07-19-2009, 12:11 PM
Quote:Good stuff as usual, Gregg, but one brief caveat. Modern tests with ballistas show that bolts with any kind of broadhead will "plane"--the head acts as fins and the bolt sails wildly off where it wills. So the conclusion is that the bodkin point simply gives good streamlining and accuracy.
Matthew
Thanks Matt! Or is "Good stuff" Latin for "obnoxious blowhard"? :lol:
Yes, the wind planing phenomenon, which is what I meant when I said that trilobate arrowheads were more accurate than broadheads or leafblade heads. That's an interesting observation, though. But since, unlike arrows, crossbow and balista bolts have no spin stabilization, I'd think all you'd have to do is mount a broadhead horizontally instead of vertically to avoid planing (though I'm not sure about that). Still, the Romans did sometimes use leaf blade (maybe better described as diamond cross-section) balista bolt heads along with the standard bodkin forms. And I can't think why the Romans couldn't have used the same type of low profile broadheads that are used today with modern hunting crossbows. They aren't subject to planing like a standard arrow broadhead would be and would certainly do more damage to an unarmored man than a bodkin form.
And that still leaves the question of why the bodkind form was utilized on the pilum and some spear heads. It would have been MUCH easier to forge an iron pilum with a leaf blade head, even a barbed leaf blade (like the angon), than a bodkin head. And I seriously doubt a heavy short-range pilum would be subject to wind planing (and we're all aware of the various tests showing what a bodkin point pilum will do to a shield and armor). And a bodkin shape spearhead makes no sense if the only thing you're trying to punch through is unarmored flesh. That's what the nice wide standard spear blade is for, to leave a big wide wound that bleeds a lot!
Quote:the romans had faced horse archers with powerful bows before but the skill with which they were employed+crassus lack of preparation+the terrain and the heat contributed to the roman defeat.
There's no evidence that the Romans had ever faced the new type of Iranian composite bow before Carrhae, and there's a big difference between an archer sitting on a horse and steppe horse archers. The Romans had faced cataphracts before, but had never faced the fully developed steppe tactic of coordinated attack between heavy close combat cataphracts and harrasment shooting by highly mobile nomadic horse archers. Crassus could not have prepared for it because the Romans had never encountered anything like it before. The terrain was hardly the desert Plutarch made it out to be, the Romans had campaigned there the year before and were familiar with the territory, the battle was fought in early Spring where the lush grasses probably hadn't dried out yet, in an area of numerous rivers and streams, in the same subtropical Mediterranean climate as Southern Italy where Crassus' Legionaries had been born and raised.
It's good to remember that Plutarch's account of the battle was probably drawn from a highly distorted report by Cassius, who had fled the army after the first day's battle and probably feared prosecution for desertion. He almost certainly put a major spin on his account of the campaign to make himself look as good (and Crassus as bad) as possible.
Gregg
