Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => English Warbow => Topic started by: bdog on July 20, 2015, 02:57:47 pm
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Re posted from the arrow section :
Hey all....been a long time since last post but I ran across something and I'd like the opinion of the board on it. I was at our local Renaissance fair and I saw a guy with a bunch of reproduction medieval points, including one that I'm sure we've all heard refer ed to as a "rope cutter" point. He was of the opinion that the popular idea was incorrect and that these were actually a small game or bird point. The design looks like a crescent moon with the inside radius of the curve sharpened and facing down range (towards the target) it's a common design throughout the world I saw examples from Asian and India as well. What's the general consensus on this point? I looked at the Internet and there was no real conclusive information easily found. Thoughts?
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Anybody who thinks it's a "rope cutter" hasn't got a basic understanding of how an arrow works - they spin when they fly. ;)
I think the general consensus is that they're hunting points for game / birds. I've never heard an intelligent argument against that idea.
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I accept that the rope cutting theory is a little far fetched. They clearly could cut a rope but the practicality of hitting it seems low. I should point out that Ive used modern turkey guillotine heads that function similarly and they neatly decapitate a turkey. This is with a modern compound bow so the poundage is similar but the accuracy is much higher. It is interesting to note that this design was found on battlefields so it was used in combat. Perhaps archers carried a selection of game points for foraging and shot them in the heat of battle without noticing? There is a video showing styles of iron points found at Jamestown and the historian refers to this point as a game point but states it might also be used against larger game by cutting a tendon. Possibly used as an anti horse weapon? Its interesting that the design is so common but we dont know for sure its purpose.....
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How common were they actually? You say some have been found at battle sites, but do you know how many?
The reason I ask it that the Type 16 has been found in various places, and many believe that it was one of the most common types of military head but I'm firmly of the belief that it was far more rare than that. In fact a couple of weeks ago I had a lengthy discussion with Mark Stretton about that very issue, and the conversation convinced me that the Type 16 was far more rare than people seem to think - not least due to it's complicated construction method (fire-welding the tangs) which simply doesn't make sense for mass-producing military arrowheads.
As for archers shooting various types - I can't imagine that's possible somehow but I do like your idea of shooting a hunting arrow by mistake. Personally I think that during combat archers would be supplied with sheaves of Type 10 or similar arrowheads (if we're discussing mid 13thC to late 15thC) and wouldn't need to use anything else but I can definitely imagine somebody running out, and grabbing the nearest ammunition available which could well be a personal hunting arrow.
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Interesting topic but very hard to find evidence to back up any 21st century opinion.
Many illustrations show the large swept broad heads in use on the battlefield and they were undoubtedly used as horse killers!
Bodkins were developed to penetrate both mail and plate but I think I saw a video that showed the bodkin wasn't all that good against other, more common early protection such as leather and linen.
A cutting edge is better for these, so the development of the Tudor bodkin combined the bodkin point with a cutting edge which gives a more all purpose warhead!
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The Tudor bodkin is pretty useless against plate. It was developed as a super-cheap head for piercing textile armour such as a gambeson, and was obviously one of the very last head types created, as gunpowder soon ruined everything.
I don't think the swept broadheads were used at all. I'd chalk that up as artistic license, to look more impressive in paintings. If you were painting a field of archers, by the time you got to the arrowhead and tried accurately portraying a Type 10 bodkin nobody would be able to see it. A massive, cartoon style swallowtail is far better for artwork, and totally impractical on the battlefield, but as they existed as hunting heads I imagine the artists had no qualms about depicting them.
A good solid bodkin or lozenge plate cutter will kill or drop a horse just as easily as a silly broadhead point, plus they actually go through plate. The minute you start giving different heads for different jobs in the same battle, you're getting into Hollywood-style myths.
One head, designed for maximum use in the period is all you need. Otherwise you're either asking each archer to have numerous types (impractical for many reasons) or dividing groups of archers to do specific jobs (also impractical). You're also saying that they are being handed sheaves of huge swept swallowtail-tipped arrows - where are they being stored? You can't use them with arrowbags...
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A good solid bodkin or lozenge plate cutter will kill or drop a horse just as easily as a silly broadhead point...
Not sure how you justify that?
I was under the impression that an arrow kills a big mammal by haemorrhage and isn't that why broadheads are used for hunting?
In contrast:-
I like your point about not being able to keep swallowtails in an arrow bag.
I have no opinion of my own to offer I'm happy to admit I don't know...
Del
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Surely if any animal gets punched through the lung, heart, brain or any major organs / arteries etc by a half inch wide 4" long hunk of iron, sent from a 150# bow it's not gonna feel very happy about it...?
Aren't hunting specific heads such as broadheads or swallowtails for use with much smaller arrows and much lighter bows? You don't need such a specialised head with all that weight and brute strength behind it - at least that's what makes sense to me. Certainly don't know for sure!
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No... but it won't "drop a horse".
Read up some hunting stories to get an idea of the effect of arrows on mammals.
I don't s'pose anyone is going to conduct field trials...
Del
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I just love 21st century opinions.
That's why I don't take mine very seriously.
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Del, I don't think hunting stories would tell us anything unless they're hunting with warbows. The power and impact is vastly different. I really do think a horse is going to "hit the deck" if it gets shot with a warbow. I'm not suggesting it will fly backwards in some ludicrous Hollywood style cartwheel, or miraculously crumple either but it's not going to carry on without noticing, which is what I've heard happens when something like a deer is shot with a knitting needle arrow from a compound bow.
I reckon if you punch a big enough hole through a horse it's going to bleed out pretty damn fast, or panic and cause complete mayhem around it before dropping somewhere. I suggest we try a few experiments - there are plenty of riding schools where I live, I'll see if they have any suitable horses for shooting at.
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To be fair, killing the horse isn't probably necessary. As was mentioned, if they get hit they will know it. And a horse, after getting hit and noticing it, is not going to be the best behaved animal and the rider, even if uninjured, is probably going to have a difficult time actually directing the animal. For all intents and purposes, at that point the horse is out of the fight and killing it is, literally, overkill.
I agree that specialized arrow types is unlikely, especially as the archers were likely asked to shoot when the enemy was at their maximum range but not necessarily at a range where the archers would be accurate enough to target individual soldiers or limbs or the rider atop the horse...
SOM
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Yup +1
I'll go along with that... I was just objecting to the phrase "drop a horse"
Del
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One point I'd like to make is, a lot of the topics we discuss concerning medieval archery are based on little or no evidence.
That's fine , we all come up with our own theories and ideas in order to fill in the blanks.
Many of us conduct experimental archaeology without even realising it.
When, however, we have contemporary paintings that show a certain arrowhead, a type of nock or even apparent reflex in bows, we should not dismiss it easily as artistic licence.
Why ignore what is starring us in the face, unless there was proof otherwise.
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There is a difference in hunting broadheads and warfare broadheads. IMO For a hunting head you want a well placed shot with an extremely sharp broadhead for fast, humane kill. In warfare a serious wound usually requires one or two healthy folks to care for the wounded soldier, taking them out of the fight. Back in medieval times I doubt that a humane kill mattered.
I've seen pics of these crescent heads, both in medieval European and ancient Asian arrow and wondered what they were used for.
Just seeing one in use would scare the heck out of me, but I'm a chicken when it comes to warfare. ;D
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One point I'd like to make is, a lot of the topics we discuss concerning medieval archery are based on little or no evidence.
That's fine , we all come up with our own theories and ideas in order to fill in the blanks.
Many of us conduct experimental archaeology without even realising it.
When, however, we have contemporary paintings that show a certain arrowhead, a type of nock or even apparent reflex in bows, we should not dismiss it easily as artistic licence.
Why ignore what is starring us in the face, unless there was proof otherwise.
Does that mean you think all medieval bows should have terrible tiller, you should shoot the arrows on the wrong side of the bow, the sapwood should be exactly the same thickness as the heartwood on a yew bow, the arrowheads should be the same size and length as the fletchings...? I'm being facetious of course, but taking contemporary art as "evidence" is incredibly risky. Most of them don't even get the basic colours correct on medieval clothing, and yet we're expected to believe the artists know the ins and outs of military arrowheads? Part of me thinks it's far more likely they knew they had to draw an arrowhead, wandered down to the nearest blacksmith and picked up the first thing they could find, expecting all arrowheads to be the same.
If we took Picasso's art as "evidence" of human form during his period, we'd be in trouble. ;)
Big swallow-tailed broadheads don't make sense in a military situation. They're forge-welded together, which takes a huge amount of time, almost twice as much material and a far hotter forge. You can bash out Type 10s in about 6 minutes with a charcoal fire pot. Why go to all the trouble of making a broadhead when we know from archaeological finds that Type 10s were everywhere, in almost every battle field excavated from over a huge period of time?
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I'm no military expert by any stretch but it seems to me that the bodkin types of broadheads would be more practical in the "artillery" style of shooting that took place during the War Bow period. A wedge type head, sort of like the bodkins, could get through armor, maile and heavy leather used as protection during that time. Unless you shot through the eye slots of helmet most other types wouldn't work very well...unless just the fear factor of the crescent points was enough to frighten the enemy.
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When I think about the horror of going into one of these battles with swords and axes and where any wound can mean a lingering death by infection I can't see how a cresent shaped arrowhead is going to make me "more" afraid. I would be pretty much maxed out at the first mention of a battle :o :o
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Stream of consciousness here to some degree, but the crescent shaped heads are nearly the inverse of a hunting broadhead shape, only taken to the extreme. So where hunting heads are designed for penetration and punching a clean hole, could these 'opposite' heads, when shot into soft tissue, be designed to act almost like a 'sharp blunt', that is to just make a mess of the meat? I also wonder if healing from or being treated for a wound made from one of these would be easier or harder than the standard broadhead or bodkin-could they act at all like a bayonet where the wound is particularly prone to infection or hard to take care of?
SOM
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The point I'm making is contemporary painting are not evidence but with the lack of any evidence to the contrary, we should not dismiss the possibility that they were in common use on the battlefield for specific use against horses for example!
The argument that they would not have had more than one type of head in use on a battlefield is underestimating the level of sophistication of these people.
As for fitting in arrow bags, easy, don't have a leather spacer.
I think Ascham refers to having an amount of 'Flights' within a sheaf of arrows. It would make sense to me if 'Flights' were fitted with swallow tails to fire at mounted troops at extreme range!
If we use the arrows found on the 'Mary Rose' as an example, we notice there seems to be a pattern of two different lengths of arrow, 28in and 30in.
I don't think this is random, so perhaps the two different groups had a different head, perhaps Tudor heads on one and type 16's on the other!
This is not evidence but it does show how they may be prepared to mix types of arrows during battle.
To deny the use of this type of head in battle, you need evidence to back it up, not supposed minor
inconveniences to the supply and use of this arrowhead.
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In doing some research and viewing other conversations and experimental tests among historians there are two answers, the official answer being that "no one really knows", and the answer that rises to the top of the speculation and especially the results of experimentation is that these arrowheads were for small ground game, rabbits and such. The rope cutting thing, rubbish, in experiments they rarely even hit the rope edge on let alone cut it. The horse thing, again rubbish, most experiments done on that kind of hide either with fleshy or boney backing the two prongs stuck in and that's about it. With birds they didn't do much to cut feathers in flight or that sort of thing and did more damage to the bird on direct strikes than one would desire, blunts are a much better, and well documented mind, option for birds. Smallish ground game though seemed quite susceptible to this type of point as not too much damage done, the width made for larger chance of hitting, and the shape acted like a judo tip in that it would flip the arrow or prevent loss in brush. Again, no one really knows for sure, but that's where I'd lay my money...
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It seems we are getting confused about the type of head in question.
The initial post was concerned with the crescent shaped head but the thread has gone down the road of a discusion about swallow tailled heads!
No one has suggested the crescent shaped head was used to kill horses.
Sorry about getting sidetracked.
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If they were used primarily to kill horses then they would work on any large animal....what do people use to go hunting today? Physics hasn't changed much.....
The way to actually work this out is to make some and then use them on various targets. Whatever they work best on now is what they worked best on then. Pretty simple really!
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A wide crescent would have poor penetration on a horse, I would think, especially if the horse was suited for battle. And I think it would not be practical for an archer to carry arrows with such a big head. They must have a specific application or they wouldn't have made them but what that would be baffles me.
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....hunting.
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It may have poor penetration but I can imagine it would make the horse seriously unhappy and disinclined to do what the rider wants it to!
I have no opinion on their use or otherwise in battles...
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I imagine a horse shot with any arrow would be seriously unhappy, etc.
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might just piss it off too :P war horses weren't selected for the're pleasant personality.
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....hunting.
No way. They weren't stupid back then you know..... ;) ;)
Do people use heads like that to hunt today....NO! Ask yourself why not.... ;)
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Cos they were smarter than we are today ;)
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Here's a brief excerpt from Mike Loade's book "The Longbow"
"Crescent-shaped arrowheads may have been a type that had use in naval engagements. Often also called "forkers" these heads are most usually associated with hunting birds.
However, tests by Mark Stretton have shown that a crescent arrowhead also has the capacity to tear sailcloth (Soar 2010: 148). Mark found that by shooting with these heads using a shallow angle at heavy canvas, he created 12in tears. Multiple shots with such arrows from a pursuing ship could have the effect of slowing down the target ship, and a high wind could cause a shredded sail to rip apart even more. The extent to which this tactic was used remains speculative."
Personally, I'm not sure I buy that - if even one crescent shaped head has been found on an actual battlefield site that makes this theory somewhat void, as there aren't any sails on battlefields. It is of course possible that they were developed for sails, and then used at other situations but timelines would need to be analysed to make anything of that.
I'm seeing Mark next weekend, so I'll bend his ear about what he thinks.
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As a matter of fact modern turkey killing broad heads are very similar in design. I have shot turkey heads clean off with arrows. Mind you that's with a compound bow and peep sights....so not quite comparable in terms of accuracy. Point taken though very difficult too get good historical info.
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We can get a clue as to what these arrowheads were for from where they were found. Out of 96 medieval arrowheads in the Salisbury and South Wilts Museum collection, four are of the forked head shape. Three of these were found at Clarendon, a medieval royal palace and hunting lodge in the middle of what was England's largest medieval deer park. The nearest ships would have been at Southampton, 20 miles away. The other forked head was found in the Wyle valley, even further from the sea or a navigable river. So these heads were much more likely to have been for hunting, rather than attacking sails and rigging.
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ive read the magyar used them to cause horses to go into a panic, throwing a rider hopefully.