Polybius, horse archers arrows, roman armour, oh my.

[Dan Howard]

A short essay in the Royal Armouries website, and a more detailed article in the book De Re Metallica, claim that steeled broadheads may have been used to pierce plate armor and that non-steel bodkins were not. Unfortunately, this evidence has been claimed on amateur lists like Sword Forum as proof that bodkin heads were never used to defeat mail.

You may want to recheck your facts. I first suggested this years before a paper by De Re Metallica or anybody else. The first thread on SFI dates to 2004 but I have been thinking about this long before that.

FWIW the 2004 thread begins with a simple question: Assuming hypothetically that bodkins were not developed to penetrate armour. For what other reasons might they have been developed? What other advantages do they have over other arrowhead types?

This idea sprang up from ther simple observation that decent testing indicates that no arrowhead was particularly effective at punching through plate armour (except at very short ranges) and expanded from that. Other factors to consider:

1. Sir John Smythe reccommended a fourth of each sheaf be flight arrows to "gall" the enemy at range, so it is reasonable to believe the bodkins are in fact representative of "flight" arrows. Smythe states that war arrows must travel 12 score yards (240) while flights should make "24 or 20 scores". Bartlett and Embleton make note of the Mary Rose arrows: Two arrow types were recovered: the first tended to be tapered, averaging about 1/2" dameter at the head, and tapering to 3/8" at the nock. From rust stains showing an outline, most of these arrows seem to have been fitted with broadheads similar to MoL Catalogue Type 16. The second type, recovered in far smaller numbers was a parallel sided arrow bearing bodkins of MoL Type 8. These simpler arrows are not appreciably lighter at about 7/16" diameter, though the overall weight of a bodkin vs. broadhead must also be considered.

From Smythe we know that the English carried at least two types of arrows and the smaller in number were intended as flight arrows. If there were flight arrows on the Mary Rose then they must have been bodkins.

2. If you take two arrows of equal weight - one with a type 16 and another with a type 8 and fire them from the same bow then the type 8 consistently outranges the type 16 (by at least 5%).

3. Turkish flight arrows all use a bodkin typology.

A few years later we have two new pieces of data.
4. Metallurgical analysis of extant arrowheads show evidence of hardening on some type 16s but none on any bodkin typologies. There are primary sources saying that hardened arrowheads are preferred for armor penetration so a reasonable conclusion that any arrowheads found on a battlefield that show evidence of hardening might have been intended for armour piercing.

5. The type 16 compact broadhead is just as effective at punching through plate armour as a type 8. This test is easy to perform since it doesn't require exacting reproduction of periood materials. The same result is observed regardess of the type of plate used.


There are problems with the above.
1. The sample size of tested arrowheads is way too small to say whether no bodkins were hardened.
2. Some bodkins were heavier than some broadheads.

There is no doubt that English archers carried flight arrows. I ask a simple question: If the Type 8 was not intended for Smythe's "flight arrows" then please suggest an alternative.