160 lb War Bow vs Plate Breastplate

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
Been discussing this in multiple fora.
  • mythras models this well, if it is a well crafted breastplate (1d8+1d2 likely for this guy, 8AP for a good breastplate + 1-2 for quality)
  • those arrows are incredibly large compared to modern arrows (1200 grain vs more like 400 grain)
  • 160 pounds is an incredible amount of draw. modern compound bows are much less (70-ish), but then again, deer don't wear plate
a great little test.
 
I’d like to see them do a test with the 200lb bow the guy can shoot.

I’d also like to see a test with well-made boobplate to see if “common wisdom” is right and it becomes a Black Hole of Death, sucking in all glancing blows and turning them into heartseekers...or if rounded surfaces do what they do everywhere else, and deflect blows. :tongue:
 
Is that seriously a 160 lbp bow? I know people talk about tremendously high draw weights of medieval bows, but every serious minded test of them that I've seen comes in much lower, and I haven't personally seen a bow that stiff that was meant to be drawn by hand.
 
10 meters, modern steel arrowhead. "No, really, you're not gonna penetrate 2mm of steel plate. Even when you're so close that if you don't kill him now, he's going to gut you in about five seconds."
 
Is that seriously a 160 lbp bow? I know people talk about tremendously high draw weights of medieval bows, but every serious minded test of them that I've seen comes in much lower, and I haven't personally seen a bow that stiff that was meant to be drawn by hand.
it is, apparently. he went out of his way to have experts on this. the guy has been shooting a longbow for over a decade. he's shooting sort of funny, and I imagine it's because the draw is insane.
 
10 meters, modern steel arrowhead. "No, really, you're not gonna penetrate 2mm of steel plate. Even when you're so close that if you don't kill him now, he's going to gut you in about five seconds."

Many roleplaying games have ruined us on this. I've had to convince my folks of this, down to pulling out Legolas and counting seconds.
 
In a D&D 5e game last week a couple of us took out a house full of bandits using shortbows... it was like we had death-ray rifles.
Fun but silly... and too easy.
 
I love Tod's Workshop and Scholagladitoria on Youtube. they've given me a lot of useful information over the years. Great stuff.
 
Many roleplaying games have ruined us on this. I've had to convince my folks of this, down to pulling out Legolas and counting seconds.
21-foot-rule applies MORE to bows than to firearms, not less :grin:
 
Isn’t that 5e in a nutshell.
Ranged PCs with Sharpshooter are like Hanzo from Overwatch if the DM ignores LoS, visibility/lighting, and cover. Furthermore, enemies of human intelligence are going to take advantage of full cover, foiling sharpshooters unless they burn their action on Readying.
 
This should surprise no one, really.

Archers, crossbowmen, and slingers were employed in mass units. There is a reason for this.
So were Knights/Cavalry, maybe not at the same rate as ranged fighters but imagine being 10m (30 or so feet) away and then ten of these plate armoured buggers are coming your way with big, honking two handers. You have one shot. 25m (70ish ft) you've got a couple more at most.

You want the lucky shots that find the crevices of the armour, not full on torso hits.

This was very interesting either way, the noise and the fact that arrows effectively explode after failing to penetrate.
 
This was very interesting either way, the noise and the fact that arrows effectively explode after failing to penetrate.

Yak that seems like the sort of thing that would be useful in describing a critical hit - arrow hits breastplate, explodes, shard of wood or arrow head sneaks in under the helmet.
 
10 meters, modern steel arrowhead. "No, really, you're not gonna penetrate 2mm of steel plate. Even when you're so close that if you don't kill him now, he's going to gut you in about five seconds."
"Less than three seconds" sounds more likely to me, but otherwise, you're right:smile:.
 
The exploding arrows were really interesting, and explained a lot about why plate armour looks the way it does. The French padded surcoat & its effect was interesting too - eliminating shrapnel and making the arrowheads sneak up under the surcoat only to be deflected by that raised guard thingy.
 
The exploding arrows were really interesting, and explained a lot about why plate armour looks the way it does. The French padded surcoat & its effect was interesting too - eliminating shrapnel and making the arrowheads sneak up under the surcoat only to be deflected by that raised guard thingy.
I believe it was called a Gorget (throat protector) despite not being close to the head, as some other designs of the time were.
 
mib_0700.jpg


Not always. It's just neck protection.

large_TR_184.jpg
 
Last edited:
So were Knights/Cavalry, maybe not at the same rate as ranged fighters but imagine being 10m (30 or so feet) away and then ten of these plate armoured buggers are coming your way with big, honking two handers. You have one shot. 25m (70ish ft) you've got a couple more at most.

You want the lucky shots that find the crevices of the armour, not full on torso hits.

This was very interesting either way, the noise and the fact that arrows effectively explode after failing to penetrate.


yes it was.

And that's why archers start shooting at 200 yards. Throw enough arrows out there, and something will find a gap. Notice the one that hit below the breasrplate? That would ruin your whole afternoon.
 
I’d also like to see a test with well-made boobplate to see if “common wisdom” is right and it becomes a Black Hole of Death, sucking in all glancing blows and turning them into heartseekers...or if rounded surfaces do what they do everywhere else, and deflect blows. :tongue:
Be careful what you wish for. If it turns out that they deflect blows, suddenly every optimised fighter will become Kim Kardashian in plate. D&D's default setting will become the Forgotten ...Tracts of Land overnight.
 
So were Knights/Cavalry, maybe not at the same rate as ranged fighters but imagine being 10m (30 or so feet) away and then ten of these plate armoured buggers are coming your way with big, honking two handers. You have one shot. 25m (70ish ft) you've got a couple more at most.

You want the lucky shots that find the crevices of the armour, not full on torso hits.

This was very interesting either way, the noise and the fact that arrows effectively explode after failing to penetrate.
That's not how military archery works. It's all about volume of arrows into a specified area.

And two handers are for killing horses, not swinging from horseback. Doing that is a good way to behead your horse. Which wouldn't look good in battle.
 
yes it was.

And that's why archers start shooting at 200 yards. Throw enough arrows out there, and something will find a gap. Notice the one that hit below the breasrplate? That would ruin your whole afternoon.
But survival is capable. It's a dangerous hit, I will grant that, but you can keep fighting with that wound.
That's not how military archery works. It's all about volume of arrows into a specified area.

But the video was about re-enacting the Agincourt paintings and images. Which had knights on horses, foot and archers within 10-25m (30-70ft) distance.

And two handers are for killing horses, not swinging from horseback. Doing that is a good way to behead your horse. Which wouldn't look good in battle.

I meant two handers on foot, sorry. And they were not for killing horses. That's stupid, while you're doing that, the knights are KILLING you with their longer weapons. Two handed weapons (Mostly the swords) were for 'crowd control', the sweep strikes were meant to hit several enemy soldiers at once. It's amazing the arc you could cover with just a few tightly controlled motions.
 
At Agincourt twohanders would have generally be pole-axes. Possibly longswords as back-up weapons - but they wouldn't do much against armour, unless you got lucky with a mordhau against the helmet (reverse grip - holding the blade - and swinging like a warhammer).

Zweihanders and montantes and the like are slightly later, when gunpowder weapons were slowly beginning to make armour obsolete. (You probably want slightly less armour to use one effectively - and they would likely be more effective against unarmoured or more lightly armoured opponents)
 
Last edited:
I'm not saying saying any of this accurate, I honestly don't know, I was never there. Gronan might have been though. :wink::hehe:

I'm basing my statements of range and arrow penetration based on what this video showed us. And so far, assuming the pictures of Agincourt are right, those archers are toast. With marmalade.
 
The English at Agincourt had knights and men-at-arms too.

Ready to take on the remnants of the French force after anyone who didn't have extremely good and expensive armour coverage had been picked off. And fresh versus having been battered and bruised by arrows across the field.

And the archers would likely have hammered spikes in the ground in front of them with big mallets they would have likely turned on the French should they have got close enough. - Plus the English archers would quite likely - by this point of history, not have been unarmoured themselves - likely they would have had helments and brigandine of their own.
 
I think in the top 10 moments in history to video tape for me would be Agincourt. Mostly because I’ve read a lot of these :smile:

Right now, I’m assuming Gronan’s eyewitness account is correct
 
At Agincourt, under the jupon the knightly armor would have looked very much like what is pictured on this page:


Notice how much of it is NOT plate. Many knights would also have had articulated plate over the caps of the shoulders (spaulders). But there is a LOT of not-plate there.


is the effigy of Edward the Black Prince, died about 50 years before Agincourt. His armor is the best of the time and even though he has spaulders on his shoulders, there is still a lot of mail. Knights weren't all rich enough to afford the very latest gear, and most historians agree that many of the knights at Agincourt were similarly armed.
 
At Agincourt the French knights were almost totally on foot. That's because at Crecy and Poitiers, the English longbowmen slaughtered the knights' horses. Full plate barding was not developed until considerably after Agincourt, and even then most knights' horses didn't have it.
 
At Agincourt the French knights were almost totally on foot. That's because at Crecy and Poitiers, the English longbowmen slaughtered the knights' horses. Full plate barding was not developed until considerably after Agincourt, and even then most knights' horses didn't have it.

Yes, and as far as we know a lot of French knights were able to get into melee range - but tired & disoriented by the thick mud and the arrow hits (& we can see why!) they were defeated in detail and captured. Compared to the English, the French knights would have been generally richer and better equipped - whereas Scottish knights tended to be poorer and poorer equipped, with less plate and more reliance on mail for longer. I'm sure there were poor French knights at Agincourt, but I think it's reasonable to think the core of their knightly infantry had a lot of plate.

The demonstration used a very historical 1390 breastplate albeit the steel was more consistent than could have been made then. The bow was Mary Rose era and likely at the high end for an archer's bow ca 1415. Same for the arrows. So the test was pretty much 'best of the best' on both sides.
 
The video confirms much of my suspicions. First of all the breastplate was not fully hardened. It gives it the elasticity to not crack under pressure. Secondly, I suspect that the volley fire targeted upwards was most effective against not so heavily armored opponents. Thirdly, this is probably not the full plate armor that most roleplaying games tend to focus on. The heyday of plate armor was much later than Agincourt. The go-to guy on state of the art plate armor there is this guy: Knyght Errant
 
What I find remarkable about this test is how completely helpless a target in mail would be against that bow. It is obvious that anyone other that a fully plate encased combatant would be cut down immediately.
 
The video confirms much of my suspicions. First of all the breastplate was not fully hardened. It gives it the elasticity to not crack under pressure. Secondly, I suspect that the volley fire targeted upwards was most effective against not so heavily armored opponents. Thirdly, this is probably not the full plate armor that most roleplaying games tend to focus on. The heyday of plate armor was much later than Agincourt. The go-to guy on state of the art plate armor there is this guy: Knyght Errant
I mean, no. It's not full plate armor. It's a Breastplate.


That.
 
Banner: The best cosmic horror & Cthulhu Mythos @ DriveThruRPG.com
Back
Top