Plumbata

[Robert Vermaat]

Greeting from (wet) NorCal'. Not a complaint! Are Christmas markets big in the Netherlands? Hope everyone you care about has a Merry Christmas.

They are popular, but only a few are big. So I went to Strasbourg last week…

So 'post preview' and return removes my post. What other little tricks are in store for me here? lol. Also, what am I doing wrong in replying here? I don't get any smilies or underline/bolding options. I don't think html commands work here, either. At least not in my first message or two. Any advice greatly appreciated.

I think smilies can be added?

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I wasn't arguing that plumbatae are as accurate as arrows...or slings, for that matter

You weren’t. We agree there.

You keep mentioning 'how a plumbata behaves'. I may be missing something, but isn't that point irrelevant when discussing comparative distance throwing? Unless you are maintaining that a plumbata behaves differently when thrown UH vs. how it behaves when thrown OH.

I mention that when compare it to how a ball, a rock or a wooden branch fly through the air. Except for those basic that you mention (I throw, it flies and then it lands) a plumbata slows down when it rights itself after the throw. Slingshot and arrows don’t do that, nor all these modern objects that you’ve thrown. You cannot compare them where accuracy is concerned. Or when you state that ‘you throw a ball better OH, therefore a plumbata must be behaving in the same manner.

"Because a hand grenade (even a Stielhandgranate) behaves differently from a plumbata?" What property does a plumbata have that allows it to differentiate between the throwing methods?

Flights, which make sure the point is not overtaken by the tail. In a Stielhandgranate, that is no problem whatsoever.

Basic physics supports my claim, I believe.

I’m not a physicist, my wife is. If you distrust the testing results without even having read them, might there perhaps be some problem with your initial assumptions?

You seem to disregard my personal experience in throwing and teaching throwing. That's OK, you don't know me. And you haven't addressed my examples of professional sports where individuals who get paid to throw long distances accurately, ALWAYS throw overhand. Without exception. Not even in cricket! Or, does that go back to the argument that a ball is different from a plumbata?

Well, that makes us even, because you sem to disregard my personal experience with throwing plumbatae, as well that or other people doing the same thing.
As I’ve said before (and below) - yes, throwing a ball is not the same as throwing a short dart with lead on one end and feathers on the other.

Seeing people on line throw farther OH would do that too. Those videos exist. I am aware of the claims otherwise, but they don't pass the smell test.

Please share some links, that may be interesting.

Have any papers detailing the testing methodology, results, weather conditions (a very high throw with a strong tailwind could, conceivably fly further than a throw kept below the wind). participants' qualifications, statistical confidence level, etc. been published? I can find no links, but I don't have access to many academic sites. I am very interested in reading some.

Many academic sites publish papers, or show links to titles that can be found in other places. Academia.edu is a place where many papers can be found (including mine: https://independent.academia.edu/RobertVermaat)
I’ll share with you some of the studies published about testing plumbatae:
• Drake, A. (1994): a preliminary report on the range and accuracy of the dart commonly called the plumbata or martio barbulla, unpublished.
• Eagle, J. (1989): Testing plumbatae, in: van Driel-Murray 1989a, Roman Military Equipment: the Sources of Evidence. Proceedings of the Fifth Roman Military Equipment Conference, BAR Int. Ser., vol. 476 (Oxford), pp. 247-253.
• Emery, J. (2010): Experimenting with Plumbatae and observations on their Behavior, thesis, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
• Griffiths, W.B. (1995): Experiments with plumbatae, in: Arbeia Journal, vol. 4, pp. 1-11.
• Lydamore, C. (2007): A possible method of producing barbed projectile heads in the late Roman period, in: Lucerna, vol. 34, pp. 6-8.
• Payne-Gallwey, Ralph (1903): Arrow-Throwing, in: The Book of the Crossbow, (New York), pp. 243-6.
• Sherlock, D. (1979): 'Plumbatae - a note on the methods of manufacture', in: Hassall and Ireland 1979, De Rebus Bellicis, BAR Int. Ser., vol. 63 (Oxford), pp. 101-102.
• Sim, David (1995a): Experiments to examine the manufacturing techniques used to make plumbatae, in: Arbeia Journal, vol. 4, pp. 13-19.
• Sim, David (2012): Death on leaden Wings, in: Minerva, vol. 23 nr. 3, pp. 32-34. http://minervamagazine.co.uk/archive_pdf..._23_03.pdf

Accuracy is important in that situation. Roman-era 'accuracy', not 21st C accuracy. Soft lobs are very accurate for nearby targets, but the more force (Higher, farther) required the more accuracy plummets. Try throwing to a 4x4 target box on the ground from about a formation's length away, say 15-20 meters, with your throws going at least 10 meters high and then start increasing height/distance. Too long is a miss, too short is an empty space in your contubernium.

You don’t want that arc too high, because (as you accurately remarked earlier) you don’t want the angle becoming less than 45 degrees. I try to throw along a line (for measurement purposes), which is not difficult. I guess that means that accuracy (Roman style) is good enough.

Your experiment showed a drop of 10meters resulted in 1 cm penetration in an oak table (I hope your wife didn't mind). That, to me, does not sound like 'military level power'. Would it penetrate a shield, or a helmet or lorica whateveritata and cause a serious, debilitating or fatal wound? Highly unlikely, it seems to me.

To you maybe. Plumbatae do not penetrate helmets, I doubt they are designed that way – they are not heavy enough. They do penetrate shields (max. thinkness 9mm and certainly shoulders covered in mail armour. Which may be why they seem to be entering service in the later 3rd century, when the plate armour is phased out. Like pila, the plumbata does not need to make a kill per se, getting stuck in the shield (hence the barbs) makes that too heavy to operate. That add the terror effect against cavalry combined with the easy production and almost lack of need for training makes it a weapon for the whole army. According to a later handbook, even the kitchen staff carried some.

A modern, average horse gallops at 45-48 kph. Adjusting it down to 40Kph to account for the rider, that means that the charge is covering 11+meters/sec in the attack.

Ah, there you’re making several wrong assumptions.
One, a modern horse is larger and faster than a horse in Roman times.
Two, Roman cavalry carried a much heavier load, which would slow it down.
Three, most cavalry does get among the formation’ – horse archers remain out of range, light cavalry throwing javelins would keep away as far as possible, and the armoured cavalry would usually not charge at an infantry formation (they’d be killed unless the infantry was weakened already) but fight with lances stabbing the front.
None of those cavalry actions is doing the charges you have in mind – that’s Napoleonic stuff etc – hussars against unarmoured infantry. Incomparable to our period.

But how would the Romans train? How could they simulate this battle condition? And, noting the need for a very loose formation for throwing underhanded, how would they hope to get set in time to receive the charge?

That would indeed be interesting to know. No information about that exists. If we’d extrapolate information of Roman weapon training, I assume they were testing the real thing on training grounds.

A tight formation, utilizing their pilum-throwing routine, would be able to put the charging attackers under direct fire for as fast as they could throw. Much more effective than what the underhanded throw could achieve. Quite a bit easier to train to, as well.

Indeed, we agree there. As I described in my earlier post, that would be the moment for the OH throw – directly at a charging enemy. The UH throw is for the overhead support when the formations are already locked in battle.

I doubt that archers and slingers were shooting high angle shots into the enemy from their formation's rear.

Well, that I did not invent that, plenty of sources for that, it was part of Roman battlefield tactics.

When I see test results that don't conform to real-world experience, I choose to question those results.

And yet you have not thrown a plumbata in your life. I’m not claiming all the tests have been exact science, but that approach could make you distrust every scientific test until you have replicated it yourself…

Eppur si muove

LOL You do realize that the guys he muttered that to were also sticking to pure theory, don’t you?

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European 'football'? You mean that game where little guys run around in their underwear and pretend to be knocked down all the time? Nothing more exciting that a 1-1 tie.....

I mean the sport that was named for all players playing the ball with their feet. And which was renamed ‘soccer’ by people who took the name ‘football’ for a game where it was illegal to touch the ball with their feet. Except for one occasion where they bring in an extra player who is the only one playing the ball with his foot. LOL

Merry Christmas and a happy new year to you as well.