I love how Tobi Capwell is just sitting there in armor like he's not sitting there in armor.

I was talking with someone last week who is currently attending university in the Czech Republic (not sure which one), and he told me that the history department considers the Arrows vs Armour series to be a valid source to cite in academic papers. You love to see it!

Wait Tod's last name isn't Workshop 😂

The real question post-event is -- how did Tobi do in the joust?!

I still love how Joe showed he could immediately kill a knight with his first arrow perfectly slipping under the plate and into the mail. Then he was like "okay, I'll play your game now". What an absolute beast.

Hopefully the Arrows vs Armour and other testing done by Tod and Co gets some traction in the wider community interested in this type of archeology. Its fine if people have their 'what ifs' about certain tests, but for the most part the tests that were done are quite robust and consistent, even if its not meeting people's expectations and that's something a lot of people who don't come from a scientific background struggle with. Sometimes the stats and the experiment results aren't going to replicate a fault or incident. But why I appreciate this series of tests was that prior to these actual tests, there was practically nothing when it came to weapons and armour tests. There was some rubbish from mainstream tv channels using blunt swords, tin plate armour and the internet full of weird dudes chopping plastic water bottles and plastic-latex zombie heads with rubbish chinese and indian swords. So however people like/dislike the results or methods, these videos are a real tipping point in displaying actual results as real as you can practically get.

So happy to been a contributor to avsa2 but frankly just as happy to see Tod rather go play with his trebuchet than doing an avsa3! 🥰 But wait...hang on... Why not: Trebuchet vs armour?!!! 😁

This is absolute pro level quality, start to finish.

hopefully some graduate student somewhere saw this and thought, 'well Todd may not be interested in a doctoral thesis, but I'm doing one anyway; maybe I'll just film it for these folks...'

Absolutely Loved this Tod, you and everyone worked so hard on this and did a fantastic job

People often think of a weapon as needing to kill an opponent to be effective but never think of a weapon's ability to disable the opponent's ability to fight. If an arrow causes an opponent to back out because of fear, injury, or binding armor joints then the arrow has as good as killed that opponent. This likely has just as much psychological effect on the opponent's allies as if he had also been killed. There are accounts of armies routing not because of deaths but because people doing things that aren't expected or interpreted wrongly. Such as if a commander rides from one formation to another to gives orders is interpreted as fleeing because of cowardice then a whole formation can quickly crumble. For when a few start to flee then so do the many.

12:54 The first thing I did while watching the original Arrows vs Armour 2 video was put myself in the place of that guy, and man... those guys must have had balls of steel to march forward into that, as well as a tremendous amount of faith in God, I would wager.

My god, Toby's blinged out.

A lot of the time when sat 300 yards off men at arms will presumably prefer not to have their visors down - another great set of responses from your team - and still more added to the body of knowledge and thought.

I can't wait to see the leather bound shield in action.

As much as I love watching Joe Gibbs shoot a bow what are the chances of getting a “Bolts vs Armour”? I’d love to see how a heavy poundage crossbow goes against plate.

Half the questions seemed to basically be "Why couldn't you have made this 10 times more difficult and expensive to do?" I would be interested in a comparison of composite (Mongel) bow vs the armor it faced.

I think the big question has to be how confident would Joe be, with a few similar skilled and armed mates, to take out a fully armoured knight marching with intent towards them? They would of course get a big payout if they could.

love how at 50:05 I could recognize Drachinifel just by his voice

If all of the films were packaged together on a DVD, I would buy it.

Hearing Drachinifel at 50:05 was a pleasant surprise. I guess his historical interests extend beyond naval matters

Are you guys going to be at any other events over the summer? Gutted to have missed this. Would love to hear more from all of you guys! Please keep on making these really great films!

The last question is one of my favorite put to the panel. I have to say seeing swords routinely piercing steel plate armor (yes, Game of Throne I am looking at you) bothers me on a core level SO much that it takes me out of the moment completely. AvA2 is such a tremendous piece of archeology I am so very proud to have been able to donate to it and would GLADLY do so again! The work that you are doing has and continues to elevate our understanding of history.

Thank you lads! Wonderful research.

I'm so sorry I couldn't make it to the festival and very glad you managed to record it all. As a bonus the introductory clip is now a great way for me to spread your work!

They did a tremendous job on this, which gave us some things we expected to be the case, and disproved others. Unsurprisingly, armour works. It worked really, really well, but that's not to say a knight was invulnerable. Massed volley fire increases the chance that an arrow will find a soft spot, and that must have been terrifying. To have arrows skipping off your chest and head, splintering around you, when all the time you're just waiting for one to miss the plate and hit the mail or find some gap will have had a pretty big psychological effect even before a knight reaches melee range to start fighting. To make it worse, arrows that deflect off your own guys might end up coming your way from awkward angles. We saw a number of arrows skip off the armour with quite a lot of momentum left in them, but now with shredded tips of splinters. Yeah, just a thoroughly fine job all round.

"You are still, as a man in armor, aware of every time you are hit,".... says the guy actually in armor who has been jousting :)

Wait, was that Drachinifel asking the 2nd to last question? Felt like a very familiar voice from the UK historical KZfaq circle. Great job with the panel everyone and I hope that I'll be able to make it to the festival myself next year as it seems like a blast for history nerds.

Tod you just reminded me of at least three Jousters at renaissance festivals that were injured when their opponents lance shattered and a piece came through the eye slit lodging in the brain. No one died but it seems that the eye slits can "carve" down a arrow shaft or splinter of a lance in such a way that it can hit the human inside.

Toby looks so uncomfortable in his armor 😂 stunning, but uncomfortable.

Tobias flexing that gilded mail haubergeon hahaha

Since this is supposed to be a recreation of sorts of the Battle of Agincourt it will be necessary to bear in mind what actually happened there. 1st: the French did attempt a cavalry action initially but the very muddy nature of the ground bogged it down and their horses did receive a lot of wounds. So they dismounted and went on foot. 2nd: the first wave of French knights reached the English lines and the English held their ground until the second wave of French pushed into the back of their first and weight of numbers began to move the English out of their prepared defensive position. 3rd: this is the most important fact. The French were defeated when the longbowmen put down their bows and engaged them in melee combat from the flanks. This is the most important fact because it shows that it wasn't the arrows that defeated the French knights but being enveloped on the flanks in hand to hand combat. This also shows that the arrows couldn't have been that effective against the armor, which is what Tod et. al. showed in their video. That is why Henry V praised the valor of his archers, something he wouldn't have done if they had defeated the enemy with arrows. This last fact is something that many don't understand about the battle of Agincourt. We always hear the longbowmen were the ones that won the battle and assume that it must have been their archery that did it when in fact it wasn't. The longbowmen were indeed responsible for the victory but it wasn't the bow itself.

I’ve done the javelin with the string before, you get greater distance if you hold it with your hand and do the throwing with the string, great video!!

54:00 - a review of a film by history specialists and a stuntman with it taking an hour for one minute of the film's screen time? That's my kind of scale! :D Definitely a must watch.

Suggestion: Arrows vs Armour 3 might not be about arrows. We have a lot of history of lances piercing armour and the arms-race between lance technology and the armour between the two of them. Would it be possible to test lances against the chest armour of different time period? We've seen: Single and double maille vs what was essentially a longer spear, with or without the Arrette de Lance rondel. The "hanging of a steel plate" on top of your maille The stiffly padded/quilted gambeson on top of one or two layers of maille to act more as a breastplate than the Jupon did later We've seen coats of plates with lung-plates Banded coats of plates Coats of plates reinforced with an extra steel plate on top The segmented globose breastplates such as the Churburg S18 And eventually the single-piece and placcart cuirasses, alongside brigandines (And the accounts of knights arguing about wether a brigandine is good enough to take a lance). Then there are the lances that followed along in all of this, the long spear, the long spear with the arrette rondel, the small tree (very big spear) and eventually all the way up to the heavy lance with the lance rest, the rondel at the back etc. and STILL supposedly being able to punch through cuirasses. What stuff is actually proof against a lance of its time, how much is "good enough" and generally, what does it actually look like as a cuirass or layers of maille gets run through by a lance?

I kinda wish someone like the Discovery channel would show some interest in this and commision a series so you could test a lot more types of armour vs weapons from different periods. Even have more archers to test things like volleys and so on. Maybe not the History channel as they would probably end up throwing Hitler and Aliens into the mix.

You guys are bascially the Top Gear crew of medieval arms , armour and history. And my god I dig it!.

Rare to see Dr. Capwell in such old fashioned armor. Most pictures of him in armor I’ve seen are a century or two newer in style. I’d still love to see (Hussite) Handgonne vs. Armor someday. Hussite Wars were not that long after Agincourt, and the armor penetration ability of early gonnes is just as, if not more, mythical. I know Jason Kingsley had a pair of users on his channel a few time.

I get so excited every time I see a video from you in my sub list. I hope you keep on making these for as long as you can.

I feel it notable that even with the scrunching up of chain mail at the armpits caused when you draw your arms as close as you can to the body, which knights were known to do when under arrow fire, they still developed the rondel as an armpit defense.

2 minutes into this and I am so looking forward to wacthing it all... thanks!

OMG! Youv got the whole tribe out there

Absolutely love this type of experiment!! Great job all! Do more!

Very entertaining and informative. One area I would like explored would be the actual state of some of the armour. Would Knights and men at arms be wearing freshly made armour of would they be years old and repaired. Would metal fatigue be a contributing factor to defeating it.

You guys are fantastic. Well done for what you do.

Loved the work you guys have done on this project. It's been very interesting to see the different results 😊

A group of passionate professionals fielding questions and sharing their knowledge and experience. Great watch, thank you for sharing!

I'd love to see a future arrows vs armour involving the longer range arrows mentioned towards the end, i think it would be interesting to shine some light on the skirmishing, pre-battle phases of medieval warfare.

I love how he says it's not an absolute on anything because they where not there.

When you love your work it isn't work anymore. Really enjoying yr vids and realism.😊

These films are so uniquely special. It's fantastic watching experts in different fields collaborate. This Q+A felt like a great way to wrap up the series. Can't wait to see what projects come next!

Joe can just sit there and wallow in glory, after that first shot killing the king in longbow Vs trebuchet. Jobs a guddun

Legendary work as always.

Testing against horse armour would be different in one aspect: the range of the shots. The existing Arrows vs. Armour tests were shot in a direct fire role. If one imagines French knights riding against the English archers at Crecy, I imagine the archers using long-range indirect fire. This changes several things: the geometry (angles), and the energy of the arrow on impact.

If you consider that the armoured Knights were the first tanks, even in the comparatively recent Gulf wars, tanks were killed by a single hit in the right place. So it doesn't matter how thick or heavy the armour is, something will come along that can penetrate it.

I could tell that was Mr Drach from the " Hello " alone.. 😊 Great questions and informative discussion, thank you.

With regards to the question regarding horse armour, it will be interesting if we can factor in speed of target and target momentum when firing arrows and see if it makes any difference. It will be great to have something like a moving target which we typically use in military firing range to simulate enemies running and walking to test the difference between hitting a walking, running, and charging (on horseback) target.

The tests did their job. Nobody was trying to paint the whole picture, but you did "zoom'n'enhance" a few finer points quite nicely. My fav was when y'all had that "Aha!" moment about the breastplate fiddly bits protecting the neck and eyes. Excellent work gentlemen.

Such a great wrap up of all these videos and films. Thank you gentlemen!

Many good questions and honest answers here. So glad to see this Band of 5 Brothers facing the shots of the audience, and so good to see the result: an obvious win - win 😊

Please keep making high quality content like this!

Thanks for sharing! This is great.

Appreciate the panel discussion, most of the questions were decent as well. My biggest question for any 3rd project is related to the volume of arrows- not just the accuracy of a single archer but shooting as a group vs a moving target, even if the target is moving relatively slowly such as an infantry block walking forward. Joe said he had a roughly 1 in 3 at worse chance of hitting a man-size target at 100 yards. VS a static target situation I completely take him at his word. If a competent archer could hit 30% of the time and then roughly 1/5 arrows do 'some' type of damage to areas of maile or from lucky hits in gaps or particularly weak sections of plate such as on the arms, that would give a best case scenario at 100 yards being for every 1,000 arrows, 60 would do some damage. Considering there could be a five thousand archers within 100 yards of an infantry line of 6,400 men that is spread over an area of 1,600 yards by 800 yards. Then 5,000 archers loosing 1 arrow every 10 seconds have a volume of arrows of 150,000 over 5 minutes with roughly 9,000 'hits' in the best case scenario at 100 yards (unmoving target, no stress of battle). 9,000 hits is a very large number, even if we say archers were 1/10th as effective as the 'best' case scenario in a real battle with moving men and stress, if it takes an advancing line of infantry to cross 500 yards at 90 yards a minute walking speed roughly 6 minutes and worst case is 180 hits per minute at 100 yards, then the real question is how much does an archer's effective hit rate increase as the range decreases? If the effective hit rate goes up by 10% per 20 yards, that would be approx 828 casualties of varying severity to close within 20 yards where the men-at-arms would be taking over the fight for the most part unless it was a setup where the archers had enfilade and could keep loosing arrows into the rear ranks. 828+ wounds of varying severity on 6,400 men in 6 minutes is devastating despite archers being unable to pierce plate armor at almost any range without an extremely lucky visor hit or vs some very weak section of poorly made plate. Then if only half those 'hits' were fully disabling, that leaves about 6,000 stressed, more tired than normal (having to keep visor closed on the advance) French men-at-arms with some bearing minor wounds to face 800 or so English men-at-arms supported by a couple thousand archers acting as light infantry in a vicious melee. Considering the English were careful to ensure the length of their line was short, if only 1,200 of the remaining 6,000 French men-at-arms could face the 800 English at any given time + some hundred archers in support as light infantry, it basically reduces a high percentage win for the more numerous advancing infantry to something closer to parity. Still requires the English to hold the line and the French morale to collapse but such things do happen against the apparent odds in many historical battles. Where the English archers suffered severe defeats they were run-down by cavalry who caught them on the march or unable to setup on top of a muddy ridge or place any ditches/trenches/stakes to slow the enemy infantry advance. That suggests time and volume of arrows were essential to the success of English tactics hence the increasing proportion of archers in English armies and the adoption of smaller armies and fortified positions to lure a more numerous enemy to attack what seems to be a vulnerable target. When the French learned not to attack directly, spent more time maneuvering, and ensured more coordinated command struture, the English armies began to lose more battles and field fewer archers.

I'd be interested to see crossbows vs arrows vs armour. Comparing the difference between crossbows and arrows as part of it. I've always wanted a fuller explanation as to why England opted for bows when everyone else seemed to favour crossbows. Presumably the extreme training demands on Joe is part of it, but I've never known why bows might be better to warrant that type of large societal change.

This was great to listen to, especially about the history of different aspects of armies, their composition and the individual kit that each soldier may have had.. Good questions asked by the audience as well.

Great job guys. Love the channel.

Great work you all and laying the basis for further testing and experimentation on those topics!

Concerning arrow types, ranges and other equipment questions. I've read that the Mongol horse archers during the incursion of the Golden Horde typically each carried at least 2 bows, often 3 with each having a specific purpose. Likewise they carried different types of arrows. They had "flight arrows" and bows for distance, these were used for mass formations to harass or deny the enemy, they had their famous short composite bow with war arrows, and finally they had hunting arrows (and sometimes hunting bows) for sustaining themselves on the move. I would ask, why wouldn't the European armies have something similar? I'm sure there were flight arrows and hunting arrows among the English armies roaming France foraging off the land.

I absolutely appreciate the work time and finances that went into these films. An experience into the past for certain even if just a small portion) not just the sights but the sounds also (even that grim feeling of the arrows heading straight for the visor cam) . What you have presented to us all is what I hope to be the beginning of maybe a more accurate representation and depiction of war in the realm of modern cinema especially films pertaining to historical events. Thank you . Subscriber earned.

Amazing! Thank you ALL!

I agree with Joe, testing movement is something that always struck me that was missing. Boxers and martial artists "slip" punches by moving and twisting as they are hit.

There was a fantastic film on armour, armour piercing projectiles in the Seventies. For Open University, I think. From bows and bodkins right up to, then modern tank weapons.

50:07 - A wild Drachinifel appears!

Even guns (even shotguns and .30-06) don't actually knock people off their feet... they have much more kinetic energy and momentum than an arrow.

I love that you mentioned the jupon again in the starter film, a favourite piece of equipment of mine. I find it very interesting because that fine dust and fragmentation from arrow impacts must have been irritating or in some cases even debilitating to a man at arms under fire from arrows, a sort of medieval suppressive fire analogous to that of modern machine guns. As shown in your films the jupon contains that spalling from impacts, minimizing debris that would have been scattered. I imagine it acting sort of like a medieval flak jacket, only meant to protect from smaller fragmentation. I wonder how much effect the leather/wool outer lining on a large plate brigandine would have on incoming arrows that were deflected by the underlying plate. Thanks for taking us along for the ride the last few years Tod, its been an intriguing journey so far.

I really appreciate this project. It’s really cool to see, as mentioned, and makes an excellent reference for writing

WOW... Loved it brother... Great job..

stopped by your stall at the Tewksbury festival. Loved the blades you had on display :P

Have you thought about the behind armour blunt trauma? With modern armour stopping the round is not only thing to worry about, there has to be a way of dissipating the energy before it interacts with the body. This can be measured using a certain grade of plastercine which show how far the plate moves into the target, however this is not the whole story as it is the acceleration of the plate not just the distance.

Tod you and your crew are a group of geniuses! Amazing work.

One thing I've been curious about for a while that sadly wasn't addressed. We've seen that an arrow from a heavy warbow can punch through mail and gambeson with lethal force. Knowing this, the next question to answer is: How light could a bow be while still posing a credible threat to a knight? Would a 50#-60# hunting bow be able to penetrate mail with a lucky shot at close range? I've played around a bit with my homemade 1.6mm fully flattened round-riveted mild steel mail and my 47# longbow, but until I can forge bodkin arrowheads to a standard worth fitting to my good arrow shafts, I'm stuck with field points. So far, I've managed to bend individual links but not penetrate my mail, so I wouldn't be surprised if a 60# longbow with proper heads would go through.

Personally I love how you have recreated the best you can, and come to conclusions, and clearly state 'this is what we think based off these tests (amongst other evidence)', no mention of stating fact, which to me is something vital with a lot of historical discovery. The same way that dinosaurs could have had bright pink skin, or just because Homer wrote it, does not mean it was ever true. So I absolutely applaud all your efforts in this regard, this kind of open research is precious. While you were answering the demanding questions of your audience and volume of arrows was brought up, it got me thinking could that be where the phrase 'luck of the draw' originates, though I did a quick Google search which said it came from card games in America. After seeing the damage to the armours, to me, it is not beyond the realms of possibility the phrase could have older origins (from both an archer and knights perspective). Obviously this is just me 'drawing' my own conclusion though! Looking forward to Arrows Vs Armour III with the fleet of armoured horsemen and many, many rows of archers 🤣

Hahah look at Toby sat there looking all badass in his gleaming armour.

A very good series, very interesting to watch. Thank you !

Wonderful!!!

When sailing into unknown waters, even general directions can be extremely helpful.

Toby sat there in a chair not designed for that style of dress, some good questions including from a KZfaqr I know takes part in all sorts of armoured stuff, but a LOT heavier (Hi Drach). I would love to see more on the theme as I love the practical archaeology you and the guys do Tod. The films were superbly put together, genuinely eye opening and a great piece of practical research.

Every time Tobias answers a question I try really hard to concentrate, but just get super distracted by that gorgeous mail, hahaha

this was fantastic thank you guys so much....great work

Love it guys keep up the great work as individuals and as a group!

I wouldnt have thought you guys had the budget to put bill murray in armour ,but so glad you did.bravo.

Is that Drac at 50:13 hmmm? Thought I was in drydock for a second..

This festival is great. And this session was excellent.

Such great summary and additional information, maybe even glimpses of what we will see in the future. Me too want more of these results of the Arrows vs Armour in our fictional stories (novel/movies/....) !!!

29:34 a time period which would be very interesting to test on, which from my understanding really hasn't been really touched on much. Is the ancient/antiquity period, bronze, laminar, etc vs period arrows and ranged weapons, be it ancient Greek, Roman, Germanic, Celtic, Egyptian or whatever. Of course shields where very important in these periods especially for protection from ranged weapons, but would still be interested to test the body armor in the event an arrow or other ranged weapon missed the shield and hit the warrior. Or perhaps an other test would be also very interesting is going into various types of shields vs period ranged weapons and see how they fared.

Late to the game, but what would be interesting for an Arrows vs Armour 3 would be something like the Siege of Jerusalem 1187, looking at 3rd crusade period armor, as well as looking at how arrows and armor might be affected by being fired up at a castle wall or down from it

Brilliant Q&A

As with swords Im sure armour was of varied quality and susceptible to wear and tear given how it was stored and used. The rash of arrows would be similar I suppose in the use of muskets which were use in volley fire to increase their effect.

thank you very much

Another brilliant video, even if I learned not much new (as I've watched all the other videos!) But I believe I've had an OMG moment @50.40 as I recognise that voice as Drachinifel the navy history KZfaqr! I know he has done some reenactment stuff in the past.