What If? Kingdoms of Westeros replaced by their RL counterparts

[Aldarion]

I would strongly check that point on plate armor rendering you virtually invulnerable to missile weapons. This is a tremendous advantage to be sure, but I think it is important to remember that all plate armor, from the least to most expensive, varied in thickness dramatically from location to location, and just because we've all seen those videos of breastplates shattering shafts across their Thicc busts doesn't mean that the other armor pieces would resist penetration as well. The odd imagery I just forced into your subconscious aside, I think it would be important to note how much of a soldier's body in terms of limbs, face, neck, etc would be without plate of any kind, and I'm sure this varied from unit to unit, place to place, time to time, but arrows can indeed deliver wounds through less resilient or extant forms of protection.

Thickness was important, yes, but due to both thickness and shape you generally - if armour was well-maintained - required essentially point-blank shots to penetrate even sides of armour, while front was basically invulnerable. Greater issue was the extant of coverage, as infantry in particular often preferred 3/4 or 1/2 plate over full plate. But this also had a flip side: it was generally enough to provide metal armour for first 1-2 rows of pikemen, as others would only be at danger from indirect fire which could be easily stopped by quilted armour.

Even relatively thin lamellar armour can, in fact, offer very good protection against crossbows - and keep in mind that crossbow bolts are much better at penetrating armour at short range as they would flex less.

There are some youtube tests. Todd's Workshop is the best from the perspective of historical accuracy, but I am including others too for completeness' sake. Going from better towards worse (my opinion):
- Tod's Workshop
-- Link towards web page
-- historically accurate longbowman with historically accurate 160 lbs warbow with historically accurate arrows and arrowheads vs historically accurate breastplate: link. Shot distances: 10 and 25 meters. Arrows failed to penetrate.
-- "lockdown longbow" vs leather armour: link. Arrows penetrated handily deep enough to really hurt.
-- "lockdown longbow" vs gambeson: link. Again, penetrated really deep.
-- "lockdown longbow" vs low-quality brigandine: link. Bodkins managed to penetrate, with heavy bodkin some 7 - 7,5 cm.
-- 350 lbs crossbow vs flexible armours: link. Against gambeson, both needle bodkin and broadhead penetrated enough to cause fatal wounds, but short bodkin (used against plate armour) bounced off. Against riveted mail + jack, only needle bodkin didn't bounce off, and actually penetrated both mail and jack, but not to the killing depth.
- Lindybeige
-- 130 lbs longbow vs breastplate: link. Absolutely no impact or impression on armour beyond a scratch. Not even a dent.
- Thegn Trand:
-- 105 lbs longbow vs armour: link. Actuall battlefield arrows easily penetrate gambeson, as well as mail + gambeson combination. Do notice that the mail is riveted, though rings may be somewhat large. Breastplate, however, easily resists bodkin even though plate itself is rusted, misshapen and does not appear to flex the way real historical breastplate will have. Note also that bodkin got blunted when forcing its way through, so even if it had been a portion of armour right next to the body, it would have caused bruising, not an open wound.
- Skallagrim:
-- unknown quality 1000 lbs crossbow against garbage-quality breastplate: link. It failed to penetrate but plate deformed. However, tip of the bolt was flattened, suggesting that even if it did penetrate the plate, it might not have wounded.
-- same link as above: garbage-quality lamellar: 350 lb crossbow failed to penetrate or even displace lamel, 1000 lb crossbow ripped off and drove in a lamel but again failed to penetrate. But it showed why lamellar is not the best.
-- 350 lbs crossbow vs helmets: link. Anglo-Saxon helmet (four-part, riveted) resists but is deformed. Same for Norman mask helmet.
- Weapons That Made Britain
-- Longbow vs Milanese breastplate: link. Breastplate basically laughs off a longbow from 20 meter distance. Small hole that would not have reached body, and arrowhead got flattened.
- Scholagladiatoria
-- 60 lbs bow vs Norman/Anglo-Saxon helmet: link.
-- 50 lbs longbow vs same helmet, same link.

- Capandball: various gunpowder weapons vs lamellar. Link.

Regarding the coverage, what you say is again true, but also much less relevant than you appear to think for the same reason modern body armour typically only covers torso: with ranged weapons, you always aim for the center of mass. Any hits outside that area will be, technically, misses, and much more rare at short distances required to penetrate even thin plate. Limbs also move much more and have less frontal area than torso, so they are much harder to hit even if you are aiming for them. This plus the fact that said areas (head and neck excepted) are much less vital means that armouring them is much less important.

Now, I like most people have the unfortunate case of having my historical knowledge of factions crudely blended across three or four centuries, but as I understand it the Longbow was strongly associated with the Welsh at least classically, would there be some relevant 15th century knock on effects of the Wales being essentially subtracted from England that would alter what we would otherwise consider to be the "english" army of that time?

That is indeed a possibility; English longbow truly is the Welsh longbow, adapted by the English c. 1280 during Welsh campaigns. But I did not envision changing natural evolution in this scenario, so I do not think it matters.

point by point
A) I think there is something to be said for the "tie breaker" or "late to the Battle Royale" effect, i.e. consider the environment they would be arriving into and who they might be fighting and what condition they might be in at the time, consider also the scale of the mongol empire and it's muster compared to the nations here, if they were to commit fully to an invasion. Though I am curious what battles in particular you're thinking of, I'd like to read about them.

Mongol armies were on the outside of what they could support, logistically, in Central European environment. Mongols were a steppe army, with many men and many more horses. To maintain mobility advantage, they needed the steppe. But Pannonian plain can hardly be called a steppe, and it is the westernmost truly open area available to the Mongols. So regardless of any other factors, it is unlikely Mongols could have supported any larger armies in Central Europe than they historically did, so "commiting fully to an invasion" changes nothing.

B) You're correct, but it rings a little hollow as everything in GOT is incompetent compared to any real world equivalent, ranging from "somewhat" (the books) to "laughed off the battlefield in the bronze age"(the show). The Dothraki, regardless, are varyingly based on the Huns, the Mongols, and the great plains Native Americans, so technically any of those comparisons would fit in here, if you wanted them in the scenario.

That is definitely true, but Dothraki (just like the rest of Essos) are far worse in that regard than Westeros is. Westerosi at least have the tactics and the kit, even if only a facsimile of such. Dothraki have nothing.

D) I think it's easy to underestimate the Unsullied's "Fantasy Robot Soldier" advantage: no matter how little sense it makes even in context, the fact is that the Unsullied will march or fight or hula hoop or whatever you tell them to until their body shuts down from exhaustion and dehydration. You literally cannot buy that kind of morale. The Unsullied, as under armored and under sized as they would be, would still have an impact equal to many times their number on the battlefield simply because they would have infinite morale, just unflinchingly, endlessly stabbing away until they were each individually hacked to death. Now, this is an advantage that deflates with every battle insomuch as it's based on non reaction to exhaustion and casualties and Unsullied are essentially impossible to replace.

Agreed.

 

[Deleted member 88]

D) I think it's easy to underestimate the Unsullied's "Fantasy Robot Soldier" advantage: no matter how little sense it makes even in context, the fact is that the Unsullied will march or fight or hula hoop or whatever you tell them to until their body shuts down from exhaustion and dehydration. You literally cannot buy that kind of morale. The Unsullied, as under armored and under sized as they would be, would still have an impact equal to many times their number on the battlefield simply because they would have infinite morale, just unflinchingly, endlessly stabbing away until they were each individually hacked to death. Now, this is an advantage that deflates with every battle insomuch as it's based on non reaction to exhaustion and casualties and Unsullied are essentially impossible to replace.

Personally I always felt the Laughing Dead of the Inheritance Cycle worked better as the "soldiers which do not flinch or feel pain" trope. As they are actually magically enhanced with wards and spells to make them basically invulnerable to everything except decapitation or the destruction of the brain.

The Unsullied on the other hand are just subject to gratuitous "training" with a level of sadism that transcends into the ridiculous, so as to be numb to pain, while also subjected to brainwashing at a young age to feel no empathy and be totally obedient, using crude methods.

 

[ATP]

Riverland is HRE from 15th century,right? if from end of said century,then they arleady have Landknechts.
Which mean,that Lannister invasion would be repelled without North aid.
And when Reach with 1450 France army and North with modified shilstron join fun,Lannisters would be massacred.

Unless GRRM plot armour help them win - for example,sir Twenty Goodman killed all Landsknecht on his own.

 

[Shipmaster Sane]

Thickness was important, yes, but due to both thickness and shape you generally - if armour was well-maintained - required essentially point-blank shots to penetrate even sides of armour, while front was basically invulnerable.

The front of the breastplate. Side of the breastplate, as we'll go into in a minute, the fact that the rest of the man was either not, or incomparably armored, does matter a great deal.

Even relatively thin lamellar armour can, in fact, offer very good protection against crossbows - and keep in mind that crossbow bolts are much better at penetrating armour at short range as they would flex less.

It's like a primary rule of Terminal ballistics to not accept anything just because it "should" work out based on some factor, I'd have to see a test done with equally energetic arrows and bolts to accept that bolts were "much" better than arrows at armor penetration due to the lack of flexion, and even then that effect could vary armor to armor if it even mattered at all.

There are some youtube tests. Todd's Workshop is the best from the perspective of historical accuracy, but I am including others too for completeness' sake. Going from better towards worse (my opinion):
- Tod's Workshop
-- Link towards web page
-- historically accurate longbowman with historically accurate 160 lbs warbow with historically accurate arrows and arrowheads vs historically accurate breastplate: link. Shot distances: 10 and 25 meters. Arrows failed to penetrate.

- Lindybeige
-- 130 lbs longbow vs breastplate: link. Absolutely no impact or impression on armour beyond a scratch. Not even a dent.
- Thegn Trand:
-- 105 lbs longbow vs armour: link. Actuall battlefield arrows easily penetrate gambeson, as well as mail + gambeson combination. Do notice that the mail is riveted, though rings may be somewhat large. Breastplate, however, easily resists bodkin even though plate itself is rusted, misshapen and does not appear to flex the way real historical breastplate will have. Note also that bodkin got blunted when forcing its way through, so even if it had been a portion of armour right next to the body, it would have caused bruising, not an open wound.
- Skallagrim:
-- unknown quality 1000 lbs crossbow against garbage-quality breastplate: link. It failed to penetrate but plate deformed. However, tip of the bolt was flattened, suggesting that even if it did penetrate the plate, it might not have wounded.

-- Longbow vs Milanese breastplate: link. Breastplate basically laughs off a longbow from 20 meter distance. Small hole that would not have reached body, and arrowhead got flattened.

All of these are to do with Breastplates, so they're not relevant to this particular argument.

Out of the remainder, Helms also vary a great deal but usually prove significantly more resilient than secondary armor pieces, and I was never discussing arrows penetrating the helm itself, so theres no need to include anything regarding them. Thegn, imbecile that he is, can also be discarded because that's a breastplate and too light of a draw for the Longbow to be a reasonable average. The Light bows and light crossbows are not very useful for comparison as well. We're looking at the penetration of high draw crossbows or mid range longbows against secondary solid armor pieces, so the leather armor, mail, and gambeson tests are only confirming what we more or less know already. Lets look at what's left.

- Tod's Workshop

-- "lockdown longbow" vs low-quality brigandine: link. Bodkins managed to penetrate, with heavy bodkin some 7 - 7,5 cm.


- Skallagrim:
link.
-- same link as above 1000 lb crossbow ripped off and drove in a lamel but again failed to penetrate. But it showed why lamellar is not the best.

I think you've really misinterpreted Tod's video on the Brigandine. He describes historical brigandines as ranging from anywhere from under .8mm, to 2mm per plate, using anything from wrought iron to various types of steel. His appears not by any means to be "low grade" among Brigandines, rather he describes Brigandines themselves as generally lower grade, and in fact his splits the difference favorably in terms of strength and thickness for the figures he gave, and doesn't have the lack of consistency that he insisted was common among the armor. The Needle Bodkin and the hardened type 16 passed through far enough to wound, which is not something that can be ignored.


The fact is that there could be a literal order of magnitude's difference between the resilience of the front of a breastplate and the resilience of a secondary armor plate to penetration, if we're even looking at someone with secondary plates of any kind.

Regarding the coverage, what you say is again true, but also much less relevant than you appear to think for the same reason modern body armour typically only covers torso: with ranged weapons, you always aim for the center of mass. Any hits outside that area will be, technically, misses, and much more rare at short distances required to penetrate even thin plate. Limbs also move much more and have less frontal area than torso, so they are much harder to hit even if you are aiming for them. This plus the fact that said areas (head and neck excepted) are much less vital means that armouring them is much less important.

I dont mean to be combative, but this is just misinformed.
First, we're not talking about a duel between individuals, we're talking about volleys fired at formations of men, there is simply no comparison to the modern practice of "aiming for center mass", indeed on the personal scale there is very little aiming whatsoever, you're firing at an area not a man. And even in the modern day when every soldier is trained to aim for center mass, rifle-resistant body armor does anything but make you nearly invulnerable, as even with enemies actively attempting to hit your core, there is a very decent chance you will be hit in the extremities. Hits to the arms and legs would absolutely be a significant concern, a solid hit to the arm or leg would have a near certainty of removing a soldier from an effective role in the current battle, and still not a poor chance of killing him either relatively quickly due to bloodloss or after the battle due to infection. There is a reason why being shot in the leg is considered so serious, there's an awful lot of blood in there.

Volleys of longbow fire absolutely would produce casualties (Dead or wounded) against armored infantry. The Longbow, in broad terms, did not produce casualties fast enough or at a great enough scale to break formations or win battles on it's own, but neither can it be said that a man with a helmet and an armored chest had little to fear from a volley. Each shot is a gamble that favors the armored melee fighters enough that the whole of them could expect victory, not that individuals could be considered generally safe.


Look, there is a degree to which you are right in all of this, but I take exception to what I see as significant overstatement.

That is indeed a possibility; English longbow truly is the Welsh longbow, adapted by the English c. 1280 during Welsh campaigns. But I did not envision changing natural evolution in this scenario, so I do not think it matters.

What I mean to say is that I'm wondering how relevant Wales was to the actual structure and recruitment of the english army at the time, i.e., we're dealing with an england without Wales here (which as I understand it it *wouldnt* have been generally), so that might effect their numbers and composition, but I couldn't say how off the top of my head.

Mongol armies were on the outside of what they could support, logistically, in Central European environment. Mongols were a steppe army, with many men and many more horses. To maintain mobility advantage, they needed the steppe. But Pannonian plain can hardly be called a steppe, and it is the westernmost truly open area available to the Mongols. So regardless of any other factors, it is unlikely Mongols could have supported any larger armies in Central Europe than they historically did, so "commiting fully to an invasion" changes nothing.

But we're not in a central european environment, we're in a mini pangea of smashed together European countries with the mongol empire on the other side of what is probably a relatively narrow body of water (possibly even smaller than in GOT if everything is re-scaled). The first thing we should do is actually map out this bizzaro continent to see what terrains are even present and where.
The coast could be at the end of the mongol logistics train or comfortably close to it's center, all depending on where exactly you chose to base them, and the point still remains that you're dealing with a large invading party that may very well be arriving into an extremely depleted and fractured environment in which, much like in the fictional setting, one or more relevant parties (France, Spain) might actually side with the invaders if we're going with the "The Mongols are being led by some chick whom many believe to be the "rightful" ruler of Eurepteros or whatever this place is called" translation of "starting political situations" intact.

That is definitely true, but Dothraki (just like the rest of Essos) are far worse in that regard than Westeros is. Westerosi at least have the tactics and the kit, even if only a facsimile of such. Dothraki have nothing.

I'm not sure I would agree with that. Maybe in the books, if thats what you mean, though I remember the Dothraki being more inconsistent there than anything, what with sometimes being presented as "Literally all we do is charge straight ahead and try to kill with sabers" and other times, if I recall, using archers and at least some kind of tactic besides "Charge straight into the phalanx until we're all dead"

In the show, they're universally retarded, but then so were the Westerosi the vast majority of the time, with 99% of the battles having exactly one tactic: Everyone sprint foreword and stab everyone you see, intermixing with the enemy in a big mosh pit and screaming like berserkers. I still have nightmares about that Bolton pike formation where they had one pike for every two ranks of men, and this broke ass bottom tier bronze age play was so beyond the comprehension of the combined forces of good that they basically walked through an entire army, killing them effortlessly as their collective ten braincells boiled at developing a response. You think the Spartans have no place in a Medieval battlefield, 1000 spartans could have evicerated both armies at the battle of the Bastards combined in about ten minutes, and the same goes for most engagements in the show that dont involve Euron Greyjoy's casual defiance of the laws of physics and God.


Basically I would say the Dothraki might be 100% retarded in the show, but the Westerosi were like 99% retarded, so that one percent is only a barely perceptible difference.



Soldiers on stilts notwithstanding.

 

[Aldarion]

The front of the breastplate. Side of the breastplate, as we'll go into in a minute, the fact that the rest of the man was either not, or incomparably armored, does matter a great deal.

Front of the breastplate and front of the helmet were impenetrable by longbows and most crossbows at any range. Sides of the armour as well as limb armour could be penetrated from short range if you got a good shot, but angling made such a shot a near-impossibility. Also, nobody aimed at the limbs. Whenever you use a ranged weapon, you aim at the center of mass.

It's like a primary rule of Terminal ballistics to not accept anything just because it "should" work out based on some factor, I'd have to see a test done with equally energetic arrows and bolts to accept that bolts were "much" better than arrows at armor penetration due to the lack of flexion, and even then that effect could vary armor to armor if it even mattered at all.

Or you can think about ballistics and physics instead of asking for something that, to my knowledge, has never been done.

Crossbow bolts are shorter and stubbier than arrows. This makes them more rigid. As a result, they can withstand greater forces without deforming. This means that, when hitting armour, bolt will transfer greater proportion of the energy onto the target.

Arrows however are much thinner and longer. As a result, they have better aerodynamics but also can withstand less acceleration. Result is that they often have more range, but will flex and bend when hitting armour, losing some energy.

Of course, question here is how much difference that makes, exactly.

All of these are to do with Breastplates, so they're not relevant to this particular argument.

Out of the remainder, Helms also vary a great deal but usually prove significantly more resilient than secondary armor pieces, and I was never discussing arrows penetrating the helm itself, so theres no need to include anything regarding them. Thegn, imbecile that he is, can also be discarded because that's a breastplate and too light of a draw for the Longbow to be a reasonable average. The Light bows and light crossbows are not very useful for comparison as well. We're looking at the penetration of high draw crossbows or mid range longbows against secondary solid armor pieces, so the leather armor, mail, and gambeson tests are only confirming what we more or less know already. Lets look at what's left.

As I have explained above, breastplates are the most relevant factor as they are a) easiest to hit, b) have the least curvature and c) protect the most important area of the body (bar the head). Longbowmen will have aimed at the breastplate, just as soldiers today are taught to aim at the center of mass.

Also, getting a square hit on limbs is much harder than on the breastplate, to the point of near-impossibility.

I think you've really misinterpreted Tod's video on the Brigandine. He describes historical brigandines as ranging from anywhere from under .8mm, to 2mm per plate, using anything from wrought iron to various types of steel. His appears not by any means to be "low grade" among Brigandines, rather he describes Brigandines themselves as generally lower grade, and in fact his splits the difference favorably in terms of strength and thickness for the figures he gave, and doesn't have the lack of consistency that he insisted was common among the armor. The Needle Bodkin and the hardened type 16 passed through far enough to wound, which is not something that can be ignored.

I was not interpreting anything beyond my comment about brigandine being "low quality". Which is true insofar as the piece he tests there is the back panel. Front panel, as seen here, often had relatively large pieces of metal for chest protection, allowing it to resist impacts (arrows included) much better than other areas. He also describes the piece as "munitions-grade", which does indicate low-quality armour, though it also means that such armour will have been reasonably common.

The fact is that there could be a literal order of magnitude's difference between the resilience of the front of a breastplate and the resilience of a secondary armor plate to penetration, if we're even looking at someone with secondary plates of any kind.

And see above: the armour he was testing was the backplate.

I dont mean to be combative, but this is just misinformed.
First, we're not talking about a duel between individuals, we're talking about volleys fired at formations of men, there is simply no comparison to the modern practice of "aiming for center mass", indeed on the personal scale there is very little aiming whatsoever, you're firing at an area not a man. And even in the modern day when every soldier is trained to aim for center mass, rifle-resistant body armor does anything but make you nearly invulnerable, as even with enemies actively attempting to hit your core, there is a very decent chance you will be hit in the extremities. Hits to the arms and legs would absolutely be a significant concern, a solid hit to the arm or leg would have a near certainty of removing a soldier from an effective role in the current battle, and still not a poor chance of killing him either relatively quickly due to bloodloss or after the battle due to infection. There is a reason why being shot in the leg is considered so serious, there's an awful lot of blood in there.

Volleys of longbow fire absolutely would produce casualties (Dead or wounded) against armored infantry. The Longbow, in broad terms, did not produce casualties fast enough or at a great enough scale to break formations or win battles on it's own, but neither can it be said that a man with a helmet and an armored chest had little to fear from a volley. Each shot is a gamble that favors the armored melee fighters enough that the whole of them could expect victory, not that individuals could be considered generally safe.


Look, there is a degree to which you are right in all of this, but I take exception to what I see as significant overstatement.

If you are going to tell somebody their statements are misinformed, you should then make sure not to attempt to debunk them with misinformed statements.

Volleys fired by archers were of generally two types: "shower" shooting at opening volleys which used flight arrows, and direct shooting which used heavy military arrows (though heavy arrows might have been used at lates stages of shower shooting as well). Former was used only to disorder the enemy as it had no chance of inflicting any damage: even relatively light armour could resist such shots. Due to distance, aiming at individual targets was obviously impossible, and instead area shooting was used. Direct shooting however could be, and was, aimed at individual targets as much as possible. And no, I never denied that there is a chance of being hit at extremities. But with direct shooting, hits to the center will have been the most common: look at how tight groupings are from a trained archer. Area shooting in such conditions makes no sense, as that is already a point-blank range. You will only get one, maybe two, shots even with longbow before you have to get behind men-at-arms / pikemen / get your own melee weapons out, so you will want to make them count.

Look at basically every medieval illustration (which btw. also show that archers did aim at center of mass):

You can see this from tactics as well. Byzantines, whose foot archers indeed used shower shooting in the way you described, positioned their archers behind heavy infantrymen, where they could shoot over the heads of spearmen while still being protected by them:

By contrast, English often formed their archers to the sides of the heavy infantry. This is not the English formation, but shows a rather similar setup:

This however is formation at Battle of Agincourt:

Such setup, with archers flanking men-at-arms, would have been unnecessary if archers indeed exclusively used shower (indirect) shooting. I included Charles' the Bold formation to show that the setup was not merely such by virtue of terrain at Agincourt, but rather normal practice. And fact that archers were placed besides (or, in some cases, interspersed with) the melee infantry has clear implications on the shooting techniques used. With shower shooting, you are aiming over the heads of friendly infantry, and thus archers can be placed to the rear. However, direct shooting requires formations rather reminiscent of pike-and-shot era, as in such conditions friendly infantry would block the line of fire of archers positioned to their rear. Further, majority of shooting will actually have been direct shooting: flight arrows (bodkin points) were about 1/5 of longbowmen's loadout (and no, bodkin is not armour-piercing point, it is a flight arrow).

And this has implications on effectiveness and armour performance. With distance shower shooting, it does not matter where it hits, it is not going to penetrate the plate: arrows will have lost much of their energy and are coming in at angle anyway. So the only injury possible is if arrow somehow finds an area that is not covered with plate, which in a 15th century armour is not very likely. And even then injury is still unlikely, as such area are still covered with mail - which may be incapable of resisting direct shots, but can very likely stop distant and angled shots. Therefore, the only hope of injuring someone in full plate armour (or even in 3/4-plate), is to aim straight at them. And formation used, as described above, do indicate that direct fire was the rule of the day: while distance shower shooting was indeed still used, it was not expected to produce any meaningful tactical impact. Primary focus was on point-blank, horizontal shooting straight at the enemy. And that means aiming for the center of the mass which is indeed necessary to hit anything in the heat of battle. Aiming for small, moving targets such as hands and feet is likely too difficult.

This, as I have alread explained, means that majority - not all, but vast majority - of hits will have been to the breastplate. It is a large, homogenous area which does not move around much compared to arms or legs. And armour there has the least curvature of armour anywhere, which means that, for vast majority of projectiles, much thinner but much more curved plates protecting the limbs is actually not any easier to penetrate than the thicker plates protecting the torso.

It is true that some casualties will have been caused. But the aim of missile fire was not to cause casualties: it was to cause disorder and tire out the enemy. Decisive combat always happened hand-to-hand. At Agincourt, English had 5 000 - 7 000 longbowmen. They ran out of arrows. Now, typical sheave was 24 arrows, and archers typically had 2-3 such sheaves. Using lower (and probably more likely) number of 5 000 longbowmen, this means that English archers expended 240 000 - 360 000 arrows. French lost some 6 000 men, vast majority of whom were in hand-to-hand combat: French men-at-arms (some 10 000) had actually reached English dismounted men-at-arms in the center, and pushed it back while under sustained bombardment by English longbowmen at the flanks. English longbowmen eventually ran out of arrows and engaged in hand-to-hand combat, outflanking the French. Despite being tired, outflanked and in generally bad position, French resisted for three hours. But keep in mind that being outflanked is important: remember Carrhae? In fact, from the sentence "Despite being tired, outflanked and in generally bad position, French resisted for three hours" you cannot even tell that the French had had to walk through a sustained missile bombardment beforehand. Fact that they had fought for three hours in such a position suggests that the effect of English archery was, though not unnoticeable, rather minimal. Longbowmen had a massive impact. Archery as such? Not really.

Going back to numbers: again, French lost 6 000 men. If we assume that half were to arrows - a rather generous and a highly improbable assumption, as such casualties would have likely prevented them from reaching the English in the first place - this suggests arrow Pc (probability of casualty) of 0,83% - 1,25%. In reality, this number would have been far lower, maybe even no more than a fifth or a tenth.

Yes, volleys of longbow fire absolutely would produce casualties. That is just a function of the volume of arrows fired and the fact that they were not facing Daleks. But longbow was not a decisive weapon: English could have won at Agincourt without it, though they would have suffered more casualties. They could not have won without melee weapons.

What I mean to say is that I'm wondering how relevant Wales was to the actual structure and recruitment of the english army at the time, i.e., we're dealing with an england without Wales here (which as I understand it it *wouldnt* have been generally), so that might effect their numbers and composition, but I couldn't say how off the top of my head.

I don't really know it either. But the impression I got was that by 15th century, longbow was pretty much English weapon; as in, used widely in England - and possibly just as widely as it was in Wales.

But we're not in a central european environment, we're in a mini pangea of smashed together European countries with the mongol empire on the other side of what is probably a relatively narrow body of water (possibly even smaller than in GOT if everything is re-scaled). The first thing we should do is actually map out this bizzaro continent to see what terrains are even present and where.
The coast could be at the end of the mongol logistics train or comfortably close to it's center, all depending on where exactly you chose to base them, and the point still remains that you're dealing with a large invading party that may very well be arriving into an extremely depleted and fractured environment in which, much like in the fictional setting, one or more relevant parties (France, Spain) might actually side with the invaders if we're going with the "The Mongols are being led by some chick whom many believe to be the "rightful" ruler of Eurepteros or whatever this place is called" translation of "starting political situations" intact.

Point also remains that none of the countries listed here, with possible exception of France, have the kind of terrain necessary to support a Mongol army. So even if we assume mini pangea instead of just reduced Westeros, Mongols still do not have the kind of logistical advantage they relied on to achieve successes which enabled them to spread their empire. They will be, essentially, "shittier version of a 15th century cavalry army". Their main advantage will be Daenerys-equivalent herself.

Also, France and England didn't manage to deplete each other after a hundred years of on-and-off war. For Hungary, it took nearly two centuries of constant warfare against much larger and more organized Ottoman Empire for the kingdom to be weakened and eventually collapse... and even that took an open-field battle. So I think you are underestimating resillience of these countries to what would be to them extremely familiar form of warfare.

I'm not sure I would agree with that. Maybe in the books, if thats what you mean, though I remember the Dothraki being more inconsistent there than anything, what with sometimes being presented as "Literally all we do is charge straight ahead and try to kill with sabers" and other times, if I recall, using archers and at least some kind of tactic besides "Charge straight into the phalanx until we're all dead"

Yes, I mean the books. I generally avoid discussing the show, as that level of ineptness is enough to give me headaches. When frakkin' Hobbit movie has better tactics than your show...

In the show, they're universally retarded, but then so were the Westerosi the vast majority of the time, with 99% of the battles having exactly one tactic: Everyone sprint foreword and stab everyone you see, intermixing with the enemy in a big mosh pit and screaming like berserkers. I still have nightmares about that Bolton pike formation where they had one pike for every two ranks of men, and this broke ass bottom tier bronze age play was so beyond the comprehension of the combined forces of good that they basically walked through an entire army, killing them effortlessly as their collective ten braincells boiled at developing a response. You think the Spartans have no place in a Medieval battlefield, 1000 spartans could have evicerated both armies at the battle of the Bastards combined in about ten minutes, and the same goes for most engagements in the show that dont involve Euron Greyjoy's casual defiance of the laws of physics and God.

Yeah.

 

[Shipmaster Sane]

Front of the breastplate and front of the helmet were impenetrable by longbows and most crossbows at any range.

Irrelevant, I never brought up range and we're not talking about the resistance of the Breastplate and helm.

Sides of the armour as well as limb armour could be penetrated from short range if you got a good shot, but angling made such a shot a near-impossibility.

Nonsense, there are fronts of the arms and legs you know.

Also, nobody aimed at the limbs. Whenever you use a ranged weapon, you aim at the center of mass.

Nobody aimed at any particular part of the body when firing in volleys against a formation of men. It would have been a useless waste of time and effort that gave absolutely no benefit. Definitionally volleys were not aimed, whether you're talking about slingers, spearmen, archers, or muskets. Projectiles were released in the direction of the enemy formation, not at individual soldiers and certainly not at individual parts of individual soldiers.

Or you can think about ballistics and physics instead of asking for something that, to my knowledge, has never been done.

You know why it's a cardinal rule of terminal ballistics? Because so many people think they can do it your way and they're so often so fucking wrong.

Crossbow bolts are shorter and stubbier than arrows. This makes them more rigid. As a result, they can withstand greater forces without deforming. This means that, when hitting armour, bolt will transfer greater proportion of the energy onto the target.
Arrows however are much thinner and longer. As a result, they have better aerodynamics but also can withstand less acceleration. Result is that they often have more range, but will flex and bend when hitting armour, losing some energy.

There are about a half dozen key variables of impact mechanics you're ignoring to come to your foregone conclusion but no I'm sure this would have a tremendous effect. A thicker projectile has different Sectional Density, the metal head is differently shaped behind the contact point even if the contact surface is the same (which we cant assume), it's fitted differently, proportionately,

Of course, question here is how much difference that makes, exactly.

Whats this? No no no, we already know from your expertise that:

crossbow bolts are much better at penetrating armour at short range as they would flex less.

much better, What an interesting claim. Theres one variable out of many, which in isolation, produces a degree of more favorable chance of penetration that you have no idea about, not even a vague estimate, but you just charge right ahead into "Much better".

This reminds me of all the people on Youtube who keep insisting that bullets striking held down objects will have dramatically better penetration, they don't know how much of a difference it will make, it could be 1% or 10% or .01% better penetration but they insist that it will make a huge difference because it will be different to some degree they have no idea how to measure.

As I have explained above, breastplates are the most relevant factor as they are a) easiest to hit, b) have the least curvature and c) protect the most important area of the body (bar the head)

A) is meaningless because the ease of hitting something is completely irrelevant when you're aiming at a formation. Breastplates are definitionally not relevant to a discussion of the penetration of secondary armor surfaces or the casualty inflicting potential of limb hits, which is what you're having.
B) you just assume that this will make a huge difference without any direct evidence, which no one should accept in a question of terminal ballistics. Curved surfaces are more likely to deflect hits than non curved surfaces? Sure, to a point. Do you have any idea what that point is in this context? No of course you dont because no one's tested it, you're just saying "well, theres a principle behind this that, completely ignoring scale, tends towards a generalized effect".
C) A hit to the arm or leg being less immediately fatal than a hit to the head does not mean that hits to the limbs are less debilitating to the point that they cannot produce significant casualties in a mass fire situation.

Also, getting a square hit on limbs is much harder than on the breastplate, to the point of near-impossibility.

You say, with no actual statistics to back it up.

I was not interpreting anything beyond my comment about brigandine being "low quality".

In which you were wrong. He clearly pointed out several times that there was no quality control amongst brigandines, from set to set or even plate to plate, and his brigandine was mild steel and 1.2mm thick, which is substantially better than the low end he described (significantly less than a mm thick, wrought iron, etc). It is not a "low quality" brigandine unless you can somehow provide some kind of statistical analysis for the commonality of brigandine plate thicknesses and compositions, which we both know you can't. I flat out know you have no idea whether most brigandines were consistent of >1.2mm or stronger than mild steel plates, and if it's not below the statistical average it is not low quality for a brigandine, if anything it was an optimistic median example.

Which is true insofar as the piece he tests there is the back panel.

And? How thick were the front plates in general? How commonly? Of what grade of steel? On a piece of armor with no manufacturing standards? good fucking luck answering any of those questions in any way other than "Heres one example" which is like the epitome of "not useful statistical information". And you'd have to answer. No, "Back plate from a modern recreation" is not sufficient, certainly not to make the kind of definitive statements you seem so fond of. You really should watch more of Tod, he's developed a very good habit of hedging his comments and not making definitive statements, far superior to the average sword tuber. It's a habit you could stand to learn.

Front panel, as seen here, often had relatively large pieces of metal for chest protection, allowing it to resist impacts (arrows included) much better than other areas.

Often, he says, often, and his evidence is one drawing of one set of armor having wider, not, say, provably thicker, not provably better materially, just wider. Even if the drawing showed exactly what you needed it to (thickness and composition), even if I accepted that as 100% accurate to a specific piece of armor, what exactly in the mounting heavens would there be to convince anyone that it was the average?

He also describes the piece as "munitions-grade", which does indicate low-quality armour, though it also means that such armour will have been reasonably common.

No, it indicates the commonality of the armor, and lower relative quality than other types of armor, not that "among brigandines" this was a low quality example.

But go ahead, tell me what in terms of the armor panel's stats are low quality compared to most other brigandine panels. Go on, how thick was the average panel in a brigandine, how materially superior to mild steel were they? Because it's those details that actually matter.

Direct shooting however could be, and was, aimed at individual targets as much as possible.

I say you're wrong, and they aimed at the formation, Prove it. We're dealing in speculation but you keep just confidently forging ahead stating things you cant prove and don't know as if it was the word of god.

And no, I never denied that there is a chance of being hit at extremities.

You did however use phrases like individual soldiers being "virtually invincible" and it being "extremely rare" which you flat out have no evidence for and are pure supposition.

But with direct shooting, hits to the center will have been the most common:

Which is not what I disputed, dont backpedal now.

look at how tight groupings are from a trained archer.

Target shooting is a completely irrelevant comparison to volleys, you should know this if you watch Cap And Ball, where the host shows he can reliably make excellent shots at significant range with smoothbores but muskets were still used in volleys aimed at the mass of men, not any man in particular.

Area shooting in such conditions makes no sense, as that is already a point-blank range.

That only means it makes more sense, you know for a near certainty you're going to hit something, you wouldn't take any unnecessary time to aim at a specific man, and a specific part of a man no less, when you know for a fact you're going to hit an enemy even if you had loosed with your eyes closed. Volume of fire is king.

You will only get one, maybe two, shots even with longbow before you have to get behind men-at-arms / pikemen / get your own melee weapons out, so you will want to make them count.

Which is again a point in my favor because at that scale all that would matter would be getting as many arrows on target (and your target is a formation) as possible. That second or third shot would be worth a tremendous amount more than an infinitesimal increase in statistical accuracy when the thing you're trying to hit is a hundred feet wide and it doesn't matter who you hit, especially if blows to the torso were insignificant and your extra effort aiming was going to be completely wasted.

Look at basically every medieval illustration (which btw. also show that archers did aim at center of mass):

I've never heard an argument more asinine than trying to use the trajectories of arrows in a medieval drawing to seriously suggest a principle of personal targeting in volley fire. Nevermind that unaimed (or more accurately, formation aimed) fire would look literally fucking identical even if that drawing were 100% perfect photorealistic, but you apparently keep mixing up the idea of "plunging" volleys aimed at a steep angle with the idea that volley fire was aimed at formations and not individuals. You aim at the block of men because hitting it is virtually guaranteed, and wherever you hit you hit. Most likely you hit the chest, thats why people armored it, but you certainly werent picking men out and choosing to shoot at the chest.


Your second picture humorously enough shows only four casualties in the entire battle that I can see, three of which are due to arrows hitting the extremities, one of whom's wounds cant be seen.

You can see this from tactics as well. Byzantines, whose foot archers indeed used shower shooting in the way you described

That is not what I described. The front of an area is still an area you know? You got so hung up on what you thought I was saying, presumably what you'd heard someone else say in the past, and how exciting it would be to correct this misconception you'd heard before, that you wrote paragraphs responding to something I never suggested.

Such setup, with archers flanking men-at-arms, would have been unnecessary if archers indeed exclusively used shower (indirect) shooting.

But would look exactly the same if they were firing at formations of men on a relatively flat trajectory, wether they were aiming at individuals or the group, so it proves nothing in regards to what I actually said.

owever, direct shooting requires formations rather reminiscent of pike-and-shot era,

Which, funnily enough, also involved the virtually unilateral aiming at formations instead of at individuals.

And that means aiming for the center of the mass which is indeed necessary to hit anything in the heat of battle.

Bullshit, a formation of men is enormous, if you fire horizontally in their direction you will hit a man.

And armour there has the least curvature of armour anywhere, which means that, for vast majority of projectiles, much thinner but much more curved plates protecting the limbs is actually not any easier to penetrate than the thicker plates protecting the torso.

Once again, this is not the sort of statistical statement you can just claim to the open sky without any direct testing. There are way too many variables involved that you're completely throwing out for the sake of one, and thats insane.

It is true that some casualties will have been caused. But the aim of missile fire was not to cause casualties: it was to cause disorder and tire out the enemy. Decisive combat always happened hand-to-hand. At Agincourt, English had 5 000 - 7 000 longbowmen. They ran out of arrows. Now, typical sheave was 24 arrows, and archers typically had 2-3 such sheaves. Using lower (and probably more likely) number of 5 000 longbowmen, this means that English archers expended 240 000 - 360 000 arrows. French lost some 6 000 men, vast majority of whom were in hand-to-hand combat: French men-at-arms (some 10 000) had actually reached English dismounted men-at-arms in the center, and pushed it back while under sustained bombardment by English longbowmen at the flanks. English longbowmen eventually ran out of arrows and engaged in hand-to-hand combat, outflanking the French. Despite being tired, outflanked and in generally bad position, French resisted for three hours. But keep in mind that being outflanked is important: remember Carrhae? In fact, from the sentence "Despite being tired, outflanked and in generally bad position, French resisted for three hours" you cannot even tell that the French had had to walk through a sustained missile bombardment beforehand. Fact that they had fought for three hours in such a position suggests that the effect of English archery was, though not unnoticeable, rather minimal. Longbowmen had a massive impact. Archery as such? Not really.

Going back to numbers: again, French lost 6 000 men. If we assume that half were to arrows - a rather generous and a highly improbable assumption, as such casualties would have likely prevented them from reaching the English in the first place - this suggests arrow Pc (probability of casualty) of 0,83% - 1,25%. In reality, this number would have been far lower, maybe even no more than a fifth or a tenth.

Yes, volleys of longbow fire absolutely would produce casualties. That is just a function of the volume of arrows fired and the fact that they were not facing Daleks. But longbow was not a decisive weapon: English could have won at Agincourt without it, though they would have suffered more casualties. They could not have won without melee weapons.

Most of this is simply irrelevant or flat out shifting of goalposts, lets remember what we're talking about here: The individual soldier armored in only a helmet and breastplate was "Virtually invulnerable" to arrow fire.

Point also remains that none of the countries listed here, with possible exception of France, have the kind of terrain necessary to support a Mongol army.

Well thats kind of a big "but" on that one considering France is the most likely to sue for an alliance with them.

So even if we assume mini pangea instead of just reduced Westeros,

I'm not sure what you mean by instead, Reduced Westeros is a mini pangea, you've arranged the continents all jumbled together and upside down.

ongols still do not have the kind of logistical advantage they relied on to achieve successes which enabled them to spread their empire. They will be, essentially, "shittier version of a 15th century cavalry army".

An extra, large, sub par army, fresh, could make a significant difference in a contest between peers.

Also, France and England didn't manage to deplete each other after a hundred years of on-and-off war. For Hungary, it took nearly two centuries of constant warfare against much larger and more organized Ottoman Empire for the kingdom to be weakened and eventually collapse... and even that took an open-field battle. So I think you are underestimating resillience of these countries to what would be to them extremely familiar form of warfare.

France and England were also not land neighbors each fighting on different sides of a four or five sided war, and the on and off part is actually a meaningful factor. Ten thousand men per year for ten years isnt the same as a hundred thousand in one year.

 

[Aldarion]

Irrelevant, I never brought up range and we're not talking about the resistance of the Breastplate and helm.

These are most likely areas of armour to be hit, be it either during shower or direct shooting.

Nonsense, there are fronts of the arms and legs you know.

Fronts of the arms and legs present the same problem as arms and legs in general: curvature of the armour is very tight, which means that you have to be really, really lucky to get it square. Basing your success on golden BB is not a good military doctrine.

Nobody aimed at any particular part of the body when firing in volleys against a formation of men. It would have been a useless waste of time and effort that gave absolutely no benefit. Definitionally volleys were not aimed, whether you're talking about slingers, spearmen, archers, or muskets. Projectiles were released in the direction of the enemy formation, not at individual soldiers and certainly not at individual parts of individual soldiers.

That depended on the range. At long range, you simply got the range and then loosed in general direction of the enemy army. At short range, you did target individual soldiers. Doing otherwise was wasteful - archers wouldn't have been able to loose more than few arrows at short range anyway, and as one of those videos you didn't watch explained, aiming was basically reflexive. There was no "useless waste of time", you looked at the target while aiming at it, and shot. Training will have made the process automatic, meaning that not aiming will not have actually reduced the time required between two arrows. At any rate, greatest issue was the difficulty of drawing the bow in the first place. You do not want to waste arrows when shooting a longbow.

Slingers also very definitely did aim at individual targets. They were mostly skirmishers, for one, and both training and various claims about slingers make it clear that aiming at individual targets was expected.

There are about a half dozen key variables of impact mechanics you're ignoring to come to your foregone conclusion but no I'm sure this would have a tremendous effect. A thicker projectile has different Sectional Density, the metal head is differently shaped behind the contact point even if the contact surface is the same (which we cant assume), it's fitted differently, proportionately,

You are confusing armour mechanics with body penetration mechanics. Plate will not be penetrated anyway in vast majority of cases*, so thickness of shaft simply doesn't matter, and neither does metal head etc. Literally only thing that matters is how good projectile is at transfering energy to the armour, as any effect on the wearer has to come via the plate itself. When it comes to mail, penetration of arrow is due to it breaking rings apart, which means that impact of shaft thickness is minimal. Only with cloth armour (gambeson) and body itself would thickness of projectile have significant impact.

* It might get a hole poked through in case of thinner areas on armour, but that does not signify penetration.

Where things you note do matter is their impact on projectile aerodynamics. Namely, ability of the projectile to maintain its energy at long range, and that is an area where longbow has an advantage over crossbow.

A) is meaningless because the ease of hitting something is completely irrelevant when you're aiming at a formation. Breastplates are definitionally not relevant to a discussion of the penetration of secondary armor surfaces or the casualty inflicting potential of limb hits, which is what you're having.
B) you just assume that this will make a huge difference without any direct evidence, which no one should accept in a question of terminal ballistics. Curved surfaces are more likely to deflect hits than non curved surfaces? Sure, to a point. Do you have any idea what that point is in this context? No of course you dont because no one's tested it, you're just saying "well, theres a principle behind this that, completely ignoring scale, tends towards a generalized effect".
C) A hit to the arm or leg being less immediately fatal than a hit to the head does not mean that hits to the limbs are less debilitating to the point that they cannot produce significant casualties in a mass fire situation.

A) Aiming at formation was done at either long range - at which arrows cannot penetrate armour no matter where they hit - or with weapons that couldn't hit individual targets anyway. But longbows are simply too tiring to use, and crossbows take too long to reload, to waste shots on a lottery chance. If your targets are in formation, aiming at individual target already means aiming at the formation. Also, look at Tod's video; he actually makes a point that aiming is pretty much automatic for a trained longbowman - if you are looking, you are aiming.

B) You are acting as if archers either shot wholly randomly or else had laser pointers on their weapons (and shot lasers, to boot). Neither of which is true.

C) That is true, but when combined with other two points it means that nobody is going to aim for the limbs specifically. Which means that, in a direct fire (short-range) situation, vast majority of the hits will be to the breastplate.

You say, with no actual statistics to back it up.

I don't see you providing any statistics either, and you are one claiming things which fly in the face of basic logic. Anway:
1) limbs have much greater curvature than breastplate
2) limbs are much more elongated than breastplate
3) limbs move around much more than torso

Therefore it is obvious that hitting limbs - even by accident - will be much more rare than hitting breastplate, and aiming for the limbs will be simply not worth it. Will it happen? From time to time, yes. But it will not be a significant factor. And even assuming that longbowmen simply used "spray and pray" approach (which makes no sense), hits to limbs at short range will still have been much less frequent, and impactful hits less frequent still.

And? How thick were the front plates in general? How commonly? Of what grade of steel? On a piece of armor with no manufacturing standards? good fucking luck answering any of those questions in any way other than "Heres one example" which is like the epitome of "not useful statistical information". And you'd have to answer. No, "Back plate from a modern recreation" is not sufficient, certainly not to make the kind of definitive statements you seem so fond of. You really should watch more of Tod, he's developed a very good habit of hedging his comments and not making definitive statements, far superior to the average sword tuber. It's a habit you could stand to learn.

It is not about thickness of the plates (which, if going by full plate armour, will have been thinner than the frontal plates - but I don't know whether that holds true for brigandines), it is about shape of the armour and size of plates over most important areas. Larger plate is better able to resist impact, and as I have shown, some brigandines actually had fairly large pieces over vital areas on front armour:

Frontal area also appears to be more curved.

RE: not making definitive comments, it is a habit both of us could stand to learn. You lecturing me on it is gold, considering some of the comments you had made yourself:
Projectiles were released in the direction of the enemy formation, not at individual soldiers and certainly not at individual parts of individual soldiers.
indeed on the personal scale there is very little aiming whatsoever, you're firing at an area not a man.

And in this post:
Nobody aimed at any particular part of the body
Volume of fire is the king.

Often, he says, often, and his evidence is one drawing of one set of armor having wider, not, say, provably thicker, not provably better materially, just wider. Even if the drawing showed exactly what you needed it to (thickness and composition), even if I accepted that as 100% accurate to a specific piece of armor, what exactly in the mounting heavens would there be to convince anyone that it was the average?

Wider automatically means better when it comes to armour, as larger plate is better able to transfer and thus withstand stresses of the impact. In ordet to be equally resillient, smaller plate will have to be thicker - and that does not remove the failure points that are its connections to neighbouring plates, nor does it change the fact that larger plate is better at dissipating energy over wearer's body.

And I said often, not average. Don't put words into my keyboard.

No, it indicates the commonality of the armor, and lower relative quality than other types of armor, not that "among brigandines" this was a low quality example.

But go ahead, tell me what in terms of the armor panel's stats are low quality compared to most other brigandine panels. Go on, how thick was the average panel in a brigandine, how materially superior to mild steel were they? Because it's those details that actually matter.

Just the fact that it was stated as a "munitions grade" means lower quality. Munitions grade armour was the indication of production, namely that it was relatively mass-produced armour. And while there was no "munitions grade quality" as a standard, mass production would result in lower-quality armour compared to basically anything that wasn't mass- produced.

I say you're wrong, and they aimed at the formation, Prove it. We're dealing in speculation but you keep just confidently forging ahead stating things you cant prove and don't know as if it was the word of god.

You offered no proof, but merely took your own position as a standard which has to be disproven. You repeat that we are "dealing in speculation" (which is true) and then use that to set me a standard which you yourself do not respect. Anyway...

I have already explained why I believe that they aimed their shots, but in short: shooting a longbow is f***ing difficult. It is a very demanding, very tiring weapon. And remember that battles were ultimately decided in close range - and longbowmen often fought in hand-to-hand combat. They will have wanted to avoid wasting their strength as much as possible, so as to have energy left for the close-range combat. While long-range shots will have happened, and will have been unaimed, longbowmen will have wanted to maximize the effect of their close-range shots as much as possible. Which means aimed shots.

You did however use phrases like individual soldiers being "virtually invincible" and it being "extremely rare" which you flat out have no evidence for and are pure supposition.

No evidence beyond, you know, actual battles. Look at virtually every battle where armoured soldiers faced bowmen of their era: there is no battle I am aware of* at which missiles had appreciable physical impact (as in, directly causing casualties). Their impact was tactical and morale**; but bows, crossbows, slings etc. were simply not capable of causing significant casualties among heavy infantry (or heavy cavalry, in cases where horse armour was widespread). And between the number of projectiles actually shot in those battles, and the fact that in all of them majority of killing happened in hand-to-hand combat, I do think "virtually invincible" is an apt (if somewhat overstated) description.

*Including famous "archers pwnd" battles such as Carrhae, Crecy, Agincourt...
**Meaning mostly limiting tactical options to an extent and unnerving the opponents.

Target shooting is a completely irrelevant comparison to volleys, you should know this if you watch Cap And Ball, where the host shows he can reliably make excellent shots at significant range with smoothbores but muskets were still used in volleys aimed at the mass of men, not any man in particular.

It is not, because shooting from a bow will be mostly muscle memory for an archer. Which is a point he actually makes in the video.

That only means it makes more sense, you know for a near certainty you're going to hit something, you wouldn't take any unnecessary time to aim at a specific man, and a specific part of a man no less, when you know for a fact you're going to hit an enemy even if you had loosed with your eyes closed. Volume of fire is king.

And as you could have seen had you bothered to watch Tod's video, "unnecessary time" is basically nil. You aim while drawing the bow; by the time bow is drawn, you have already aimed at the target.

This is guy shooting at target. You will notice that, even when shooting at a bullseye, he basically releases an arrow as soon as he has finished drawing the bow. It might take him maybe a little longer here, though, but nowhere near enough to make any appreciable difference in volume of fire, seeing how he still must take care not to tire himself out (he has to be able to shoot all of his arrows and fight hand-to-hand afterwards).

Which is again a point in my favor because at that scale all that would matter would be getting as many arrows on target (and your target is a formation) as possible. That second or third shot would be worth a tremendous amount more than an infinitesimal increase in statistical accuracy when the thing you're trying to hit is a hundred feet wide and it doesn't matter who you hit, especially if blows to the torso were insignificant and your extra effort aiming was going to be completely wasted.

And you have not even attempted to prove that a) aiming makes a significant impact in terms of volume of fire / ability to get arrows downrange from a high-draw-weight military bow and b) that increased volume of fire would actually be useful against an enemy who had already walked through presumably significant volume of long-range (indirect) shots.

And yes, hits to the torso were basically insignificant. I stated that they aimed for torso simply because it is how you always aim with a ranged weapon, as it leads to greatest probability of hitting the target, especially in battlefield conditions. A hit which does not penetrate armour is still better than no hit at all, or one which simply deflects.

Once again, this is not the sort of statistical statement you can just claim to the open sky without any direct testing. There are way too many variables involved that you're completely throwing out for the sake of one, and thats insane.

Can you point out some other statistical elements that would actually make a difference in the argument?

Most of this is simply irrelevant or flat out shifting of goalposts, lets remember what we're talking about here: The individual soldier armored in only a helmet and breastplate was "Virtually invulnerable" to arrow fire.

"Most of this" which is "simply irrelevant" actually proves precisely the statement that an individual soldier armoured in typical armour* was virtually invulnerable to arrow fire. Look also at some historical battles: at Agincourt, Crecy etc. French knights and men-at-arms literally walked through the arrow bombardment. It was not a stroll by any means, and archers had impact, but very few actually died to arrows. At Poitiers, Agincourt and Patay longbowmen fought hand-to-hand; and in at least former two battles, they actually ran out of arrows. At Falkirk in 1298., longbowmen managed to open holes in Scottish schiltron, but it was heavy cavalry which decided the day. Considering the volume of arrow fire in all these battles, yes, "virtually invulnerable" is not far off the mark.

* Which is far more than "only a helmet and a breastplate" - what you describe is almain rivet used during pike-and-shot era, and even that wasn't "just" a helmet and a breastplate. Swiss had a helmet, a breastplate and tassets, and they were relatively poor - infantry of, say, Black Army was much better armoured still).

Now, it is true that arrows could and did produce casualties. Bows and crossbows did have tactical impact (that is why they were used), and one far in excess of their relatively meagre killing power. But they were not a decisive or dominant weapon, not even close. In other words, your original statement:

Since Scotland lacked good archers,they would lost quickly to England,unless they manage to ambush them.
Just like any battle in OTL.

Is still wrong. Scots did not lose to English because they lacked good archers, they lost because they lacked good anything other than pikemen. It was English heavy cavalry which ultimately decided the day at Bannockburn, though archers might have been necessary to create conditions for that. But without cavalry, it is entirely possible that English archers will have ran out of arrows before the Scots broke. At Falkirk, Scottish infantry apparently had little in terms of armour, given that English used slingers as well, and in any case schiltrons in that battle did not act offensively.

An extra, large, sub par army, fresh, could make a significant difference in a contest between peers.

True, assuming they find enough local allies (and don't scare other into allying against them).

France and England were also not land neighbors each fighting on different sides of a four or five sided war, and the on and off part is actually a meaningful factor. Ten thousand men per year for ten years isnt the same as a hundred thousand in one year.

Technically, they were. For large portions of 100 year war, king of England had massive possessions in France. But more relevant I think are Hungary and Ottoman Empire, having been engaged in a basically total war without cessation (even peace agreements between them still allowed near-constant raiding). Hungary was disadvantaged in terms of population, resources, military organization... basically everything other than military technology, yet the war still lasted from 1389. to 1527. How long do you think will Dothraki last on a continent which has advantage over them in all of the factors mentioned?