Battle Brothers Pre-Release Thread

[Kayerts]

The point of discussion was whether a spear is, so to speak, more of a "noob" weapon than others.

I suspect you may have misunderstood me, since my impression is that we're in almost total agreement here. I said that being noob-friendly may not have been what made spears a good weapon, because several of the traits that made them good in the hands of inexperienced troops also made them good in the hands of elite troops. This appears to be the exact point you make in your closing paragraph.

The one point of (some) disagreement may be here:

[the spear] does not certainly have magical "armour piercing" capabilities (outside of movies or videogames), and a spear held two-handed does not "let you apply more force to your target"

Spears (as a class of weapon, i.e. a taxonomy that includes pikes, lances, and so on) generally have a few properties that make them better than swords at piercing armor, even outside of fiction. Theoretically, armor-piercing is a measure of the amount of pressure (force/area) you can apply to the armor, so the key parameters are whether the weapon is faster, heavier, pointier, or harder. Additional practical factors deal with whether you can actually deliver that pressure to an opponent's armor. So, one is whether his armor design allows him to partially negate some of your impact force by deflecting it or distributing it over a wider area (most armor is curved for this reason). Another is whether you're likely to be able to use your weapon optimally. (Crossbowmen protected by pikemen and fortifications are likely to be able to use their weapons near-optimally for piercing armor. A naked guy holding an anvil probably isn't, despite it probably scoring higher in pressure calculations.)

So, armor-piercing advantages of spear-type weapons over sword-types:

1) Spears are pointy and are thrusted; i.e., force is applied over a small impact area. Given equivalent force, pressure is higher than a slashing weapon. The physics involved is surprisingly complex, but one of the few bros to test this with modern measurement tools did kinetic energy calculations for spears:swords piercing armor, and determined that the two weapon types have ~1:3 energy requirements (30J vs. 80-90J) to pierce hardened leather and ~1:2 to pierce most types of steel. (Ratio remains pretty close to 1:2 between mail, low quality plate, and high quality plate; the numbers just get bigger.) Swords were used for slashing during this test, as you probably guessed. And, as you say . . .

2) Spears lose most of their comparative theoretical armor-piercing advantage vis-a-vis similarly pointy weapons when the latter are thrusted, as you say.

By the time plate was widespread, most non-thrusting weapon types had either added sharp metal spikes suitable for thrusting (long axes, maces) to help stab through gaps in armor, or developed techniques for dealing with armored foes that didn't require penetration. In the case of two-handed swords, key techniques versus plate included half-swording (holding the sword halfway down the blade, to turn it into a precision thrusting weapon capable of exploiting gaps in armor) or murderstroking (holding the sword inverted and bonking the opponent over the head with the pommel, like a club). These techniques were involved because actually piercing good steel plate with a sword slash was hard/unfeasible for even a strong man. (Probably not for someone as strong as adult orcs are described as being in BB, so, this game's doing pretty well for accuracy again.)

Thrusting swords such as the the estoc certainly existed and could pierce plate, but even they found most of their comparative advantage in being used against gaps in armor.

3) However, spears are probably going to be better at thrusting in practical terms than any of those, for several reasons:
(a) you can thrust from further away,
(b) which, apart from being generally good, allows you to safely put more of your strength into the thrust,
(c) and spear-wielders are generally deployed to facilitate thrusting (as opposed to e.g. the landsknecht doppelsoldners with zweihanders, who were supposedly deployed in mixed formations to break enemy pike formations)

All that said, yes, spears that do not have the momentum of a charging horse behind them are generally not going to be as good at piercing steel plate as swung weapons specifically designed to pierce plate, since those generally take advantage of most of dynamics spears use, plus rotational physics. Which is why efforts to make pikes particularly good against plate often involved turning them into bladed polearms.

 

[Brancaleone]

The point of discussion was whether a spear is, so to speak, more of a "noob" weapon than others.

I suspect you may have misunderstood me, since my impression is that we're in almost total agreement here. I said that being noob-friendly may not have been what made spears a good weapon, because several of the traits that made them good in the hands of inexperienced troops also made them good in the hands of elite troops. This appears to be the exact point you make in your closing paragraph.

The one point of (some) disagreement may be here:

[the spear] does not certainly have magical "armour piercing" capabilities (outside of movies or videogames), and a spear held two-handed does not "let you apply more force to your target"

Spears (as a class of weapon, i.e. a taxonomy that includes pikes, lances, and so on) generally have a few properties that make them better than swords at piercing armor, even outside of fiction. Theoretically, armor-piercing is a measure of the amount of pressure (force/area) you can apply to the armor, so the key parameters are whether the weapon is faster, heavier, pointier, or harder. Additional practical factors deal with whether you can actually deliver that pressure to an opponent's armor. So, one is whether his armor design allows him to partially negate some of your impact force by deflecting it or distributing it over a wider area (most armor is curved for this reason). Another is whether you're likely to be able to use your weapon optimally. (Crossbowmen protected by pikemen and fortifications are likely to be able to use their weapons near-optimally for piercing armor. A naked guy holding an anvil probably isn't, despite it probably scoring higher in pressure calculations.)

So, armor-piercing advantages of spear-type weapons over sword-types:

1) Spears are pointy and are thrusted; i.e., force is applied over a small impact area. Given equivalent force, pressure is higher than a slashing weapon. The physics involved is surprisingly complex, but one of the few bros to test this with modern measurement tools did kinetic energy calculations for spears:swords piercing armor, and determined that the two weapon types have ~1:3 energy requirements (30J vs. 80-90J) to pierce hardened leather and ~1:2 to pierce most types of steel. (Ratio remains pretty close to 1:2 between mail, low quality plate, and high quality plate; the numbers just get bigger.) Swords were used for slashing during this test, as you probably guessed. And, as you say . . .

2) Spears lose most of their comparative theoretical armor-piercing advantage vis-a-vis similarly pointy weapons when the latter are thrusted, as you say.

By the time plate was widespread, most non-thrusting weapon types had either added sharp metal spikes suitable for thrusting (long axes, maces) to help stab through gaps in armor, or developed techniques for dealing with armored foes that didn't require penetration. In the case of two-handed swords, key techniques versus plate included half-swording (holding the sword halfway down the blade, to turn it into a precision thrusting weapon capable of exploiting gaps in armor) or murderstroking (holding the sword inverted and bonking the opponent over the head with the pommel, like a club). These techniques were involved because actually piercing good steel plate with a sword slash was hard/unfeasible for even a strong man. (Probably not for someone as strong as adult orcs are described as being in BB, so, this game's doing pretty well for accuracy again.)

Thrusting swords such as the the estoc certainly existed and could pierce plate, but even they found most of their comparative advantage in being used against gaps in armor.

3) However, spears are probably going to be better at thrusting in practical terms than any of those, for several reasons:
(a) you can thrust from further away,
(b) which, apart from being generally good, allows you to safely put more of your strength into the thrust,
(c) and spear-wielders are generally deployed to facilitate thrusting (as opposed to e.g. the landsknecht doppelsoldners with zweihanders, who were supposedly deployed in mixed formations to break enemy pike formations)

All that said, yes, spears that do not have the momentum of a charging horse behind them are generally not going to be as good at piercing steel plate as swung weapons specifically designed to pierce plate, since those generally take advantage of most of dynamics spears use, plus rotational physics. Which is why efforts to make pikes particularly good against plate often involved turning them into bladed polearms.

What I don't understand why you compare armour-piercing capabilities of swords and spears when neither swords nor spears are, generally, dedicated anti-armour weapons. There's a reason why with the diffusion of good quality steel plate (especially spring-tempered steel plate) the weapons used against full armour become stuff like warhammers, flanged maces, pollaxes and all sorts of lateral spikes and hammer-heads in longer polearms. Not spears. Swords specialized in order to try and pierce through the weak spots of a full plate in any case were, let's not forget, sidearms, that is, reserve weapons: if your pollaxe broke or got misplaced, at least you had a stiff, pointy metal spike with appropriate cross-section which would not be totally useless against plate armour (and it wasn't usually just plate, by the way: it was generally plate plus ring-mail plus padding, which is why most experiments that show how a spear/arrow/bolt can penetrates half an inch through a mere plate of steel do not make much sense).

So there is a book where they tried to recreate the alleged conditions, and they found out that a thrust with a spear is far more effective at piercing plate than a slash from a sword. Amazing find. Did they really waste their time with such a stupid experiment? What about trying to slash with a spear-head and thrusting with a sword-point, and concluding exactly the opposite? Slashing even with swords specialized for cutting had sometimes trouble even with heavy clothing, certainly with padded or quilted protection, had typically no effect on ring-mail, and was just laughable with plate.
The issue of penetration of armour changes a lot depending on the type of armour and a lot depending on the shape and materials of the penetrating object. If a sword or a spear have the pointy bit of the same shape and made of the same materials, they'll have similar effectiveness in penetrating (or not) armour, barring issues like the flex of either the spear-shaft or the sword blade (if steel tempered) which of course dissipates much of the energy of the thrust (and which, incidentally, is the main reason for half-swording when done to try and penetrate armour: it's mainly in order for the blade not to flex). Besides, there are many types of sword specialized for thrusting, not just the estoc: but as I said, it is a moot point to discuss the superiority of armour-piercing capabilities of two types of weapons which on the whole are not designed as anti-heavy armour (and are not even the same class of weapon: one is a main weapon, the other is a sidearm).

The bit about the spears I really do not understand properly: thrusting from farther away depends on the length of the spear, if you are using it two-handed, or one-handed underarm or overarm (the latter reduces the reach quite a bit, since you have to grip the haft in the middle, and it's the only way you can use a spear with a large shield in a closed formation), and I fail to see how having a weapon that you can thrust with from farther away allows to put more of your strength in the thrust. Does it mean that if you thrust with a pike you can put a lot more strength in your thrust than with a spear half the length which you would be wielding in two hands like the pike?
Spears are used for thrusting not because they are necessarily amazing at it, but simply because they basically can only be used for thrusting (barring very specialized designs like a glaive or a naginata, which are a quite different concept, or very wide leaf-shaped spear-heads which have a modicum of cutting ability, usually at the cost of reduced penetration). But as I said before, they have reach, and they are easy to make, and can be used effectively at a basic level without much training, especially with a shield.

Edit: assorted typos.

 

[Ninjerk]

You're pretty clearly being obtuse here, Brancaleone.

 

[Kayerts]

What I don't understand why you compare armour-piercing capabilities of swords and spears when neither swords nor spears are, generally, dedicated anti-armour weapons.

So, I said:

They let you apply more force to your target, which tends to make them better at piercing armor than e.g. swords. (There are notable exceptions to this.)

Which seems like a condensed but reasonably accurate statement about most contemporaneous sword and spear types throughout the ~4,500-year period of overlap between the two weapons, and which was quite relevant for the ~95% of that period prior to widespread use of Milanese or better plate. (Also semi-relevant thereafter.) You seemed to dispute it, so I tried to provide a less condensed explanation of why I think that is so. If the topic isn't interesting to you anymore, we can let it drop. I'm seeing some amount of retreading of points I'm aware of and in several cases have already stated myself, but presented as disagreement, which apart from being confusing may indicate we're talking past each other.

The bit about the spears I really do not understand properly: thrusting from farther away depends on the length of the spear, if you are using it two-handed, or one-handed underarm or overarm (the latter reduces the reach quite a bit, since you have to grip the haft in the middle, and it's the only way you can use a spear with a large shield in a closed formation), and I fail to see how having a weapon that you can thrust with from farther away allows to put more of your strength in the thrust. Does it mean that if you thrust with a pike you can put a lot more strength in your thrust than with a spear half the length which you would be wielding in two hands like the pike?
Spears are used for thrusting not because they are necessarily amazing at it, but simply because they basically can only be used for thrusting (barring very specialized designs like a glaive or a naginata, which are a quite different concept, or very wide leaf-shaped spear-heads which have a modicum of cutting ability, usually at the cost of reduced penetration). But as I said before, they have reach, and they are easy to make, and can be used effectively at a basic level without much training, especially with a shield.

The person you are attempting to hit with your weapon typically is either trying to hit you or near people who are, so being able to engage from further away from him means you can thrust two-handed without being stabbed (if he has a shorter-reach weapon) or without having been stabbed five seconds prior (if he has a long-reach weapon). I.e. you are relying on your formation for defense, and your reach to mitigate the risk of aggression. Fully committing to two-handed offensive attacks, using a weapon that requires you to stand close to an opponent, is a more dangerous thing to do.

Since we're on the topic, I've seen some physics that indicate that, beyond requiring less kinetic energy to pierce armor, spears actually delivered more energy than swords or axes, but I'm unclear about the veracity or whether was a result of confusing melee infantry spears with other types, namely cavalry spears and throwing spears. Lances definitely delivered huge amounts of energy and could definitely kill people in plate. Throwing spears and even classical era javelins can deliver an enormous amount of energy; I don't have trouble believing that an Olympic or even reasonably good javelin thrower could deliver 300J of kinetic energy, which in a javelin would pierce just about any type of available plate. What I struggle more with is accounts of how Aztec obsidian infantry spears could pierce conquistadores' steel corselets. I'm inclined to believe that those guys either ran into Aztec Gregor Clegane or just had some sort of armor malfunction, since as previously stated, my understanding is that spears/pikes aren't effective vs. plate.

 

[Jrpgfan]

I don't have trouble believing that an Olympic or even reasonably good javelin thrower could deliver 300J of kinetic energy, which in a javelin would pierce just about any type of available plate. What I struggle more with is accounts of how Aztec obsidian infantry spears could pierce conquistadores' steel corselets.

That's very dubious. Even arrows with bodkin points shot by trained archers with longbows had a lot of trouble to penetrate plate armor. It's very hard to believe a javelin would do it, even if it was thrown by superman.

 

[Reinhardt]

What I struggle more with is accounts of how Aztec obsidian infantry spears could pierce conquistadores' steel corselets. I'm inclined to believe that those guys either ran into Aztec Gregor Clegane or just had some sort of armor malfunction, since as previously stated, my understanding is that spears/pikes aren't effective vs. plate.

Steel armor was very pricey and many spaniards used padded armor or such. Just look at Rocroi picture.

 

[Brancaleone]

What I don't understand why you compare armour-piercing capabilities of swords and spears when neither swords nor spears are, generally, dedicated anti-armour weapons.

So, I said:

They let you apply more force to your target, which tends to make them better at piercing armor than e.g. swords. (There are notable exceptions to this.)

Which seems like a condensed but reasonably accurate statement about most contemporaneous sword and spear types throughout the ~4,500-year period of overlap between the two weapons, and which was quite relevant for the ~95% of that period prior to widespread use of Milanese or better plate. (Also semi-relevant thereafter.) You seemed to dispute it, so I tried to provide a less condensed explanation of why I think that is so. If the topic isn't interesting to you anymore, we can let it drop. I'm seeing some amount of retreading of points I'm aware of and in several cases have already stated myself, but presented as disagreement, which apart from being confusing may indicate we're talking past each other.

The bit about the spears I really do not understand properly: thrusting from farther away depends on the length of the spear, if you are using it two-handed, or one-handed underarm or overarm (the latter reduces the reach quite a bit, since you have to grip the haft in the middle, and it's the only way you can use a spear with a large shield in a closed formation), and I fail to see how having a weapon that you can thrust with from farther away allows to put more of your strength in the thrust. Does it mean that if you thrust with a pike you can put a lot more strength in your thrust than with a spear half the length which you would be wielding in two hands like the pike?
Spears are used for thrusting not because they are necessarily amazing at it, but simply because they basically can only be used for thrusting (barring very specialized designs like a glaive or a naginata, which are a quite different concept, or very wide leaf-shaped spear-heads which have a modicum of cutting ability, usually at the cost of reduced penetration). But as I said before, they have reach, and they are easy to make, and can be used effectively at a basic level without much training, especially with a shield.

The person you are attempting to hit with your weapon typically is either trying to hit you or near people who are, so being able to engage from further away from him means you can thrust two-handed without being stabbed (if he has a shorter-reach weapon) or without having been stabbed five seconds prior (if he has a long-reach weapon). I.e. you are relying on your formation for defense, and your reach to mitigate the risk of aggression. Fully committing to two-handed offensive attacks, using a weapon that requires you to stand close to an opponent, is a more dangerous thing to do.

Since we're on the topic, I've seen some physics that indicate that, beyond requiring less kinetic energy to pierce armor, spears actually delivered more energy than swords or axes, but I'm unclear about the veracity or whether was a result of confusing melee infantry spears with other types, namely cavalry spears and throwing spears. Lances definitely delivered huge amounts of energy and could definitely kill people in plate. Throwing spears and even classical era javelins can deliver an enormous amount of energy; I don't have trouble believing that an Olympic or even reasonably good javelin thrower could deliver 300J of kinetic energy, which in a javelin would pierce just about any type of available plate. What I struggle more with is accounts of how Aztec obsidian infantry spears could pierce conquistadores' steel corselets. I'm inclined to believe that those guys either ran into Aztec Gregor Clegane or just had some sort of armor malfunction, since as previously stated, my understanding is that spears/pikes aren't effective vs. plate.

We can drop the subject if it's becoming boring, sure.
That said: the reach of a spear held overarm (that is, gripped at the middle) is actually a bit less than the reach of a sword about half the length of said spear. Try it at home: grab a broomstick overarm at the middle and see where you can reach, then grab it at the middle imagining that the rest of the broomstick is a sword, and see where you can reach. Then grab it underarm, and you'll see that you can grab it further back, thus gaining a bit of reach. The problem is, you cannot use a spear underarm while fighting in formation, since you'll be knocking your mates behind and around you all the time and having your haft impeded by their bodies.
Of course, by grabbing a spear two-handed, you get more reach, and even a more important advantage, which is the ability to use leverage with two hands in order to move the point extremely quickly and switch instantaneously from attacking low to high or viceversa. But it's unlikely that you'll see that kind of use on the battlefield in times of plate armour, since it requires space, and you are sacrificing a shield in order to do what? reducing your opponent ability to parry, block or dodge, and this in a chaotic environment he is likely to be attacked from multiple sides anyway. Which is why if you sacrifice a shield to use both hands you do it for something worthwhile, like the enormous reach of a pike, or for a polearm like a halberd/billhook/Lucerne hammer/etc. which is far more effective in a range of situations than a spear, certainly not in order to be able to use 7-8 foot spear in both hands.
In any case, the discussion was about spears allegedly being used for their armour-piercing capabilities, and all of this plus stuff like the risk of being wounded while thrusting has little to do with armour-piercing effectiveness, which has to do mainly with the shape and cross-section of the point and the stiffness of the weapon.
And plate armour (plus padding and possibly ring-mail underneath) was very good against arrows, crossbow bolts, javelins, etc.: which is why the shield was dropped (at least for those in full plate) when plate armour became good enough. You are free to believe that a reasonable javelin thrower could pierce just about any type of available plate: in that case, I would expect a great presence of javelin throwers on the battlefield in the period of plate armour, and plate armour being limited in use because javelins just pierced it without problems. Sadly, it was not the case.
So, unless you provide any kind of historical examples or sources about spears being amazing for thrusting through armour (or javelins being thrown through armour with regularity), it will remain your exclusive belief.

Edit: even more typos

 

[Brancaleone]

What I struggle more with is accounts of how Aztec obsidian infantry spears could pierce conquistadores' steel corselets. I'm inclined to believe that those guys either ran into Aztec Gregor Clegane or just had some sort of armor malfunction, since as previously stated, my understanding is that spears/pikes aren't effective vs. plate.

Steel armor was very pricey and many spaniards used padded armor or such. Just look at Rocroi picture.

Very true, and also the fact that Spanish conquistadores also used to discard the more cumbersome elements of plate armour because in Mesoamerican heat they were being cooked alive inside their plate.

 

[Brancaleone]

You're pretty clearly being obtuse here, Brancaleone.

Since it's so clear, I'm confident you will have no problems explaining me why.

 

[Bésame Mucho]

Guys guys! Could a japanese samurai defeat a spear formation?

Katana or Javelin, which is better and why? Discuss!

 

[HumanTotemPole]

 

[Got bored and left]

Guys guys! Could a japanese samurai defeat a spear formation?

Katana or Javelin, which is better and why? Discuss!

Well, duh.

 

[Kayerts]

What I struggle more with is accounts of how Aztec obsidian infantry spears could pierce conquistadores' steel corselets. I'm inclined to believe that those guys either ran into Aztec Gregor Clegane or just had some sort of armor malfunction, since as previously stated, my understanding is that spears/pikes aren't effective vs. plate.

Steel armor was very pricey and many spaniards used padded armor or such. Just look at Rocroi picture.

ConquistadorBernal Díaz del Castillo mentions that on one occasion his armour was pierced by an Aztec lance and that only his thick cotton underpadding saved his life.

But yeah my first thought was that this had to be a misunderstanding, too.

That's very dubious. Even arrows with bodkin points shot by trained archers with longbows had a lot of trouble to penetrate plate armor. It's very hard to believe a javelin would do it, even if it was thrown by superman.

Adjusting for energy lost to air resistance, estimates I see for thrown javelins have them delivering 200J (trained) to 400J (peak human), which is ~1.6-4 times the kinetic energy that a longbow can generate (100-120J). (Bodkins are not anti-plate weapons; plate is to an extent anti-arrow armor.) See discussion below, though.

And plate armour (plus padding and possibly ring-mail underneath) was very good against arrows, crossbow bolts, javelins, etc.: which is why the shield was dropped (at least for those in full plate) when plate armour became good enough. You are free to believe that a reasonable javelin thrower could pierce just about any type of available plate: in that case, I would expect a great presence of javelin throwers on the battlefield in the period of plate armour, and plate armour being limited in use because javelins just pierced it without problems.

As I indicated earlier, I am not the originator of these claims and am skeptical of some of them myself. With that said, I'm going to selectively quote another discussion of the dynamics here.

Spoiler

https://myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=32144&view=next

As an aside, Spencer's numbers support the notion that at least heavy spears/javelin could penetrate armor. Even the shortest throw probably had over 300 J of kinetic energy initially. This stands consistent with Vegetius's claim and has long made me wonder why thrown javelins or spears mostly fell out of use in the sixteenth century.

My guess would be logistics would be against them in Renaissance armies. They are bulkier than arrows and a bit harder to carry and you won't have as many. The length of a decent javelin and the need for a bit of room to manuever for a throw probably didn't go with the idea of dense pike blocks and firing lines that were in vogue as well. Add in training time and a Renaissance commander has no reason to go with them.

There were certain groups - notably the Irish - who used javelins extensively through the sixteenth century. But English accounts describe Irish as darts as not particularly effective. As skirmishing weapons, light javelins/darts strike me as thoroughly outmatched by bows and guns, mainly because of their much lower velocity and thus range.

Another factor is that only folks in front of friendly pike formations could throw javelins effectively, both because they need a running start and because pikes would block javelins. So javelin-throwing targetiers would have to go before the pikes as in Fourquevaux's arrangement. Targetiers did sometimes use pistols in the sixteenth century in addition to grenades.

To amend my earlier statement, Diego de Salazar's 1537 rendition of Machiavelli's Art of War does equip targetiers with two javelins (dardos) that they are to throw from the front of the army. And Matthew Sutcliffe's 1593 military treatise mentions equipping targetiers with half-pikes both to throw at infantry and hold fast to resist cavalry. So at least a few 16th-century military authors did conceive of reviving something like the pilum. I don't know whether any of these plans were realized in practice.

Polish infantrymen of 15th and 16th century quite often show up with javelins to inspections. No matter if they're shooters, shield bearers, or polearm wielders.

So it seems they saw some use, and the main factors precluding more use were logistics, poor composability with existing dominant troop types, training, and the rise of firearms presenting a generally better option. There may be additional reasons, e.g. the padding you mention. (The conquistador account I linked earlier mentions a spear penetrating steel but being stopped by padding; I recall other such accounts, although I'm not confident they aren't just recycled versions of del Castillo's story.)

You're pretty clearly being obtuse here, Brancaleone.

Since it's so clear, I'm confident you will have no problems explaining me why.

I appreciate the knowledge, but it seems that you are significantly misreading the meaning of some lines of discussion and spending a large number of words arguing for points that are already understood and have already been made. (Example: I express doubts over some accounts of spears being effective vs. heavy armor that I mention having read; you tell me that such notions are implausible and that without examples will remain exclusively in my imagination. This is a confusing response, because (a) I read this elsewhere and said so, and (b) the presented context is that I am doubting these claims.) You clearly know quite a bit about military history, which means that the process of doing this still exposes a fair amount of information that most people reading probably didn't know. But I feel like we may be exhausting the patience of the 90% of thread watchers who, each time they see an update, feel their souls lifted in the sweet but brief hope that camp followers have been added to the game.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Where is the next lets play episode.

 

[Beowulf]

Judging by the last posts they will do one, when they implement katanas to counter noob spear spam.

Hope I got this right.

 

[Ninjerk]

You're pretty clearly being obtuse here, Brancaleone.

Since it's so clear, I'm confident you will have no problems explaining me why.

I'm not going to indulge your need to be argumentative any more than Kayerts has. Examine your behavior and quit shitting up the thread.

 

[Brancaleone]

I appreciate the knowledge, but it seems that you are significantly misreading the meaning of some lines of discussion and spending a large number of words arguing for points that are already understood and have already been made. (Example: I express doubts over some accounts of spears being effective vs. heavy armor that I mention having read; you tell me that such notions are implausible and that without examples will remain exclusively in my imagination. This is a confusing response, because (a) I read this elsewhere and said so, and (b) the presented context is that I am doubting these claims.) You clearly know quite a bit about military history, which means that the process of doing this still exposes a fair amount of information that most people reading probably didn't know. But I feel like we may be exhausting the patience of the 90% of thread watchers who, each time they see an update, feel their souls lifted in the sweet but brief hope that camp followers have been added to the game.

Apologies if I have given that impression. The main point I took issue with was the "spear cannot be a noob weapon because it was used by elite troops" and so on: that is, the assumption that because a weapon is, so to speak, 'noob-friendly', it cannot be highly effective in the hands of a skilled person. A spear is quite formidable when a skilled combatant used two handed in one-on-one, hand-to-hand combat with sufficient space to manouver. This is to say that the last thing I want to come across as is one of those "weapon x is a superior weapon".

P.S. Ancient javelins (Greek-Persian Wars specifically) reconstructions were tested for up to 190j, while the longbows with hardest pull go up to 160j. With the difference that a javelin shaft and cross-section of its point must be quite a bit thicker than an arrow point and shaft, thus encountering much more resistance in penetrating a plate enough to wound. That is, a javelin that produces a comparable amounts of joules to an arrow will find it much, much more difficult to penetrate the same plate. Besides, there's no point in comparing Olympic javelins, which are designed only for distance, with a javelin with a metal point, designed not to break in the point or in the shaft, with a difference centre of balance, and thrown by a guy with some kind of armour or protection instead of an elastic track-suit. Tl;dr, joules are not the alpha and omega, especially if they are calculations based on the projectile's starting velocity.

But now that you mentioned the issue of people checking the thread for newz only to see their hopes crushed by another textwall on weapons, I'm seriously tempted to keep doing it on purpose.

 

[Brancaleone]

You're pretty clearly being obtuse here, Brancaleone.

Since it's so clear, I'm confident you will have no problems explaining me why.

I'm not going to indulge your need to be argumentative any more than Kayerts has. Examine your behavior and quit shitting up the thread.

It's ok, I can definitely survive without talking about weapons on this thread, and go back to lurking and waiting for the precious gems that you will undoubtedly enrich this thread with. So, you are now free to go and untwist your panties.

 

[Kayerts]

Apologies if I have given that impression. The main point I took issue with was the "spear cannot be a noob weapon because it was used by elite troops" and so on: that is, the assumption that because a weapon is, so to speak, 'noob-friendly', it cannot be highly effective in the hands of a skilled person. A spear is quite formidable when a skilled combatant used two handed in one-on-one, hand-to-hand combat with sufficient space to manouver. This is to say that the last thing I want to come across as is one of those "weapon x is a superior weapon".

Sure, sounds like we agree; perhaps it'd be clearest to describe the skill floor as low and the skill ceiling as high.

P.S. Ancient javelins (Greek-Persian Wars specifically) reconstructions were tested for up to 190j, while the longbows with hardest pull go up to 160j. With the difference that a javelin shaft and cross-section of its point must be quite a bit thicker than an arrow point and shaft, thus encountering much more resistance in penetrating a plate enough to wound. That is, a javelin that produces a comparable amounts of joules to an arrow will find it much, much more difficult to penetrate the same plate. Besides, there's no point in comparing Olympic javelins, which are designed only for distance, with a javelin with a metal point, designed not to break in the point or in the shaft, with a difference centre of balance, and thrown by a guy with some kind of armour or protection instead of an elastic track-suit. Tl;dr, joules are not the alpha and omega, especially if they are calculations based on the projectile's starting velocity.

Interesting. I was wondering about the energy calculations myself. I'm unclear why all the armor penetration physics data for melee weapons that I can find seems to be in joules (energy), when the relevant metric to my admittedly not-great understanding of physics would seem to be pascals/psi (pressure), and the latter is indeed what modern armor-piercing ammunition tends to use in metrics. Maybe the reasoning is that impact surface area for melee weapons is going to have a huge amount of irregularities in an actual fight, varying between individual blows and targets. Impact angle is also a relevant figure in these sorts of calculations, though I believe it should be about the same for javelins and arrow. (40-60 degrees for those, much lower for melee weapons.)

The 160J figure for longbows is from The Primitive Archer, right? That one was done at very short range, and it's pretty questionable. (There don't seem to be many researchers doing metrics for these things with modern equipment, and most of the trials I know of have issues.) Matheus Bane and Alan Williams came up with 73J and 80J for average longbow shots. It looks like the 100-120J figure I quoted earlier is the release energy, which, again, is probably not a good metric.

Agreed that modern fiberglass Olympic javelins are probably not the best standard. The javelin trial you mention sounds interesting. Do you have a link for it? (Mostly wondering about whether an ankyle was used, and how the 190 was calculated.) I'm inclined to point to the fact that javelins of the time could afford to be kind of shitty, since the peltasts had to defeat bronze breastplates at worst, and would more likely be aiming at opponents wearing linen. This hilarious table for bronze plate penetration suggests that at a 50 degree angle of impact, 190J can pierce even a 2.5mm-thick bronze breastplate. My understanding is that they used quite light (0.4kg), kinda crappy wood that fluttered in the air, which seems like it could have been improved, and likely was.

 

[Brancaleone]

Apologies if I have given that impression. The main point I took issue with was the "spear cannot be a noob weapon because it was used by elite troops" and so on: that is, the assumption that because a weapon is, so to speak, 'noob-friendly', it cannot be highly effective in the hands of a skilled person. A spear is quite formidable when a skilled combatant used two handed in one-on-one, hand-to-hand combat with sufficient space to manouver. This is to say that the last thing I want to come across as is one of those "weapon x is a superior weapon".

Sure, sounds like we agree; perhaps it'd be clearest to describe the skill floor as low and the skill ceiling as high.

P.S. Ancient javelins (Greek-Persian Wars specifically) reconstructions were tested for up to 190j, while the longbows with hardest pull go up to 160j. With the difference that a javelin shaft and cross-section of its point must be quite a bit thicker than an arrow point and shaft, thus encountering much more resistance in penetrating a plate enough to wound. That is, a javelin that produces a comparable amounts of joules to an arrow will find it much, much more difficult to penetrate the same plate. Besides, there's no point in comparing Olympic javelins, which are designed only for distance, with a javelin with a metal point, designed not to break in the point or in the shaft, with a difference centre of balance, and thrown by a guy with some kind of armour or protection instead of an elastic track-suit. Tl;dr, joules are not the alpha and omega, especially if they are calculations based on the projectile's starting velocity.

Interesting. I was wondering about the energy calculations myself. I'm unclear why all the armor penetration physics data for melee weapons that I can find seems to be in joules (energy), when the relevant metric to my admittedly not-great understanding of physics would seem to be pascals/psi (pressure), and the latter is indeed what modern armor-piercing ammunition tends to use in metrics. Maybe the reasoning is that impact surface area for melee weapons is going to have a huge amount of irregularities in an actual fight, varying between individual blows and targets. Impact angle is also a relevant figure in these sorts of calculations, though I believe it should be about the same for javelins and arrow. (40-60 degrees for those, much lower for melee weapons.)

The 160J figure for longbows is from The Primitive Archer, right? That one was done at very short range, and it's pretty questionable. (There don't seem to be many researchers doing metrics for these things with modern equipment, and most of the trials I know of have issues.) Matheus Bane and Alan Williams came up with 73J and 80J for average longbow shots. It looks like the 100-120J figure I quoted earlier is the release energy, which, again, is probably not a good metric.

Agreed that modern fiberglass Olympic javelins are probably not the best standard. The javelin trial you mention sounds interesting. Do you have a link for it? (Mostly wondering about whether an ankyle was used, and how the 190 was calculated.) I'm inclined to point to the fact that javelins of the time could afford to be kind of shitty, since the peltasts had to defeat bronze breastplates at worst, and would more likely be aiming at opponents wearing linen. This hilarious table for bronze plate penetration suggests that at a 50 degree angle of impact, 190J can pierce even a 2.5mm-thick bronze breastplate. My understanding is that they used quite light (0.4kg), kinda crappy wood that fluttered in the air, which seems like it could have been improved, and likely was.

In general, these kind of calculations made only taking kinetic energy into account seem to assume that the energy will be applied by some kind of, so to speak, indestructible needle-thin point. A shafted projectile made with ancient/medieval materials will have to be stiff enough in order not to disperse too much energy with in-flight lateral oscillations. At the same time, stiffness makes it more likely to break behind the metal point on impact, thus wasting a great lot of the kinetic energy.

So with a javelin you might even have a higher kinetic energy, but the shaft is much thicker than an arrow shaft, and the point has to be similarly thick at some point of its length, which means for example that if a 1cm thick arrow's short quadrangular bodkin will have at its widest point a 1cm², a 2cm thick javelin with a similar point will have a 4cm² cross section at the widest of its point, and so on. Since the aim is not just to make a small puncture hole but to penetrate deep enough to wound or kill, you'll get the point having to make a hole corresponding to its widest point, and that increases the resistance a lot. Plus, points for plate penetration cannot be long and thin, because they'll bend or break: they are short and 'fat', with a really pronounced 'tapering' of the point, which means that during penetration they'll reach their widest cross section well before reaching the penetration necessary to at least wound.
So for penetration is on the whole better to go with a lighter, but higher velocity and most of all thinner in the point projectile (assuming it's strong enough to withstand the impact, of course) than with a heavier, lower velocity and with a much thicker point-section one. Because at a certain point you hit the limit of what propulsion by human body can achieve in terms of kinetic energy (be it by hand, with the aid of ankyle/amentum/atlatl, or by drawing a bow), and with kinetic energy being similar, you are better with what the plate you are trying to pierce offers much less resistance to. Similarly, since a javelin is much heavier but with a much greater cross section, you have a lower velocity, and if the kinetic energy is greater it means that, with a point that encounters much more resistance upon impact than for example a much smaller short bodkin arrowhead, it would break behind the point much more easily. You could say with increased projectile size you are also hitting the limits of the materials that you have at your disposal (metal for the point and wood for the shaft).
A Roman pilum might seem an attempt to solve this conundrum (heavy, thick and stiff shaft but long and thin point for minimum resistance to penetration), but the point is that Roman pilum is more an anti-shield weapon than an anti-armour: plus Romans usually fought with enemies with lighter armour than theirs, and what they met were mostly leather/wicker&leather/wood&leather shield, where the pilum had at minimum to penetrate enough to hook into the wicker/wood and encumber, or optimally pass through wicker elements/wood frame and wound the enemy behind the shield. I don't know whether anybody has tested the reconstruction of a pilum against a 14-15th century-level plate, but my guess would be that a heavy, low velocity and with a thin and long metal head javelin would be pretty much a guaranteed bend of the metal head, or break at the juncture.

To make an actually not so fitting and also very rough comparison, it's more or less why even a small caliber (let's say 10 g) musket lead ball with low muzzle velocity of, say, 120m/s, will have more or less the same kinetic energy of a 50g lead ball from a sling with a velocity of 50m/s, but will be in general far better for penetration than the latter.

In general, in antiquity even the heaviest infantries had face, neck, right arm and part of the legs more or less unprotected, nothing comparable to a full plate with closed helm, so javelin throwing always gave the chance of wounding where there was not armour protection. Which of course can apply also to various degrees to Renaissance troops that were not clad in steel head to toe, which were the majority: so there was always some use for javelins in certain contexts. I don't think it's a coincidence that both javelins and slings were still quite widespread in Middle-Age Spain, where at the time they were fighting against Muslim troops, who on average would be armed much more lightly than its Christian 13-14-15th century counterparts.

P.S. I hadn't read carefully the conquistador breastplate being actually pierced by the Aztec obsidian spear. My bad: does the account, as far as you know, present it as a freaky/exceptional occurrence, or as something that Aztec spears were capable of achieving with some regularity? Do you think that it might be simply be ascribed to the obsidian for once not shattering upon impact (at least enough to achieve penetration) with metal due to a peculiar angle of impact or other factors?

 

[Jrpgfan]

What I struggle more with is accounts of how Aztec obsidian infantry spears could pierce conquistadores' steel corselets. I'm inclined to believe that those guys either ran into Aztec Gregor Clegane or just had some sort of armor malfunction, since as previously stated, my understanding is that spears/pikes aren't effective vs. plate.

Steel armor was very pricey and many spaniards used padded armor or such. Just look at Rocroi picture.

ConquistadorBernal Díaz del Castillo mentions that on one occasion his armour was pierced by an Aztec lance and that only his thick cotton underpadding saved his life.

But yeah my first thought was that this had to be a misunderstanding, too.

That's very dubious. Even arrows with bodkin points shot by trained archers with longbows had a lot of trouble to penetrate plate armor. It's very hard to believe a javelin would do it, even if it was thrown by superman.

Adjusting for energy lost to air resistance, estimates I see for thrown javelins have them delivering 200J (trained) to 400J (peak human), which is ~1.6-4 times the kinetic energy that a longbow can generate (100-120J). (Bodkins are not anti-plate weapons; plate is to an extent anti-arrow armor.) See discussion below, though.

And plate armour (plus padding and possibly ring-mail underneath) was very good against arrows, crossbow bolts, javelins, etc.: which is why the shield was dropped (at least for those in full plate) when plate armour became good enough. You are free to believe that a reasonable javelin thrower could pierce just about any type of available plate: in that case, I would expect a great presence of javelin throwers on the battlefield in the period of plate armour, and plate armour being limited in use because javelins just pierced it without problems.

As I indicated earlier, I am not the originator of these claims and am skeptical of some of them myself. With that said, I'm going to selectively quote another discussion of the dynamics here.

Spoiler

https://myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=32144&view=next

As an aside, Spencer's numbers support the notion that at least heavy spears/javelin could penetrate armor. Even the shortest throw probably had over 300 J of kinetic energy initially. This stands consistent with Vegetius's claim and has long made me wonder why thrown javelins or spears mostly fell out of use in the sixteenth century.

My guess would be logistics would be against them in Renaissance armies. They are bulkier than arrows and a bit harder to carry and you won't have as many. The length of a decent javelin and the need for a bit of room to manuever for a throw probably didn't go with the idea of dense pike blocks and firing lines that were in vogue as well. Add in training time and a Renaissance commander has no reason to go with them.

There were certain groups - notably the Irish - who used javelins extensively through the sixteenth century. But English accounts describe Irish as darts as not particularly effective. As skirmishing weapons, light javelins/darts strike me as thoroughly outmatched by bows and guns, mainly because of their much lower velocity and thus range.

Another factor is that only folks in front of friendly pike formations could throw javelins effectively, both because they need a running start and because pikes would block javelins. So javelin-throwing targetiers would have to go before the pikes as in Fourquevaux's arrangement. Targetiers did sometimes use pistols in the sixteenth century in addition to grenades.

To amend my earlier statement, Diego de Salazar's 1537 rendition of Machiavelli's Art of War does equip targetiers with two javelins (dardos) that they are to throw from the front of the army. And Matthew Sutcliffe's 1593 military treatise mentions equipping targetiers with half-pikes both to throw at infantry and hold fast to resist cavalry. So at least a few 16th-century military authors did conceive of reviving something like the pilum. I don't know whether any of these plans were realized in practice.

Polish infantrymen of 15th and 16th century quite often show up with javelins to inspections. No matter if they're shooters, shield bearers, or polearm wielders.

So it seems they saw some use, and the main factors precluding more use were logistics, poor composability with existing dominant troop types, training, and the rise of firearms presenting a generally better option. There may be additional reasons, e.g. the padding you mention. (The conquistador account I linked earlier mentions a spear penetrating steel but being stopped by padding; I recall other such accounts, although I'm not confident they aren't just recycled versions of del Castillo's story.)

You're pretty clearly being obtuse here, Brancaleone.

Since it's so clear, I'm confident you will have no problems explaining me why.

I appreciate the knowledge, but it seems that you are significantly misreading the meaning of some lines of discussion and spending a large number of words arguing for points that are already understood and have already been made. (Example: I express doubts over some accounts of spears being effective vs. heavy armor that I mention having read; you tell me that such notions are implausible and that without examples will remain exclusively in my imagination. This is a confusing response, because (a) I read this elsewhere and said so, and (b) the presented context is that I am doubting these claims.) You clearly know quite a bit about military history, which means that the process of doing this still exposes a fair amount of information that most people reading probably didn't know. But I feel like we may be exhausting the patience of the 90% of thread watchers who, each time they see an update, feel their souls lifted in the sweet but brief hope that camp followers have been added to the game.

I didn't know what was the KE generated by either but I always assumed arrows would have atleast the same or more KE than a javelin due to much higher velocity and relatively more penetration power because the contact surface area is smaller(for the bodkin arrowheads atleast).

I'm a little skeptical of some of those studies because, when they're not only theoretical, the tests are performed using armors fixed onto something. The problem with that is, when someone in armor is hit by a projectile, he'll not stay in place, he'll be thrown back, which will reduce the force imparted on the armor during contact and thus reduce the chance of the projectile penetrating it.

 

[Kayerts]

[..]
I don't know whether anybody has tested the reconstruction of a pilum against a 14-15th century-level plate, but my guess would be that a heavy, low velocity and with a thin and long metal head javelin would be pretty much a guaranteed bend of the metal head, or break at the juncture.

Good points all around. I didn't find any scholarly research on pila vs. plate, but in the process of looking for it, I did find this completely awesome bro with a bandana, a back yard, and a Youtube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDRBw1Hl_Qg

Who did a test versus a breastplate; to spoil the ending, he threw it at the weakest point, and the pilum got owned. His throwing style looks questionable to me, and the pilum is intended to be a period-accurate replica (so, metal is iron, and if truly accurate, it'd be pretty soft iron aside from the tip), but I doubt it would've mattered. However:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8vFfDuG-iA

Apparently a 1.6mm, 15th century steel breastplate can be pierced by an "Iron Age" Celtic spear, with a throw performing best. Caveats: (1) his spear isn't period-accurate (the "Iron Age" spear is made of carbon steel), (2) he throws it at very close range, (3) he also seems to throw it questionably and with no running start. Whether 3 balances out 1 and 2, I couldn't tell you. More significantly, the same breastplate can be pierced through the gambeson by a shitty, apparently period-accurate Bronze Age spear. Presumably their breastplate was not made by Filippo Negroli, but it appears to be good enough to perform in a historically accurate manner vs. other weapons. (Bodkins do nothing, claymores dent but do not pierce, etc.) So if this guy's backyard reenactment is accurate (and apart from my snickers about backyard reenactments, I don't have a great reason for doubting it), apparently plate penetration is possible for thrown spears with significantly worse weapons tech than would've been available in the Renaissance era.

Regarding Aztec spears: I really don't know. Possible explanations:

1.) It looks like a lot of the accounts talking about how Aztec weaponry could pierce steel can be traced back to Bernal Diaz del Castillo. He was a conquistador leader by the time of Cortes's expedition, but (like most conquistadors) was pretty poor when he left the Old World, so odds are that his equipment was not great. So potentially someone just got lucky with a bad suit of armor.
2a.) But there are also accounts of other aboriginal peoples who encountered Spaniards and pierced their armor:

It is interesting to note that the obsidian arrowheads of some of the western American tribes penetrated deeper than modern steel points. The light reed arrows of the Florida Indians, tipped with flint, went through Spanish armor, continuing on to embed themselves in tree trunks.

Stone Age tech with better armor-piercing properties than bullets have?
2b.) Spanish accounts also refer to Aztec obsidian spearheads (and blades, generally) as being sharper than theirs.
2c.) So I checked to see if something is noteworthy about flint and obsidian, and there is. They form conchoidal fractures, which allows them to become very sharp. It seems that well-crafted obsidian will be sharper than steel and indeed at the theoretical limit of sharpness, being monomolecular at its apex. (I hadn't previously been aware this was possible, outside of science fiction.) So we might have something close to those physics assumptions we were discussing earlier--viz., a maximally sharp blade. Of course, the same material properties that let them form conchoidal fractures also makes obsidian very brittle. I don't understand enough physics to reason about how the interaction between the two works. p=F/A, so pressure should be immense, but I would think the spearhead breaks, and then . . . something happens?

 

[Dreaad]

 

[Jimmious]

The discussion here is so monocled that it's hard to follow some times

 

[Brancaleone]

[..]
I don't know whether anybody has tested the reconstruction of a pilum against a 14-15th century-level plate, but my guess would be that a heavy, low velocity and with a thin and long metal head javelin would be pretty much a guaranteed bend of the metal head, or break at the juncture.

Good points all around. I didn't find any scholarly research on pila vs. plate, but in the process of looking for it, I did find this completely awesome bro with a bandana, a back yard, and a Youtube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDRBw1Hl_Qg

Who did a test versus a breastplate; to spoil the ending, he threw it at the weakest point, and the pilum got owned. His throwing style looks questionable to me, and the pilum is intended to be a period-accurate replica (so, metal is iron, and if truly accurate, it'd be pretty soft iron aside from the tip), but I doubt it would've mattered. However:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8vFfDuG-iA

Apparently a 1.6mm, 15th century steel breastplate can be pierced by an "Iron Age" Celtic spear, with a throw performing best. Caveats: (1) his spear isn't period-accurate (the "Iron Age" spear is made of carbon steel), (2) he throws it at very close range, (3) he also seems to throw it questionably and with no running start. Whether 3 balances out 1 and 2, I couldn't tell you. More significantly, the same breastplate can be pierced through the gambeson by a shitty, apparently period-accurate Bronze Age spear. Presumably their breastplate was not made by Filippo Negroli, but it appears to be good enough to perform in a historically accurate manner vs. other weapons. (Bodkins do nothing, claymores dent but do not pierce, etc.) So if this guy's backyard reenactment is accurate (and apart from my snickers about backyard reenactments, I don't have a great reason for doubting it), apparently plate penetration is possible for thrown spears with significantly worse weapons tech than would've been available in the Renaissance era.

Regarding Aztec spears: I really don't know. Possible explanations:

1.) It looks like a lot of the accounts talking about how Aztec weaponry could pierce steel can be traced back to Bernal Diaz del Castillo. He was a conquistador leader by the time of Cortes's expedition, but (like most conquistadors) was pretty poor when he left the Old World, so odds are that his equipment was not great. So potentially someone just got lucky with a bad suit of armor.
2a.) But there are also accounts of other aboriginal peoples who encountered Spaniards and pierced their armor:

It is interesting to note that the obsidian arrowheads of some of the western American tribes penetrated deeper than modern steel points. The light reed arrows of the Florida Indians, tipped with flint, went through Spanish armor, continuing on to embed themselves in tree trunks.

Stone Age tech with better armor-piercing properties than bullets have?
2b.) Spanish accounts also refer to Aztec obsidian spearheads (and blades, generally) as being sharper than theirs.
2c.) So I checked to see if something is noteworthy about flint and obsidian, and there is. They form conchoidal fractures, which allows them to become very sharp. It seems that well-crafted obsidian will be sharper than steel and indeed at the theoretical limit of sharpness, being monomolecular at its apex. (I hadn't previously been aware this was possible, outside of science fiction.) So we might have something close to those physics assumptions we were discussing earlier--viz., a maximally sharp blade. Of course, the same material properties that let them form conchoidal fractures also makes obsidian very brittle. I don't understand enough physics to reason about how the interaction between the two works. p=F/A, so pressure should be immense, but I would think the spearhead breaks, and then . . . something happens?

Well, the guy with the spear is achieving basically dents (in what, to eye, does not really seem hardened steel, it seems to have no springiness whatsover, or maybe he quenched a piece of low-carbon steel armour that did not have enough carbon content to achieving hardening). Nowhere near to even scratch, even if there was no more protection underneath it.
On the obsidian point, that's exactly what I was asking about: if he got the throw exactly at the right angle for that particular piece of obsidian not to shatter, well, then you got a point with an amazing edge (some modern surgeons perform surgery with obsidian blades), so as long as it holds it will go through. It would also be very likely to shatter during/just after penetration, and have no chances left of going through the gambeson. Of course I'm just hypothesizing.
The flint arrow going through armour, body and tree-trunks sounds a bit unreal honestly, since a flint point doesn't change the issue of the resistance that the arrow shaft would encounter while piercing breastplate, probably gambeson, body, again probably gambeson, and backplate clean through.
P.S. I found "Arrows Against Steel" on google books and apart from not providing any sources whatsoever, in the same page it says that Egyptian reed arrows went through 4 inches of brass (besides, the Egyptians did not use copper-zinc alloys), that Indian Americans pierced buffaloes through with arrows sticking out a span from the other side of the body, and in the next plate that a 75 pound draw longbow can pierce a steel armour to a depth of 1/4 of an inch then go on to pierce 8 inches of wood.

Great discussion, Kayerts!