(dramatic music)
Weapons have existed as long as humankind.
For millennia, they have determined
the destiny of generations.
Weapons bring suffering and death.
They show what humans can inflict upon other humans.
But they are also intended to keep the peace
and pave new ways for technology.
For centuries, three weapons have marked
the most immediate form of warfare, hand-to-hand combat.
Astonishing experiments will reveal
how closely physical and psychological factors
can be intertwined.
To this day, the bayonet is still used by many armies
and there's a reason for this.
(soldier yelling)
So, I felt afraid.
The war hammer.
A brute instrument against the knight's armor.
That's just blows to the body.
What would a weapon like this do with a blow to the head?
The Roman gladius, the short sword
that will help conquering an entire empire.
The Romans used a special technique
to draw the sword.
The gladius, for more than half a century,
it was the standard weapon of Roman legionaries.
A weapon that marked a whole era.
(powerful music)
It is the year 200 B.C.E.
After a battle against the Romans, the Macedonian warriors
want to bury their dead comrades.
A chronicler later reports on the terrifying wounds
inflicted by Roman swords.
The Macedonians were absolutely horrified by the damage
the Romans had done to the bodies of their soldiers.
These men weren't complete anymore.
This was very very successful, psychologically
as well as militarily.
The idea for the short sword
was originally developed by the Celtiberians in Spain.
The Romans adopt it and gradually perfect the system.
The Romans conquered Spain from the Carthaginians
and took over these assets.
They also took over the basic sword design,
which was Iberian rather than Roman.
So this is the Roman's being their usual relentless,
remorseless, ruthless selves.
They've found something really good
and they're going to make the very best use of it.
An effective weapon for hand to hand combat,
as an addition to range weapons, like the pilum,
is essential for survival.
(intense music)
Earlier Romans swords are thin and long.
They don't fit to the Roman combat technique.
The dense testudou or tortoise formation.
Swords expert Stephan Rote can show us why.
When you're in a Roman formation
and you carry your sword on the left hip,
you'll struggle a lot to unsheath it.
I'll show you.
This way, I hit the man behind me.
If I try to make a level cut, I hit the man next to me too.
It's life threatening for my fellow combatants
to fight next to me.
The worst case would be
that I would have to open the formation
to draw my sword forwards.
Meaning I would open myself completely.
I would create a gap for the enemies to penetrate
and destroy the formation.
We are simulating an ancient
close combat situation.
Using a long sword first.
(intense music)
That would be the end of me.
A complete catastrophe.
I'd open the shield wall, in fact,
that's not only my end but the end for my comrades as well.
Stephan Roth expose
how historical cut and thrust weapons
were deployed and manufactured.
He will show us how he forges a gladius
with traditional techniques.
(powerful music)
(fire crackling)
He needs a special raw material for this project.
Steel, in this form it doesn't look like
one of the most important materials in the world.
(powerful music)
This is raw steel.
It looks quite unspectacular, like coral.
You can't see yet that it's steel.
But that's the kind of material they used 2,000 years ago.
We want to forge a traditional sword here.
As close to the original as possible.
And of course we can only achieve this with steel.
(lively music)
Stefan Roth and his apprentice
intend to turn this red hot lump
into a sharp and precise sword.
There is a lot of work ahead for them.
They have to heat and hammer the steel over and over again.
This is how it gets into the right form for the sword blank.
(lively music)
The next step, folding the steel.
This process helps remove impurities and micro-fractures
and evens out the carbon content,
making the material extremely stable.
You usually fold eight to 20 times.
Folding eight times is approximately one day's work.
Whether I'm in Africa, Europe or Asia,
the preparation process, or rather the folding
and homogenizing of the steel, is the same everywhere.
For his work, Stephan Roth
refers back to a 3,500 year old tradition.
Archeological finds of iron weapons and tools
dating back to this period.
Back then, they brought about
a veritable revolution in warfare.
From 800 B.C. onwards, the Romans, Celtic
and Germanic peoples used blumeries made of clay
for smelting iron ore.
One of the things, for example, Romans were able to do
as they expand their empire, they get to control
resource ares where they can find new materials.
So they're stripping out timber from their empire
because they've used their own, they're using iron
from Spain, Spanish islands, been a very significant part
of weapons manufacturing since the early iron age.
The Carthaginians use Spanish iron.
The Romans use Spanish iron to make the gladius.
As you extend your resource base
you can pick up other weapons.
You can pick up both local ideas but also local resources.
So one of the things you're conquering is the ability
to manufacture weapons.
At temperatures of more than
1100 degrees celsius,
smelted iron flows out of the bloomery.
It is the basic material for steel.
It all starts with iron ore.
Strictly speaking, that's iron oxide.
The compound of iron and oxygen.
The problem is the oxygen.
It affects the material properties, so you get rid of it
by heating it.
You also add carbon because it uses oxygen and combustion.
But afterwards, you have a high carbon proportion.
Making the steel brittle.
There are a few more elements that you don't want in there
and you get rid of all of these by burning them off
with a very high temperature.
The weapons industry has developed
many significant innovations in steel processing.
The first cast steel cannon was developed in Esson
in 1847 by the German company Kru.
And one of the most important factors
is that the steel can be easy processed
due to its flexibility.
Milling, rolling it is really quite versatile.
And afterwards you can harden it again as you wish,
which it means that it's easy to work with
yet very resistant once processed.
Whether it's for manufacturing weapons
or for civil purposes, steel casting is a challenging
and dangerous process in the 19th century.
The workers are poorly protected.
And cast steel is at a temperature of 1600 degrees celsius.
Today most of the working steps
close to the extremely hot liquid steel
are done by machines.
Germany, once world leader has lost much of its significance
for the steel industry.
About 50% of today's global steel production
is located in China.
(light music)
Forging the gladius is hard, physical work.
But at the same time, Stefan Roth
has to pay close attention to the material
and its properties.
Forging the gladius is particularly difficult
because we have a very wide, flat surface.
You have to be very careful not to hammer any edges
into the material.
This could cause problems later in the process
when the sword will be grinded.
(light music)
Sophisticated forging methods
can further improve steel, depending on the scope
of the application.
Ancient blacksmiths were already aware of this.
Some blades have been analyzed metallurgically
and it was found that the Romans produced top quality steel.
The high quality of the blade
for Roman hand to hand combat is however,
not only due to the Roman's
extraordinary blacksmithing skills,
they also used a special material, Noric steel.
This feramericum was a little miracle
of the classical era.
It had remarkable properties.
It is believed today that this raw material
might have stemmed from a comet.
And that the comet already consisted
of a special combination of metals.
We could produce this metal today in elaborate processes
in high-tech blast furnaces.
But it was readily available to the Romans
as a mineral in Austria.
At the end of the first century B.C.E.
the Romans, under Emperor Augustus, conquered the territory
that is now known as Austria.
They used the local ore to make their glade tougher
and easier to sharpen.
The sword becomes more successful and more prevalent.
The gladius is an extraordinary sword,
revolutionary for its time.
A very wide blade, sometimes up to nine centimeters.
The sword has a very prominent point.
It is, of course, double edged.
You can use it to cut.
But actually the point is mainly designed for stabbing.
It's a very long, mean weapon.
It's pretty nasty if you think what they could do with it.
(light music)
The short sword with its wide, hard steel blade
is only 50 to 60 centimeters long,
and weighs 1.2 to 1.6 kilograms.
It will become the dominant close combat weapon
of the ancient world.
(light music)
But why is the gladius so useful in formation fighting?
How do the legionaries keep their war formation tight?
Swords expert Stefan Roth has studied
the Roman's combat technique.
The Romans found a solution to the problem
by wearing the gladius on their right side,
and using a special technique to draw the sword.
So that they would not put their neighbor in danger
or hinder them in any way.
What they did was grab the sword
with their hand turned inwards,
unsheath it and wait for the attack.
Exactly what they needed in this formation.
(dramatic music)
The enemy is attacking again.
Can our Roman formation,
this time armed with short swords, stop them?
(dramatic music)
The legionaries can thrust their glade
without opening their formation.
The short, hard blade allows the warriors
to wound their opponents in various ways.
But always quickly and effectively.
The Romans created a perfect weapon for killing people
at very close quarters.
It had a sharp point and two very sharp blades.
So which ever way you used it, it was going to do
a lot of damage.
People have compared the Roman army to a mincing machine.
They literally chopped up the opposition
and inflicted terrible injuries on them,
which both disabled them and demoralized them.
The gladius, a short sword
conquers the ancient world.
Copied from the Celtiberians in Spain,
perfected over centuries, hardened through special steel.
The gladius, in their hands, the Roman legions
conquer ever more territories.
In the beginning of the third century C.E.
they rule over the majority of the then-known world.
During its golden age, at it's largest expanse,
the Imperial Romanum stretches from the north of Britannia,
the coast of the Black Sea.
For more than half a millennium, the Romans have the most
powerful army of the ancient world.
Their sophisticated military structure and perfect logistics
paved their way to success.
Everywhere in the huge empire military structures
are the same.
The Romans set up, train and lead each cohort,
each legion, according to strict rules.
(energetic music)
Neither the Celts nor the Tuscons
were particularly good at fighting in a coherent group.
They tended to fight as a mass of individuals.
Whereas the Romans fought as a solid, professional body
of trained men.
And this has been the great advantage of disciplined,
professional armies throughout history.
It's not their numbers, it's not necessarily their skill,
their strengths, it's the cohesion with which they fight.
During month long campaigns Roman legionaries
have to function like clockwork.
They build their camps following the same plans and rules.
(energetic music)
An experienced legionary would always find his way
in any imperial camp.
(energetic music)
Every Roman immediately knows
to whom he has to report,
where to find the commandant's tent,
where to find the Shrine of the Standards
and where to find his tent.
This should not be underestimated.
The efficiency of Roman engineers is reflected
in the infrastructure they built
in newly conquered provinces.
Many of their achievements live on to this very day.
(lively music)
Of course the Roman Empire
has left its marks, some of which can still be seen today.
The Roman's perfected the entire engineering system.
We have streets and bridges built by the Romans
that you can still use in Spain, for example.
You can drive over them with a modern car.
They can withstand this.
(bright music)
In order to move their troops
in ordinance quickly, the Roman's built
an unprecedented road network
throughout their vast empire.
At its largest expansion, the network was about
85,000 kilometers long.
(dynamic music)
Some of the traces of the empire are still visibile today.
And many modern streets run exactly where the Roman roads
used to be.
The way the Romans manufacture and use the gladius
is another instance of their superior technology
and organization.
It remains a pivotal weapon until the fall of the empire.
Many of the Roman's ingenious inventions fade into oblivion
as the ancient world gives way to the middle ages.
(dynamic music)
The era of knights begins entailing the search
for military means to fight armored-clad knights on horses.
The most efficient weapon against them
is widely unknown today.
The war hammer.
San Romano, Northern Italy, it's the first of June, 1432.
The troops of Florence and Sienna
are facing a fierce battle.
Their knights are in full armor.
They will fight for hours.
In the end, it's the Florentines who emerge victorious.
The battle was immortalized thanks to a picture
by Florentine painter, Paolo Uccello.
It shows a knight swinging his war hammer,
a rare artistic depiction of this weapon.
(dark music)
The medieval village, In-e-curbin.
It is here where we want to explore the secrets
of the war hammer.
And find out why it has almost been forgotten.
Modern books and films almost always depict knights
with their typical long sword.
(dark music)
Together with stunt men Yoakim
weapons expert Mike Loweds is preparing an experiment.
They set up a typical breast plate made from steel.
An integral part of late medieval armor.
The main job of this is to deflect.
Yoakim has to become a knight
for the experiment.
He will attack his opponent, sitting on this horse
in full armor.
Just like in the middle ages.
The process takes almost 30 minutes.
He has to put on roughly 15 parts, one by one.
(dramatic music)
Mail, the gambison made of linen
and plate armor on top of it.
The intention of the numerous layers
is to protect the knight from all dangers
that may arise in the thick of a fight.
But how immobile will the heavy armor make him?
(dark music)
Of course you can tell a difference
because you are wearing
approximately between 20 to 25 kilos more.
But of course it's made so that it supports the way
your body is supposed to be moving.
So if I fall to the ground, there's this big misconception
that you can't get up again.
But of course you can because in battle,
you could get torn off your horse and then you would
be lying on the ground.
And of course you need to get up again
so you can protect yourself.
Can Yoakim's long sword
seriously damages the dummy in armor at all?
(tense music)
The armor withstands the attack.
The blade even breaks.
What I could see just by observation
was the shape of the armor, it deflected it.
That sword didn't deliver full force into the man.
The constant arms race fuels the ambitions
to develop a weapon that can knock fighters out,
despite their armor.
Killing without being killed.
The leading motive of warfare is as old as human history.
Since the dawn of time, men going into battle
have thought of ways of protecting themselves
against the enemy's weapons.
It's a natural human response.
And they begin by using readily available materials.
Leather, wood and increasingly
as metal becomes more commonly available,
pieces of metal are studded onto the leather defenses.
And then the defenses themselves become metal.
(light music)
In the early middle ages, the knights
often rely on mail.
Large plate armor can only be manufactured
once metal working has improved.
(light music)
But the armor, which can be as heavy as 25 kilograms,
also has its downsides.
The problem has always been balancing off
the advantage of protection against the disadvantage
of weight and immobility.
You could be perfectly protected but also perfectly immobile
and therefore perfectly useless.
Plate armor has to be tailor made
to the man wearing it in order to fit perfectly.
This takes several months,
and not everyone can afford bespoke armor.
(tense music)
But these are costly pieces.
It's all handmade.
It's made of high grade steel.
It is a costly enterprise and the skills needed
to make a full set of armor are quite rare.
The English, for example, had to import armor
for a very long time because they simply didn't have
the skillsets available to make it.
This is why armor also has high symbolic value.
As a visible sign of the knight's social status.
The full suit of armor is a status symbol.
It says, look at me, I'm very important.
I'm so important I'm protected, whereas you are unimportant
and not protected.
Elitist, self centered, violent.
The idea of noble knights is a myth.
Of course we always have this idea
of the chivalrous knight who's honest,
who helps the poor and always tells the truth.
Unfortunately reality often looked quite different,
if not contrary to that.
Knights also displayed self-serving behavior.
They waged war against and amongst each other.
(tense music)
But is it at least true
that knight are superior on a military level?
Are they really the super warriors in armor
that no one can take down on the battle field?
That no weapon can harm?
(tense music)
By the mid 14th century, they had developed the ability
to make larger plates of steel.
And that enabled them to make large surfaces, plate armor.
You could cover the body.
It was very difficult to defeat.
The war hammer was developed specifically
to defeat plate armor.
A simple hammer as a weapon
against well trained and well protected knights?
(suspenseful music)
The first documented evidence of war hammers
dates back to the 11th century.
The weapon comes in different lengths.
Up to two meters and weighing up to 14 kilograms.
(suspenseful music)
Mike Lowed and stuntman Yoakim, want to test the effect
of a war hammer blow to solid, medieval plate armor.
(intense music)
That was chilly to see that force go through.
And it just goes to show that however ingenious man is,
however much he invents new armor and new protection,
another man can invent what will defeat it
and it was the war hammer that defeated armor.
The handle of the war hammer serves
as an extended arm.
I have to strike out with a weapon head, like this,
in order to gain any momentum at all.
And it is very heavy.
I need a lot of strength to make it move.
But once I've managed to do that, the momentum is enormous,
an immense weight with perhaps even great speed.
Hitting a target can release
a considerable amount of energy.
(lively music)
In our test, the plate armor deflects
part of the impact energy of the war hammer blow.
Not all of it though.
The rest is transferred directly to the body,
with fatal consequences.
Such a blow can break bones.
For example, the rib bones and in some circumstances,
especially of the area over the heart is hit,
Commotio cordis can occur.
That's Latin for agitation of the heart.
It's basically a concussion of the heart.
And can lead to a very sudden cardiac arrest.
What the war hammer does
is it doesn't try to break the armor,
it sends the power through the armor.
And blow after blow after blow would weary a man.
But that's just blows to the body.
What would a weapon like this do with a blow to the head?
If two knights face each other,
they usually sit on their horses.
But if one of them has already lost his horse,
the war hammer offers an additional advantage.
The attacker can use the blunt weapon
to hit his opponent from above.
Brutal violence that we want to simulate in our test.
(intense music)
Stunt man Yoakim hits the dummy with full force.
The experiment gives an idea of how brutal medieval battles
must have been.
That was a colossal, powerful blow.
Really well aimed.
You did a good job there and it's created quite a dimple.
That really has damaged this helmet.
Such blows can break a man's neck.
Or at least knock him out immediately.
A concussion doesn't do long term damage to the brain.
But you can lose consciousness and I imagine,
when you're in a battle, it might not be the best moment
to pass out.
Obviously there will be consequences.
But what can happen even with protection,
even if the knight is wearing a helmet,
is internal bleeding in the head.
Not even a steel helmet can do a lot
against the war hammer.
It is a fatal weapon for knights on the battle field.
The Battle of Towton, England in 1461
is a veritable blood bath.
Archeological excavations have unearthed countless skulls
that have been smashed in by war hammers.
But the weapon is not only perilous
when it's deployed from above,
on the reverse side of the hammer head,
there is an iron spike, that is slightly curved downwards,
called Raven's Beak.
The warrior on foot can use the Raven's Beak
to penetrate the armor plates.
The curved spike serving as a hook.
And can tear down the enemy rider from his horse.
(suspenseful music)
The war hammer has unforeseen social potential.
It becomes the weapon of the ordinary people.
They use it to literally get the noblemen
down from their high horses.
Every blacksmith's shop has a hammer.
A hammer is not a sophisticated weapon.
And the had learned that this was the way
to fight these men in their armor.
(powerful music)
June 1524, the peasant's war is raging
in Southern Germany.
Ten thousand peasants are standing up
against the tyranny of the nobility.
Their symbol is the rainbow flag.
They demand more rights and lower taxes.
At some point the peasantry
of the lowest class, devoid of all rights,
can no longer carry the tax burden.
Can no longer accept the social injustice, the inequality.
Of course this leads to revolt.
But for the nobility and clergy, this represented
a clear infringement of the divine order by the underclass.
The peasants summarize their demands
into 12 articles.
A negotiation attempt that fails miserably.
In the conflicts that follow, the war hammer
becomes one of the most important weapons of the peasants.
Mostly because it is so easy to make.
In the end, however, the war hammer does not lead
the peasants to victory.
The nobility defeats them with knights and cannons.
The era of black powder begins.
(dramatic music)
Firearms and ever growing armies render the knights
and their weapons, like the war hammer, superfluous.
The early modern era sees the rise
of new close combat weapons.
One of them is still used today.
The bayonet.
It has a double effect.
A physical and a psychological one.
(lively music)
Muskets, early firearms, inaccurate, complicated to operate
and often useless after a few shots, due to overheating.
(guns firing)
In the middle of the 17th century resourceful musketeers
are paid to find a way to tackle the problem
in Bayonne, France.
The city also gives the bayonet its name.
Once they can't fire their muskets anymore,
they put knife blades into the muzzles.
Now they are ready for hand to hand combat.
Historian and weapons expert Steven Bowl,
shows us how to combine musket and bayonet.
(dramatic music)
So this is the plug bayonet.
It's an extremely simple weapon.
It's basically a knife blade with a wooden handle.
And a wooden handle just fits into the barrel of the musket.
So let's see that.
Here's the musket, the plug bayonet.
Straight into the barrel.
Then I can confront my enemy like this.
This bayonet is named after a plug
used to close wine barrels.
It was first used in the 17th century.
The wooden handle on the straight, leaf shaped steel blade
is adjusted to the different musket calibers over time.
But can I do this quickly on the field of battle?
This is a question we're gonna ask ourselves.
(dramatic music)
The adversary's preparing for our experiment.
Together with him, Steven Bowl wants to take his shot
at using the plug bayonet in close combat
and see how well it works.
Because quick reactions are essential in this situation.
So now I'm getting slightly nervous.
I'm gonna be charged at 15 meters.
My opponent is going to be Victor.
And Victor will take his musket and in battle,
if he gets to me first, I'm gonna be hit with this thing.
So let's see what happens.
(dramatic music)
We simulate a battle situation
in early modern times.
Putting on the bayonet for close combat
mustn't take too long.
One meter, two meters, three, four, five, six,
more nervous, 14, 15.
The closer the enemy is,
the higher the accuracy of the musket.
Steven Bowl wants to try the musketeer's technique
at a distance of just 15 meters.
After taking his last shot, will he be able to
fit the bayonet into the barrel in time?
Or will his opponent reach him first?
(gun fires) (fast paced music)
(yelling)
His attacker is faster.
Our musketeer Steven would be defenseless
in hand to hand battle now.
And in all the rush he hurts himself with the bayonet.
So we've discovered one of the disadvantages
of trying to use a plug bayonet very quickly
and that is if you grab hold of the blade very fast
it actually cuts your fingers.
So really we need a better technology than the plug bayonet.
To make this system work, bayonet and musket together.
A more sophisticated version
is not long in coming.
At the end of the 17th century,
a new device was introduced.
This is the socket or ring bayonet.
And as you can see, it fits around the muzzle of the weapon
so that you can still continue to fire
even with the bayonet in place.
This is quite the breakthrough.
(light music)
French general and military engineer Vauban,
invents the socket bayonet in 1669.
From that year on, it mounts Europe's wars
for more than two centuries.
And takes the lives of countless soldiers.
(light music)
Leipzig, Germany, in October 1813; Russian, Austrian,
Prussian and Swedish troops face France and its allies.
Sabers and bayonets play a crucial role
in hand to hand combat.
Bayonets also prove efficient
in fending off cavalry attacks.
This is how they replace the long wooden lance
that has been used until then.
The pike.
The pike was essential
to defend the musketeers against cavalry.
Because they couldn't load and fire fast enough
to hold off cavalry.
If you could give them a self defense weapon
essentially their own form of pike,
you could reduce the need for the defensive element
and increase your fire power.
Attacking with one single weapon
and securing the defense.
In the battle of Leipzig, all sides are using the bayonet.
Over 90,000 out of 600,000 men lose their lives.
Many of them in close combat.
In the end, Napoleon is forced to admit defeat.
He's done what the Napoleon Wars does,
he's blown away all the best of his troops
in the search for a perfect victory.
And he's achieved nothing.
And he will have to abdicate all over again.
From the 19th century on,
firearms become more efficient.
Battle distances become greater.
Hand to hand combat becomes rarer.
The bayonet though remains crucial also in the 20th century.
This is mostly due to its psychological effect.
We want to explore the reason for this effect
in an experiment.
Karin Ruttgers is a neurobiologist.
She will confront some volunteers with a bayonet attack.
For security reasons, we resort to virtual reality.
We know today that watching films
with this virtual reality glasses, we experience
similar emotions to those we have in real life.
This is why we even use them to treat anxiety disorders.
Our subconscious simply cannot differentiate
between reality and fantasy.
Our cognitive conscious self can make this differentiation
but our subconscious feels the same fear.
So it's all very realistic.
Two scenes will take place
in the virtual reality setting.
In a World War I trench, participants will face
a solider aiming at them with a rifle.
In the second scenario the soldier approaches them,
a bayonet on his rifle.
Will the participants reaction be different?
The first round starts under the observing eye
of Karin Ruttgers.
We measure the heart rate and skin resistance
of each participant, to be able to analyze
their reactions in detail.
These parameters will undeniably reveal their fear.
Putting on a virtual reality glasses,
the first participant is plunged into World War I.
She was not briefed before hand.
And has difficulties orienting herself
in the unusual setting.
Then the first part begins.
Hey!
Okay we could see how she moved back.
We show the scene
to a total of 10 participants.
They are given no warning before hand.
The subjects all going into the experiment
without being brought up to speed.
Hey!
Their reactions are similar.
They all experience a moment of fear.
Virtual reality works.
In the first round, they all froze and waited
for what was to come next.
They were less relaxed, definitely tense.
But were not terrified yet.
The second round, now the virtual soldier
is attacking with his bayonet.
Will the participants react differently
in the simulated close combat situation.
(soldier yelling)
I felt afraid for a brief moment.
He looked my directly in the eye
and that felt uncomfortable.
(soldier yelling)
Well that was frightening
because he didn't stop, but ran directly towards me.
What you actually want to do is to get out of his way
somehow and run away.
There we could clearly see the move back.
The trench warfare situation is nightmarish.
A screaming soldier with a bayonet on his firearm
clearly increases the tension.
(soldier yelling)
You can see an enormous spike here.
You can see how she oriented herself.
She moved around a lot in the room as well.
Then she calmed down and then all of a sudden
the soldier appeared and she became very nervous.
It was very very frightening and scary.
And I felt kind of defenseless.
Wanting to escape the situation
is the natural response observed in our experiment.
(soldier yelling)
Again, this fear can be clearly seen by way
of the measured curve.
You definitely feel a lot more scared.
And when he started to scream I really just wanted
to get away.
The participants rated their emotional state
on a scale before the experiment.
And after each virtual reality scenario.
Using this subjective data, and the measurements
of heart rate and skin resistance, Karin Ruttgers obtains
an unequivocal analysis result.
The data clearly shows that the tension rose
by 140% in the bayonet situation.
Where as it only increased by 75% in the rifle scenario.
So we could show that the bayonet is twice as frightening
as the firearm alone.
The bayonet is a psychological weapon.
Its main object is to instill fear of edged weapons
onto a battle field where the killing is done
with artillery rounds and rifle bullets.
It brings that visceral ancient fear
that unsettles the nerves of troops.
That persuades people to surrender.
Being confronted with a bayonet will make you surrender
because it's a bayonet not because behind it is a rifle
that will kill you much more easily,
and much more quickly.
It's a weapon of terror.
Once you've struck fear in your enemy,
you have power over them then.
Any weapon that gives a soldier an additional sense
of control and power
is going to have a huge psychological effect on them
and how they go into war.
How they feel about their enemy.
And in this situation of a bayonet,
they're carrying something
that can kill because it also has the bullet
but can also strike fear into the person
that they're fighting.
(light trumpet music)
The idea of weakening
the opponent's psychological mindset
is older than mankind.
Ancient warriors come with the loud cries and roars
of attacking animals with horns, drums
and war cries before the battle.
In World War II fighter aircraft are equipped
with little sirens to spread fear and terror.
(sirens blaring)
Airstream activated sirens are fitted directly onto bombs.
(bomb whistling)
They amplify the natural sound of the falling bombs
and render bombardments even more traumatizing.
(bombs whistling)
In warfare any advantage is positive.
The psychology of war is, if possible,
persuade the enemy to do what you want
without having to fight.
That way you don't get killed at all
and you can do what you like with them
when they've surrendered.
(yelling)
Psychology in a military context
has two objectives, with their traditional war dance,
the Haka, the Mowri Tribe in New Zealand,
wants to demonstrate strength and instill fear
in their opponents.
But the famous dance also has an imminent effect
on the dancers.
The loud screams encourage the warriors themselves,
make them aggressive and lower inhibitions.
Fix bayonets.
Still to this day, war cries
are part of the vein of training.
(yelling)
Military training focuses on overcoming our natural
inhibition to kill.
The war cry speaks to our most ancient instincts.
Often we'll see people chanting things like,
kill, kill, kill.
So it's getting the adrenaline ready
but it's also desensitizing them
to commit acts of violence,
which goes against what they have probably
been brought up to do.
So it's almost like training somebody to be able to kill,
to be able to inflict harm with somebody,
by going through this process of desensitizing them.
En garde! -: En garde!
En garde!
Hand to hand combat is the most immediate
experience of war.
That was true back in the days of the gladius
and still is true today.
The Iraq War has shown in modern conflicts,
soldiers shoot most of their enemies
from a large distance.
But the worst psychological problems are caused
by hand to hand combat.
During and long after the battle.
In the future, the soldier is intended to become
a perfectly protected and technically enhanced
close quarter combat machine.
With equipment reminiscent of robots.
The exoskeleton.
There are different models.
Some of them can catch bullets.
Others enable soldiers to carry up to 100 kilograms
for several hours.
(soft music)
From a military point of view,
it makes them able to bear heavy loads.
If they aren't moving around with heavy equipment,
it is the exoskeleton that makes transporting
and operating this machinery possible at all.
In the 21st century, we've moved away
from just thinking about protection.
And human mobility.
We're starting now to think about using an exoskeleton
which will both protect the wearer and also enhance
their physical prowess.
So they can move faster, jump higher.
And carry on functioning for longer.
The load of the equipment
is intelligently shifted onto metal grieves
and electronic motors.
The soldier of the future: half man, half machine?
(dramatic music)
What we're doing is we're making
one of the classic trade-offs in the history of war
between numbers and quality.
We're starting to say maybe having a few, highly expensive,
super warrior figures in exoskeletons
might be more effective
that having a very large number of ordinary foot soldiers.
And that this may be the way ahead.
So we have to be very careful that we're not pursuing
a false premise here.
That a small number of mechanically enhanced soldiers
replacing the same value in a more conventional forces.
But despite all technological advancements
and improvements of the weapons industry,
war will remain what it has always been.