Wrong, Misleading, or Both
Over the years since I launched OM2 (and also during this campaign) backers have suggested that I look at this, that or the other YouTube (or other) Video which shows how medieval weapons and armour really worked.
The problem is that they really don't ...
Most are either wrong, or they're misleading ... or, more often than not, they're both wrong and misleading.Which is not to say that the creators of said videos have made them with the deliberate intent of being such ... it's just that they are.
Why?
There are a number of reasons. Some of the most common include ...
Ahistorical Materials
A huge chunk of them use weapons or armour that are made from modernmaterials, rather than period ones. The most common mistake here, and it's a huge one, is that they use weapons or armour made from various grades of steel.
Bzzzt!
Wrong!
Metalworkers in the 10th-14th centuries were just barely able to make a reasonably quality iron -- and they could, to a degree, case harden that or steel the surface - and doing that was bloody expensive. The edges of better quality, but not run of the mill, Swords were steeled ... the core was iron. Other bladed weapons which were basically disposable or single use, even if they might have been a soldier's Primary Weapon (Swords were sidearms - even for Knights), were made of iron because of the expense.
That's Spearheads and Arrows especially.
Virtually all of these supposedly 'realistic' tests that I've seen have been done using steel ... especially with Bows and Crossbows ... which don't get steeled or steel arrow or bolt heads routinely until the mid to late 15th century.
Tests done with actual period authentic iron arrow and bolt heads (Royal Armouries, Leeds, for example) ... well, if they're also done with period authentic arrowheads and quarrel tips, they are much less likely to penetrate period authentic armour. Indeed, they often shatter, especially against period authentic plate.
Some, again, supposedly authentic, tests are done against steel armour - which is bad enough in and of itself - but most often, if not always, of 1-1.5 mm thick armour when, historically, it was usually 3-4 mm thick iron.
Shield tests are almost always just as misleading - from those done with faux-Viking Round Shields made of a single layer of thin softwood butted/glued together to usually faced or backed with nothing (where its actually surprising that they actually last as long as 3-4 blows) han 4+ layers of cross-laid overlapping strips of wood glued together as something like modern plywood and faced with parchment (leather) and, probably, with a parchment (leather) backing on the inside, and rimmed with either rawhide or metal edging and which are noted as having been able to withstand 32-33 arrow hits, minimum (and, in some cases, in excess of 100) yet remain intact.
Ahistorical Weapons
Weapons and Armour through the ages - even down to the 21st century - have been in a constant dance of technological one-upmanship. Armour gets better (always first) so Weapons have to improve to deal with that ... rinse and repeat, ad nauseam.
Think is, you don't get weapons developing before there is a need for them ... that is, until after improvements in armour technology make it imperative there be improvements.
The earliest weapons kit in the medieval period (say the 10th century) was Spear, Axe (including Throwing Axe), Long Knife, Long Sword and Bow (previous classifications and attempts to differentiate between Short and Long Self Bows, and between Composite and Self Bows, are now generally thought to have over egged the minimal differences). There wasn't much difference between those weapons of the 10th century AD and the 3rd-4th century (and, really, earlier) BC ... and the differences that follow on from then are responses to armour technology as it gradually improves.
There's really not a great deal of difference between those early weapon types and the later ones right through to the late 13th century and, even then, the improvements (so called) are often cosmetic as much as practical.
It's only with the gradual introduction of Partial Plate in the last half of the 14th century that the pool of weapon types expands to include weapons that can handle the fact that cutting and piercing weapons can rarely do cut or pierce Plate ... which means weapons which can bludgeon and do impact damage through the armour even if the armour remains intact.
Either that, or weapons which can be aimed at vulnerable spots ... not Fencing weapons (Rapiers and the like) per se as they remain useless as long as armour is common, but aimable weapons, even aimable swords (and period Fechtbuch show how to use these more pointy weapons most effectively against armoured, armoured and shield carrying, shield carrying and even unarmoured foes) ... aiming for the face as often as not (until armoured visors and full face helmets come into use), or trying for bits that are unarmoured or simply less well armoured.
Virtually all of the myriad of weird and wonderful Polearm types lovingly detailed in practically every RPG since White Box D&D, for example, simply don't exist at all in the period to the end of the 14th century or were so unwieldy as to be completely, totally, and utterly useless and pointless outside of massed infantry formations in specific battlefield conditions.
Testing Bows
Tests of Longbows tend to fall in this category (ahistorical weapons) ... done using arrows with steel arrowheads, and with arrowheads of types which simply didn't exist before the 15th (so-called Needle Bodkins) or 16th (so called Armour Cutters) centuries ... worse, using modern 180 lb (or higher) pull Longbows (period Longbows are estimated to have had a pull of 90-140 lbs and it was widely noted that English Archers lost 20% of their Pull strength after 10 days on campaign).
Tests done with period, iron, arrowheads against period, 3mm, Plate armour show that the Short Bodkin Point (which were cheap target practise arrows of iron) and the Broadheads (the warshots, more expensive, yet still iron) tended to shatter against plate and, at best, tended to either just dent the armour or barely penetrate (not the entire arrowhead, usually less than a centimeter).
Then there's the complete misunderstanding of how Bows were used, at least by the English, on the Battlefield. Some time in the late 13th and early 14th centuries the English armies went from individual (or massed) aimed fire to massed area fire. There was a good tactical reason for this - to have a good chance of hitting an armoured target where it wasn't armoured you had to let it get relatively close ... and, if said target happens to be an armoured Knight on a charging horse or, more accurately, a whole bunch of armoured Knights on charging horses ... well, if they get that close, you're toast (incidentally, a number of supposedly accurate Bow tests are done at 30 meters or less, and many are done at 10 meters or less ... which makes the real life archer mincemeat). Especially since Archers didn't carry more than 48 arrows ... and armies, maybe, another 48 arrows in supply waggons.
Massed Area Fire, however, can be done at ranges in excess of 100 yards and is devastating -- since the horses those Knights are riding are almost certainly less armoured (or even unarmoured) than their riders. That's what won Crecy and Agincourt ... not individual aimed fire.
As for Crossbows - not much better in range or damage than Bows or Composite Bows), their main advantage is that, once cocked, they can be aimed more or less indefinitely and, of course, the fact they need almost no training to be effective with. Longbows and Composite Bows, well, its noted above how much Pull strength Archers lost and how quickly when on campaign ... this didn't stop them from drawing their Bow, it meant they couldn't aim for as long and, therefore, not as accurately.
(Oh, and as for Composite vs Longbows, period ones, there was much of a muchness between them as well and, really, they rarely met each other on the Battlefield for the simple reason that the period materials used in period Composite Bows confined them pretty much exclusively to arid and semi-arid areas as moisture quickly damaged them, potentially fatally ... range and damage capacity were maybe, generously, 5% different and a point more ... and only sometimes).
Summary
There's a lot more like the above ... but, in short, be very wary, no matter how professionally done the video might be.
Phil McGregor
