Quote:
Originally Posted by Squirrelloid
Military arrow heads are made so that you cannot pull it back out of the wound without significant tearing. The best solution is to push it through (after cutting the shaft down), but this isn't always survivable.
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Not necessarily. Scythian design was, but, say, English wasn't. Ancient Greeks used both variants.
"Needle" heads designed for punching through armor never head additional spikes as these would interfere with penetration. The same goes for crossbow heads.
Of course, even straignt arrowhead could warp after striking armor or bone and muscles around wound could contract, so pulling arrow back could become difficult.
As for the best solution, that was the "Dioclos' spoon" - a specially designed tool pushed into the wound channel to catch an arrowhead and pull it back. Of course, it required a trained surgeon to use - but pushing arrow through needed one, too - to avoid major bloodvessels, for example.
