Original subtitles

NARRATOR: How did the Chinese build

a devastating automatic weapon 2,000 years before machine

guns.

Firepower matters.

NARRATOR: What are the secrets behind the ancient world's

high tech body armor made thousands of years

before bulletproof vests?

This was space age stuff.

This was how you wanted to go to war.

NARRATOR: And why is this simple invention the godfather

of the world's most ruthless weapons?

Land mines.

Monuments more colossal than our own.

Ancient superweapons as mighty as today's.

Technology so precise, it defies reinvention.

The ancient world was not primitive.

Their marbles are so advanced, we still use them now.

Travel to a world closer than we imagine.

An ancient age where nothing was impossible.

Over 2,000 years ago, the Chinese created a weapon so

devastating, it turned untrained troops

into ancient machine guns.

Is it possible that they developed the first rapid fire

weapon in history?

To fully understand the power of this ancient weapon,

you must start by examining one of today's most devastating

firearms.

The AK-47.

Like its predecessor, this gun is easy to use,

easy to produce, and can quickly turn raw recruits into killing

machines.

Automatic weapons are crucial to the success of any army

or navy because the more rounds you can put down target

onto the battlefield in a minimum amount of time,

the more effective you are.

NARRATOR: What was this amazing superweapon?

There's a clue in China at the greatest

archeological discovery of our time.

The mausoleum of China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang.

The Terracotta Army is a clay army

that was buried in the mausoleum for the first Qin emperor

to guard him in the afterlife.

And it is astonishing.

Every face of every man in that thousands of men army

is different, is individual.

And every man was armed with state

of the art weapons of the day.

NARRATOR: But over the centuries,

their weapons have rotted away.

Their hands are empty.

Could they once have held the world's first repeating weapon?

And could this warrior tech have created a killing zone

that seems impossible on an ancient battlefield?

An essential element of all land warfare is firepower.

Whether it's the big, long range guns on today's tanks

or whether it's the AK-47, firepower matters.

And 2,300 years ago in China, it mattered there too.

And they invented this.

The Chinese repeating crossbow.

The Chu Ko Nu.

NARRATOR: The genius of this amazing weapon

is its simplicity.

There are just four major parts.

Wooden stock, bamboo bow, wooden magazine, and the lever.

This magazine holds eight crossbow bolts

to complete such an astonishing weapon.

As you push this lever forward,

the string catches in a notch.

As you push the lever up, it reveals this little pin here.

And that is the whole deal, that little peg there.

You pull the lever back, you're pulling the string back.

The magazine comes down onto the stock.

It's that peg that pushes the string out of the notch.

And the whole cycling starts over again.

It's a constantly cycling, repeating, wonderful, efficient

weapon.

NARRATOR: This revolution made technology, not training,

the dominant force on the battlefield.

Such an impossibly sophisticated weapon

turned peasants into soldiers almost overnight,

much like the AK-47 does now.

It gives the rate of fire that a trained archer

you can put out, but without all the hardship

of learning to do it.

NARRATOR: Archers were professional soldiers who had

to be trained from childhood.

The best could shoot about 10 arrows a minute.

But could raw troops be as effective

as this on the battlefield?

Looking at a Chinese regiment of 1,000 soldiers shooting

six bolts in a minute, you got 6,000 arrows

flying towards the enemy.

NARRATOR: This incredible weapon turned close formations

of elite enemy troops into crossbow fire.

It's impossible to believe, but the ancient Chinese

had a lever action firearm that predates anything

in our modern world.

But there is a curious connection between this weapon

and one of the most iconic weapons of the American West.

A connection that could help us understand how advanced

this ancient weapon truly was.

There's an obvious parallel between the lever action

of the Chinese repeating crossbow

and the lever action of the Winchester 73 repeating rifle.

I wonder which repeats more quickly.

NARRATOR: Is it possible to compare these two weapons?

We are going to try by pitting them

against each other in a shoot-off, Texas style,

to find the top gun.

Kirsten Weiss is an American national champion

and performance shooter.

I love the Winchester.

It's one of my favorite guns.

They're such fun, aren't they?

Yeah.

Isn't it the best?

That lever action.

You dare take on old technology?

With new?

Yes.

I dare.

Let's do it.

Let's do it.

NARRATOR: Can this weapon from 2,300 years ago

really match the rate of fire of a Winchester 73?

They've got five shots each.

Which will have the quickest rate of fire?

OK.

So this is just on speed.

OK.

And I've got the older weapon, so I get to give the countdown.

Three, two, one.

Done.

I don't believe it.

You've got to hand it to the Chinese.

Absolutely.

Isn't that extraordinarily?

Fantastic.

NARRATOR: This game changing ancient repeating crossbow

has matched one of the greatest repeating rifles of all time.

An incredible feat.

They have got some big which in its repeating function.

It's at least a match.

Yes.

I mean you would think such a thing impossible, wouldn't you?

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mike.

Good job.

Good job.

NARRATOR: The Chinese repeating crossbow

would have been an awesome weapon

in the hands of conscripted peasants

or tough professional soldiers.

But despite this firepower, the Chinese troops

did have one serious limitation.

The heavy body armor worn by the warriors of the Emperor Chen

would have affected their mobility and stamina.

The Chinese warriors would have struggled

in their heavy metal armor.

But would you believe in ancient Greece,

they actually already had lightweight armor that predates

Kevlar by over 2,000 years?

The Chinese developed a devastating repeating weapon

that predated the machine gun by over 2,000 years.

But while they have the firepower,

they were hampered by their heavy metal armor.

About the same time, a revolution in body protection

was taking place half a world away in Greece.

An armor so impossibly light and strong,

you'd think it came from today.

To understand how effective this ancient armor was,

we need to look at today's tech.

Modern day body armor didn't come about until World War I,

but it was metal and heavy in order to be bulletproof.

Then in the late 1960s, Kevlar was invented.

NARRATOR: DuPont Kevlar is a super tough synthetic material

layered to make lightweight body armor.

It spreads and reduces the force of an incoming projectile.

And the tough Kevlar fibers are extremely hard to break.

This is a 20th century technology, right?

Wrong.

This is linothorax or Greek Kevlar.

This is Alexander the Great's battle gear of choice

when he began his conquest in the 4th century BC.

NARRATOR: Alexander the Great lead Macedonian warriors

in their conquest of Greece, the Persian Empire, Afghanistan,

and even reached as far as India.

He was feared throughout the ancient world

and believed to be invincible.

But he had a secret weapon.

We know from ancient sources that he wore breastplate,

a folded linen.

12 layers all woven together and then glued

to form this lightweight armor.

NARRATOR: Linen is a super tough natural material.

It can be layered to make lightweight body armor.

In many ways, it acts just like DuPont Kevlar,

by spreading and reducing the force of projectiles.

The Kevlar fibers of the material are extremely strong.

But could this simple cloth be constructed

to withstand extreme impact.

The evidence for the linothorax

is principally artistic.

We see it regularly on Greek vases and pottery.

And we get written accounts explaining

that it was made of cloth.

However, the breakthrough is with Alexander's father,

Phillip.

Phillip in his tomb has a thorax in exactly the same style.

And from that, we can work out the form

and extrapolate this reconstruction based on all

the archeological sources.

NARRATOR: Reconstruction expert Rory Brophy

is recreating this ultimate body armor from modern linen.

I'm making linothorax armor.

It's a type of armor preferred by the ancient Greeks.

It's made from linen and glue.

It was used by Alexander the Great when he conquered most

of the known world.

A very simple material to make in principle.

It's just layers of linen with glue in between it,

pressed really, really well together.

Linen is a remarkable material.

It's incredibly strong.

Probably the strongest natural fiber you can get.

NARRATOR: It seems impossible that fabric armor could protect

a soldier in battle.

Modern day DuPont Kevlar will stop a bullet.

But will Rory's Greek Kevlar withstand one of the deadliest

weapons of the ancient world?

Today, Hunter Ellis is armed with a mighty long bow

to test this linen wonder armor.

This Willow leaf arrowhead will be shot at 120 miles per hour,

about the same impact Alexander's armies would have

faced.

It's make or break time for Greek Kevlar.

Can an arrow really be defeated by fabric?

Dead center gut shot.

But the big question is right now, did it penetrate?

We could find out.

You can see it sticking out of the armor right here.

But would it have mortally wounded this warrior?

You know what?

It's only sticking out about a half inch on the inside.

So this Greek Kevlar did what it's supposed to do.

It absorbed the impact of this arrow.

This warrior would have lived to fight another day.

NARRATOR: This incredible ancient body armor

could have made the difference between living and dying

on the battlefield.

Alexander the Great learned this firsthand

when the armor was put to the test at the siege of Gaza.

In the heat of battle at one point,

soaring out from the enemy lines came a ballista bolt.

It hit his shield.

It went through the shield, penetrated the shield,

and into his armor, his linothorax.

Luckily, this armor is so good, he managed

to take most of the force from the bolt.

And it only lightly wounded him.

NARRATOR: The ancient armor turned a killing wound

into a flesh wound.

For the ordinary foot soldier, this was space age stuff.

This was how you wanted to go to war.

They were wearing the Kevlar of their period.

NARRATOR: Whether it is the ancient or the modern world,

the military has always sought to develop ways to protect

a soldier's entire body from head to toe.

Just think of some of the innovations we have today.

US special forces are developing lightweight protective body

armor.

Full body armor for their operators.

But did you know the Romans had it nearly 2,000 years ago?

Today's armies don't realize that many of the advances they

are working on were actually first developed

in the ancient world.

An example is this demonstration of a highly sophisticated

full body armor called TALOS, now under development

for US forces.

The history books lead us to believe

that the first true armored warriors were

the medieval knights of Europe.

But new evidence shows that in Europe, the Romans

were using fully armored knights much earlier.

Hunter Ellis is getting suited up, medieval style.

Right now, I'm dressed in a 15th century harness of arms.

When most people picture full body armor,

they think of medieval knights.

But in fact, warriors had this type of protection

about 1,000 years earlier.

NARRATOR: But proving that Roman warriors

had full body armor will take some serious detective work.

Often, Rome's greatest military advances

were born out of their military defeats.

In one terrible battle at Carrhae in modern Turkey,

the Roman army was changed forever.

In 53 BC, the Romans had a classic infantry army going out

into the desert to face the Parthians.

The Parthians, however, were cavalry heavy.

And they had cataphracts.

NARRATOR: This was the Parthians' secret weapon.

Their heavy cavalry, known as cataphracts, were armored.

The Romans were utterly mauled.

More than 20,000 dead.

The Romans would never want to take defeat lightly.

They went away.

They learned their lessons.

When they came back, they had their own cataphracts.

And this time, the Romans were victorious.

NARRATOR: The Romans took this technology to the next level,

creating the first European knights.

But what did they look like?

There's graffiti drawn by a bored Roman soldier

in a frontier post on the border of what's now modern day Syria.

And this gives us an idea of what these warriors might have

looked like.

NARRATOR: This ancient graffiti could be an incredible eye

witness account.

Is this proof that the knights of Rome really did exist?

Well, there are actual accounts from the 4th century

from Roman soldiers who served on the battlefield.

These aren't the armchair generals.

And they talked about warriors dressed head to toe

in full body armor, glistening on the battlefield

like silver statues.

How would you like to run into that?

NARRATOR: One ancient historian has found

a clue in Oxford, England.

Dr. Adrian Goldsworthy is one of the world's leading experts

on the Roman armed forces.

Hidden away in the dusty archives of the Bodleian

Library, Adrian has unearthed evidence that could rewrite how

we view the Roman army.

The book I put in front of me here

is something quite remarkable.

It's a book written in the 4th century AD.

So who've got a picture of something

that you might not expect to see as a soldier of the Roman army?

A man fully armored on a fully armored horse.

NARRATOR: Incredibly, horse armor

like this was found in a destroyed Roman

fort in the 1930s.

Made of metal scales, it's identical to the illustration

in the book.

And there's another clue from an ancient text.

One of the things listed are the titles of all the officers

in command of all the army units of the Roman army.

Among these units, there are quite a few

that are listed as cataphracts.

NARRATOR: And there's still more evidence that the Romans were

using knights.

Because if we go on and look here

at an illustration of the fabricae, the workshops,

the factories that supplied the equipment for the army

and look in detail, we can actually

see depictions of the heavy armor

that these sorts of soldiers would wear.

You've got the main cuirass.

Heavy, strong protective body armor.

NARRATOR: These lines drawn on the illustration

give another clue.

The main body armor is chainmail,

an armor made of iron rings.

Mail, which was the mainstay of the Roman army

for centuries, came from the Celts in the West.

But it produces an armor which is effective, especially

in hand-to-hand combat against swords and spears.

Here, if you look at the illustrations,

you can actually see what we've been talking about all

the time.

Because in this corner, you've got extra defenses for the arms

and extra defenses for the limbs.

They have plate defenses, like this reconstruction

of first century Manica.

It's made with iron plates, which are articulated together

to make it flexible.

NARRATOR: We have found one last clue.

Now also, it gives us the insignia on shields.

You can see these brightly painted devices,

which would have identified each unit in battle.

And it is more than a coincidence

that none of the units of cataphracts

are given a shield design in this great catalog, the shields

of the Roman army.

NARRATOR: Like medieval knights, this armor

was so impossibly powerful, the soldiers didn't use shields.

It was a combination of all these different styles of armor

for different purposes.

The scale, the mail, the articulated plates,

that come together to produce this ancient super troop.

NARRATOR: We can now reveal the Roman cataphract,

the first European knight, over 1,000 years earlier

than we ever imagined.

These guys, encased in heavy armor

from head to foot for themselves and their horses,

charging with lances, were the ancient super weapon.

NARRATOR: The one remaining mystery

is the warrior's helmet, which protected the face and head.

But amazingly, a clue for its appearance

could come from Rome's deadliest enemies.

The Roman cataphracts would soon face their greatest enemy.

Sword-wielding warriors that seem

to come from the Game of Thrones,

but they're as real as I am and a hundred times

more terrifying.

We've rewritten history to prove that the Romans had

fully armored knights over 1,000 years

before the age of chivalry.

If it weren't for the evidence, the existence of such troops

would seem impossible to believe.

But one mystery remains.

Is it really possible that the Romans had a helmet that

covered the full head and face like a medieval knight?

The ancient writers tell us that the head and face are

covered by a metal mask, and that the wearer would look

like a glittering statue.

Now, these helmets obviously existed, but none survive.

They cover the entire head, similar to the late Roman

cavalry helmet.

NARRATOR: No helmet like this has ever been found.

But there might be a lead from Rome's deadliest enemies.

In the 4th century AD, the wealthy Roman province

of Britain faced a terrible threat.

Barbarian German tribesman called Saxons.

Who lived for fighting and plunder.

The Saxons were coming from the sea and raid

a rich and fertile Britannia.

The coastline was so inundated with Saxon raids,

they even named their force and garrisons, the Saxon shore.

NARRATOR: The Romans built 10 massive forts

to protect Brittania.

But how could they know where the Saxons would strike next?

The Romans don't know where they're going to strike.

So they need a flexible, mobile reserve to deal with them.

And the best way to do that is cavalry.

The Romans learnt from their experiences in the Middle East

that the best form of cavalry against bodies of infantry,

the Saxons were infantry, was heavy armored, disciplined,

close formation, shock cavalry.

Their answer to Saxon rights was the cataphract.

Imagine being a Saxon, and sailing across the sea,

landing on the beach, and then being

greeted by an armored cavalry of cataphracts, and iron plate,

and chainmail.

Even for the mighty Saxons, this would make them think twice.

NARRATOR: To level the playing field, the Saxons imitated

the Roman armor, including their helmet.

At Sutton Hoo in Eastern England,

evidence has been found of what a Roman cataphract helmet might

have looked like.

Under this mound, a mighty warrior was buried.

In the richest Saxon grave ever found,

King Raedwald was laid to rest here with his war

gear and magnificent helmet.

This reconstruction shows the sophistication of an era

some called the Dark Ages.

This is Britain's Tutankhamun.

So a find like Sutton Hoo basically gives us

a window into a secret world.

This warrior king was buried in his full battle gear.

He had a chainmail shirt, he had a shield,

and he had an incredible sword and helmet.

NARRATOR: Is the Sutton Hoo helmet the missing link

that shows us what the Roman cataphracts wore?

When you see all three helmets together,

the similarities are incredible.

You can imagine how the Roman cataphracts would have made

a lasting impression on the raiding Saxons.

Here we have the Sutton Hoo helmet.

Now no cataract helmets exist, but this

is a Roman cavalry ceremonial helmet

from about 500 years earlier.

Look at the similarities in design and protection

of the face plates and neck plates

in the back, which would protect from the rear blow.

And then look at this full frontal face coverage.

But what's unique about the son who helmet is this ridge right

down the crest.

It's believed that the Roman cataphract helmet had

the same feature.

NARRATOR: With a helmet that matches ancient descriptions,

we've recreated a Roman cataphract for the first time

ever.

Roman warrior tech created full body armor over 1,000 years

before medieval knights.

But even the knights of Rome could not prevent the empire's

decline and fall.

The Roman army was eventually pulled out of Britain

to defend Rome.

Britannia was invaded and settled by the Saxons.

The Saxons were also accompanied by the Angles.

So we have a confederation of German tribes.

From the Angles, so we get the term, England, Angle Land.

And of course, we therefore have Anglo-Saxons.

NARRATOR: But the Saxons weren't done yet.

Over 2,000 years ago, the Roman army used fully armored knights

on the battlefield.

Rome's enemies, the Saxons, didn't just

copy Roman equipment.

They created their own Ultimate Warrior superweapon

The Saxons were true warriors.

Most had small swords or seax, much like this one right here.

It's basically a big knife.

But others had the long seax like this.

This is the replica of the Sutton Hoo sword.

This is what a Ferrari or Lamborghini

would cost in the Saxon world.

This right here is the ultimate status symbol.

Weapons are the mark of an Anglo-Saxon warrior.

And his most important weapon is the sword.

Swords were even consider magical, like Excalibur

to King Arthur.

They were named names like Widow's Wail.

The cry of a wife as a husband is slain.

Legbiter, a sword that can cut underneath the opponent's

shield and take out his ankle.

Or even Needle, to pierce through to the heart.

NARRATOR: These lethal swords were

made to impossibly high specifications

worthy of 21st century technology.

Under this mound, the greatest Saxon sword in history

was discovered.

In the grave of King Raedwald at Sutton Hoo in England.

The sword and treasure are now held in the British Museum

in London.

The reconstruction next to the remains of the original

shows the might and power it once had.

Now, a sword like this would generally

be buried with its owner.

But it's still incredibly rare to find them in the ground.

And absolutely unique to have an example as superb as this.

This is a sword where no expense has been spared.

The handle is made of gold.

And on the pummel, there's gold filigree,

and garnets have been inlaid.

So this is a symbol of your power, of your status,

and it's no coincidence that these have been used

because they were thought to have almost magical powers

and to be able to ward off the evil of lightning and thunder.

NARRATOR: But this sword was not just for show.

Its construction reveals impossibly sophisticated

techniques that made it the ultimate war blade.

There's a story behind these patterns.

They're not just for decoration.

The patterns show us the extent of the highly sophisticated

technology that was used to create this absolutely

incredible ancient weapon.

NARRATOR: The Saxon super sword was the first effective use

of composite metal in the world.

But how did they do it?

This incredible technique of pattern welding

is still used in modern knife blades.

And by swordsmith Stuart Makin to recreate the tip

of the Sutton Hoo sword.

So what I've got here is a billet

of different types of steel.

The four darker layers of mild steel, which is a soft metal.

The three other layers are high carbon steel.

And what we're going to do is use the fire to melt these

together and make one piece, which combines

the hardness of the carbon steel the softness of the mild steel.

NARRATOR: This incredible ancient technology

mixes hard steel for cutting with soft steel for strength.

A sword made only of soft metal will bend.

A sword made solely of hard metal will shatter.

This deadly weapon had a supernatural strength

that made it supposedly unbreakable in combat.

These are exquisite works of art.

They're extraordinary pieces of technology.

But also, this is the weapon that

is going to save your life.

NARRATOR: The hard and soft steel

are combined into billets.

The billets are hammered into bars

to start creating the pattern.

By twisting those metals together,

when we do the final stage, you'll see that twist

in the surface of material.

NARRATOR: Once four twisted billets are made,

they are then joined make the body of the sword.

And I'm actually forging the blade tip of the sword here.

NARRATOR: But that's not the end to the impossibly high

sophistication of this ultimate weapon.

I've got a couple of pieces of high carbon steel.

Now on their own, they'll be to brittle to make a sword.

However, we're going to weld these either side of the core

to make the cutting edge.

So when the sword is ground and polished,

it maintains its razor edge.

NARRATOR: All that needs to be done now

is to use acid to reveal the pattern that shows

the mix of soft and hard steel that

gives the blade its impossible strength and cutting power.

All of the processes combined to produce

this entire beautiful, yet functional stunning piece

of work is absolutely phenomenal.

What's almost impossible to imagine

is that smiths over 1,000 years ago

were able to produce an object of such beauty

and with such sophisticated technology.

We've seen highly sophisticated ancient battle

equipment that's thousands of years ahead of its time.

But it was one incredibly simple invention by the ancient Greeks

and the Romans that sets the stage for some

of the most terrifying and ruthless weapons

of modern warfare.

Look at modern warfare, and you see incredible parallels

with the ancient world.

It seems impossible, but one tiny invention going back

over 3,000 years is the godfather of some

of today's cruelest weapons.

We're in the moat at Southsea castle.

Moats are familiar to most people.

A trench or a ditch around the castle or fort,

usually dry, sometimes containing water.

It denies the ground to the enemy.

That's harder in an open battlefield.

You need a way to stop the enemy coming forward against you.

And that's where these come in.

These are called caltrops.

NARRATOR: Named after the Latin word, calcitrappa or foot trap,

caltrops are incredibly simple and effective.

Tread on one of these, and it's game over.

A caltrop.

It's a four-pronged barb design that no matter how you throw

it, three prongs are on the ground,

and one prong stick straight up into the air.

This is an area denial weapon.

It's easy to make, it's simple to deploy.

And it can be carried anywhere.

As the enemy comes forward, strikes these,

starts to take casualties.

They stop.

NARRATOR: This impossibly simple idea

is as effective as modern area denial weapons.

But what seems even more impossible

is that it revolutionize defensive warfare.

These are easy to make.

To an ancient, all he needs to do

is take two pieces of barstop.

Shape it.

Weld it together.

Bend it.

And it's also the work of just moments.

A few minutes work to make one.

In many ways, these should be seen as the ancestors

of modern area denial weapons.

Whether you're looking at razor wire and barbed

wire or more modern weapons, such as mines, cluster bombs,

and scatter bomblets.

But these, these were 3,000 years ago.

Nasty little suckers.

NARRATOR: Over time, swords, crossbows, and metal armor

have disappeared from our arsenals.

But caltrops have hardly changed.

Believe it or not, US forces in Afghanistan

are still using versions of the caltrop to this day.

NARRATOR: These tiny wonder weapons

were the ultimate warrior tech.

With caltrops on hard ground, ancient soldiers

could gain an edge against any threat, even

the most intimidating of all, the elephant.

Whether it's Hannibal and the Carthaginians, the Persians,

or even the Indians, elephants were a terror weapon.

They were a huge beasts covered in armor that

can sweep through your lines.

Caltrops are the perfect answer.

Elephants are intelligent.

They're very thick skinned.

But underfoot, they're very sensitive.

Now, imagine a bed of these being thrown down

as a wave of attacking elephants coming towards you.

Wounded elephants will flee naturally the quickest route

possible.

Which is normally directly behind them,

through the troops, which causes utter carnage

amongst the ranks.

Elephants are definitely a double-edged weapon.

NARRATOR: Cunning use of this ingenious yet simple weapon

did more than just stop the enemy.

But what most enemies do is they try and circumvent

the obstacle.

That's why clever placement means the enemy will be driven

to where you want them.

Driven into choke points that you can then smash.

You can deliver your heavy cavalry, your best,

elite troops, and eliminate the enemy totally.

Simple little device, but one that's

fundamental to an entire tactical plan

on the battlefield.

This is all the hallmarks of modern warfare,

but they were doing this 3,000 years ago.

Yeah.

Cracky biscuit.

NARRATOR: Warriors of the ancient world

had highly sophisticated weapons thousands

of years ahead of their time.

From the first automatic weapons to full body armor

and the first area denial weapons.

Proving that the ancients were able to achieve the impossible.

Creating warrior tech we can still see and use today.