Answers to Mail Questions from Myths Thread...
Posted: Wed Apr 07, 2004 10:10 am
I posted this as a new topic so as not to turn attention away from the topic of the other thread. The tests Bob is referring to took place at Robert MacPherson's shop last Tuesday. The non-scientific tests were to show how well armour worked against certain weapons.
First, we took one of Mac's great helms and beat the living shit out of it with a warhammer. It was interesting to note that the spike end of the hammer needed to hit perfectly in order to cause damage. If not it simply skidded off imparting very little energy to the target. The pronged side of it had an entirely different effect. When this side of the weapon made contact it transferred almost all of its energy to the target leaving you with a dead feeling in your arm.
Now, this type of helm would normally be worn over a smaller bascinet with an attached aventail. The bascinet would have had padding underneath it. A soild hit would have rung the bell of the person being struck, but it is highly possible they would not have been mortally wounded. These tests were also done so as to give the weapon the advantage over the armour. In spite of this the armour performed exceptionally well.
With the testosterone running high, we then decided to attack mail. We used a piece of Steve's variety and a piece of mine. Mine being a copy of a common German variety. (Bob, the mail we used in the tests was a copy of the mail shirt A2 and not the standard A9. You may have gotten the two confused as I showed you the small sample of the mantle links I am making for the copy of A9 that I am working on). They were placed one at a time over a wooden post with no padding and shot with both a 150lb. & 300lb. x-bow. The 300lb. bow was a small version, but the 150lb. one was full size. Both were employed at point blank range and both failed to penetrate either piece of mail. The bolts had field point type heads.
The next day we decided to perform a stabbing test with a rondel dagger. This time the mail was backed by padding. Several very forceful downward blows were given to the mail. Mine performed better due to the smaller link diameter. Steve's allowed to the point to penetrate slightly further. However, in each case the mail was not compromised. The human body would give more than the surface the mail was placed on which would seem to suggest that it would have performed even better.
Now, please realize that this was only a test against a very specific type of mail. There were many different varities and each wouild perform slightly different under the same conditions. For example the mail from a sixteenth century sleeve would not have faired as well simple because the links were made of much finer wire. In any event there are an infinite number of variables to consider when performing tests of this type. However, in spite of the shortcomings of these tests, I feel it would be safe to conclude that armour worked quite well.
Had the x-bows been of much higher poundage and been equipped with bodkin tipped bolts of the long skinny variety, they may have been more effective. Then however, as Bob stated you have to take into account the padding worn in conjunction with the mail, but that's an entirely different can of worms best left for another day.
About spears Bran, I was involved in a test some years ago where we tested some mail against a falchion and an English bill. The falchion was useless, but the spiked bill managed to open up a link. The mail used in that test was not as accurate as that used in this one, so you can draw your own conclusions as to how effective the newer stuff would have been.
In this picture you can see the effect that the x-bows and the dagger had on the mail.
[img]http://www.erikdschmid.com/test.jpg[/img]
As for the standard in the British Museum it does indeed have a collar woven in the 6-1 pattern. Judging by the style of links used in the collar I would place it in the sixteenth century. This is the only piece of 6-1 European mail that I know of. One possible explanation for using this weave is that it is far easier and less time consuming than to make one of smaller links woven in the 4-1 pattern thereby making this style much more cost effective.
Here is a picture of the collar area:
[img]http://www.erikdschmid.com/standard.jpg[/img]
First, we took one of Mac's great helms and beat the living shit out of it with a warhammer. It was interesting to note that the spike end of the hammer needed to hit perfectly in order to cause damage. If not it simply skidded off imparting very little energy to the target. The pronged side of it had an entirely different effect. When this side of the weapon made contact it transferred almost all of its energy to the target leaving you with a dead feeling in your arm.
Now, this type of helm would normally be worn over a smaller bascinet with an attached aventail. The bascinet would have had padding underneath it. A soild hit would have rung the bell of the person being struck, but it is highly possible they would not have been mortally wounded. These tests were also done so as to give the weapon the advantage over the armour. In spite of this the armour performed exceptionally well.
With the testosterone running high, we then decided to attack mail. We used a piece of Steve's variety and a piece of mine. Mine being a copy of a common German variety. (Bob, the mail we used in the tests was a copy of the mail shirt A2 and not the standard A9. You may have gotten the two confused as I showed you the small sample of the mantle links I am making for the copy of A9 that I am working on). They were placed one at a time over a wooden post with no padding and shot with both a 150lb. & 300lb. x-bow. The 300lb. bow was a small version, but the 150lb. one was full size. Both were employed at point blank range and both failed to penetrate either piece of mail. The bolts had field point type heads.
The next day we decided to perform a stabbing test with a rondel dagger. This time the mail was backed by padding. Several very forceful downward blows were given to the mail. Mine performed better due to the smaller link diameter. Steve's allowed to the point to penetrate slightly further. However, in each case the mail was not compromised. The human body would give more than the surface the mail was placed on which would seem to suggest that it would have performed even better.
Now, please realize that this was only a test against a very specific type of mail. There were many different varities and each wouild perform slightly different under the same conditions. For example the mail from a sixteenth century sleeve would not have faired as well simple because the links were made of much finer wire. In any event there are an infinite number of variables to consider when performing tests of this type. However, in spite of the shortcomings of these tests, I feel it would be safe to conclude that armour worked quite well.
Had the x-bows been of much higher poundage and been equipped with bodkin tipped bolts of the long skinny variety, they may have been more effective. Then however, as Bob stated you have to take into account the padding worn in conjunction with the mail, but that's an entirely different can of worms best left for another day.
About spears Bran, I was involved in a test some years ago where we tested some mail against a falchion and an English bill. The falchion was useless, but the spiked bill managed to open up a link. The mail used in that test was not as accurate as that used in this one, so you can draw your own conclusions as to how effective the newer stuff would have been.
In this picture you can see the effect that the x-bows and the dagger had on the mail.
[img]http://www.erikdschmid.com/test.jpg[/img]
As for the standard in the British Museum it does indeed have a collar woven in the 6-1 pattern. Judging by the style of links used in the collar I would place it in the sixteenth century. This is the only piece of 6-1 European mail that I know of. One possible explanation for using this weave is that it is far easier and less time consuming than to make one of smaller links woven in the 4-1 pattern thereby making this style much more cost effective.
Here is a picture of the collar area:
[img]http://www.erikdschmid.com/standard.jpg[/img]