Hi it's Tod at Tod's Workshop and Tod Cutler here and today we're back with this handmade
maille by Isak Krogh and these needle bodkins. Now, the maille is slightly different this time
to the one that I used last time. This is 1.4 mm wire on 7 mm links, so smaller wire,
but smaller link size. Now we can't do a direct comparison with the last one, but in a way that
doesn't matter because I'm not looking at that. In the last film we did with maille,
I decided it showed that the maille is better worn outside the gambeson,
so what we're going to do this time is we're going to look at the difference between
greased heads and not greased heads, because a year ago now I did a film and it did make quite a
difference, but I didn't shoot it against maille. So we're just going to see what the difference is;
how much pokes out the back. So let's get down the range and we'll shoot some stuff. I'm back at
the range now with two needle bodkins. We've got the heavier ones here and the lighter ones here,
these are going to be shooting off the bow that I'm using, which is my middleweight one,
but it's acting as if that 10 meter target was 75 meters away as if I was shooting it from 160
pound longbow, the speeds are the same. Go see the previous film, the maths is in it, but of course
maille was used from much earlier than that, so if we look at something like 11th century,
12th century, 13th century, I don't think that the bows would have been as powerful as that.
I think there was always an arms race between the armour and the bows and so naturally you would
think that the bows would be lighter, so I've got my lightest of the simulators here as well,
which is an 85 pound bow shooting these arrows. You know, it's going to be kind
of like a bonus bit at the end really because what I'm really interested in is the greased
and the ungreased versions of these. But before we do that, don't forget to visit the website
sign up for the newsletter, buy the t-shirts, go to the merch shelf. It all helps because
the reason there are only two of these, is this from a previous film, so you know what? It really
does help me, so let's get down to it and start shooting stuff. First of the shots ungreased.
Yeah oh square on. Lovely,
lovely, lovely, now it is in, I guess I expected that, but of course I have no idea how in.
Oh just inside, just in.
And just out. I'll do the third one again.
Straight, straight next to another arrow, so that's just not gonna do,
so I've got to pull it out and I'll go again.
Okay, I think that's far enough away, so we'll go see what we got.
Well actually these are reasonably similar, so if I'm reading off they all come
on the outside surface to the end of the head, except this one, which is about two centimeters
out. So that is 10 centimeters from the front and these ones may be about eight, something
like that, but let's have a look on the other side because that's going to show you more really
of what's going on..... And there we have them. So they are going to make a very bad day for you.
Out the back seven or eight centimeters, something like that,
not good. So we're going to grease them up, we'll go again. So I'm back at the range now with my
three arrowheads and I am covering them with a mixture of about 10% vegetable oil and the rest
is beeswax and it creates this really gloopy, horrible junk. Now I postulated, oh about a year
ago now, that if you smear this stuff onto your arrowheads it protects them, yes but what it also
does is it makes them go through gambeson much, much better, I think from memory about twice as
well, twice as deep, simply by smearing a bit of this goop on it which also keeps the rust off.
We don't know that they did it, I don't think there's any evidence for it, but they used to
put wax on nails, they used to do it on sewing needles you know? We know that kind of stuff,
so why wouldn't they do it on arrowheads if they knew it worked? and there's certainly treaties,
somebody sent me recently a wonderful little article where a whole bunch of guys had been paid,
this was 1550 or something, had been paid to clean arrowheads that come back from campaign rusty,
so they knew about it, they knew that it mattered. So anyway we're going to grease them up,
we're going to shoot them, see what happens. Yeah that's in all right, let's go!
Yeah good, really saw that one spin actually, it's quite interesting. Let's take the last shot,
yes! and another good one. Well here we are back with our sample
and it's different. So this one has gone in 14, this one 17 and this one 13. So yeah,
I mean I don't know what the percentages are, but the most that any of the previous ones went in was
10 centimeters and the most this is done is 17, so it really is quite a difference. We'll pull
it off, I'll show you the back. So what this says once again is the extremely cheap, the extremely
easy and the useful rust prevention protection helps you. Do that, it really, really does make
a difference. Just a little bit of grease the first of the arrows of the 85 pound bow.
Just flip the top I think, but we'll have a look in a moment.
Yeah square shot, good and here we are. The numbers, so our knight wearing his maille
and gambeson facing an 85 pound bow, let's say around 1200, he is going to
have eight centimeters from the front end on both of those, actually I'm surprised about that,
I kind of thought that it would turn it and just so you know those arrows were not greased, but
look at that side it's not going to do you any favours, that's what? Five centimeters,
two inches in, so it's enough to count, but it's not right through you. So these are definitely,
definitely protecting you, but you know, still pretty lousy day. Back at base now to conclude
and I'm going to start at the easy end of things with the 85 pound longbow simulator,
so the lighter one with the smaller arrows and that I'm making an assumption here, would be
a bow weight that's suitable to around the year 1200. We don't know, I don't know, you don't know,
but most things develop as an arms race like this and so the bows get heavier the armour
gets better and so on, so yeah, lighter might well be true. Now what is interesting, is that it did
penetrate this, I thought actually that it might turn it, but then the other side of that thought
is of course why would you be using needle bodkins if they didn't work? But what is true to say is it
penetrated around about six centimeters, two and a half inches off the back face of this gambeson,
that's certainly enough to hurt and it certainly is possibly enough to kill you,
but that would be going clean through you without this, so to say that the armour doesn't work would
be completely incorrect. It moderates it, reduces the power of the bow, this the shot, so yes it is
good, but it is not foolproof. Next up let's look at the heavy bodkins, came off 125 pound bow, but
I fooled the target into thinking that it was 160 pound longbow. Now this was a different experiment
and it was whether they are ungreased or greased. Ungreased, deepest penetration 10 centimeters.
Greased. Deepest penetration, 17 centimeters. So yes it makes a massive difference, it really does,
but what is also clear if we compare that to the numbers from the type 16
bladed heads that I did in the previous video, they were penetrating the maille,
they were penetrating the gambeson and they were going into the person underneath, so they were
very good in that sense. But these penetrated 17 centimeters as the deepest and I think the deepest
of the bladed heads was six centimeters on the other side, so again this definitely
goes in further and now on to the last part of the film. I'm done with this bit of maille.
We've got our old bit back and I'm done with these arrows because northern Italy 1384 or thereabouts,
your chap might have faced this lovely little piece from Tod Cutler, but it is absolutely
perfect for going at maille absolutely perfect for going at plate. Shall we find out what it does?
I'm gonna have to take this apart and show you what has just happened. I did it a second time
because I didn't believe what had happened on the first one. I'll be within a moment,
I have to come back and talk to you again because I was just surprised by that. I just,
I'm continually surprised it seems, but you know, I hit hard and I hit this first one here,
it it didn't really dent the back, um and it didn't pop any of the rings of the maille,
that's why I went again because I thought now I really need to go for it, so I hit it
really hard on the second one with a good long swing, right at the end of the haft and this is
a heavy object. It's blown one ring and it hasn't gone through, it's made a big mess of the foam,
so I mean without doubt, it's going to be blunt force trauma, it's going to cave
your ribs in and stuff but it is not going to poke holes in you, not through that gambeson,
so that really is doing an incredible job that combination armour, the composite armour is
doing an amazing job at keeping you safe from this and from other threats, arrows, it goes through,
but it does mitigate them a lot. Anyway sorry about that little diversion, this film's supposed
to be about arrows, but you know, got sidetracked, anyway I hope you enjoyed it, see you next time.