The lockdown longbow is back and it's back for gambeson's
this time. So what is a gambeson? Well it's an armoured jacket made of many,
many layers of cloth, so in many respects, it's not that
different to a bulletproof jacket nowadays.
So what is a gambeson? Well a late 15th century recipe says it's 32 layers
of linen, well washed linen, secondhand, so old shirts old
dresses whatever. We don't know the overall weight or the thickness
but this one is 32 layers here, faced front and back with a linen canvas
and it is around about 10 mm thick. It is well resistant to arrows
they do pass through but it is resistant now we saw that in a previous film that
I did with a lighter weight crossbow, but we're
going to do it today with our lockdown longbow 160 pound
English longbow simulator. But it wasn't just the flexible fabric
like this that they used they also did other things. Now there's a guy called
Benjamin Lantaigne, who sent me a bucket of information on
the stuff, thank you very much Benjamin, really welcome. Because the thing is,
you know you might watch this and think I know everything. I really, really don't,
and a lot of the information comes from places like My Armoury the chatroom My
Armoury. Go check it out if you don't know it,
it's brilliant. And looking through the comments here, you know
you 100 000 people, have an awful lot of information
it's really useful. Now the other thing that they did, that Benjamin highlighted
was that they hardened their gambesons. So what am i talking about here? Well
again we kind of know and we kind of don't.
It's a bit like the old boiled leather thing. The Romans and indeed the
medieval people would soak the linen in a mixture of wine and salt; we don't know
how much, we don't know how long for, so we just got to try it. So this was
soaked in red wine and salt and what does it do? Well the salt fills
gaps between the fibres much like the glue fills the gaps between the fibres
and boiled leather. There's a sort of a stickiness with salt as well, you know
you know it when you come out the sea and you handle your clothes and things
it could be partly that and the acidity of the wine also
changes the cellulose fibers within the fabric. So there's lots going on.
Will it be more resistant? Well it's certainly stiffer so we'll find out you
know that's what this is all about. Benjamin
highlighted another couple of things. One is that these are almost always worn
in conjunction with maille. So we're going to have a look at that,
but not today! So there's a scientific reason
which is that simply if you've got two layers of differing things
what is each layer bringing to the party? Well you don't know,
so we're gonna split them out and be separate on that. But the other thing is
I have some really proper riveted maille that is coming on the way
and so I'm gonna save my maille and gambeson tests for that.
But then there's another thing that Benjamin highlighted and this is
interesting. Again with medieval recipes they they
just say "do it in the usual way" it's infuriating.
Well one of the things that they talk about is blackening gambesons;
blacken them in the usual way; "well yeah great brilliant - what is the usual way?"
Well it could be involving pitch that's an obvious one to go to,
but when you make boiled leather, you've got
a hot glue pot which is iron, you've got vegetan leather, which has got tannin in
it, over a few hours the tannin and the iron
react and the glue in that pot goes jet black
like used engine oil. Now if you then took your linen
and you soaked it in that glue mix, your linen would come out
a tougher, with all the gaps filled, and stronger and it would also come out
black. Now we know that the Greeks used glue
and linen for their linothorax for their armour,
so maybe the medieval people did as well. We don't know.
I haven't got a sample of that today but you know what? If you think
and Benjamin I'd be interested to know your opinion, if you think
that the glue and linen thing could be viable as a
black linen, let's give it a go you know so let me know maybe we'll try later on
in the series. But right now we're gonna go and shoot
some stuff. All right. Back at the range
with an untreated panel of gambeson let's see what happens.
Type 16.
Straight in but not perhaps that deeply by the look of it.
Type nine short bodkin.
Towton m2
Interesting. That didn't look like it's so deep we'll find out in a bit.
Needle bodkin. This is the current arrow to beat for most of
these tests. Lovely let's go see what we got! So let's
pull that one.
Oh they are hard i'll tell you what let's just get this whole panel off.
Ah well looky here. Yeah that's uh there's a story there isn't there?
Right type 16; my first impressions were wrong!
Eighteen centimeters in type 7 needle,
27 centimeters in.
Type 9 short bodkin, 7 centimeters in. I'm just going to put the m2 on again
and try that because it was about 15 mm or something
and it was right at the edge.
I was right what happened on the first shot with the m2 is it hit right on the
edge of the foam and the foam fractured away
and I think that took some of the strike out of it.
This time much better hit, penetration on the m2,
19 centimeters. Next up is the lockdown longbow
versus the hardened gambeson hardened in salt and wine.
It should be better. Let's find out.
m2 first of all.
It's a nice one. I mean we just won't know until I'm up there, so I can't even
get excited about anything there's nothing to get excited about!
Needle bodkin.
Short bodkin now.
I mean they're all convincingly in. But like I said often these were worn
with maille and the other thing of course, type 16,
armour is not proof against everything all the time,
never is. Let's go have a look. This is interesting I'm going to mark
them off, I'm not going to tell you, and then we're going to go back up to
base and we'll have a look what the results
are. Now a really good thing to note about the samples that I've been
shooting today is as I said there is no specification for the thickness of these
things it just says 32 layers in one of the particular quotes.
It might be that my layers are thinner and it might be that this garment is not
as protective as historically it should have been.
Benjamin Lantaigne makes a good point, and it's the same point I made in my boiled
leather video, that soldiers are prepared to wear a
certain weight of armour. If I made a gambeson out of this
thickness of material all over it would come under that weight, so maybe
this isn't enough. We'll never know, but again maybe I'll
come back in a later video and we'll do you know we'll double up
with both layers and we'll try shooting again
see what happens. And that's the back of the hardened gambeson
again I wouldn't want to be in it. But here are the numbers.
So first of all unhardened and then hardened.
Type 7 needle bodkin 27 centimeters-
19. Type 9 short bodkin 7 centimeters then 12. Type 16
18 centimeters and 18 centimeters. M2, 19 centimeters and 18 centimeters.
So are those differences in results, the type 9 I think there might be a problem
with, but is that difference in results going to
set the world alight? No it's not. It's not radically different.
But it is a slight improvement and the thing is if my life is on the
line slight improvement sounds quite good to me.
So yes it is better, type 9 aside, yes it is better. Is it revolutionary
better? No it's not. So maybe later in this
series we'll come back and have a look at
what i think perhaps could be a black gambeson hardened with glue we'll have a
look at that see what happens with that. But here we are gambeson's hard and soft
been tested against four different arrow types you've seen what it does.
Gambesons are a kind of a low grade soldier armour they're not high high-falutin',
but there's another medium grade soldier's armour that we're
going to have a look at.
Brigandines, properly made inside and out by my friend Ash from Armour Services
Historical. Coming to a YouTube screen near you soon.
Thank you.