Thank you! This is one of the rare few fair tests I've seen. Typically, the average tester would use a modern high carbon steel sword on a layer of thin butted mail. The sword would go through, surprise, surprise, and then the tester would go on and on about how ineffective mail is.

I think the most interesting part of this is how the chainmail tends to trap the sword on the thrust. It looks like some of these thrusts would have hurt the wearer pretty bad, but all were potentially survivable. And then, having the attackers sword trapped in his mail, the wearer would be relatively free to make a lethal counterattack.

@WitheringintheDark

9 жыл бұрын

This is exactly why No One would strike at the armor with a sword. Not even Samurai would risk their blade on kusari(mail). You strike Around the armor. There are always gaps to exploit, or unprotected legs. Or just bludgeon them to death with a warhammer or the swords pommel; that works exceptionally well.

@VladLongPlus

9 жыл бұрын

Don't forget that the wearer is likely wearing the chain over some padding. so 1.2 inches of penetration is not that great when you are wearing 2 inches of padding

@godzilladude1231

8 жыл бұрын

+MisdirectedSasha Well techincally. Since the sword is stuck on his chainmail. He'll either have to discard that chainmail, have a hard time pulling that sword out, or keep fighting with a sword sticking in his armor (highly unlikely).

Finally, a vid that shows maile as something more than a costume for films. Liking this vid. Thanks for posting.

This is Thrand!!! Awesome Video!!! Well Done!!!

mouthforwar17 Slashing attacks don't really do anything against mail. Mail /Is/ 'weaker' against thrusts, as it's more effective than cutting blows since it actually has a chance to penetrate a few inches in, but no where near as weak as is commonly portrayed. But then again hollywood would have you believe that a sword could penetrate a steel breastplate. Now if this vid had used say an Estoc, it more or less would have went right through all but the tightest weave of mail.

@wakaka2waka

9 жыл бұрын

Always annoyed me when armor is cut or pierced like butter on TV/Movies. What the hell is the point of armor on those shows!!! Ridiculous

@WitheringintheDark

9 жыл бұрын

wakaka2waka Especially when they have a Sword going through PLATE armor. Absolutely stupid.

@zoltan3554

9 жыл бұрын

yeah it was used to fend off less armed individuals attacks (mostly), so they could use the sword to slice wich immedietly caused a serious injury when hit.. so they could kill a huge ammount of unarmored lightly armored individuals for their organs.

@zoltan3554

9 жыл бұрын

often the bigger wider was the blacksmith, more grip stregnth easier to handle metals, the bigger wider also worn somewhat more armor not possible to penetrate with most weapons of the smaller who lacked toxic gases or biologiclal weapons, they could use somewhat long and heavy swords to cut down those unarmored.. now it would be quite obvious.. so the bigger blacksmith used smaller ones t oattack less equiped but not so much less equiped individuals while some of th ebig ones also encouraing the smaller ones in combat .. or better to put in hunting conquests.. then the victims were the usually lone criminals. the big ones also stood on the side of engineered peasent uprising.

@zoltan3554

9 жыл бұрын

now i can be wrong of course.. but pretty much sure it was something like this.. i wouldnt say it is necesserily the wide but about average height or the taller but also wider (so somewhat stronger even though probably slower.. would the oponent be trained).

yeah but notice that each time he stabbed the maille the swords with the sharp points got stuck. That would likely mean getting killed or the loss of a weapon. Not a good thing to happen on the battle field.

@tatayoyo337

9 жыл бұрын

perhaps sword became more pointy because piercing in unprotected area became more usual than before (slashing and cuting was easier without mail), not because more pointy pierce trough mail.

@ThegnThrand At any rate not all butted chain was made the same; as another fellow pointed out, the japanese had a type of butted mail that was like key chain rings, overlapping, which negates the deficiencies of regular butted mail. They used reg. butted mail most often, but had that type as well.

Some of the stories in the Norse sagas clearly show just how nearly impossible it was to kill a man in decent armour with a cut or thrust. In one of them, they only managed to kill one fellow by another fighter keeping him occupied while a second went in low, pulled up the lower edge of his maile byrnie and shoved a spear into his gut.

I'm glad someone actually tested the historically accurate riveted mail instead of crap reenactor's butted mail that seems to be common on youtube.

Dang riveted maile is tough!

Yeah, I remember a few passages from a book about Roman armor types that in general lorica hamata was the preferred type, easier to field repair, covered more of the body, and still provided good protection. The segmentata had a lot of exploitable gaps after all. Nothing like medieval breastplates, though. Mail did a superb job. Plate typically performs better, of course, but it wasn't until the late middle ages that technology allowed the wide-spread use of it to fazed mail out.

Great video 5 star. Send this film to Hollywood and other film makers.

Nice video. One thing I notice is that the thrusts that did get through the links only pierced around 2 inches or less, factor in an inch or so of padding and that mail would have clearly saved the wearer's life.

@WitheringintheDark Yes the old Norse describe it as the net of war for a reason.Many a warrior lost their life because in big battles the weapon got stuck and they could not pull it out.That is why I believe Viking warriors would hack not thrust to the body if against mail so would not get hung up and just break bones underneath. It could explain why so may swords had less tapered tips just in case and also why axes were so popular as well. Excellent Video by the way lol

wouldve liked to see earlier swords used with a slashing motion. those later tapered swords were used for getting between plate armor when that was more common but still maille was used. i like the video. ends the stereotype that chainmaille is weak against thrusts

@ThegnThrand I think another good reason why most early Viking swords weren't all that tapered, was that steel techniques hadn't been perfected yet, so a thin tip would be more likely to bend, or break. Besides, most people wore leather and cloth armor, which was a much cheaper alternative to the ring/scale mail, so they could field more people. Even so, later viking age sword did have quite tapered tips (like the Cawood sword), so something must have changed along the way.

@Meng Lee A person would most likely be wearing an arming coat or gambeson underneath the maille to provide even more protection.

@Stoozor Essentially, once it hits the mail, the weave of the mail will cause the bullet to splinter, sending bullet shards through your body, as well as potentially blowing some of the links into your chest cavity. Mail is basically useless vs. bullets.

What I am saying 3/4" is awefully big compared to most mail it was 1/2",5/16" or smaller. So tapered points did not pierce as well would cut out quite of that tapered tip penetration.

@raztin1 As said in the description, it is not me. But you can see by how the weighted target base keeps getting shoved back that he is hitting it with all he's got.

@WitheringintheDark Great vid using some mail that could have passed as being historically usable. Google "Mail armor from the Birka Garrison" to see what dimensions the Vikings would have used historically. Can you shoot an arrow against the mail next? I'm curious as to if your setup could stop a decently powered (75lbs) bow.

@WitheringintheDark I definitely believe people need to know these things about arms and armour Hollywood,media and Fiction has painted them such fantastic and unrealistic picture for so many years. They think people went around banging the edges of expensive swords edge against edge and mail armour was useless against thrust so they must think our ancestors were idiots by such a picture and they were not mail worked and the flat was used to block with or the shield not the sword edge.

@ThegnThrand It's 3/8ths(5/16th's) or just shy of 1/2 in. diameter. And yes, I remember the mail you used in your video well =) Even against the very tapered swords, you can see that the chain often entrapped the point. Even then, most the the times it pierced, would not have been enough to kill.

@PJDAltamirus0425 I just finished a very good book on the history of european armor, and combinations like this were used. A gambeson was commonly work under mail, and there is some evidence that cuirbollie breastplates were worn over the mail (not sure about under). It's kind of speculative though, because no physical examples survive (leather doesn't last like steel does) and the surcoats of that era obscure any breastplates in artistic depictions.

so i assume the reason for plate armor was that it was slightly less time consuming, and better protection against blunt force?

Not really sure, it looked like it was all riveted from the close up though; hard to tell.

@ThegnThrand Yeah, i've heard a historian explain it that hollywood does this because a real armored fight would be too 'boring', resembling more a wrestling match then the sword fight most people think of, at least with plate armor involved. People want to see swords cleaving people in half, not daggers being thrust through eye sockets and joints while rolling on the ground, pike formations, and polearms smashing people down.

Out of curiosity, are there any known swords that could have potentially peirced through Chainmail? Also how did it fair against more ranged weapons i.e. longbow, crossbow?

The video said that the chain had a cuirbollie leahter backing and padding along with padding. How is this accurate test? Won't a accurate test of riveted chainmail be just with the chainmail and padding?

Great video, but I thought the hard leather was supposed to be on TOP not beneath the chain... care to comment on this...

@ThegnThrand Yeah, heavy weapons fair well against it. It is said that a perfectly perpendicular blow from a sword or axe Could shear through it(from the wiki article) The tip of the pollaxe might be long and tapered enough to thrust through, and the four pronged bludgeoning side could pierce through and crush. Which might explain it's popularity later on. /shrugs

What kind of riveted mail is that? All riveted or riveted and solid rings?

@JHanson712 Like I wrote in the description, it's not my video, it is available for free on thearma.org, but few know of the site so i've posted it here on youtube so more can see how tough maille really is. I have not seen any tests with arrows on the site, but my buddy thrand here shoots one hefty bow at his own riveted mail here: watch?v=mik6Ghy9kYs#t=5m50s

@Jesus45U i dont believe that first point, since some langsaex are wickidly pointy. and not too short either, some replicas ive seen aresometimes 20" long blades, i think the reason for the shape of the tip of the viking sword was that such a thin wide tip was excellent for slicing,and since a fairly low% of people, especially if you include the peasent levy, wore maille, so a fair majority would merely have leather and cloth armours, which are better to face with a slicing sword.

This is Thrand!!! Nice Video this was 3/4" rings? most mail was around 5/16" would pierce even less but excellent test you guys do some good work and I love the ARMA :P My test confirm your findings you can look them up on my channel :P

How does mail or scale mail hold up against battle clubs? Does it spred the force of teh impact, and make it less lethal? Is it good t this? What is the best armor for this?

@WitheringintheDark

9 жыл бұрын

It does, to an extent. Mostly due to the padding. Place a pillow over your chest and have someone whack you with a baseball bat. The pillow will take alot of the force. Still will smart, though. To be honest, most probably fared the same. Be it plate or mail, what disperses the force of BFT is the gambeson, which was worn with either. Plate probably fared a bit better and a bit worse; the chest plate and all disperses it over a wider area then mail that gives, but each impact can dent the armor inward, hampering breathing and mobility more then the hit alone would, among other things. And any blow to a closed steel helmet was very, very bad.

@WitheringintheDark

9 жыл бұрын

Monkeyherder3 You'd want a warhammer or pollaxe. Even the average fellow would be able to drive the armor-piercing back spike of a warhammer through a helmet and into your skull. Or simply cave your faceplate in and your face with it with the blunt end. See here: kzread.info/dash/bejne/rIZ9tcWBmNiqkrg.html

@WitheringintheDark

9 жыл бұрын

Monkeyherder3 In medieval times? Probably just padded armor(like multiple gambesons, think kind of like a primitive bomb-suit) followed by plate. Probab with padded is bladed weapons tends to cut right through them, whereas they don't do crap against plate; one of the reaons plate was so valued was due to it offering great protection against virtually anything. Modern stuff? Bomb suit. Few things disperse BFT better.

I have a question plz. If the European armors were really heavy for any sword to slice throw them. then how did the Muslims in the crusades win many or most of the battles. what were the techniques that were able to counter the Crusaders armor. Im not asking this to mock or anything im really curios

are you using all of youre strenght?

Not unless the archer was having a Really bad day XD I do recall instances where mail had stopped a longbow arrow before, but those were freak circumstances. Like the archer was too close and the Paradox caused the arrow to hit the mail side-long, or they were wearing double-mail with a felt under vest, other weird things like that. You typically need at least 2-3 millimeters thickness of good steel to reliably stop a longbow arrow. Arabic arrows were a different matter.

Any evidence that people actually wore a gambeson, bulky thic leather cuirbollie breastplate and mail together?

@WitheringintheDark even worse, like with viking shields, you now have a very angry man, with HIS weapon free likely, and your weapon is stuck its like losing your weapon to a viking shield getting it stuck in the rim

@PJDAltamirus0425 Hmm. I'm not Precisely sure about that Exact combination, maybe take it up with that branch of ARMA. Gambesons/padding were definitely worn under the armor though; one of Saladin's biographers said the crusaders wore a thick felt vest under their mail which stopped the Muslims arrows from harming them. I know this construction is more typical of gambesons intended as independent armor(which were thicker and often leather-faced, ect.), not so sure about under armor.

@conncork Hah, I would, but they wouldn't care. Realistic armor unfortunately as far as hollywood is concerned doesn't make for interesting fight scenes. A pity.

Still wouldn't stop an English longbow though

@PJDAltamirus0425 I just finished a very good book on the history of european armor, and combinations like this were used. A gambeson was commonly work under mail, and there is some evidence that cuirbollie breastplates were worn over the mail (not sure about under). It's kind of speculative though, because no physical examples survive (leather doesn't last like steel does) and the surcoats of that era obscure any breastplates in artistic depictions.