Oh well I guess we're going to have a sample size of two for that one.
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Hi it's Tod from Tod's Workshop here and we're back with Arrows versus Armour 2 and I've got
Toby Capwell, I've got Will Sherman and I've got Joe Gibbs. So Historian,
Fletcher, Archer and we've got bundles of arrows and some sheet steel over there,
because what we're going to be doing today is looking at the arrowhead material.
There were choices that were open to our medieval predecessors. The vast majority of heads seem to
be wrought iron, those are the ones that we find in the museums and on the fields,
but there were other technologies open to them. They could be case hardened, they could be steel,
or steeled. This is mentioned in the accounts as well and quite what they mean by that we're not
entirely sure, and it seems to us that everyday people use wrought iron because that is by far the
most common. But it still leaves the question, "do different arrowhead materials penetrate
differently? And so we've got a very simple test here today, we have wrought iron heads,
soft iron. We have case hardened, we have fully steel, bloomery steel, so made exactly as they
would have done it. And then we also have mild steel because an awful lot of tests that are
done these days are with mild steel, and so it's nice for us to know how they're going to work as
well. We shoot them at a thin steel target that they should pass through, we measure how much
of the arrow is left sticking out the front and that is going to tell us which one cuts through
better. Really simple test. So three arrows of each type at the plate steel and we see
if any of them are better than any of the others, because we just don't know. So for the tests we
need to choose, we can't be shooting all kinds of different heads on in different parts of the test,
so our test heads this time around are the Museum of London type 9. It's what historically might
have been referred to as duckbill heads sometimes it's uh it's a head that's evolved specifically
as a response to the proliferation of plate armour because it's it's quite stout and it's got a sharp
point, but it's a steep taper. So this is a head that's been designed to kind of resist
the curling up and the blunting that's going to happen when you hit something hard you know. There
were other heads around in the early 15th century, but these seem to be very typical for the job that
the English archers had to do at Agincourt and that's why we've chosen this. Iron we know was
really common and pretty typical; some of those head heads that come out of the ground that are
now iron sure they might have been case hardened but we don't have any evidence to go on to say how
common that is. We don't really know how common steel ones were, they were probably pretty rare,
but what we know is that these are reasonably typical so we got to make a choice, that's what
we're going with. But then all of our other tests allow us to calibrate and to interpret the primary
shooting results. So the arrows that we're using are identical from nock to shoulder apart from
the head itself. They're all ash, they're all half an inch at the head and about 11/32 at the nock.
They've all got horn inserts, they're all fletched low, they're bound. Some have got verdigris, some
are bound in a more modern way, that's a cosmetic thing, so the arrows are all identical. The arrow
heads are all the same shape and the main reason we're using that head is because A. it turns up in
museums the majority of the time. B. We know it's designed really to go through armour, that's what
it's made for, but also as an interesting point in 1818 John George Woodford went to Agincourt,
he dug it up as an interested party and he found an arrowhead and he drew it in a sketchbook and
that arrowhead is very similar to the arrowhead that we're using today. So the arrows are all
identical, the arrow heads are all the same shape, what's different is the material used or
the processes used to harden or not. The first one is going to be wrought iron, plain wrought
iron which is what we're going to use for our main test, the original head was wrought iron. The next
head will be a case-hardened version of that head which has an ultra thin layer of really hard steel
on the outside. We've then got bloomery steel versions of those heads which are much harder.
They're tempered, they're quenched, but they're a lot more expensive and time consuming to make and
then we've got a mild steel version of the same head which is a modern familiar material which
most people use for their tests. The arrowhead material is a really interesting subject because
of all the choices we've got. Actually wrought iron seems to be the wrong one, it's the softest
one, it's the one that stands the least chance of going through the armour, we think. But they must
have used it for a reason because they used it again and again, but what really does intrigue
me is the other choices because if there's a shot which nearly goes through but not quite,
maybe it would have done if it's case hardened; maybe it makes no difference at all, and that's
what today is about. So the first arrows that we're going to shoot today are the wrought iron,
plain wrought iron, not case hardened, and we'll see what they do as our benchmark.
lovely stuff Joe
right so just put same size arrow next to it... so that is 10 centimeters it's gone through.
10 and a half centimeters.
and then 10 again. So amazingly consistent actually, which is good,
but it also shows that the concept behind the test is working because the arrows from Joe's
bow should pretty much stick out the back of the foam normally if the steel was not there. So we've
done our wrought iron heads, got a benchmark, got a benchmark. Let's go do some cased. Let's do it.
Cased, case hardened arrows
So we have the case hardened heads that we've just shot. Ah now I can see immediately this one
is deeper, that is... so that is 13 and a half, 13 and a half, but ironically nine and a half.
12. So on average, they go on average, so it's better, well it's definitely cut deeper that
we can say. Yeah that starts to give you a sense of how the different materials behave,
so we can allow for that in our analysis. Right, so next up, steel heads. Yep let's go.
Okay next we've got the bloomery steel heads, hardened and tempered.
Steel heads [Music] Yeah deeper again, so that's 11, 11 and a half.
Ten and a half. Yeah.
and ten and a half so a bit deeper, but not a lot actually. Now that because I remember
you saying well how much longer these take to make, yeah and how much more expensive they are.
So for a not very big gain, was it 11 and a half the first? Yeah it's certainly not enough gain to
make it worth doing. They're going in less than the case hardened wrought. yeah Yes they're going
in less than case hardened. Case hardening is an industrial, relatively cheap process
yeah and you were saying that you reckon it took you, okay it's the first time you've done them,
but about three and a half four times longer? Yeah not including making the billet. Interesting,
right well that'll come back for our conclusion, but it works, it goes in deeper, but at a cost.
So last up is well the reference one really,
is mild steel. Modern mild? Yeah let's see how that goes.
and after them mild steel
heads.
Well I guess we're going to have a sample size of two for that one, that's fine.
Right mild steel. Well the first thing to note obviously is that we
hit the frame on that one so that one died, but first up.
Nine and a half okay and then that one all right, almost, almost 10. All right well let's call it
ten, we'll be charitable. Well what did we learn from that? So first of all Joe I like that you're
a great shooter again but I knew that already, so thank you very much. No problem. For me obviously
case hardened and still makes a difference, the question for me is financially would that
have been worthwhile because it's always a cost benefit analysis and still as you said much harder
to forge. Case hardened for me, my gut feeling, my gut feeling is it's a mass production thing
that's not that hard to do, I know they did it on cranequin parts. Augusto was saying that
they did it on Armour, perhaps you know it's a technology they knew, they could have done,
we just have no evidence at all that they did it on arrowheads. So what's
your takeaway though Toby? Well first of all I think it's really interesting that there's
not a lot in it there's actually not even much in it when you add the bloomery steel to that,
certainly the performance of the steel is nowhere near what it would need to be to to really justify
the cost and the amount of trouble and time involved. The only extra process that really
matters is the case hardening that produces a demonstrable difference that matters in
in real terms, otherwise the other materials seem all to be basically kind of comparable
and that's encouraging because it means that you know that the use of the modern steel
for people are using that, that's basically legitimate. Yeah it's giving it's giving you
valuable results if you're gonna if you want to do your own tests with the modern material.
And well how do you feel? It's interesting for me because I know how long each process takes, so I
know that the bloomery steel takes a good three and a half four times more to make that head,
not including making up the billet in the first place and it didn't perform anywhere near as well
as I thought it would have done. They went in by 0.5 as compared to the wrought, that's not enough,
it's not good enough to be a difference yeah, and case hardening; it's a cheaper process, but it's
actually giving you a skin of much harder steel than the bloomery steel. Yeah. So it's easier,
it's cheaper and the results are better. Yeah it's a factor to consider although it's still a
little bit hypothetical. It is, but it also might be helpful when you look at the manuscripts and
the listings and it says steeled not steel that's, that's very well and that could be case hardened.
But coming back again, what we are doing in these films is doing the "normal". What we know they did
a lot of and that's what we found out today, so it's going to inform our conversations as
we go through these films. Definitely useful, really useful, but that also brings me back
to the last point which again is this is one of those films that the backers of the Kickstarter
we did to fund this, allowed to happen through the stretch goals, so thank you very much guys.
I hope you've enjoyed it and there's more Arrows versus Armour 2 films. Watch them.
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