Video of bloke puncturing steel with a selection of polearms in a barn

[Charlie_]

Title says it all really.



Very interesting! I've actually not really seen late medieval polearms 'swung' properly before, and seeing this pleasant chap puncturing some steel plate with a poleaxe, halberd and some sort of double-headed hammer I've never seen before really shows how destructive these things could be to a man in plate armour. I'm guessing there is no way he could have that sort of effect on armour with a sword....

Also interesting to see exactly how they could be held and wielded, because I've often wondered how you could get a good swing from one of these in a closely packed formation. But just a good strong two-handed thrust with the point looks lethal!

I know, I know, he is not actually puncturing armour, but flat sheets of steel. But he does say at the end that his next job is to try it on curved plate backed with padding and some simulated skulls! But this video is nearly two years old and I can't find his follow-ups, so don't know if it ever happened...

Anyway, worth a watch I think.

[commissarmoody]

That's pretty cool

[Elbows]

Yep, pretty cool.  Doesn't really translate to armour (whose shape would give it structural rigidity and alter the results) but I've no doubt with a good swing, any of these could give you a hell of a bad day. (or your last...)

[Atheling]

Interesting.... but, puncturing a piece of steel plate is not the same thing as puncturing armour which was designed to have the maximum number of glancing surfaces in order to avoid a head on blow.

I'm not denying that it couldn't happen, I'm pretty sure that it did. It was just harder to achieve a deadly blow than that portrayed in the 'test'.

Cheers,
Darrell.

[Dr. Zombie]

This is the Bow versus Crossbow thread all over again.

There are tons of reservations to a test like this. For starters. All of his weapons look to be tooled out of solid steel in stead of having been hammered out like it would have been in medieval times. The same goes for the target as well there is a hell of a difference between rolled plate steel and a breastplate hammered out by a blacksmith.

Mind I only fast forwarded through the video without sound. So he might have adressed some of these things in that case feel free to ignore my ramblings.

[jon_1066]

It was interesting to see that most of the punctures only went in an inch or so.  You can easily imagine padding, etc underneath preventing very serious injury (except perhaps to the skull)

I get the impression that those puncture type weapons are for driving into the gaps between the plates rather than actually driving a hole in them.  Would be interesting to see the deflection caused by mashing it with the blade/hammer part.  Could a serious dent be made to the same effect - incapacitating the opponent for long enough to make them yield with a bodkin to their visor?

I would also be interested to know how much of combat revolved around not harming your opponent too badly.  If you kill them they are worthless, incapacitated and captured you can ransom them.  So weapon/armour combos would perhaps be designed to be stunning rather than dismembering?

[Hu Rhu]

In the immediate heat of battle I would expect that knocking someone off his feet would achieve much the same thing, allowing the second rank to despatch him.  However I don't beleive for one moment that fighting methods were developed simply to stun an opponent for ransom.  Soldiers would have had a much more primeval instinct to stay alive rather than worry too much about ransom.  After all you can only claim the ransom if a. your side has won and (more importantly) b. you are alive.

[Atheling]

Soldiers would have had a much more primeval instinct to stay alive rather than worry too much about ransom.

I concur.

Ask Charles the Bold  

Darrell.

[Mason]

I concur.

Ask Charles the Bold  

Good idea.
Is he a member on here?
 

[Charlie_]

Guys, I said in the first post, It's obviously not actual armour, and he knows that! He says in the video he next plans to do the same tests on 'real' shaped armour.
Unfortunately upon looking for the follow-up video, which never happened, it looks like he hasn't posted a video for quite some time, and has been diagnosed with cancer. I hope he's ok!

This is the Bow versus Crossbow thread all over again.

Yes, that was me as well
No one person filming some tests to put on youtube is ever going to have all the answers as to how certain medieval weapons worked, the truth is we will never know for sure. But videos like this are still interesting. Any sort of discussion about medieval weapons and their usage is interesting, regardless if said discussions have happened many times before.

For what its worth, I'm more interested in seeing exactly how these polearm weapons could be wielded and swung with a lot of force, rather than measuring exactly how far they could penetrate plate steel under controlled circumstances. So there is something very satisfying about watching this guy swing a poleaxe!

Also, it's true that if a spike penetrates say an inch through steel, that's not going to be an inch into flesh. Once it's got through the padding underneath, it might just graze the body. But it's probably going to cause a big old dent, and to the head especially it's going to cause serious discomfort to the man inside!

[Arlequín]

However I don't beleive for one moment that fighting methods were developed simply to stun an opponent for ransom. 

Actually the financial incentive and the chance of hitting the jackpot with a ransom, was a motivator to become a professional soldier. While pay rates were slightly above average wages on the whole, they wouldn't be enough to ensure anyone would hope to enrich themselves by the extra couple of pence they received.

Certainly self-preservation was the primary concern, but chances would be taken and indeed if you were wealthy and in dire straits, surrendering was the sensible option; even if it might beggar you.

Charles the Bold was a bit of a head case by 1477, I would imagine he probably declined the offer of surrender and the Swiss were probably tired of his shit anyway.

 

Good idea.
Is he a member on here?
 

Can you imagine what he'd be like as a member?  

[Mr.J]

For what its worth, I'm more interested in seeing exactly how these polearm weapons could be wielded and swung with a lot of force, rather than measuring exactly how far they could penetrate plate steel under controlled circumstances. So there is something very satisfying about watching this guy swing a poleaxe!

If you are interested in watching clips of polearms I would suggest watching some modern naginata. I believe, and others may question, doubt, comment etc. that this is one of the best representations of medieval polearm combat.

A lot of what reenactors, interpreters, scholars base their views on is the plates and written instructions from surviving medieval fight manuals, which I have often seen interpreted badly or to the reader own agenda. Naginata has a living tradition which means by and large it is being taught in a very similar way to how it was being taught a thousand years ago. There obviously will be some slight variations as with all martial arts, however as I see it wherever you are in the world in war you will use a weapon in a way that will most efficiently, maim, kill, defend, protect, etc.

Again I am no expert but I think it's an interesting an enlightening comparison and I have trained quite extensively with both weapons.

[Steve63]

White armour or plate armour became popular after the process of annealing was discovered sometime in the 14th century probably in the Middle East.  Annealing is the process by which steel is hardened and is still used today.  The piece of mild steel used in the video had not been annealed.  
As mentioned earlier in the thread the piece of mild steel was not shaped as armour would be.
Modern steel has a different composition to medieval steel and the manufacture of medieval steel is largely still a mystery.
So as a test it was pretty pointless.

As for a bloke hitting things with a hammer it was too far to slow, here's a video of Mike Loads hitting a hardened breast plate with the hammer end probably still pointless but at 55 seconds its a bit more watchable.

[Elbows]

I think the reality is quite simple.  Look at a medieval polearm like those in the video - they appear to me to be very much a simple multi-tool.  By giving a foot slogger a blade/spike/hook...he can do just about anything.  I always imagined the hook on a halberd say, to be used much more for yanking someone off a horse, or yanking a shield down from an opponent etc.  They just look an awful lot like an infantryman's swiss-army-weapon.

My more curious question...were polearms used heavily outside of combat as tools while an army camped?  Were they intentionally designed as tools/weapons, or solely as weapons?

[Mr.J]

The bill takes it's design from the billhook a traditional agricultural tool.