces or 35% of the sample
Non-Fully hardened Medium Carbon steel: 11 pieces or 23% of the sample
Hardened Medium Carbon steel: 6 pieces or 12% of the sample

[nigeldepledge]

One of the things that really strikes me (heh!) in this test is the importance of the shape of a breastplate. If the armour is curved so as to encourage an arrowhead to slide across its surface instead of digging in, it offers that much better protection.

It seems to me that the people who designed the earlier tanks used in World War II could have done with understanding this better.

[ThunderLord]

I absolutely love Tod's passion and obvious enthusiasm for every new tidbit of knowledge. I love these videos !

Oh I would reaally love to see them launch arrows at a linothorax, see how well/badly they would hold and if they could actually stop dead / trap an arrow.

[leoscheibelhut]

Fantastic! Amazing work by the whole crew working on Arrows vs Armor 2, I greatly appreciate your careful work and careful wording of the results. Absolutely brilliant!

[DidMyGrandfatherMakeThis]

I was lucky enough to meet Tod at the medieval market earlier this year (or was it last year?) TORM I believe it's called, and I've got to say he is one of the most down to earth and knowledgeable people I have met. You'd think with the knowledge and abilities he has he would have a level of arrogance found often in those who are in depth on their field but what a friendly and interesting chap! I absolutely love his thought out videos and the gear he makes, well absolutely perfect too.

[mediocrefunkybeat]

Nice Drachinifel cameo there at around 7.10

Lovely work, everybody.

[silas]

Excellent quality as expected, so glad you are doing these and I am very excited to see more like this.

[vivianevans]

I think this armour plate test was really important because it showed you that the results of the actual test on the knight won't be skewed one way or the other because of the steel being used.

I'm in awe of all the work you all put in!

[shaneintheuk]

It’s nice to know that the materials are not massively effecting the results. I would be tempted to take a few more shots with the case hardened as the first arrow looks like an outlier.

[ApfelJohannisbeere]

Again such an awesome base check to have a valid comparison! Awesome done and the knowledge we gain from such things can't be praised enough!

[rhokirsolx]

I love how you guys looked at all these variables as well! It gives a much better understanding of the range of results we can expect from varying materials as compared to the main video. And I love your acknowledgement that "this is not conclusive testing, but some info is better than no info!"

[defaultytuser]

This series could have been named "Benchmarking for the Ages", I swear! Whit this video alone I spent many hours changing the home brewed rules of my RPG ruleset regarding armor protection and I can definitely see it as a reference point for future game designers as well. Of course, many of this data was somewhat available; but the empirical aspect of it and the accessibility it has for being in video format really make this a game changer. Congratulations to Todd and everyone involved!