To the people saying this crossbow wouldn't penetrate armour: you are making a mistake by assuming all plate armour were the same high quality standard. Armour quality would vary, so would the effectiveness of the crossbow. And most combatants wouldn't even wear plate armour.

Kevin Hicks is badass

Lmao 1:10 "Can I have a go?" ...... "yer alright :("

I love Hicks' evil chuckle at 1:31

Time to play some medieval 2 total war.

It's extremely doubtful a 200lb crossbow with such a short power stroke could pierce historical plate armor - or even mail with padding, for that matter.

I like the way he says "Snoi-pah"

0:39 That's a damn weird angle the bolt landed in. Look at the guy, he is holding the crossbow a bit downwards and the bolt flies from straight in front of the target. Now I'm not saying this matters, but why couldn't they just have shown us where that shot really landed? Edit: Yeah, seems like they did the exact same thing at 1:19.

The bolt that strikes the target is indeed a separate shot. Look at the bolt Kevin is shooting at 0:40. The fletches are black, whereas the fletches of the bolt that actually hits the target are white.

I know that the Longbow had better range and all that but theres just something Awesome about the mechanical Properties of the Crossbow.

although the crossbow couldn't piece plate, there was a weapon of the ages that without a doubt would and that's the roman ballista with over 10 times the kinetic energy of a crossbow and forged with an armour piercing tip, this piece of artillery would genuinely penetrate any man on the field ;) this was the equivalent of the modern day sniper rifle, range 400 meters, and atleast half as many joules of energy as a modern AK47.

Without eccentric people where would mankind be? We need eccentricity and experts like this to keep history alive!

*slow clap* Congrats. You just replied to my comment on a video, of which I don't even remember writing.

"This would knock someone over, right!?!" No. "It would go through plate armour." No. 200 pound crossbow? Haha, no.

You know nothing Dan Snow!

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If the recoil doesn't knock you down, the missile won't knock down your enemy.

BOLTS CANNOT FULLY PUNCTURE PLATE ARMOUR. People you have to understand, that infrantry didn't put plate armour over their naked bodies. They wore normal clothes, boiled leather, mail AND THEN plate armour. So even if a bolt could slightly penetrate the plate, chances of it coming in contact with skin is EXTREMELY small. At close range probably, but at medium/long range never.

Where are the full episodes?

Sometimes heavy crossbows do not go trough plate armor,medium crossbows can go with ease trough mail,but trough plate armor,no chance.

"Can I have a go?" ... ... "Yeah alright."

A crossbow bolt wouldn't go through a hardened steel cuirass only mail and it might puncture a munitions quality piece of armour but the damage to the enemy would be negligible. A common misconception is that the crossbow was anti armour, on the contrary it was anti light infantry by a long shot and English armies preferred bowmen anyway so when the rare noble approached in a suit of plate they could aim for the gaps and theres an obvious rate of fire advantage. The only real advantage of the crossbow is it requires less training. Crossbows have very similar draw weights to warbows unless you get something really heavy. Also one last point, crossbows are much, much older than longbows; even the anglo saxons used crossbows. The longbow surpassed it technologically for a number of reasons mostly range + rate of fire. And England by the 13th century had the infrastructural ability to train youngun's from age 11 in the use of the longbow to field a professional army which the anglo saxons didn't.

ahem...an automatic expert are you? well FYI the fletching on the back of the bolt (or arrow in this case look it up) dosnt just make the arrow stable but back heavy and over even just a short distance it can reduce angle and if you take a close look at the target the arrow is still on a slight angle.

Sorry Sherlock, we don't need you, we've found someone better.

not exactly, i had made a crossbow and i fired it into a mat at an angle and because the mat was so tough, the arrow would turn to the level of the mat, besides, that arrow was tilted a little bit

It is pretty amazing that such a small (comparatively to longbows) crossbow has a draw weight of 200 lbs.

not to mention the fact the crossbow was not "primed" or loaded

1:36 So did he said, that the bolt would go trough or not?

You do realize that arrows wobble in flight, right? Especially short ones...fired from 200lb bows...

the arrow hit is fake... it would be tilted towards the ground if it was fired from the castle, but it was paralell to the ground...

i would like to have such a crossbow. Does Kevin Hicks sell longbows by any chance?

go through plate armor? haha, no way!

i want one.how do i get one

これで確実に人間を殺せるじゃん

I agree, Discovery only specializes in animal porn.

"Chances are it will go penetrate plated armour from this range" How about instead of making claims, you actually prove it. Bbased on my experience of shooting crossbows (175LB draw weight) and numerous other sources, crossbows, in general are ineffective at penetrating thick metal platings. This "expert" should have demonstrated it by shooting at a metal plate... In this video it is shown that a thick wooden silhouette did a perfect job of stopping the bolt.