Occasional articles No 3 (Summer 2003)
TRIPE TV & FACILE SCIENCE:
or
AGINCOURT -NOT A NEW STORY.
I have just subjected myself to a viewing of the Channel 5 "Battle Detectives" programme which claimed that the winning of Agincourt by the longbow has never been questioned before. This is complete tripe (as was most of the rest of the programme). Most informed archers will agree that the longbow alone couldn't have done it. Most maintain that the French lost the battle through hubris, rotten tactics and dodgy battlefield conditions. Extremely sticky mud, a narrowing front which compressed the french men-at arms so that they could not lift their weapons, meant defeat by inferior numbers was made possible. The theory was set out by Keegan some years ago in his book "Faces of Battle".where he described Agincourt as being akin to a motorway pile-up with skirmishes going on around the edges. Yes, the longbow was essential in disrupting the initial French charge, but the other factors also played a vital part.
I have spoken to many people who have dealt with the media and many have developed an extremely healthy dislike for the way specialist advice is spindled and mutilated to suit the producer's agenda -an agenda often founded on ignorance, which is why specialists are consulted in the first place, surely! SPTA has a particular interest in trying to set matters straight regarding this programme: our President, Hector Cole who appeared was badly misrepresented -his words were heavily edited so that his views were distorted, and his advice disregarded.
'SCIENTIFIC' TESTING FAILS AGAIN
The 'scientific' testing of a long bodkin during the programme by dropping
it onto 1/8 inch thick plate (unsurprisingly it failed) was the most facile
piece of TV 'science' I have seen. (That's going some!)
Why? Please read on:
1: The long bodkin used was designed primarily to penetrate chain mail. It was not made by Hector, so it's quality may also have been doubtful. It didn't even represent the head they 'found' on the battlefield, which is clearly a short bodkin an armour piercing bodkin, such as the Type 10 is shorter and heavier than that used in the test.
2: Battle armour in the 15th Century was not backed up with a piece of 2-3in solid wood as in the test.
3: An arrow spins and vibrates and acts like a hammer drill -it doesn't give up . Some of you may recall theshooting test in Hardy's 'Chronicle' Longbow programme, where slo-mo work illustrated this perfectly. Dropping an arrowhead onto steel plate just doesn't represent an arrow's action!
Trying to simulate shooting an arrow in a laboratory is a fool's errand, surely it is easier just to go out and actually shoot one! In a 'Meet the Ancestor's' programme (SPTA was involved here) DERA -the government ballistic research agency, claimed after speed tests on extremely expensive machinery, that the featured bow and arrows were only capable of 65 yards maximum, this was hotly disputed by bowmaker Hilary Greenland, and subsequently soundly disproved by an additional 50yards when shot 'in the field''. (And not by a flight archer either)
Naturally, small people like us don't get to say our piece, and in the overall scheme of things it's not important: but it certainly makes one very sceptical about every other so-called 'informative' programme and any associated 'scientific' test put forward in support of an agenda doesn't it? And I'm sure this technique is applied to things far more important than yet another tedious analysis of the Battle of Agincourt.
Hickory Greenheart