Hello Folks,
Well here goes another one of my long posts.
I did a little research on this. Will a longbow penetrate plate? Depends on ALOT of factors. Besides the poundage, range and angle you have to take into account the quality of armour (good, bad or indifferent), the make up of the arrow point (steel or cheap iron), and what time this all took palce in and thus the motivation of the sources.
The bulk of any any army of the time is wearing hand me down and munition armour (the grunt is always equipped by the lowest bidder in any time :roll: ) and this a longbow will go through with only a few conditions met.
Now, a knight of poor means (the bulk really) will have excellent horseflesh (the family herd) but will have out of date, hand me down armour well worn, thinned from all that polishing, oft repaired by patching, and of softer steel than more up to date armor (the steel got tougher as time went on) with more gaps covered only by mail. He's got to worry about those archers; he's got alot of "sweet spots" :shock:! If he's really poor, he's got munition armour. Even worse.
The most up to date armour of the late 14th century would stop the bulk of an arrow storm with little risk. Test show that even at point blank, good 14th century steel will defeat the soft iron bodkins used by the English at any range. Remember: at Agincourt, the bulk of the killing was done by the archers fighting as infantry after the French had pressed themselves into a tight, milling, defensless mass stuck in glue like mud that gripped their armour tightly. Think a panicked crowd trying to all run through a single gate at the same time! Crunch :twisted:!
Archeologist and English procurement records for the Agincourt Campaign show that the most common points (like 95%) were soft wrought iron bodkin points. These were cheap and easily made in mass. When you consider that over a quarter of a million arrows could be used in a single campaign, these are important factors. These will pierce chain and cheaper armours (quality wise) but will be stopped by quality armour plate. Players of course can use steel points, but remember that a 120ib pull bow will likley cause a arrow to shatter when it hits something hard! A one shot tool arrows.
Now, never underestimate the importance of psychological effect. As Napoleon said, the moral factor is 50% of the fight. We forget this because the PCs panic only when we do (and we're not in any real danger) and the NPCs do only when the DM says (same thing goes). Not so for the poor schmuck facing the arrow swarm! The English had a vested interest in making the Longbow's reputation as nasty as possible to cash in on this maxim. As it became part of the English national myth, the vested interest remained. Tests were conducted under the most favourable of circumstances (steel points ect.) and so on. Now while tests show the longbow declined in killing power, as a shock weapon it held on to and even grew in it's reputation (think the "tank panic" of the allies during the Battle of France in WWII). Meanwhile good tactics could still bring a straight-on fighting victory on occasion. So no matter what, in the right hands, well used, it's deadly. Just use good tactics, and shoot at the horse. :twisted: