Main > The Armoury
Arrows vs. Mail -- was Re: Chainmail on a peasant's budget
Sir Ulrich:
Archers were mainly used to destroy large quantities of unarmored footsoldiers rather than knights. Crossbowman however could pierce even plate at close range though they were less practical on the battlefield and more practical during siege warfare. I DO know maille did protect against arrows by a large margin, but I am NOT sure if indian made 9MM maille would, my guess is it would but to a lesser extent than 6MM maille. Keep in mind maille's quality varied greatly so some maille might of blocked arrows while others didnt. Only real way to find out would be taking some of Eriks stuff and testing it, but my money is it WOULD deflect arrows.
Sir Wolf:
we need to be careful about the P's and Q's. i do not believe all of the modern hype on crossbowman vs longbowman etc etc. think of it this way, if a crossbowman was close enough for his arrow to really pierce place do you think he would take the shot or run away from the horse coming right at him? in the few seconds of him firing he would be dead.
Sir James A:
--- Quote from: Sir Wolf on 2011-09-12, 22:06:46 ---we need to be careful about the P's and Q's. i do not believe all of the modern hype on crossbowman vs longbowman etc etc. think of it this way, if a crossbowman was close enough for his arrow to really pierce place do you think he would take the shot or run away from the horse coming right at him? in the few seconds of him firing he would be dead.
--- End quote ---
Agreed, especially since horsemen getting close to an archer means the front line has broken/failed - and that's not a good sign. The short answer is no matter what we test, how, or why, we'll never have a definitive answer unless we figure out time travel. But no harm in friendly discussion. :)
Sir Wolf:
true dat!
Sir William:
Agreed; and since I have no way of quantifying the properties of historic maille (I don't believe everything I read either, although for once it'd be nice not to have to fact check lol) I could argue til I'm blue in the face but there'd be no point in it.
Just based on the maille that I have handled and worn in the past, and knowing how much of an impact an arrow fired from a bow with a 150lb draw, I would have to say the first few arrows may not penetrate, but the blunt force they apply is considerable- especially when applied across such a small surface area.
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