bodkins are not armour piercers

[DanHoward]

I have been criticised for years because I have been arguing that the bodkin was not intended for armour piercing. For a long while now I have said that the compact broadhead (Type 16) was the armour piercer. Looks like the evidence is slowly building to support my case.
http://www.royalarmouries.org/extsit...sectionId=3006

Here is a post I made on this forum over two years ago.
http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...4&postcount=15

[hal]

Is it possible that one type of arrow head was useful against those in plate armor, while another was useful against say, chain? Those bodkin heads look as though they might have been useful in forcing a link open in chainmail - although I seem to recall an instance where someone tested a bodkin head against chain and it did not pierce as readily as would have been hoped.

Just curious.

[RedMattis]

Wikipedia disagrees with you though.

"Bodkin points are short, rigid points with a small cross-section. They achieved prominence in the Late Middle Ages through their greater effectiveness against armour[dubious – discuss]. They would normally be used only for war."

"Broadheads are used for hunting. They are expensive and usually not used for practice. They usually have two to four sharp blades that cause massive bleeding in the victim. There are two main types of broadheads used by hunters. One is the fixed-blade, while the other is the mechanical. While the fixed-blade broadhead keeps its blades rigid and unmovable on the broadhead at all times, the mechanical broadhead deploys its blades upon contact with the target, its blades swinging out to wound the target. The mechanical head flies better because it is more streamlined, but has less penetration as it uses some of the kinetic energy in the arrow to deploy its blades."

[ArmoredSaint]

I'd say that the Royal Armouries' opinion probably carries more weight than that of wikipedia...

[RedMattis]

I know nothing about Royal Armouries.org, so I'll just have to assume that they are right.
Type 16 doesn't exactly look like a 'normal' broadhead to me though, it looks more like a heavier arrow used to better pierce armor (than say, bodkin).
Type 15 looks like a traditional broadhead though.

This discussion should be taken up by someone with more experience with different types of arrows, so I'll take my leave ;P

[Sadurian Mike]

Originally Posted by RedMattis

I know nothing about Royal Armouries.org, so I'll just have to assume that they are right.
Type 16 doesn't exactly look like a 'normal' broadhead to me though, it looks more like a heavier arrow used to better pierce armor (than say, bodkin).
Type 15 looks like a traditional broadhead though.

This discussion should be taken up by someone with more experience with different types of arrows, so I'll take my leave ;P

I agree that type 16 doesn't fit the classic "broadhead" type (which I would have as 1 and 2), but we have been completely wrong about so many aspects of medieval history that we might be looking at a distinct type that has been lumped with normal broadheads for decades, but was a purpose-designed armour-piercer. Type 16 does give the impression of being an armour-piercer just by its shape - it looks the part!

I wonder if we are looking at two types of head used for roughly the same purpose but against differing armour at different eras and on different budgets. Type 16 made with tempered and hardened steel resembles an anti-tank shell and I would instinctively say it is for use against plate, though I dare say it would be expensive to produce en-masse. This suggests an arrow-head made for professional armies against plate-armoured opponents (C15th).

Type 7 looks far easier to make and appears purpose-built to penetrate mail or possibly thick leather. It could easily have been made by a village smith. If it is not for piercing some sort of armour then I have to wonder exactly why it is made in that shape when a broadhead had been used successfully for centuries.

I await the examination of the Towton arrows with interest.

[Pmandrekar]

Originally Posted by RedMattis

Wikipedia disagrees with you though.

To be fair about it, Wikipedia is written by interested amateurs, not professionals in their fields. Professionals may occasionally wander in to Wikipedia, but not always. I've run across some articles on Wikipedia in my field of expertise that show some errors that professionals would not have made.

Also, it would seem that a lot of the knowledge that we have about how armor and weapons work derives from people who were making suppositions, *not* people going out to a field and testing the materials to see if they stand up to the claim. I've read enough of Dan Howard's work to say
that he is doing exactly that.

So, let's give it up for the victories that empirical testing under controlled conditions over the suppositions of people making hypotheses without such controlled testing.

Congrats Dan. As a grad student, I got to share an elevator from time to time with Dr. Howard Temin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Martin_Temin

He challenged the central Dogma of DNA, and for years had been criticized for this challenge. Eventually, the evidence bore out, and he received a Nobel Prize.

It was quite a vindication of his beliefs.

-P.

[nanoboy]

Looking at the site you have posted, I think that testing actually needs to be done. As a scientist, I can tell you that the writers have created a hypothesis that needs testing. I would suggest the following:

Recreate 4 or 6 different types of arrow-heads:

Type A iron
Type A iron/steel composite hardened
Type B iron
Type B iron/steel composite hardened
Type C iron
Type C iron/steel composite hardened

Then, create some standardized test conditions. Fire the arrows at several standardized armored and unarmored targets at several ranges. A sample of size of 20 would be the minimum for each set of test conditions. If a good scoring system can be developed, then that would be great for statistical analysis. Then, the variables can be worked out, and you might see certain interactions. (Bodkin x path length may be a significant interaction, for example.)

[dar]

Hey! Would the mythbusters want to tackle this one?

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

If this is right, some future GURPS book - probably Low-Tech - should note that yeah, armor piercers exist, but BASIC SET calls them by the wrong name. Not bodkin, but hardened armor piercing heads. The question is, will that change the stats as well? If not, it's a pretty trivial change...it's no more of a change than GURPS Martial Arts's notes that the katana in BASIC SET is really an early period long blade, not the much shorter katana of the late Tokugawa-era.