Talk:Bodkin point

message: English arrows or mud?
I believe I saw a show on the History Channel which reviewed this battle. They did a study with the long bow and arrows used against french knights. Their study showed that the iron tipped arrows didn't penetrate the french steel plate armour. Instead their study showed it was the "sticky" mud on the battle field which slowed the knights and eventually falling them. The mud would stick to the surfaces of the armour where as "clothed" light armed troops which had no problems killing French nobles did not get stuck in the mud as bad. They were able to use daggers and such to stab the fallen knights in the arm pits, eye slits, and etc. So the study showed it was mud and not english arrows which defeated the charge.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Battle_of_Cr%C3%A9cy"
Are you talking about Crecy or Agincourt? It makes a difference, as plate armour technology did move on in the intervening years. Also, even though I would accept that by Agincourt, longbows had trouble penetrating plate armour, it seems wrong to ignore the effect of thousands of archers firing tens of thousands of arrows, some of which would surely find weak spots in armour, or wound less well protected soldiers, or kill horses, or knock people down. Approximately 80% of the English army at Agincourt was longbowmen, and the English were probably outnumbered 3-1; so if longbowmen were utterly useless, how on earth did the English manage to win the battle?
--Merlinme 20:27, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  English arrows or mud? 

message: In sewing a Bodkin is a rod, traditionally of ivory or bone, tapering smoothly to a point. It is used to make eyelet holes in cloth without cutting.--Saxophobia 01:23, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sewing bodkin 

message: The bodkin point was most likely not for armour penetration and besides mail armour has been shown to stand up to any contemporary weapon (see Talk:Mail_(armour)#Arrow_resistance).  The only exception being arrows fired at very short ranges (such as < 30m).  Bodkins were soft iron and broadheads were hardened steel. Mercutio.Wilder 08:02, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Armour penetration? 

message: The crossbow article and all scholarship I've seen indicates that the crossbow was more powerful than the longbow. Mercutio.Wilder 23:46, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Longbow vs Crossbow 

message: Were there steel bodkins at all? Longbows were still in use during the Wars of the Roses where armour was almost exclusively steel..  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 156.34.12.37 (talk) 16:29, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: To my knowledge: no.  The studies I've seen have only found unhardenable iron bodkin heads. Mercutio.Wilder (talk) 02:34, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Arrowheads similar to bodkins, and made of steel, existed in Asia. Can't find a source right now, so I'm not adding it to the article. When/if I find that, and feel like writing something here, it would be a major change to the article from focus on the bodkin arrowhead in the British arsenal of the medieval times to "bodkin-type arrowheads" up until the era of the Qing empire or so. 85.225.188.79 (talk) 21:27, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Steel bodkins? 

message: Regardless of any and all previous discussion about the effectiveness of the specific arrowhead - with or without taking into account that an arrow spins, that not all armour is 100 % every single day, and so on - it is certainly a too strong statement to say "Archery was not effective against plate armour, which became available to European knights of fairly modest means by the late 1300s." 
Stating this says that any and all archery was ineffective, not just this specific arrowhead, and needs to be backed up by more than one reference. The Turks had some success, with bow and arrow, against plate armour as well, should be duly noted.
More importantly, a statement about the effectiveness of archery in warfare should be moved to another appropriate page.85.225.188.79 (talk) 22:48, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have expanded the section somewhat, with a quotation in the reference from a fairly definitive modern source. I hope this helps. Richard Keatinge (talk) 19:36, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archery vs armour 

message: I wonder about moving the article, or at least the bit about armour penetration, either to Arrow or to Armour; the thing about bodkins seems to be their non-use against armour so the armour penetration bit doesn't really fit in here, and the remainder is a stub. Any comments? Richard Keatinge (talk) 19:36, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, mostly, though I'm leaning towards something about archery in warfare (which is too big a topic to have as one article, so emphasis on "something") 85.225.188.79 (talk) 21:27, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Moving article?

message: This article reads like an absent minded professor giving a short summary of a subject.  It slowly seems to meander around with mild digressions, hedging its position on armour piercing ability back and forth.  It just doesn't feel very encyclopedic, it lacks any real formatting.  It seems like the debate from the top of the page, has bled over into the main article page.  There certainly appears to have been a mild citation war or something.  Anyway, the point is its kind of a poor article.KaiserJVGB (talk) 17:33, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article Quality 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The see-also link 'Bobki' directs the reader to two stubs about small Russian towns which contain no information in any way relating to the bodkin point. Therefore, I am removing this link, as it appears to be vandalism. 82.176.221.176 (talk) 11:46, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  See also