Le contexte : certaines sources (nombreuses) montrent l'invulnérabilité des hauberts rivetés (sources musulmannes des croisades, récits de Bouvines, de Joinville etc...) tandis que d'autres sources montrent l'inefficacité totale des hauberts (exemple de la Bible en Skis où un chevalier se fait trancher par un "fauchard" aussi aisément que s'il n'avait pas de haubert -alors qu'il en porte un-)
Afin d'y voir plus clair, plusieurs chercheurs ont testé avec plus ou moins de succès :
- S. T. Pope (Bows and Arrows, Los Angeles, 1962) a trouvé amusant de tirer dans les années 50 avec un long bow de 75 livres sur un haubert abouté de 10 mm de diamètre intérieur posé sur une planche de pin. Soyons sérieux...
- David Nicolle mentionne qu'un test réalisé avec un long bow sur une maille rivetée (apparemment d'époque, sont fous ces anglais) n'entrainerait en aucun cas une blessure grave, mais légère (D. Nicolle, Medieval Warfare Source Book, vol 1, Warfare in Western Christendom, London, 1995, page 137)
- Enfin et c'est là le sujet principal, dernier test sérieux réalisé en 2004 par Robert Mac Phersen, batteur d'armures de renommé mondiale résidant aux Etats Unis, sur deux pièces de mailles rivetées : l'expérience est relatée ici (en anglais, désolé) : l'auteur est Erik D Schmid, haubergier le plus talentueux à ma connaissance, il travaille pour des restaurations de mailles de musées du monde entier :
The following was posted on a forum earlier this year. I am including it here in its entirety. The person referred to as Mac is Robert MacPherson. He is arguably the single best plate armourer in the world. There are only one or two others I know of who come close to his skill. Not only that, but he is also involved with horology, the study of clocks. He even built a medieval clock to have at living history events. A very talented man.
I posted this as a new topic so as not to turn attention away from the topic of the other thread. The tests Bob is referring to took place at Robert MacPherson's shop last Tuesday. The non-scientific tests were to show how well armour worked against certain weapons.
First, we took one of Mac's great helms and beat the living shit out of it with a warhammer. It was interesting to note that the spike end of the hammer needed to hit perfectly in order to cause damage. If not it simply skidded off imparting very little energy to the target. The pronged side of it had an entirely different effect. When this side of the weapon made contact it transferred almost all of its energy to the target leaving you with a dead feeling in your arm.
Now, this type of helm would normally be worn over a smaller bascinet with an attached aventail. The bascinet would have had padding underneath it. A soild hit would have rung the bell of the person being struck, but it is highly possible they would not have been mortally wounded. These tests were also done so as to give the weapon the advantage over the armour. In spite of this the armour performed exceptionally well.
With the testosterone running high, we then decided to attack mail. We used a piece of Steve's variety and a piece of mine. Mine being a copy of a common German variety. (Bob, the mail we used in the tests was a copy of the mail shirt A2 and not the standard A9. You may have gotten the two confused as I showed you the small sample of the mantle links I am making for the copy of A9 that I am working on). They were placed one at a time over a wooden post with no padding and shot with both a 150lb. & 300lb. x-bow. The 300lb. bow was a small version, but the 150lb. one was full size. Both were employed at point blank range and both failed to penetrate either piece of mail. The bolts had field point type heads.
The next day we decided to perform a stabbing test with a rondel dagger. This time the mail was backed by padding. Several very forceful downward blows were given to the mail. Mine performed better due to the smaller link diameter. Steve's allowed to the point to penetrate slightly further. However, in each case the mail was not compromised. The human body would give more than the surface the mail was placed on which would seem to suggest that it would have performed even better.
Now, please realize that this was only a test against a very specific type of mail. There were many different varities and each wouild perform slightly different under the same conditions. For example the mail from a sixteenth century sleeve would not have faired as well simple because the links were made of much finer wire. In any event there are an infinite number of variables to consider when performing tests of this type. However, in spite of the shortcomings of these tests, I feel it would be safe to conclude that armour worked quite well.
Had the x-bows been of much higher poundage and been equipped with bodkin tipped bolts of the long skinny variety, they may have been more effective. Then however, as Bob stated you have to take into account the padding worn in conjunction with the mail, but that's an entirely different can of worms best left for another day.
About spears Bran, I was involved in a test some years ago where we tested some mail against a falchion and an English bill. The falchion was useless, but the spiked bill managed to open up a link. The mail used in that test was not as accurate as that used in this one, so you can draw your own conclusions as to how effective the newer stuff would have been.
Précisions : la pièce de mailles dont il parle ici est une mouffle de mailles rivetées que je possède maintenant (c'était une commande) réalisée en mailles de 7 mm de diamètre intérieur pour 1,6 mm d'épaisseur environ, rivetage en grain d'orge de type germanique (fin XIIIe-début XIVe) en fer (et non acier) selon les méthodes de rivetage médiévales ; il s'agit d'une pièce de qualité en tous points comparable aux pièces d'époque conservées dans les musées
Nous sommes loin des mailles rivetées industrielles qu'on trouve sur le marché en acier trop dur, au rivetage maladroit et cassant (je modifie en ce moment un haubert riveté moderne, c'est une horreur, 1 maille rivetée sur 7 ou sur 10 environ se casse sur une pression dérisoire pendant les travaux !)
Photo ci-dessous des mailles d'Erik schmid dont il est question dans le test :
![[img]images/icones/icon15.gif[/img]](./images/smilies/icon15.gif "drole"){kind=small}
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) la seule chose à fixer, c'est la date avec un ami mais on y arrivera je pense ![[img]images/icones/icon17.gif[/img]](./images/smilies/icon17.gif "langue"){kind=small}
