[Bjorn Hagstrom]

It would be interesting to hear from someone with experience how much difference there is in the manufacturing process between a bodkin and a broadhead.

Can you start with the same stock? (Sheet, round bar, sqaure stock?)
Can you make a broad head without filing work needed after shaping?
Can you make a bodkin without filing needed?
Is there any significant difference in the skillset needed to make a broadhead over a bodkin?

Could it be that the bodkin is optimized not for efficiency in the target, but productivity in the smithy?

[William P]

general purpose id say.
a short bodkin hs its uses, can just do stuff not any one thing all too well but itll accomplish most jobs, and its cheap to make.

oh and apparently bodkins are better at flying long distances according to dan, and bede dwyer

[Matthew Amt]

"Bodkins" were shaped that way so that they'd fly a long distance. They are aerodynamic and don't weigh too much. And the general shape has been in use since long before mail was invented. (I think this has been mentioned before?)

Since there were always plenty of unarmored targets on a battlefield, unhardened points could have a great effect on an army without ever penetrating armor. Even if most of your body is covered by protection that you are *pretty* sure no arrow can penetrate unless the archer is quite close and lucky, that doesn't make you invulnerable. You still have to worry about all your less protected bits. And even if you are pretty sure an arrow through your foot won't kill you, it doesn't make you happier about charging into an area where arrows are raining down, aimed or not. So arrows are extremely disruptive, whether they penetrate armor or not. (Pretty sure *this* has been mentioned before, but it's worth repeating!)

Matthew

[Matt Easton]

In response to the question about all the iron bodkins - as mentioned above of course they have all sorts of uses, but what is perhaps most interesting is that clearly lots of them were being made against Royal decree in England, otherwise successive kings would not have needed to re-issue the Act. So they wanted hardened steel heads, but probably naughty people were churning out cheaper iron heads (and perhaps selling them at the price of steel heads).

You only need to make a law if there is a problem.

[Dan Howard]

We know that English had certain arrows devoted to longer-range shots. My theory is that bodkins were made of iron because they were never intended to penetrate armour. Their principal purpose was to "gall the enemy at range". The compact broadheads were made of steel because they were the short range arrows and if you want even a tiny chance of penetrating armour then it has to be at short range and the heads have to be hardened. The simplest way to counter the above hypothesis is to produce a single English bodkin made of hardened steel and present an alternative arrowhead for English flight arrows.

The above theory is then used to help explain why heavy warbows were used in the first place. It was to help cast a heavy war-arrow to a greater distance than had ever been possible before. Any increased ability to penetrate armour was purely incidental.

[Timo Nieminen]

[Timo Nieminen]

[Ian S LaSpina]

[Dan Howard]

[Randall Moffett]

Timo,

One thing that is important with the bodkin and possible penetration is what likely will increase the bodkin tips from curling upon impact. The longer and thinner it is the less likely it is to hold up to such an impact. I really think we are looking at two different heads in reality.


Ian,

Since most breastplates in the medieval period are not heat treated it remains an issue still. So for heat treated ones true but for the bulk of them not the case.

That said I am not convinced any of these heads were specifically made for penetrating armour by distance specifically.


RPM

[William P]

its also been noted that arrows shot at a high angle into the air, on the way back down they gain a fair bit of momentum back on their way back to earth. so a 'plate cutter head might have a surprising amount of force behind it at semi long range..

[William P]

oh and here are the russian bodkins i mentioned earlier note the ones im talking about are number 10, 11, 12
these would possibly be quite nasty anti maile bodkins
http://xxx.xxx/uploads/2011/medwed-bown/arrows05.gif

Table 15 iron arrowheads, X c.
1, 33, 34, 36, 37 - Gnezdovo burial, 2, 3, 5, 6, 21 - Polomsky burial, 4 - burial tan;
7 - burial Vesyakarsky Bieger-shai, 8 - Igorev mound, 9 - Tumovskoe Selishche, 10-12, 38 - Settlement Alchedar,
13, 14, 18, ​​22 - Kniazha Hill, 15, 17, 20, 23 - Devic-Mount, 16 - Toompea Kiev, 19, 31 - Borkowski burial, 24, 28 - Timerovsky burial;
25 - Bilyar, 26 - Sarkel - White Tower, 27, 29, 30, 32, 35 - Novgorod.

these are 10th century heads by the way

[R. Kolick]

[Dan Howard]

Maybe you need to read through this thread again. No arrow can punch through plate reliably enough at any range to have any influence over the outcome of a battle.

I'd also like to see some evidence supporting this "plate cutter" myth. If the English had an arrowhead called a "plate cutter" or similar term, then produce a source mentioning them. If not then please refrain from using the term. All it does is reinforce the hype about this subject.

[Clifford Rogers]

[Clifford Rogers]

[Kel Rekuta]

Dr Rogers,

As a long-time fan of your work, I have read these articles plus Dr Curry's collection of the Agincourt sources. Yet I still remain unconvinced that the penetration of plate at anything beyond point blank range had a significant role in the outcome of that particular battle. Crecy and Poiters were very different battles fought in rather poorer armour and also on radically different ground. They should not be considered equivalent in terms of battlefield conditions. Returning to Agincourt, your earlier work on the efficacy of the longbow gives too much credence to the warbow's killing ability and little enough to its contribution to combined arms. If the massive striking advantage of massed archery could reliably defeat men-at-arms, there would have been little hand to hand fighting for the English men-at-arms, yet the same sources imply they were sorely pressed until the lightly armed archers dove into the fray with whatever weapons were at hand.

I am firmly on the fence as to the penetrative power of the warbow and more interested in its role in combined arms, controlling the ground before a defensive position. In cases where the archers were not able to establish a defensible line of barriers; be they hedges, stakes or high ground, the English bowmen were routed. As nearly every aspect of the ground, command and discipline were mismanaged by the French at Agincourt, it seems clear that the concentrated firepower and rigid discipline of the English expedition were force multiplied by the position chosen by Henry on a very difficult ground for dismounted assault. Frankly speaking, the steady march through sucking mud while under the abuse of massed archery and the confusion of horses careening through tightly packed ranks did more to defeat the French than how many breastplates or helmets were pierced by arrows.

You would gain a very clear view of this should you take the occasion to borrow a full harness of the period and have a stroll through a freshly plowed field or even a beach. Sir, I respect your opinion and the enormous amount of work you have done to form it. However, I feel that you are insufficiently informed as the reality of the difficulty the dismounted French faced at Agincourt and therefore wrongly attribute their defeat to an inflated conception of the efficacy of the warbow in that circumstance.

Sincerely,

Kel Rekuta

[Ralph Grinly]

I've a question for those who claim that the longbow and arrows were relatively useless and had no major bearing on such battles as Crecy and Agincourt..to what ELSE do you contribute the outcome of the battles ? Given that the chroniclers OF THE TIME asserted that archers were a main determiner of the battle ? Were the english armed with some other, secret weapon that no-one noticed ? maybe a platoon or two, armed with AK47's, hidden in the woods Or..now here's a new theory..the archers went and throttled the french with their bowstrings ? After all..their arrows were useless, weren't they ?

[Randall Moffett]

Kel,

Why do so many people assume the armour of Agincourt was better than Crecy or Poitiers? As far as layers of protection they seem similar and since metallugical quality was largely unchanged for 90% of armour most still being unhardened to any qualitive matter why is this assumed so often? Maybe Falkirk or Stirling armour was largely less developed by Crecy and Poitiers I am not seeing a big difference with Agincourt.

To me the move from COPs was less about effectiveness and more better technologoes for production of iron/steel.

RPM

[Matt Easton]

The majority of the French army at Agincourt probably did not have full plate harness, so the longbow can claim a large chunk of the victory without plate penetration even being discussed. It's worth remembering though that a single arrow wound often would not incapacitate, and it does not take long to walk 300 yards. Many men could arrive at the English lines with one or two wounds, or get lucky and be sheltered in the mass of men. Arrows are not musket balls, they do not now down men like firearms. They make a neat hole and stop, like a stab wound.