"Armour Piercing Keris" ???

mariusgmioc · 16th December 2016, 10:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul de Souza

One way dealers and sellers here ups a price of a keris is by saying that it is "armour piercing" ie the fact that the keris can lift a coin after a single tap on the coin.

I admit, not all my keris can do it. What is your take on it? Is it really "armour piercing" or a just a case of good tempering and manufacture?

To me it is obviously a coin-chipping Keris!

Without being too knowledgeable on the subject, I believe it is pure marketing BS. Something like the trick with the standing Keris.

PS: And I suspect that a guy who is doing this to sell a Keris, is selling nothing but crap...

kai · 16th December 2016, 03:52 PM

Hello Paul,

I'm pretty much with Marius on this one:

The usual copper-based alloys for coins are quite soft - it doesn't need any sophisticated heat treatment for even very mild steel to become tougher than coins! (BTW, keris are traditionally not tempered which would need controlled re-heating the hardened blade to a fairly low, bluish temp specific for any given iron alloy - not really needed nor practical for laminated blades.)

You show two keris with very pronounced ada-ada: In my experience any of the traditional blade and tip geometries do perfectly well for coins... (Since armour in the Malay/Indo world tended to be pretty basic, I doubt that nicking coins tells us much about fighting function in the old times.

)

Any keris blade that does not pass this coin test needs to be retired from "active service" as a sidearm and it usually will be a "ghost" blade that lost much of its body from erosion (rust and washings). Of course, such a worn blade may still be a valuable pusaka and/or retain any intrinsic powers (isi, etc.).

Regards,
Kai

kai · 16th December 2016, 04:00 PM

Quote:

PS: And I suspect that a guy who is doing this to a Keris, is selling nothing but crap...

That may be a bit too harsh a judgement - at least it doesn't hurt any decent keris in decent condition.

I guess it mainly boils down to the well-known adage: Buy the keris and not the story...

Regards,
Kai

A. G. Maisey · 17th December 2016, 05:13 AM

As with many good stories, this one has a basis in fact.

During the Kartosuro era, one problem faced by Javanese warriors was the fact that their kerises were unable to pierce Dutch breast plates. The Javanese keris was made as a personal weapon, and if carried into battle, it was a weapon of last resort, but that last resort was no resort at all if faced by a Dutchman wearing a breast plate. At that time, normal Javanese dress was naked from the waist up, so you didn't need a particularly robust keris to be able to stick your dhuwung into your brother-in-law's kidneys if he stole your terkuku.

Enter Brojoguno I.

His claim to fame was that he could make keris that were able to pierce Dutch breast plates. The recognised test for a keris that was claimed to be able to do the breast plate thing became the ability to pierce a copper coin:- copper coin on a wooden bench, pierce that and you were accepted as having proved your point.

Brojoguno was not born in Kartosuro, he came from outside, I don't know where, but very probably Madura or the North Coast. His descendants all took the name of Brojoguno.

Timo Nieminen · 17th December 2016, 09:27 PM

I would be very impressed by a keris penetrating a Dutch breastplate. Not just a keris, but any one-handed stabbing weapon. Not so easy to drive a point through approximately 2mm of iron sheet.

A. G. Maisey · 17th December 2016, 09:35 PM

Pretty well established that it did happen Timo, I have no idea at all of what Dutch breast plate is like, but the fact that Brojoguno keris did penetrate them is a part of history.

ariel · 18th December 2016, 03:20 AM

Don't know about keris, but European estocs were actually designed for stabbing through solid steel cuirasses. Even in the 19th century French cavalry was trained to stab rather than slash, and their opponents wore cuirasses ( not all, of course, but quite a lot). So yes, it was possible. And sticking 2-3 inches of steel inside any part of torso was almost guaranteed to be fatal.

A. G. Maisey · 18th December 2016, 07:38 AM

Now you mention it Ariel, yes, the cross section of this type of keris --- the Brojoguno style and his copiers --- is something like an estoc.

There is also a tombak that will pierce breast plates, it is the "sajen ampel" form, and it is a distinctly diamond shape cross section.

Timo Nieminen · 18th December 2016, 01:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Pretty well established that it did happen Timo, I have no idea at all of what Dutch breast plate is like, but the fact that Brojoguno keris did penetrate them is a part of history.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ariel

Don't know about keris, but European estocs were actually designed for stabbing through solid steel cuirasses. Even in the 19th century French cavalry was trained to stab rather than slash, and their opponents wore cuirasses ( not all, of course, but quite a lot). So yes, it was possible. And sticking 2-3 inches of steel inside any part of torso was almost guaranteed to be fatal.

Estocs were not designed for stabbing through steel cuirasses. They're designed to stab in the gaps of a plate armour, and to defeat the armour in the gaps (e.g., mail voiders covering the gaps). The problem with breastplates is that they're designed to keep lance points, pike points, arrows, crossbow bolts etc. out, and perhaps bullets.

I suggest an experiment: get some mild steel sheet, 1.5mm thick, and try to stab through it, with whatever one-handed dagger, knife, or sword you wish to try. That mild steel sheet is better quality (but thinner) than the lowest quality iron used to make cheap munition armours, and if the results in Williams, The Knight and the Blast Furnace, section 9, are good, it's about as protective as a cheap and nasty munition breastplate of 2.5mm thickness, or a mediocre breastplate 2mm thick (2-2.5mm thick is typical, for infantry breastplates).

With a close-to-optimal tip for penetration, you can just penetrate (i.e., make a hole all the way through, but only just) that 1.5mm of mild steel with 80J of energy. Make that about 110J if you want to tip to go through far enough to be effective. This isn't easy to achieve, especially if the target is trying to avoid being stabbed. The best possible armour piercing tip doesn't make it easy (or depending on the breastplate, even possible) to pierce thick iron plate.

Given that some armours will be thinner, will have defects, will have thin spots, etc., the best one-handed stabs delivered by humans, hitting square-on, should be able to occasionally go through (not against much-thicker cavalry breastplates, though). But there are some serious problems with trying that and hoping it will work as a fighting strategy. It's much, much easier to go around the breastplate than to go through it. There's plenty that it doesn't cover.

What an "armour-piercing" tip will give you is a tip that will survive hitting a breastplate when you're trying to go around it. It's also a good tip for piercing chainmail (which was used by the VOC), or against armoured-all-over soldiers, piercing the much thinner armour on the limbs.

16th December 2016, 03:52 PM	#2
kai Member Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 3,255	Hello Paul, I'm pretty much with Marius on this one: The usual copper-based alloys for coins are quite soft - it doesn't need any sophisticated heat treatment for even very mild steel to become tougher than coins! (BTW, keris are traditionally not tempered which would need controlled re-heating the hardened blade to a fairly low, bluish temp specific for any given iron alloy - not really needed nor practical for laminated blades.) You show two keris with very pronounced ada-ada: In my experience any of the traditional blade and tip geometries do perfectly well for coins... (Since armour in the Malay/Indo world tended to be pretty basic, I doubt that nicking coins tells us much about fighting function in the old times. ) Any keris blade that does not pass this coin test needs to be retired from "active service" as a sidearm and it usually will be a "ghost" blade that lost much of its body from erosion (rust and washings). Of course, such a worn blade may still be a valuable pusaka and/or retain any intrinsic powers (isi, etc.). Regards, Kai

17th December 2016, 05:13 AM	#4
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 6,991	As with many good stories, this one has a basis in fact. During the Kartosuro era, one problem faced by Javanese warriors was the fact that their kerises were unable to pierce Dutch breast plates. The Javanese keris was made as a personal weapon, and if carried into battle, it was a weapon of last resort, but that last resort was no resort at all if faced by a Dutchman wearing a breast plate. At that time, normal Javanese dress was naked from the waist up, so you didn't need a particularly robust keris to be able to stick your dhuwung into your brother-in-law's kidneys if he stole your terkuku. Enter Brojoguno I. His claim to fame was that he could make keris that were able to pierce Dutch breast plates. The recognised test for a keris that was claimed to be able to do the breast plate thing became the ability to pierce a copper coin:- copper coin on a wooden bench, pierce that and you were accepted as having proved your point. Brojoguno was not born in Kartosuro, he came from outside, I don't know where, but very probably Madura or the North Coast. His descendants all took the name of Brojoguno.

17th December 2016, 09:27 PM	#5
Timo Nieminen Member Join Date: Mar 2012 Posts: 422	I would be very impressed by a keris penetrating a Dutch breastplate. Not just a keris, but any one-handed stabbing weapon. Not so easy to drive a point through approximately 2mm of iron sheet.

17th December 2016, 09:35 PM	#6
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 6,991	Pretty well established that it did happen Timo, I have no idea at all of what Dutch breast plate is like, but the fact that Brojoguno keris did penetrate them is a part of history.

18th December 2016, 03:20 AM	#7
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	Don't know about keris, but European estocs were actually designed for stabbing through solid steel cuirasses. Even in the 19th century French cavalry was trained to stab rather than slash, and their opponents wore cuirasses ( not all, of course, but quite a lot). So yes, it was possible. And sticking 2-3 inches of steel inside any part of torso was almost guaranteed to be fatal.

18th December 2016, 07:38 AM	#8
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 6,991	Now you mention it Ariel, yes, the cross section of this type of keris --- the Brojoguno style and his copiers --- is something like an estoc. There is also a tombak that will pierce breast plates, it is the "sajen ampel" form, and it is a distinctly diamond shape cross section.