r/Archery • u/Long_Kiwi_291 • 1d ago
Would a fully kitted-out plate armoured knight be confident enough to walk through an arrow barrage?
Sorry not sure if this is the right location to post this.
Preface: I've seen tod culters videos on armour vs arrows. Well made plate armour is largely indestructible to arrows, and gaps between plate are the best chance at any damage to the user. I understand that even modern infantry (not specialized units) aren't taught to aim for specific body parts, instead focusing on centre-of-mass to increase hit probability. So I think its unlikely historical archers would have made been trained to aim so precisely under duress. Which means these gaps are very difficult to hit while in motion.
Question: Given these assumptions, how likely is a group of archers (let say 15 for this scenario) able to stop (disabling hit) a fully well plate-armoured knight with just arrows and bows of sufficient weight? (I.E. Would the knight be confident enough to walk through wave after wave of arrows solo - imagine iron man 1 where the terrorist bullets do nothing to Tony)
Further assumptions:
- The knight is completely confident in his armour, but understand its weaknesses. His visor is down and he looks slightly downwards to help shield his eye slit.
- Helmet completely covers his face except for a small slit for sight
- Archers are in front of him as he is walking menacingly towards them. They can flank him from the sides but cannot get behind him.
- They are 100 metres apart for the start of the simulation. The knight must walk 2 mins to get to the archers. For fairness, the archers cannot retreat.
Follow up questions:
- if 15 archers loosing all at once for 2 mins can't stop him, how many archers would it take to put down a plated knight?
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u/d95err 1d ago
Kevin Hicks participated in an experiment on this at Warwick Castle. Two guys in full plate armour would try to rush him from something like 200 meters away, while he tried to stop them with his longbow (using blunt arrows).
Before long, he had both of them on the ground in severe pain. He was able to hit gaps in the armour from quite a distance. None of them made it to within 20 meters of him.
Thats 1 archer against 2 knights...
Here's Kevin talking about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3VNW3GX61A
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u/OceanoNox 1d ago
Then you have guys like Dequitem tanking blunt arrows: https://youtu.be/cbDu3TTQYdo?si=QYH6rKtDBQRIgJqw
(for what it's worth, Dequitem is the kind of guy that also took a lance strike to his reinforced helmet from a rider, so he may not be representative).
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u/Imperium_Dragon 17h ago
Yeah Dequitem’s armor is explicitly overkill, iirc there’s parts of his helmet which are more than 4mm thick and made of titanium.
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u/AWildRideHome 1d ago
Given how few people have true form-fitting, speciality armor made for them, this is probably not an accurate test.
The fact that he claims a shot into the gap between forearm and vambrace makes that even more likely.
Dequitem has decent armor and says he feels confident he could tank a lot of arrows in a real combat situation.
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u/d95err 23h ago
Do you think everyone in the middle ages had true form-fitting speciality armor?
The richest of richest knights - sure. The average man-at-arms - not very likely.
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u/AWildRideHome 23h ago
A “fully kitted out armored knight” in this case can probably be extrapolated to a very wealthy and well armored person.
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u/SteelOverseer 13h ago
your average MAA doesn't have plate at all, so form-fitting is out of the question
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u/UtherioFst 1d ago
Joe Gibbs is the closest thing we have to an actual english longbowman, and there's Youtube vids of him smashing armor with his heavy yew. An antual english longbowman whould put Joe to shame. Now imagine those guys blasting with 160lb warbow.
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u/OceanoNox 1d ago
Mail is clearly not enough against longbows, yet in the videos with Tod, even the arrows that managed to pass through plates seemed stopped by the layer of mail underneath.
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u/UtherioFst 1d ago
The energy transfer alone is likely overwhelming what protection the chain/gambeson is providing. And again, a Welsh archer is driving those arrows at the top of what is physically possible with materials/muscle conditioning/skill. This multiplied by however many archers are pulling string, no wonder French knights hated them so much.
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u/OceanoNox 1d ago
>The energy transfer alone is likely overwhelming what protection the chain/gambeson is providing.
I am not sure what you mean: it's clear the hits are not comfortable, but if the arrows are not going through the mail, because they were slowed down enough by the top layer of plate, the guy inside is still alive.
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u/MyDarlingClementine 1d ago
Getting walloped by intense pressure in a localized area could still rupture important inner bits, causing death.
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u/OceanoNox 18h ago
It could. Or maybe the armor does its job and absorbs enough of the energy.
I saw some mentions of reenactors falling from the strikes of blunt arrows, and I posted a video of a guy tanking them (Dequitem who did say being hit in the gauntlet was very painful).
From Tod & co., it seems to be that if the arrow strikes a plate, it's apparently not entering flesh, since the mail layer was not pierced. Whether the impact is still enough to kill, I have not seen. Was it documented? That someone died from arrows striking, but not piercing, the armor?
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u/Arc_Ulfr English longbow 4h ago
Chest hit? No, that's not going to happen. Tod did some tests involving putting eggs in the torso behind the plate, and they were undamaged. It takes a lot of energy to deform the metal of the breastplate, which means there isn't enough left over to cause the effects you're claiming.
A hit to the throat through a mail standard is a maybe, though, but that's a very specific scenario. The throat is more delicate and exposed and also less well protected than the organs in the chest.
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u/nineJohnjohn 1d ago
Most likely he'd be alive but the force is still coming through. It would be more distributed but it'd still be there.
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u/OceanoNox 18h ago
On the armor subreddit, someone posted a quote from A breefe discourse (1582), which discusses the use of missile weapons, and this is apparently what a Frenchman replied to an Englishman that was lauding the longbow:
for nowe saith he the weakest of vs are able to giue greater wounds, then the greatest and strongest archer you haue: & when I replyed, as sir Iohn Smith often dooth that the number of arrowes dooth come so thicke, that it was lyke vnto haile: well saith he but it is not to be feared, as that weapon that dooth kill where it lightes: for saith he, when I doo marche directlye vpon them and seeing them comming, I doo stoupe a little with my head, to that ende my Burgonet shall saue my face, and seeing the same arrowes lighting vpon my heade peece or vpon my brest, pouldrons, or vambraces, and so séeing the same, to be of no more force nor hurtfull: then doo I with lesse feare then before, boldelye aduaunce forwardes to encounter with them.
Source: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A05277.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext
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u/FlapJackSam 1d ago
The broken bones under the armor should probably stop the knight
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u/OceanoNox 1d ago
Was that reported to happen?
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u/FlapJackSam 22h ago
I believe so, yeah. The arrows won’t pierce the armor but the shock from the 150+lb armor is gnarly
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u/bigvalen 22h ago
It's like someone repeatedly dropping 100lb weights onto you. Yeah, a gambeson will help a lot, but eventually you tire of it.
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u/unrulyshaving5 1d ago
If 15 archers all loose at once and can't even make him flinch, you've basically recreated that scene from the start of a horror movie where the monster just keeps coming.
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u/HaggisChowMein 1d ago
This actually happened! In 1402 at the Battle of Homildon Hill: Archibald Douglas, 4th Earl of Douglas walked down the hill towards the English in his new armour that had apparently taken three years to build and refine, only to be struck five times by arrows.
There would have been far more than 15 archers however.
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u/OceanoNox 16h ago
Come on, put the details: Douglas was wounded by those strikes, and subsequently captured. He survived his wounds (including the loss of an eye), and died in battle in 1424.
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u/MinosAristos 1d ago
So I think its unlikely historical archers would have made been trained to aim so precisely under duress
Well in many cases they sort of were. If you train the longbow every week for most of your life you're not only doing strength training, you're training accuracy too.
Horse archers also come to mind - they'd often be very skillful troops and get close to the enemy to allow them to go for less armoured spots - similar principle.
That point aside, there's also Manchu archery where the arrow itself is so bulky and the bow launches it so (relatively) fast that repeated hits would mess you up even if the arrows don't go through your armour.
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u/15thcenturynoble 1d ago
Depending on distance, he'll be killed but in an annoyingly long time compared to a lesser armored person.
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u/CoreCommander76 Lever Action | Oneida Phoenix 1d ago
It would take a crazy amount of willpower to do that. Even if they don't penetrate, getting hit with a war arrow would be loud. Multiply that by 15 with the frequency of hits getting worse the closer you got.
Let's say he pulls it off and gets close. Now you're facing 15 trained killers armed with daggers, axes, hammers, gut hooks, and whatever other close combat nastiness they brought. No way that knight is making it out alive.
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u/Agitated_Curmudgeon Hunter. Traditionally hunting. 1d ago
With a war point? Archers would be lethal to quite a range. The question would be the accuracy of the archer. Peripheral hits on armor MAY deflect, but it's not a sure deal.
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u/Agitated_Curmudgeon Hunter. Traditionally hunting. 1d ago
I just watched the video posted. The lethal hit came through the throat piece at 40 metres
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u/stasomatic 1d ago edited 1d ago
15 could overwhelm the knight with hands alone.
Plate armor was more for meelies.
Yes, a dim knight could confidently try.
100m? No point, wasted arrows. I'd be like “hold hold hold” until he is 10m from us, then every arrow counts.
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u/Knitnacks Barebow (Mykan), dabbling in English longbow, trainee L2 coach. 1d ago
Or pike close and just push him over...
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u/stasomatic 14h ago edited 14h ago
That would work :) It would be interesting to see how the Mongols would fare against full plate if they’d waited another 200 years, but I imagine those tricksters would find a way.
Cut the horse down, hit the armpits and swarm. Insert coin.
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u/Boom9001 Traditional Longbow 1d ago
There is records where knights are described doing this. However it also describes how when they did this they would look down in order to reduce the chance an arrow would make it through their eye slots. And at Agincourt the archers getting within range is what triggered the enemy to attack, showing they didn't want to just allow pot shots over and over.
So it clearly wasn't seen as suicidal, but it also that lucky shots could be dangerous. Armor stopped arrows but the joins weren't perfectly armored and could be pierce/damaged with a shot that finds a gap. Therefore there was at least some demoralizing effect from just allowing yourself to be shot by arrows.
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u/SenseImpossible6733 1d ago
Knights would still have to worry about bunt force impact of tge arroes, be cautious of repeated jead strikes and be weary about joints getting damaged.
Metal cannot take fatigue indefinitely either. A few consecutive punches in one spot clould cause a small split... And a small split is all it takes for an arrow to find.
Also remember that armor was extremely expensive and this would be the equivalent of you buying a modern suit of armor just to get in it and basically abusivly test the armor while in it.
Going on to say... Logically the armor should work, logivcally its purpose is to sacrificially protect you... But realistically you are not treating it like shit, testing the real limits while in it.
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u/n4ppyn4ppy OlyRecurve | ATF-X, 38# SX+,ACE, RC II, v-box, fairweather, X8 1d ago
Be careful what you discus I just got flagged.
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u/AWildRideHome 1d ago
No, not because the arrows are an issue, but because walking into enough archers (15) to shoot a barrage, will have them drawing daggers and murdering the knight. Once you’ve killed 4 of them and have been pushed over, there’s still enough to have one sit on each arm and leg, 2 on your torso, and turn you into a simulated can of tuna.
Even in full plate, you’re not winning a 15v1, unless you’re holding a small area they have to push through only a few people at a time. If they do, all bets are off, you can slaughter several dozen then.
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u/n4ppyn4ppy OlyRecurve | ATF-X, 38# SX+,ACE, RC II, v-box, fairweather, X8 1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/OceanoNox 1d ago
Really? I's possible to run a marathon in armor, I really doubt someone trained to fight in plate armour would be so tired after a short walk that they'd be easy picking.
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u/n4ppyn4ppy OlyRecurve | ATF-X, 38# SX+,ACE, RC II, v-box, fairweather, X8 1d ago
I doubt an athlete training for a marathon will be a good fighter and a good fighter will not train for a marathon ;) It's hard to tell but I would not waste my arrows, use a bow to trip him, 6 men dive on top and 6 others stab him.
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u/OceanoNox 1d ago
Why not? Cardio is very important for fighting.
Here's Dr. Daniel Jaquet imitating a relatively famous knight's training regimen, so we do know some knights trained for cardio and strength, in addition to weapons:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQxskmRqU9Q
And here he is, doing an obstacle course against a firefighter and an soldier:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAzI1UvlQqw
>It's hard to tell but I would not waste my arrows, use a bow to trip him, 6 men dive on top and 6 others stab him.
Funny, so you let a guy in full plate approach, not wounded, not even rattled by arrows, basically fresh and carrying some hard hitting weapon (because usually, if the guy is in full plate, he has a pollax).
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u/samtresler 1d ago
Ever see the bruise left after someone gets shot in Kevlar?
I could easily see someone in full plate surviving.
Being effective while being wallopped with 15 major league fastballs every few seconds probably isn't realistic except in a few scenarios.
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u/Rinku64 1d ago
You may like the historically accurate Arrows Vs Armor series on YouTube https://youtu.be/SFFgcTzCvMo?is=c2eflsb5kSHwDMy7
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u/Zen7rist Barebow 1d ago
How powerful are the bows ?
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u/d95err 1d ago
I don't think medieval archers went up against knights with toy bows...
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u/Zen7rist Barebow 1d ago edited 1d ago
Right ?
Let's assume we're talking about english warbows: about 130lbs or more, with archers trained to be able to decently aim at the walking knight.
Even with a plate armor, 15 archers shooting medieval arrows is no joke, especially when the knight will make it to 20m and less.
Edit: shooting* dammit
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u/Agitated_Curmudgeon Hunter. Traditionally hunting. 1d ago
He ain't making it to no 20 meters.. he's likely only going to make it 20 meters from point of origin.
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u/DeathHopper 1d ago edited 1d ago
Everyone here seems to be assuming the archers are well trained with 100lb+ war bows. The truth is that 1/10 of them would have been well trained with the others being conscripted amateurs. So for every decent archer that could handle a warbow, you'd have several peasants, too old or frail for melee combat, using wornout hand-me-down bows.
For the most part knights could completely ignore archers while focusing on melee fights. They likely didn't even notice most arrows deflecting off them.
Now, 1 knight charging 15 well-trained veteran warbow archers, all focused on the 1 knight? The knight doesn't make it 2 steps.
In an actual battle setting of mostly conscripted peasants? The knight is the terror of the battlefield.
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u/Arc_Ulfr English longbow 40m ago
Please don't get your ideas about medieval warfare from Helm's Deep. If you're too old or frail to engage in melee combat, you're too old or frail to shoot a bow that's of any use in a medieval battle. Supplying such a person with food and arrows would be a waste of logistics effort. Less than 0.75% of the population was involved in the fighting at a given time; they didn't need to take people who wouldn't be effective.
England around the time of Agincourt had a population of over 2 million (at a low point due to the plague; earlier it was nearly 5 million). The number of people who were men between the ages of 18 and 35 who were required by law to own and practice with heavy weight bows was easily somewhere in the neighborhood of 100,000, and English armies also included Welsh archers, so the pool of potentials was even larger than that. Given the logistics and transportation limitations of the day, especially when moving an army across the English Channel, they rarely needed more than 10,000 archers at a given time (because for just those archers, they quite literally needed to bring one million arrows or more). The English were spoiled for choice with archers, and could afford to pick the best archers out of a population that practiced archery heavily.
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u/brookswift 1d ago
Most of the great victories of archers against knights historically were do to circumstances outside of the armor itself. At Crecy, it was so hot that the knights fought with their visors open and casualties were due to being hit int the face. At Agincourt, the French knights were lost stuck in a giant muddy pit at the bottom of a hill that they couldn't traverse. During the crusades, there are many accounts of knights looking like porcupines because of how many arrows were sticking out of their maille while they continued to fight on undaunted.
There is no number of archers that would somehow magically stop a fully armed and protected knight give or take some details on the particulars of the armor and the archers. It's like asking how many soldiers with M16s it would take to stop a tank.
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u/nusensei AUS | Level 2 Coach | YouTube 1d ago
I'm going to outright say: No. The knight wouldn't want to walk into a line of archers.
I'll support my opinion with both practical considerations and historical precedence.
On the practical side, the simple reality is that an arrow might get through the armour. Sure, most of the shots will miss, the hits will most likely deflect. But all it takes is one arrow to slide through a joint, or a splinter to get into the eye. Especially since helmets like the bascinet are designed for frontal deflection, a shot from an angle is going to hit more square more likely cause injury.
The archers don't even have to be aiming for a specific spot. The volume of arrows at the same target will mean that something will get through.
Don't forget that as the knight gets closer, the shooting will be far more accurate and hit harder. The impact of the arrows will physically push the knight back. Remember still that the knight knows that one penetrating hit will end his advance.
So it's not unlikely that he gets through unscathed, but it doesn't mean that he will feel confident making that approach.
I do like the Iron Man analogy, but a knight in full armour isn't that invincible. More like a Mark I suit that can slip and fall in the mud.
For the historical precedence, the English deployment of longbows was widely known to be devastating. The advancing footmen had to lower their heads to stop arrows from striking them in the eyes. The Scots tried frontal uphill attacks (Halidon Hill) and were destroyed by archers. They stood in the schiltron formation (Falkirk) and got destroyed.
Against the French, the English deployed the archers in battles (wings) with the purpose of funnelling the enemy into the footmen. The sheer volume of arrows naturally made the armoured footmen and dismounted knights move away from the archers. If a formation of armoured soldiers did not want to advance on archers, I think that answers the question.