Effectivness of European plate armour vs Asian bow

[mongol194]

Temugin you are very right to mention test conditions. Often times it is impossible to recreate accurate weaponry and genuine test conditions. However that does not mean that we should not try to do our best.
As someone mentioned earlier sometimes weapons we assume to be less reliable can surprise us a lot! Whilst in some situations even our most advanced engineering is ruined by simple natural obstacles like rain! ;D ;D ;D
As for armoursmiths and changes in armour someone mentioned samurais adopting european style plate armour. That has little to do with the fact that plate armour was supperior to lammelar armour. I for one am of the opinion that lammelar is lighter more flexible and therefore perhaps better in combat. However becuase lammelar takes a long time to produce, not to mention the higher cost to pay a master armour-smith and perhaps several of his assistants as well as the time it takes to join all the parts and fit the relevant seams, patches and retaining rivets or leather thongs.
Since high quality lammelar took so much money to produce as well as time and labour costs you also had to rely on a handfull of expensive experts who in turn were hard to find! ;D
No wonder plate came to replace the older style armourer becuase by the sixteenth century it could be produced in large pieces a lot sooner that a suit of lammelar or even a lammelar chestpiece.
As for bows it is impossible for modern materials to reproduce the effects of classical bows becuase today too many people want to perfect thier bows. Most steppe bows were crude but highly crude items and easy to use nothing like the expensive and difficult to use, yet good looking modern composites!

[tantalus]

Nov 10, 2008 12:02:03 GMT 3 mongol194 said:

Temugin you are very right to mention test conditions. Often times it is impossible to recreate accurate weaponry and genuine test conditions.

That is why I posted the PDF A Study of Weapons Effects on Chain Mail. We are asking what was it like back then. What is better than reports from those times?

Of course the historical sources can be vague, but at least they are genuine and authentic. And in this case I believe accurate.

I do applaud the people who are trying to recreate accurate weaponry. We can learn from that also since the historical sources are incomplete.

[Subu'atai]

If all else fails cloink the idiot with an eight-headed mace

[erik]

Later bow but here u see how the Ottoman bow works against plate armour.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCL4wj1y6t0

And here the Mughal bow tried against plate armour:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGcYGwqb3So

[sarmat]

Mar 1, 2009 10:55:35 GMT 3 erik said:

Later bow but here u see how the Ottoman bow works against plate armour.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCL4wj1y6t0

The image from the book that the guy from in this video holds during the first seconds is actually a famous European picture of Muscovite light cavalry.

[bobm]

The info above re Agincourt and Crecy before it is, I believe, a little misleading.
At Agincourt the main French attack was on foot and apparently the English archers and their own men-at-arms ended up fighting hand to hand so archery didn't do the job alone. The English longbows had similar draw weights to composite bows.
By 1415 the best plate armour was made of steel...and no iron arrow head could penetrate as it would shatter on impact irrespective of force. This has been proved by modern experiment.
The English seem to have produced tempered steel edges to their "best" iron arrowheads to negate this failing.
The main advantage of the later composite bows is that the bow could be held at full draw while being aimed for a considerable time.....something only a crossbow was capable of in the west.

[Subu'atai]

^ I heard the French had to advance through muddy terrain under heavy fire from longbows - and their impetiousness lead them to disobey the orders of their superiors. I doubt the English were any match for the heavily armed French knights in close combat.

[billman]

That is not exactly correct. At the time English infantry were experts in non-knightly weapons like pole-axes and bills, and used to fighting better armored opponents. Furthermore they had set up defensively using stakes and nearby woods to protective effect, despite having advanced their position at Agincourt. Once the initial impact of the narrow channelled, heavy armed knights, who had in disorder slogged through the thick mud had been absorbed, lighter more mobile infantry armed with armor-cracking weapons and techniques were used to great effect as the fight wore on. As heat-exhaustion eventually sets in, that protective heavy armor can become a stuffy coffin, despite being able to potentially provide a big advantage early on.

In fact by the 14th century quality infantry began to take the edge from more heavily armored knights. Disbanded Templar organizations spread Scots tactics to the Flemish and Swiss. The Swiss infantry then made pike charge improvements and dominated much of the western 15th century. The Spanish infantry then added fire-arms and their own adjustments, and dominated much of the western 16th century.

While both bows and fire-arms led to a change in the role of the armored knight, pike and staff weapons had a place too. Infantry became as good or better for shock, and moved along at much the same rate as the vaunted heavy cavalry charge. While light/medium cavalry was better at mobility. This left the heavy armored knight with a narrowing but still used role as flankers. Something they failed at in Agincourt partly due to being understrength. They had the best results with the French pioneered artillery/cavalry combinations, but the Poles were able to do much the same with artillery and the newly formed medium cavalry Hussar lancers too.

Still armor while being resistant, was not always arrow proof. Especially at that period of time. I'm sure the arrows had their effect as well. There are reports of knights being shot dead. I also think you should be able to get higher carbon and hardness safely into a small arrowhead over a larger section of plate. At any rate the mongols had a practical answer in silk. With regards to Liegnitz battle, whatever the flanking archers couldn't shoot dead then had their horses killed. Anything now scattered or isolated was then killed. The now forward advanced and dismounted knights that managed to form up in order were then overwhelmed despite some sharp but short fighting. This is where the mongols took most of their casualties which were overall slight. Despite being outnumbered in total, when it came to the hand to hand fights they had the most numbers in the right place thanks to better mobility and tactics.

The composite bows of central asia have many advantages over longbows. Advantages being a bit more handy on a horse, using a less exhaustive draw technique, and being able to withstand greater force loads without snapping. I believe draw weights were probably greater on the average by the time of the Mughals.

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

Greetings billman, welcome aboard

Indeed, the Age of Heavy Cavalry in Western Europe came to an end at the Battle of Pavia fought between the Holy Roman Empire and France at February 24, 1525. Though in Central and Eastern Europe, heavy cavalry continued to play an important role for some more time, as can be seen at the Battle of Mohacs.

[sarmat]

Heavy cavalry had been used in Eastern Europe up until the 17th century AD.

[hakuzari]

the usage of plate armour did not come untill a rather late stage in european history far after the last nomadic invasions. ,and was never common among thoes who couldnt aford it (that is most of fighting forces) ,and its development was indeed a reaction to the increasing usage of ranged weponery inside the european socity ,many of the casualties were caused by a penetration to the head ,through the mail hood ,and useally by a crossbow bolt.

but an interesting question whould be if the inital process of incresing usage of ranged wepones was due to the european incounter with the nomad combat method.

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

Dec 29, 2009 20:09:14 GMT 3 sarmat said:

Heavy cavalry had been used in Eastern Europe up until the 17th century AD.

Yes, but their priority faded away after Pavia.

[billman]

I'd estimate proper plate armor to be in use in west from start of 15th to earlier 16th century. By the early 16th century the Gothic styles were replaced by Maximillian. 14th century was a plate and mail mixture. Note that chainmail is properly just mail, a word for chain. Around the latter 16th there was slight reduction in armor from earlier 15th, as the knights gradually morphed into either pistol-sword or lancer types, that were still fairly armored until 17th. Though light armor of some type was still used afterwards.

I agree with the generalized Pavia statement although it is worth noting that the French heavy cavalry demolished the medium cavalry set up against it initially. One of heavy cavalry's still useful functions. Once their charge reached light woods and the infantry reinforcements pouring in from the hole in the north park wall, it was a one-way ticket. Especially since there was no reserve wings to help affairs. Both Pavia and Mohacs kind of showcase by accident, what the Mongols planned by design. Easy enough going in but getting back out is another issue. I should also point out that at Liegnitz the mongols used smokescreens to prevent the main body from joining the unhorsed cavalry.

It is interesting to note that not only did the middle-east produce overall the best bows. India also had the best muskets in the 16th century due to wootz steel. This allowed the safer use of more gunpowder because of the better quality of the steel.

[Temüjin]

the cavalry to infantry ratio was still about 50:50 as late as the 30 Years War. the initial reason why infantry got an edge over armoured cavalry was because noble knights used primitive tactics that essentially revolved around an all out charge while militia infantry was usually equipped and designed to be an essentially anti-cavalry weapon. during the whole medieval period, the levy of knight vassals was the core of about every aristocratic army and any infantry were servants or town militia, feudal levies of some sort that filled the numbers because entire knightly armies could only be fielded by the most powerful of medieval dynasties.

[Temüjin]

Dec 29, 2009 10:24:22 GMT 3 billman said:

Disbanded Templar organizations spread Scots tactics to the Flemish and Swiss.

what's your source on that because it sounds like made up, but it's still intruiging because both the Flemish and the Swiss infantry initially used different primary weapons than the pike. i'd need to look it up, particularly on the Flemish, but what made the Scotts considder to use the pike as primary weapons? as for the Swiss, iiirc there was this instance where the Habsburg knights dismounted and used their lances as pikes to defeat the Swiss equipped with halberds, which in turn made them adopting the pike as primary weapons.