Since the era of machine warfare essentially started when the English used their archers to defeat French cavalry.
Not really... It's definitely not the longbow that allowed that, especially since any bow was properly unable to penetrate any plate armour worn at that time by all the french knights and nobles. The only instance where it was capable of it was when the arrow was fired properly straight frontal (90°) and then was able to pierce something like 1 cm... Far from lethal. Knights also used to protect themselves with bascinets which properly negated most projectiles hitting the head. Thus, to actually kill a knight, they had to dismount them and kill them on the ground.
What made the longbow successful at the beginning of the hundred year war was poor doctrines where knights laughed at Henry V army almost exclusively composed of longbowmen. With their previous experiences against archers in mind, they considered them like mosquito bites, with reason. The first major battle at Crécy was lost not because of the longbow, but because Philip did not even wait for his army to be ready to attack, and also due to the fact that they used crossbows trying to outrange longbows... Agincourt was not better since all the knights just ran into a corridor circled by longbows, happily firing at them while they were unable to do anything. Technically, the english army was not better, but poorer. Doctrines and morale wise, though, it was the contrary.
One just has to look how knights charges just slaughtered longbowmen lines in the following battles when the tide turned.
What signed the death of knights was probably more the invention of the crossbow, and especially the arquebus and gunpowder. Though it would be more accurate to say that it caused the end of heavy cavalry in plate armour. Knights (or chivalry) which was before all an ideal and a warrior code came to an end with the arrival of moral relativism and humanism.
You know, that was true later, but longbows with bodkin points were launched from longbows with well over 100lbs of pull against armor that was not exactly up to modern standards. The problem is that a lot of people have tried it using modern steel, which is exceptionally well coked and oxidated. To get armor of that quality in the ancient age, you'd have to be using a crucible for your steel, which was very uncommon around that time.
In the end, those longbows might not have always penetrated the breastplate, but it was a lot more common to crack through the more brittle steel of the time. They've done true period reenactment where they hand-forged the steel using book techniques of the time. Surely, some people had decent steel from the Middle East even given the tensions, but steel today is nothing like steel back then, and that's assuming the most expensive armor of its time.
It did protect them, but not when they were slogging slowly through the terrain you mentioned and against the mass volleys they were firing. It's always been a matter of debate, but armor had to be redesigned once the longbow firing line became popular. That was the start of real machine war, when it became a race of technology against counter-development instead of relying on chivalrous behavior to manage the conflicts.
Who spoke about modern standards ? I'm speaking about what was used at the time being, and they were more or less piecing proof. Mail was vulnerable, which leaded plate armour to be more and more used. Wounds caused by the few arrow piercing through were small to severe, depending on the luck of the target. It was more lethal to the head but as I said above bascinets were rather efficient, not just against lances.
The longbow scared them for long while they were looking for counters, like dismounting their knights, covering their infantry, finding a way to clear up longbowmen lines with archers, , adding plates everywhere because they WORKED. But during that time the longbow proved lethal because it made them go all on the defensive through fabian strategy. What made longbows effective was their range that allowed the users to dictate the terms of the battle and force the other side to go on the offensive. What also put a definite end to it were field artillery pieces.
Minor nitpick. I did a study on the English Longbow in my undergrad courses at college, and found that even if 1cm penetration wasn't much, or even enough to kill, it was more than enough to cause serious bodily harm. Demonstrations done using modern ballistics equipment (gel, shock pads, computer sensors) on various reconstructed armors using various arrowheads showed that the English longbow was an effective weapon of war up to its maximum range. Accuracy was the only failing mark on it at long range, something made up for by massed barrages.
Penetration also depended on the arrowhead used. Armor piercing heads did exist, and can easily penetrate even modern steel. It's not a fantasy to assume they could do so with medieval quality armor as well. Keep in mind that all armor was not created equal, and the even the best armors capable of slowing, deflecting, or stopping a crossbow bolt or longbow arrow were rare and expensive. Thinner and weaker armors like leather and chainmail were far more common. Chainmail in particular was notorious for not only failing to stop an arrow but also transferring almost all of the kinetic energy directly into the body even if it slowed the arrow. Enough kinetic energy in fact to rupture soft organs and cause internal bleeding that would have been a mystery to doctors at the time. Depending on the arrowhead you might have an arrow that just knocks you off your feet, which takes you out of the action for a good several minutes as you try and lift your hundred pounds of armor off the ground in the thick of battle. With an AP arrow, you might have one that cuts through the chainmail like butter and simply pierces a lung.
Unlike in the movies, taking an arrow to the chest or even the extremity was not something you just shrug off. It was enough to take a man out of action almost immediately, and it frequently resulted in fatal wounds or infections even if he did survive the battle. Any solid hit is a worthwhile shot, even if it doesn't stop the man mid cavalry-charge.
Of course, not all bows and bowmen were created equal either, and it was no superweapon. Bows could be prone to mechanical failure on the field, and the bowmen themselves were not the best trained troops nor the best supported. It is however a mistake to dismiss the role of the longbow as a very effective weapon.
As said above I'm not denying that it can harm. What I said is also that the arrow had to fulfill a shitload of preconditions to actually pierce through. Everything tends to show that it was reasonably possible with a full frontal shot at 90°, or it would just bounce off. Which means that firing these arrows was usually done with lobbed shots done at good range. The longbow was only effective against plated armour at point blank, which didnt happen very often as you may guess... Archers don't linger near companies of knights.
Also, for the armour quality, you are just assuming and speculating about things.... We were speaking about knights, not the average infantry joe wearing chainmail or bad pieces of equipement.
Don't insinuate that I watch too many movies, I spent the time to check my facts...
That's just not necessarily true. It's a simple law of physics that also applies to why so many people die from bullets dropping into the tops of their skulls. What goes up comes down with near equal force. You fire the arrow into the air at however many neutons it has. It goes up, loses its kinetic energy at the rate of the pull of gravity, then comes down at the exact same pull. Minus air drag (which is almost nonexistant with a bodkin point and a properly fletched arrow), it comes down with exactly the same amount of force it had going up. That's why in more accurate movies, you don't see them firing point blank, you see groups of archers firing volleys almost straight up.
The steel issue is actually extremely important, especially around the time period. It wasn't that knights were rich (they weren't all rich), even if they could afford the best, the best wasn't good enough. Steel made in that time period was expensive enough since all goods were hand-made, but medieval steel was complete crap compared to what we have now. Even then, for the best, you'd need crucible-fired steel, which was expensive even in its native middle eastern nations. To create that kind of fired steel, you need an extremely high temperature, essentially by building a 5 foot tall firebrick convection oven, packing it with charcoal, and then tearing the whole thing down. It yields about a coke-can size ingot of mediocre steel.
Today's steel, by contrast, is fired at nearly 4000 degrees and is mixed for uniformity. It's got incredible tensile strength, which is why stuff dents it but bounces off. By contrast, old medieval steel was so brittle that it could very often shatter and snap. That's where the problem of the arrow comes in. Without the tensile strength, steel might be able to handle something like a sword going broadside into it, but it couldn't handle a spear being rammed into it. You don't need to go full 90 degrees because if brittle steel takes a dent, it breaks apart.
They've found tons of armor that's simply got bodkin holes in it, even straight through the tops of the helmets. This became less of an issue with later introductions, but those barely preceded the first imported firearms. In fact, bows were still outperforming firearms until pitched musket battle became a standard of warfare.
Lots of armor today is made with regular old plate steel and yes, it's almost bodkin proof. In fact, it's almost anything proof at a centimeter thick. Most small arms fire can't blow through a steel plate of significant thickness. That was not the case in medieval Europe. All they had to fire their steel were air-moving bellows and coal fires. They simply didn't have enough heat and, when they did, those short bursts were used to make weapons, not armor. This was at least the problem in Calais and Crecy. The only way to get more than a bow's pull in force is by firing it downward, where the force of gravity acts on the arrow from full pull.
That's why the English had to choose their ground carefully, though. They chose high ground with barriers on the flanks to make sure they could focus their fire. Even if one arrow didn't kill a knight, they were being showered with them. The Brits only took a few hundred casualties, but left scores of Frenchmen dead at Crecy, where they were outnumbered 2 to 1. At least 2,000 were armored knights and had superior equipment and skill to English knights.
There was a vogue that went into the idea you're talking about in the 90s and early aughts, but these days it's generally understood that armor needed a significant boost in technological development to dampen the effectiveness of the longbow. It gave the Brits battlefield supremacy for almost a hundred years and essentially ended the age of chivalry with the end of the Hundred Years War. At that point, it was a technological race. The longbow was still used in some armies straight up until the first world war, if I remember right (oddly enough, I think the last recognizable cavalry charge happened during the second world war, so that technique lasted somewhat longer even though it failed).
We all do our research. You've got every reason to think that bodkin pointed arrows shattered at the shaft upon hitting plate armor; I believed the same thing until they did research with real period replications of existing technology from the 14th century. It's one of those standing myths that seems plausible until you look at the historical record and realize it couldn't be so. The Brits didn't win with foot soldiers during the Hundred Years War, they won with longbows. If knights were really immune to longbow fire, the French cavalry would have overrun the Brits at Crecy no matter how early they charged. Concentrated longbowfire was simply devastating if you can make the enemy go where you want them to. It was an incredible technological advantage, especially when old fashioned crossbows were rendered nearly useless in the wet.
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Topic: Where have the Brits not invaded? (Read 10480 times)