DraconDarknight
Lord of Altera
DraconDarknight
It won't feel good but won't leave more than a scratch either. Also a kick from a horse to your head and an arrow are two very different things.Still,Needle bodkins are effective on mail, and even if an arrow doesn't penetrate the armor, it's going to leave a deformation and hurt. I doubt getting shot in the head with an arrow is going to feel good. It might even knock you out and you drown faster.
You may not know, but a warhorse kick can kill a fully plated knight of struck in the head. So I figure an arrow won't feel to good either
They even tested a Long Bow against a Japanese Longbow on ballistics gel, neither made it really through a metal plate. It should be noted at this point that the English longbow lost by 2 or 3 inches in the ballistics gel test.
And they were used because of the slight , and really slight, chance that someone actually manages to hit get an arrow through the visor. Also not everyone in a battle wore full plate armor, only Knights did that.
Which is why the armored the horses too later on, they weren't that slow though.The bows that were used against crusaders weren't that strong.
But not everyone has a english 160 pound draw weight warbow that they have trained all their life to use.
The point was to kill people without armour and cause panic, people rarely died in combat anyways, it only got bloody when one side started routing and getting killed on the retreat.
The danger wasn't single arrows, but the sheer volume and terror of the volleys.
The problem was also the horse that wasn't designed to tkae that kind of punishment, unlike their rider. After Azincourt barding started spreading and was improved (Hence the boom of the power of the heavy cavalry around this time period) . Against sustained longbow volleys (and unable to charge from the rain and stakes), the horses were just targets, and armored knights are hopelessly slow on foot.
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The most well known of incidents of plate armor getting obliterated (?by non-plate troops?) was when the French hired Italian mercenaries(battle of Vernuil).At first it looked like the English were loosing badly against that plate armor, but their commander(Bedford I think) took all of them told them 'You are all dead now fight for your honor because that all that matters now' and led a melee charge against them using weapons specialized in defeating plate armor, which John of Bedford was specialized
in.
The battle ended with the rest of the Italian mercenaries returning from their pillaging just to see their entire company dead.
Afterwards the English child-king(Henri VI) was crowned King of France.
Said King was also the only one who ever got crowned King of both countries.
Should be noted that Bedford and the king were related so that was an additional incentive for him to fight for his King.
In said documentation they also tested Plate armor against Arrow speed in the Killzone - there was some penetration of the plate, but the padded coat below, didn't even have a mark, and the arrowhead got flatted and blunted to a point where it was utterly useless.
not sure if the English knights had plate armor (although obviously weaker) there too or not.
Maybe @Valonyx for that.