Iron Mountain Armory Japanese Tatami Armor Destruction Test!

All right, we're back with our 45-50 pound bow. It's about within that range depending on how much you draw it to the very last inch. We've tested it actually on rough, and we have an error point that has actually been tapered to be shaped more like a bodkin. Although it's not a long shape, this little steel tip actually comes to a four-way point, not a rounded point. Much better for piercing steel or plate or anything like that. So we're going to shoot at our katami armor today, and if we hit a karuta, we're going to see what kind of damage it actually does to it. Let's go ahead and try it out on our brand new samurai analog today. I would say he's all right. Let's get a look at that. Not exactly what we planned. We sure dimpled that plate, but other than a nice gouge and a dimple, there was no chance of that going through. All right, we'll go ahead and try to hit more in the middle if we can, more to where the bottle is centered in the chest. We have our bottle in there. That was pretty nice. But it hit in between the plates themselves, so the karuta didn't actually have a chance. Or no, actually, we hit the karuta and it glanced in, as some people would assume is possible. See how deep we went in? We went in about two inches, and what we did is we glanced off. It didn't go into the mannequin itself. It just went through the cloth in our underbottom, about two inches. But the air, it slowed it down enough that we only got two inches penetration, which yes, you could say that's bad, but we didn't actually go into type of fleshy material or the bottle or anything, so that would have slowed it down even more. So that's highly impressive on its own that it could stop an arrow that much even by hitting the tip or corner of a karuta. Not bad at all. Oh! I don't know. That might have went into the... Looks like it went between the plates again. Yeah, that was the only problem, going directly between the plates without hitting the model. And I'd say we went directly into our bottle. It sure feels like it. What I was been aiming for all this time, and that was a bad penetration. Yeah, definitely. So there is a possibility of getting hit directly between the karuta. It's not impossible. That's one of the reasons we want to test the newer armor, Miyamoto, is because it is actually a breastplate. Much heavier gauge, and it's laminated where there's areas that are double thick, and you've got a full breastplate, full dome. This is just karuta or cards without kasari laced onto gambeson, basically, or thin gambeson. So yeah, of course it's possible for something like that to take place. All right, I'm here with a late century Viking sword, or Norman style sword. It's got the Brazil nut pommel. It's the sword you always see in the videos that I use with the tip cut. Lots of videos to cut through multiple layers of gambeson, even extremely heavy layers of gambeson, because we discovered that the cast blow, as proposed by Roland Warzecha, using the actual tip of the sword, has so much energy behind it, especially on these earlier type 10 blades and so on, with the design for cutting, that it tends to go through almost anything. We've cut through steel, thin steel plates with it. We've cut through heavy, thick plastics. We've done all kinds of stuff with it. So what we want to do today is, everybody wants to see, and they've been requesting, to see what it'll do to an actual karuta. If I hit the karuta, will it do anything to it? So we're gonna go ahead and test that out, and see what happens. Oh, wow! A lot more impact. Didn't do much to the edge. A lot more impact, and we bent the extreme curvature that's deeper than we've done with most things we've tried. I kind of hit below the bottle, I think. I kind of did. I think I actually damaged the manic in itself. So definitely something like broken bones, internal bleeding. Possibly, yes. It's increasing how much force is going through. So yes, it's like getting, the difference between getting hit with the flat of the sword, trying to cut you, and slicing through, or more surface area, to bringing it down, and me hitting with just that little point. It's kind of like a thrust, in essence of that smaller area, but it's the whole length of the blade accelerating in a full-out swing, which has a larger range of motion, and the area to accelerate being thrown out. So yeah, I am extremely impressed that the karuta can handle that, but a lot of it has to do with it being able to give, and it being on this backing. I think if we had this type of metal, we might have been able to punch a hole in it, if it wasn't able to give like this. Yeah, well you know, we've put the sarashi on, and that should help hold the plates like they actually would be, because a belt or something would be worn with this. This is actually not the exact right position, because it would be covering this area here normally on a regular person, but this is a mannequin, so it's not quite like that. But I've also put it a little higher up, so I can see the plates I need to hit in the proper area, so I don't make that mistake and hit underneath it, because I'd hit right under the bottle in a little gap area, and we'll get a better result. I hit a little low, but apparently it did not go through. It looks like it kind of skipped off the plates, cut, maybe cut some threads. I think it did, and it cut the actual thread holding the plate. Now if I was able to hit right in between, I know it would go through. If I was able to hit in between, because the gamut is not that thick, I know it would go through. That actually hit the plate. I was actually aiming for about this area on this plate, because I wanted a nice mid-range area, and I hit a little bit low. Now I hit higher again. We cut some of our cloth, but we skipped from plate to plate. Did do a lot of damage to this plate, and that is over our actual bottle. So I'm going to say that actually hitting the plates, I don't think with them giving like this in the backing, it's acting like mail. You can't cut through mail with a tip shot either. So unless you were to get really lucky and hit right in between here, like exactly without hitting, I don't think you're going to go through it with a tip shot even. It's just causing a lot of deformation to the plates. There's a lot of impact under it. Depending on what kind of padding, if you had extra padding or the heavier kimono or something under it, depending on the weather, I guess temperature and what you're going to wear, you might get some broken ribs possibly from that, because that is a very extreme blow in a very small area. It's more like getting hit with the tip of an axe than an actual sword with that type of cast blow. I figure if I didn't test it, somebody would say with a stiffer type 10 blade, why didn't you try thrusting for that or thrust through? So I will give it a shot to see what happens. We got a nice dimple and it looks nasty. And I hit that same place kind of, well, not exactly the same place. This is over the actual bottle, but yeah, I hit the same place that I tried cutting and it didn't go through. Would you say it had to do with the armor again, acting like mail? It's acting like mail and giving, just like any type of lamellae or lamellar where you have scale or plates that are laced together, joined with kusari or mail or like in Indonesia, they join them with mail and plates and so on. It does the same thing. The plates are actually more effective because they give and they're over some kind of padding than they would be earlier period, trying to make them into a breastplate. That's why we're so excited about the new armor when we get it is because it's actually going to be a solid doe from a later century. I had to hit it way off to the right, trying for maximum power. We skipped and hit a plate, but no penetration of the kai didn't get in between the seams. Actually caused it to glance. And this is a really stiff blade, so the blade's not bending a lot. So I'm impressed that it's not going through actually. I think everyone brought that up that it's actually stiff. So yes, it's very stiff. Not as acutely tapered as some of the later century thrusting designs, but it is a stiff blade. Oh, that was me giving this thing everything I got. And no, I didn't purposely line the blade horizontal, you know, which would be easier to maybe slip through. I did it straight up and down and that's all we got. We made it into our bottle. So he would be bleeding still two out of three ain't bad on survival. Oh, not bad at all. And this isn't even that bad. I mean, other than maybe as hard as I hit him, I think in the solar plex area, uh, he would not be getting up from the impact. It's not even the wound, but the wound could be a hair deeper than it looks, but we shall see. I think that's awesome. And it looks, it's time to remove it. It looks as if I hit a plate and slipped in, like some people, some of the fans said would take place. But like I say, how wide the blade is makes a difference because these two plates kind of caught it and stopped it. Ate up some of the energy because it has to, like I said, the only way we would have gotten straight in without the plates interfering, if you could manage to not get one at all and spliced horizontally. Yes, that's a very good possibility to maybe try to do that. But, uh, there's a good chance you're going to hit a plate as well. And if you hit a plate, you're going to lose energy. You lose energy. You're probably not going to make it through the actual, uh, cloth garments underneath. Let's see what it does with the actual overall throwing slide. It has like extreme velocity. And this is a pretty substantial, uh, spear or pull off, even though it's got a broadhead. Let's go and see what happens. Oh, that went through. Uh, yeah, we went in between spreading the plates, tearing them free. Missed the bottle, I think, by about an inch. So there wasn't much backing it, but it definitely made it through. And it's in there pretty good because we cut into plates as we went in. So I think if we hit on a plate, we will get pierced. That was nasty. And as you can see, we actually had the plates and the cloth cut all the way through. And it's actually cutting into each side of the plate. I even noticed from the sword, it cut into the plate slightly, but nothing like this. This cut the actual holes and into the metal where the actual stitching is. I cannot wait to see what happens if we hit on the top of the middle of the board. And we actually hit on a plate. That's going to be the worst dimple or cave-in that we had of all of them. And it cut into the plate, but it did not make it through. That wasn't the most power I could put in it, but it was an accurate blow trying to hit on top of the plate. Look how much you creased it though. Oh yeah. The injuries you take internally would be... And I'll say it again, over the solar plexus and the sternum, that kind of impact with the amount of padding we got here, I think would have disabled him at least for the moment, whether he died or not. Unbelievable. But the gib is actually eating up the energy. That's what's going on. The gib is actually eating our energy up. I am extremely surprised. So again, it's acting like mail or some kind of similar armor. I'll try to hit it in this area here where I think it's a little more solid. It did hit the bottom, but it's a little more solid at the angle here on the torso. Let's see what happens. Yes. Oh, I think we got a turn at the angle. We've cut a plate and I think he is now dead. It cut into the plates. Make sure it made it through even with this broad of blade. It literally cut the plate. All right. As you can see, we've actually cut the plates. Pull this out. And yes, that plate has been cut. And this plate's been cut. It just happened to hit in between and glanced as it cut in. And yes, that is into our, I mean, this is a big gaping wound. I can stick my fingers into the wound and feel them. As you can tell, this went into the bottom and that's the actual edge cutting the bottom rupture and pushed in, caving in the bottom. A lot of water splashed out as it's going in and we have a really substantial wound. This is a very, very nasty gaping wound. It actually cut the plates as we saw. So that's what allowed even such a broad spear to go through because of that type of weight behind the spear and being accelerated to that degree has an extreme impact. Even the Japanese use some sliding techniques with their two handed yari use. And that's got to be the reason why to accelerate the spear to possibly pierce something while it couldn't. But as you see here, this is devastating. This man would definitely be off the field. He'd be dead in my opinion. Because if you look at how deep it went in, even if the spear only went so far, all that compression would have made a much deeper wound in the body. All right. Something people have been asking us to bring back for a very long time was the Kusarigama. And the idea behind that is it's a military pick. In Japanese history, a lot of these were made out of solid metal. It wasn't even a wooden handle. It really acts like it's an agricultural tool, but they focused more on the point than they did in, let's say, in the Okinawan martial arts where they talk about cutting with the curved edge, like if you're harvesting rice or something. No, they focused on a military style pick that was reinforced to stab through armor or get into niches of armor. Today we're going to try to go straight through the Karuta if we can. I'm not going to worry about hitting it with the weight. It would just be impact. There's no way to gauge that to see what it would be doing to him. And we'd probably be aiming at more open areas anyway. So I'm going to come in here and see what we can do and give it everything I got. Oh, that was a glance. Or was it? It hit, bounced out, and we have a piercing in the actual Karuta. We have a piercing in the actual Karuta. This is the first time we've actually got a hole in the Karuta or the card plate. And I don't think we hit our bottle. That's over the bottle, but I don't think it's getting... Oh, I may be wrong. I could be wrong. I'm seeing some leakage here. It might have actually pierced it. Not very deeply because the plate stopped it, but we do have a piercing into the bottle. I'm seeing the liquid right here coming out. So yes, I think we've pierced our bottle. That actually cut a hole into our Karuta. I'd like to try that again. And I would say that considering we hit the plate, and if you look here, I hit in between the plates, but I hit a plate and cut the plates. I would say this has some extreme force. And of course, I think he's dead. We have that all the way in. It seems like that's part of the secret to getting in between here is the actual edge cutting through the plates. If you look right here, you can notice that not only are we impaling that bottle, and that's deep enough to kill the man, and we cut through all those layers of cloth, but we actually cut into the plates the same as we did with the actual overarm throwing slide. So the throw that you get from the heavy spear being accelerated, whether it's done two-handed sliding or overarm, the overarm seems to be the most powerful, is the same kind of acceleration you get from having a lever or a handle and accelerating a point the same way. Disadvantages, these can get hung up in people and so on, but look at this. All the way in, and we actually cut our plate and tore it loose. Now what we've got here is we've crushed the plate. I mean, it's pretty much folded in half, and it's loose, so I can show you the backing. We actually pierced a plate, but it looks like if you don't hit in between the plates and you hit on a plate, even with the overarm slide and the give, you're going to get the impact. You're going to get hurt. You might get a little dimple through it, but it's probably going to be mostly the extreme force and the impact. You're going to be taking bludgeoning damage pretty much from the focus behind the smaller point. You're not going to be taking an actual piercing. If it hits in between, like we're seeing, it can literally cut the plates to push the plates apart to get through. That's what we're seeing. These edges are actually cutting into the plates as they're piercing to make sure they can go through, because the plates are in the way, stopping them as it's tearing the actual lacing and stuff, trying to get through. In defense of this model, these are supposed to be each individually laced. This was the first prototype that he sent us, and they're laced completely around with one threading. If you cut one, they'll start coming undone. If you order the newer models that he has, each hole is individually laced. I'm still extremely impressed. This has protected him to a great degree, more than I would expect. After everything we did today here, his survivability was more than 50-50. I'd say it'd be about 60-40, maybe 65-35. At times, depending on the weapon, 75% of the time, he was surviving easily without even a really bad wound, other than maybe the impact. You might get a broken bone or so on, depending on how much padding you have underneath. I think the armor's performed very well. We tried to come back with all the tests that you all wanted to see. We really want you to try to help us, because we want to get that Miyamoto style, the elite samurai armor. If I'm not mistaken, we're at 550. I believe it's 525 or 550. We're very close. We just need that little bit more, and we'll actually have it shipped out. It's going to be a beautiful armor, and it's going to be way harder and way tougher than this, and a lot more to test on it. It'll be a lot more fun. Not that this wasn't, but we're going to repair this so we can have it for future episodes. We want to thank Michael Lasterita with Iron Mountain Armory for sending it to us.