I'll get it. I will get it.
Hi it's Tod from Tod's Workshop and Tod Cutler here and today I'm here with Bill who is going
to be here throwing darts for me. So Bill is an amateur javelin thrower and obviously grizzled
warrior. We've established for a long time now I can't throw for toffee, I'm useless.
We've also established that I love these things; these medieval throwing darts and I really want to
know what they do and how they do it. I've been adamant that these big barbed heads are against
flesh not against armour so we're going to find out. So I've got a shield, I've got some mail over
a gambeson and I've got a breastplate. So I have a theory, if I can't throw I need something or
somebody to throw for me so we're going to start with Bill but it's not going to be in quite the
way you expect. I love these things, but I can't really investigate them because any investigation
of these things with my throw is just going to be worthless. Bill on the other hand he can throw.
So Bill is an amateur javelin thrower, a little bit past his prime as a warrior I'd say, so he
will be the grizzled warrior Bill. He can throw in a way that I can't, he is much better at it,
so he is much more the Average Joe that you'd find on a battlefield; so Bill.
Nice, nice. So that was considerably further and considerably higher so it's got a lot more energy
in it because of course as it goes up, it comes down, brings the energy with it. What we can do
now is we can pace that out we can measure it and I can make this machine here emulate what
Bill does. It doesn't mean that the machine is set because of biomechanics. So it's a simple thing.
Bill how did that feel in your shoulder how did it feel in your arm? It's not as comfortable as
throwing a proper javelin yeah and my javelin is probably another 60% heavier than this yeah which
is much, much more comfortable to throw. And bizarrely and it might seem bizarre,
counterintuitive, you can throw your heavier... I can throw it further than this, further than this,
so if we use this as a setup and I put a heavier thing on it, it would actually go less. The
machine is not a human being, so we have to reset this every time we want to do a new investigation,
but I don't care about that for today because we can set it to match Bill with these things
and then we can go shoot the hell out of that stuff, which is exactly what we're going to go
and do. It's pretty easy to load, it's obviously a little bit cumbersome, but you've got a thin loop
here on the bungee because that has to fit into the crossbow trigger at the bottom, so that's in.
Dart goes on
Let's see how we go
Oh lovely so that's going out to
70 meters, 80 meters something like that. It's not relevant though and the thing is it's not relevant
because it's great fun, but it doesn't represent what Bill was doing.
Well that was fun, it was interesting, but it was useless
and it's useless because it's not replicating what Bill was doing, it is not the Average Joe
that we need it to be and so the first thing we're going to do is going to let some of the power off.
I've got these sort of doubler units here, I'm just going to let them down that'll take some
of the power out of it, I don't know how much and then reload again. It's definitely easier.
Okay
Now the other thing is if we can get the angle the same as Bill does and the distance the same
as Bill was, the target doesn't care and that will mean that this is now working correctly. So
I put a mark on here that's at about the 35 degree angle which is what Bill was doing and here we go.
It's about 15 meters off the range but it's still way beyond target so what I need to do now
is just slide this thing down and take some of the draw length out of it.
Back up to the right angle.
About there
Right well it's knocked some more distance off, but still too far,
so down again. Well I'm ready to go with my downgraded spear thrower and my darts.
Over his shoulder! I have a feeling this may take some time.
Right in the neck
Oh! Oh! So close! So close. So I think I'm gonna have to accept actually that there's gonna be a
little bit of aiming involved as well. Oh at last, at last. So that's a good enough for a strike
and there we have it, it's in but not really and you can actually see
how far it penetrated, so 25 mm, an inch something like that. So barely through,
that it's not going to injure anybody on the other side, so I will say against shields
no good at all. Those heads we're going to start shooting the chainmail and I've put some foam
under it because obviously the plastic mannequin is not really going to be a true representation.
All right there we are, let's try that.
Just over, just going to have to elevate a little bit I think.
Ah lovely! Lovely. Straight in. So let's go and have a look at what damage we got
and this is where it struck low down, we've lost one link of 12 mm links,
no hole through the gambeson, you're not going to get hurt so my assertion that these heads
are against flesh and the records that show that they were used against horses and so on,
absolutely correct I would say there is no way that is going this is going through that mail so
the thing is I think that also means that there is absolutely no point in shooting the breastplate,
so let's go back, conclude and then have some fun. So first of all Joerg Sprave; not the only
guy likes messing with bungees. I could have made this more powerful, I could have made it do all
sorts of things, that's not what it's about. It was moderated down to be historically relevant,
so yes, I could build it bigger. Joerg, you go for it, I want to know what Achilles would throw!
Secondly, biomechanics really come into play when you're throwing something like this,
so I've now got this brilliant little test bed where I've set a marker by Bill and Bill being an
average thrower, I think we can assume, so we've done that. I've got this, we've seen what it does,
these do not throw through mail, you cannot throw them through mail, you can't really throw them
through a shield, padded armour, they're going to resist all of that, so these are against flesh
we've now found that out, we know that however there are so many more things that we can do with
it. So for instance if you look at accounts like the Greeks, they say that they can throw javelins
150 meters. Hmm I wonder can they? The romans, they had pilum up to five pounds in weight,
they used to throw them 15, 18 meters according to their accounts, so a much shorter distance
and we would look at that and go "That's all a bit rubbish", but my goodness they must have punched
hard when they landed; got to explore that kind of thing. This test bed will allow us to do that,
but what we need to do is adjust it each time for what mankind biomechanics allow us to do,
so that's it really, that is our conclusion. These do not go through armour. I have now got a new toy
that we can all play with, send any suggestions. But of course history is not always perfect,
it it's not always a scientific experiment, things are different, so what would have happened if Bill
was 22, what happens if he was in the absolute prime, the best thrower in his tribe or his unit
or his legion, what happens if he prided himself on out throwing anybody else and that's all he
was ever committed to? Well let's find out. So we'll wind it back up again, we'll go again
and we'll shoot against our armour. This is the first of our shots with the champion of the tribe.
Oh he's good that champion! Oh lovely! Right, better go for the mail.
That has definitely gone in, right onto the breastplate we've got a proper breastplate out
there it's about two and a half mm thick at the center something like that, so not comedy thin.
Gotta go again! I'll get it. I will get it.
Beautiful. Right let's go see what we got. Well this is on mail
and we have lost one link, again one link that's it,
so actually hasn't pierced the gambeson even with an 80 meter throw, this hasn't got enough
to get through the mail and the gambeson and then we have the breast plate here and I think
it actually hit exactly the same hole, I'll show you that in a moment, but check this head out.
So that is why you don't use leaf-shaped heads against armour and to be honest they're the
same material, they're both mild steel, about 0.15/.2 %carbon, but very often these things
they're going to be made out of wrought iron, not steel, you don't need steel, they didn't do it.
So there we are definitely, definitely not against plate armour, but I think what we
need to do now is dress him up in everything that he might have had, mail, gambeson, breastplate
and a shield and then we'll just shoot. Have some fun. Here comes the first.
That could not have been nicer; totally repeatable.
What a wonderful bit of test equipment.
Oh dear me I love this thing. I love it's ease of use, its accuracy,
versatility, adjustability, I even like its particularly ugly looks, very post-apocalypse.
Did I say it was
accurate? Think we'll call it a day there, but it's going to be back. Thanks.