# Ask me about archery, longbows especially.



## John McDonell

Hi folks,
First of all what a great site!  I just wanted to let you know that I know a little about traditional archery as far a bow's capabilities and the comparision of different types etc as well as what worked best in combat.  If you are a D&Der the value of bows in battle is pretty much lost as they are a suplimentary weapon at best in those games.  If you have ever used a real bow with a 40# or more draw, you were likely astonished by the power of it.  Fred Bear used his recurve bows to bring down all sorts of big game, including an Alaskan Brown Bears in one shot, (sorry to you non-hunters).  

Here are a few basics:
Longbows in England were drawing at anywhere from 90-150 lbs (This is almost unbelievable by today's standards.  It is not so hard to draw that weight once, but it is hard to shoot accurately and do it repeatedly.)  Archers were trained from childhood and developed their back muscles to be able to accomplish this.  In fact archeologists can identify an archer's skeleton on a battlefield by the curvature of the spine.  Look up the Mary Rose for more information regarding the bows they found intact on this sunken ship.

Crossbows were developed for the untrained.  They were a quick solution to have troops with ranged attack capabilities.  Basically you point and shoot a crossbow, similar to a rifle.  A bow required much more training.  Longbows a had a much further range than crossbows because they launched a much heavier arrow than a crossbow could, which also gave it more penetration when it hit.  Bows also could fire much much faster than a crossbow due to the amount of time it took to load the crossbow.  Crossbows did have a better accuracy at close range and hit much harder at close range due to the higher poundage.

Composite bows were bows made from wood, bone or antler or all of the above mixed together.  They were laminated and glued with natural materials.  The mongols were expert bow makers of this type.  They built short, powerful bows, similar to today's recurve bows.  The purpose of this design was so it could be easily used from horseback.  

Ranges:  There are not many arrows that I know of that will go over 200-250 yards.  There are specialty bows that will do this.  There is an asian bow, I forget the name at the moment that is very powerfull and apparently has longer range capabilities.  To give you an idea of ranges I attend traditional archery shoots a couple of times per year.  I use a 50# longbow which is fairly typical.  Most of the ranges are 20-25 yards.  I am a casual archer and only practice a couple hours per year, outside of the shoots and I can put an arrow usually within a pieplate size around the target, which isnt bad.  Increase that range to 35-50 yards and my accuracy drops to wayyyyy less.  That being said and archer in an army would likely practice everyday and could probably put the arrow within a softball target at that distance.   A combat archer would also practice at longer ranges, which would be imperative to being an effective.  It is sort of like learning to throw rocks accurately, you instictively know how hard and high  to throw at certain ranges because you have done it thousands of times as a child. Anyway what I am trying to get at is, I think your average well-trained archer could be effective out to 50 yards, hitting a man sized target almost everytime. At 100 yards I think the first shot would be lucky to hit but it would at least give the archer his/her range for the next shot.  Im guessing 25-40% hit rate at that range. (Personally I would hit 5-10% lol)

That being said this is about fantasy writing and our heroes cold probably hit a housefly at 350 yards 

One thing I should mention. An archer never pulls the arrow back and stalks his prey or waits for the thief to show herself etc.  I see it all of the time on tv or movies and in books.  In actuality, the archer would have an arrow noched but never pull back on the string until he/she is ready to shoot.  The act of flinging an arrow is kind of like a golf swing, it has a beginning, middle and end.  You pull back the arrow and as soon as your hand touches your anchor point (on your face) you release the arrow in a fluid motion.  (At least that is how it is supposed to be.  Sometimes you can hold it if you want to adjust your aim, but really anything more than a few seconds is not productive.  

Hope you find this useful  and please feel free to ask me questions.  I'm no expert but Ill do my best to help.


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## Caged Maiden

I love archery.  I shoot a traditional long bow (although mine is fiberglass).  I make my own arrows too, so I'll add that.  If anyone wants to know about how to make traditional arrows, I'll give you the low-down.  

Thanks for sharing.  When I began getting really into archery I wrote an archer character, and he's one of my favorites ever.  

The awesome thing about those English longbowmen you mentioned were their devastating impact on battles.  They would draw those big heavy bows, and launch a thousand arrows into the air, felling foes with a devastating cloud of missiles.  That's the thing, they didn't need to be terribly accurate, because one wave of arrows would hit their targets right now... and then another wave would be striking them again right about now... and then another wave would be raining down right about now.  Every 4 seconds another cloud of arrows would hit.  It didn't take long before a field lay still.

Thanks for the wonderful post.  I love that we have more than a few traditional warriors in our midst.


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## Ankari

I own a modern 60 lb draw bow and THAT thing can be brutal! And I consider myself a pretty strong guy.  The English longbows were used on the battlefield only, right?  They wouldn't use such a powerful bow for hunting, would they?


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## Caged Maiden

no not for hunting
In fact, my archery instructor said they were mostly pulled to mid chest rather than fully, and loosed very rapidly.  He's pretty well researched, but I cannot confirm whether that is true.


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## SeverinR

I have a 30 lb fiberglass bow, looking to buy a recurve. 
Shooting for distance is great. I can step out my backdoor aim and shoot across a farmer's field, my compound bow came close to hitting the factory buildiing, but the traditional bow dropped just short of the drive to the factory.

There is the remains of an arrow in the roof of the barn behind our house, my daughter stuck it in the aluminum roof. Her friend dinged my car, with a wild shot, luckily she couldn't pull back far enough.

I have fletched two shafts with feathers I dyed but never cut to length or put a tip on. I do want to complete a set of arrows.

If anyone is interested, boil "Rit" then place the feathers in for several minutes. Turkey feathers look great in red and yellow(barred)


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## John McDonell

LOL there you go and I thought I was the expert.  Mine is glass also...montana longbow 50#.  I haven't made arrows but I'd like to try some time.   I think the arrow storm that you described was the case in Agincourt.  Truly devastating. 
I'm starting to feel like I just came home


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## SeverinR

Do you shoot with a group or just on your own?
I am wanting to get back into SCA with archery. I bought my glass for combat archery, but I am in no condition to face combat.

I have seen many new recurve bows on Ebay, I have bid a few, but they go for a little more then I can afford right now. ($60-$75) 45-60lb pull is what I am looking at. (I want to spend $50 including postage)

12 wood arrows with feathers are $10-12 an arrow.  So I want to make my own.  I got a friend to keep a wing from a turkey they shot when hunting, that's how I got the chance to dye the feathers.


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## Devor

Could you tell me a little about bow and arrows in China and India and how they might have differed from European bows?  Thanks.


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## Caged Maiden

Hey all if you can wait a few days, I'll make an arrow-making tutorial.  It's going to take me a few days to make them and post the videos, but this is just the motivation I need to complete my project!


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## Butterfly

Thought you all might find this interesting.

Battlefield Britain - Battle For Wales - YouTube

The Longbow trials are around 22.30 mins in.


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## Caged Maiden

I hope this pic helps Devor.  While I don't know specifically about the arrows being different in Asia, I know that eastern quivers were rigid and ornately decorated.  If you want to know a little more, I have a research paper I'd be happy to send you about quivers.  Don't know whether that would help you out at all.


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## Caged Maiden

Just to expound on John's original very well-written post, I thought I might translate a few things for people who have never drawn a bow.  When he talks about back muscles, this is regarding draw method.  For English long bow, you draw using your back muscles, both pushing the bow with your left hand and drawing the string with your right.  It's like an spredaing motion using your back rather than holding the bow in your left hand and simply using your right arm entirely to draw back the string.  I hope that clarifies that one thing.  

Also, one major difference between traditional bows and modern ones, is that we now use a cut in shelf, which the arrow rests on when it's being aimed.  Traditional bows have no shelf, and are shot off the hand and that necessitates a glove to be worn over the left hand (because nothing burns and tears skin away quicker than accidentally running your fletches along the top of your hand).  Oww, Even with my cut in shelf I do it sometimes.  When I post my tutorial I'll talk about the differences between modern arrows and period arrows, but the major differences are the self knock (rather than a plastic insert) and tied fletches (rather than glued).  I use self-knocking arrows and both glue and tie my fletches, but in the arrows I'm making now, it will be hard to see since they're all black.  Luckily I have some old ones to illustrate the point on.  

I'll list the supplies on a post on this thread so when I gloss over what I'm using, you all can have a supplies list in case you too want to give it a go.


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## Caged Maiden

Hey, here's a pic you might like.  I went to an event and borrowed a bow since I left mine at home (same style, same draw weight).  HA That was only three snaps!  Call it a learning curve.


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## Ankari

Questions:

1) do archers need to wear gloves on both hands?  One for the string and and because the arrow rests on the hand?

2) Modern archery uses a clasp around the string.  You press a release and the string shoots forth.  The theory is that it's better than using your fingers because fingers cause vibration.  Was something like this used in the past?

3) Explain the act of aiming your bow.  Modern bows have balancers and gauges to help.  How do you aim with a traditional bow?


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## Caged Maiden

wow I don't know anything about modern archery, so all that is foreign to me.  So gloves first.  There is nothing saying you must wear a glove at all, but it's more comfortable, especially if you do not shoot enough to have pretty tough callouses.  SO I shoot a light bow.  It's 30-35 pounds, but I've shot 40-45 too and while it's more tiring, I didn't notice any difference in finger strain.  However I have a friend who shot all day without a glove and over a year later he still has numbness from nerve damage.

So if it were me, a glove which covers the top part of the hand (between thumb joint and index finger) is necessary.  It ought to be covered to protect from what I lovingly call "feather-burn".  That's when the feathers hit your hand and remove a small slice of skin with each pass.  NOW this is also a fletching issue, because if you are using two hen feathers and one cock feather, the problem is the bottom hen feather.  I cannot say what effect you would have with four feathers because I use three.

When you drew a bow, you would knock an arrow like John said, and say stalk your prey.  When you got close, you would draw and release in one fluid motion, not hold the drawn bow for 20 sec to aim.  SO there is no clasp or anything.  Unless you are talking about crossbows, which I can talk about later. 

So I want to talk about the bow itself a little.  It would stand tall as most men or taller, and these were made of a solid piece of wood.  They're called self bows (long straight pieces of carved wood that were bent to make it curve).  The ends would either be made of carved bone or horn, or cut directly into the wood itself.  That's where your string rests, in the carved groove.  Strings can be linen or other fiber, but I think linen was very common.  I don't make strings, but my friend does.

Another thing about wood bows I thought I'd mention because it hasn't been said is that there's a reason not many have survived to study.  Bows are not meant to be saved, they're like car tires, they work for a time and then become broken and they go the way of other useless pieces of wood... into the fire.  Every time you draw a bow, it weakens.  Most of our wooden bows can last 3-5 years, while some people use the same bow for 10 or more, but typically, if you shoot a hand-made traditional long bow, it lasts 3-5.  I've seen a bow break.  It's sort of a frightening thing.  It sounds like a tree falling, you know, that great cracking sound that rips through the air?  Yeah like that, and it isn't quiet.  

Aiming.  Now today most bows, even if they're called traditional feature what's called a cut-in shelf.  This means that rather than one long straight piece of wood that is wider in the middle for your off hand to hold, it features a sort of crooked notch cut in one or both sides.  This is not period.  So an archer today sets their arrow in the same place every time, supposedly to make shooting and aiming more consistent.  But, when you shoot off your hand, it is easy enough to aim because you are aiming in relation to the bow, your knuckles, etc.  

Each bow is a personal tool.  You get used to it, and it's distracting to borrow one.  I have a friend who shoots a 60 pound bow, and if he wants to hit a bulls eye, he needs to aim low and to the left.  His arrow actually CLIMBS after being shot.  So the issue is that when you aim, you are trying to form groups of arrows.  Then once you can do that, you switch where you are aiming and try to slowly bring yourself closer to center.  If my bow fires high and right every time, I need to adjust my grouping, maybe by not aiming at the bulls eye, but aiming at the hay bale below the target.  Nothing feels quite as weird as aiming at the hay bale and scoring a good shot, but that's what happens.  So an archer needs to know their bow.  An easy way is to use your knuckles to gauge where you're aiming, and then you have to know your distance and compensate for wind.  I've been shooting for a relatively short time (3 years) but do so only occasionally, not often enough to develop really good habits.  Consistency is the key to a high score.  

We do some fun tournaments though, like one time we did a pirate ship campaign where we traveled as a group around the field, so you never knew where you were going to be aiming from.  Everyone got three shots at every location, but then we moved again.  So that is certainly more challenging than a stationary target.

I hope that helps.  I'm making some videos to post here that will hopefully clear up more about arrows and fletching, but please ask anything else you want to know.


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## SeverinR

I never shoot long enough to need gloves. Never even had pain from feather burn. I've always had good callouses on my hands.

I love the Battle of Wales link


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## John McDonell

I shoot by myself in my backyard but I was taught by a great archer who lives close by.  I belong to a traditional archery club and there are several shoots per year but I am lucky if I attend 2.  To answer your question Devor, I unfortunately don't know much about Indian or Chinese archery sorry, I should re-name the thread  
Does SCA have maximum draw weights?  A great site for SCA and traditional gear is 3riversarchery although you likely wont get anything in that price range, but they used to have  a bargain section.  
I looking very forward to the arrow making tutorials!!


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## John McDonell

oops just notice that there is a page two.  I am a slow learner.  Great info ...and spectacular bruises!  ouch.  The only thing I would ad about aiming is that there are two main schools of thought growing in popularity, one is instinctive shooting and one is gap shooting.  Instinctive is my preferred method.  For both forms it is imperative to have good consistant form.  Instinctive is aiming by looking at your target and not really even seeing the arrow when you draw.  It is a method that takes LOTS of practice from different ranges and positions.  With instinctive you don't aim at the bullseye, you aim at the smallest possible thing you can clearly define IN the bullseye, such as another arrowhole.  It is concentrating ONLY on that one thing.  You often may have read something like: 'he knew he hit the orc in the eye as soon as the arrow left the string', that would be instinctive shooting.  Gap shooting sound quite a bit like what Caged Maiden has described.  It is a method where you develop your eye to judge the distance to the target and use that knowledge to judge how high or low to aim your arrow.  It also takes LOTS of practice.  In both cases aiming is more a function of figuring out how high or low to aim based on your range, not so much the side to side , although that's obviously important too.  There is  a world of difference in your arrow's trajectory from 20 yards to 30 yards, so the only way to learn that is by repetition.  There are lots of good instructional books and videos out there.  Have fun, but don't 'shoot yer eye out.'


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## Jess A

This may seem like a dumb question:

I was writing a scene where a character is aiming his bow at a creature in the woods whilst his son escapes. He waits until his son is safe before putting away the bow (without shooting the arrow). How could I describe that in basic terms? I read a lot and should know, but I had this mental blank that hasn't gone away.


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## John McDonell

Hmm.. How about:
Describe the father raising the bow (all or halfway) and noching the arrow in one motion.  He watches the creature, knowing that the fluid motion of draw and release were a second away if he had to do it. Knowing he would be more accurate if he didn't try to hold the drawn arrow on target.  As the son escapes he lowers the bow with the arrow still on the string. That's pretty quick and dirty but something along those lines might work.  Hope it helps.
John
PS Could also mention that he tries to avoid banging the arrow against the bow to remain quiet.


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## T.Allen.Smith

When you draw a powerful bow you can hear the string tense and the material of the limbs strain as they bend. You can both see and feel the muscles in your forearms ripple under the weight of the pull. You have to be conscious of your breathing so that it won't throw off your shot. You have to focus towards where you think your target will appear (or stay hidden until the target looks another way then draw). If your target is an animal with honed olfactory senses you may be concerned about getting winded from your body's odor created during the chase.

In a period of hypersensitivity I would focus on sensory details like these. The tension could be built up quite nicely to be let go when the father knows the son is safe. 

The release of tension in this case would be a physical manifestation of the tension felt by a father protecting & worrying over the safety of their child. Also a great way to end a scene perhaps.

Of course this works best if the POV character is the one shooting the bow.


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## Penpilot

I just saw on TV where an archer said he really doesn't need the fletching for the arrows because he's so consistent with his draw back and release. It showed him shooting arrows with and without fletching and his groupings were pretty tight. Any thoughts on this?


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## T.Allen.Smith

Penpilot said:
			
		

> I just saw on TV where an archer said he really doesn't need the fletching for the arrows because he's so consistent with his draw back and release. It showed him shooting arrows with and without fletching and his groupings were pretty tight. Any thoughts on this?



Hmmm. I've never heard of this before. I come from a family of bow hunters who makes their own long bows & arrows (fletched with turkey feathers and all).

The fletching is a stabilization device. The question is, why would an archer want to go without fletching. Just to prove he can?

If that archer had a mounted warrior bearing down on him with a raised battle axe, would he still shoot without or would he prefer to fletch his arrows to compensate for any short comings as an archer? I bet he would fletch.


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## Jess A

John McDonell said:


> Hmm.. How about:
> Describe the father raising the bow (all or halfway) and noching the arrow in one motion.  He watches the creature, knowing that the fluid motion of draw and release were a second away if he had to do it. Knowing he would be more accurate if he didn't try to hold the drawn arrow on target.  As the son escapes he lowers the bow with the arrow still on the string. That's pretty quick and dirty but something along those lines might work.  Hope it helps.
> John
> PS Could also mention that he tries to avoid banging the arrow against the bow to remain quiet.



Thanks for the reply - that last point is a good one. The beast is so focused on the boy that he doesn't see the father, so keeping silent is necessary. The animal doesn't attack the boy in the end so the father has no need to shoot.




T.Allen.Smith said:


> When you draw a powerful bow you can hear the string tense and the material of the limbs strain as they bend. You can both see and feel the muscles in your forearms ripple under the weight of the pull. You have to be conscious of your breathing so that it won't throw off your shot. You have to focus towards where you think your target will appear (or stay hidden until the target looks another way then draw). If your target is an animal with honed olfactory senses you may be concerned about getting winded from your body's odor created during the chase.
> 
> In a period of hypersensitivity I would focus on sensory details like these. The tension could be built up quite nicely to be let go when the father knows the son is safe.
> 
> The release of tension in this case would be a physical manifestation of the tension felt by a father protecting & worrying over the safety of their child. Also a great way to end a scene perhaps.
> 
> Of course this works best if the POV character is the one shooting the bow.



This is a nice descriptive passage, cheers. It's from the boy's POV, but that's not to say that I won't be writing the father using his bow (in his POV) later in the book. I agree that it's a great way to end the scene - particularly as the father has some important, sensitive news to tell the son shortly after. 

---

Cheers for the help, guys! Where is the bow carried on the horse/when not being used (if on foot or on a horse)? Another seemingly dumb question but I don't want to rely on assumptions.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Typically the bow is kept unstrung until it is needed. Although bow strings are waxed to protect them from moisture they are still susceptible to water damage.
I know that some archers used to keep their bow staves in long, leather, tube-like cases that they wore slung over their backs or lashed to a saddle. This was water proofed oiled leather typically.


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## Ankari

T.Allen.Smith said:


> Typically the bow is kept unstrung until it is needed. Although bow strings are waxed to protect them from moisture they are still susceptible to water damage.
> I know that some archers used to keep their bow staves in long, leather, tube-like cases that they wore slung over their backs or lashed to a saddle. This was water proofed oiled leather typically.



Could you expand on that?  If a group of adventurers were traveling from point A to point B which will take about two weeks would they unstring their bow?  Consider that during their travels they are concerned of attacks as the road is dangerous and so is their mission.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Typically yes they would keep the bows unstrung. Now if they heard a strange noise, saw the remnants of a battle, or suspected that highwaymen were near they would string them up. 
A well trained archer can string a bow & have an arrow knocked and drawn in the blink of an eye.


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## Caged Maiden

I'm going to start a new thread just for the tutorial and place a link here.  I thought it might be distracting if replies were posted between the videos because I'm going to have to do several videos.  Thanks for all the interest.


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## Caged Maiden

Archers used secondary weapons.  Most were also trained with a sword or axe.  Bows were only good at a distance, and once your foes closed that gap, you dropped your bow and used your sword.  Whenever you see people traveling with their strung bow draped over their body, it is absolute fiction.  Think about it, I write earlier that every time you draw a bow it weakens.  This means you want to store it flat, protected from water and sun, and carry a few extra strings.  You can ruin a good wood bow by leaving it in your hot car for a day.  Hence why I use fiberglass.  Speaking of which, I took a video of me shooting today, so I thought I'd post it.  Enjoy!


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## Ankari

That's cool, Ani.  By the way, I've heard that bowstrings were made from the intestines of animals like cats and goat.  Has anyone heard of such a thing?  If it is true, what would be the benefit of such a practice?


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## Caged Maiden

linen was very popular.


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## Jess A

T.Allen.Smith - cheers again for the info. I didn't even think of it being unstrung, to be honest. I've probably skim-read over details quite often.

Caged Maiden - cool video. I'd love to learn archery. I'd also like to get back into fencing - it has been a while. I used to make a lot of weapons as a kid, though. Bows and the like. Anything that'd shoot at something else. Some of them actually worked pretty well.


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## John McDonell

Great shooting Ani!,
I just wanted to ad a bit about keeping a primitive bow strung.  (Primitive meaning that it is made from all natural materials ie no glass)  A wood or composite bow will do something called 'following the string' if it is left strung too long, or even after a few hours of shooting.  What that means is that once the bow is unstrung it does not go back to it's regular 'unstrung' shape, rather it 'follows the string' and maintains some of the curve it has when strung, which of course weakens it.  Most bows will recover their unstrung shape after a few days in a dry place if stored properly.  
I have not heard of intestines being used for bowstring but that doesn't mean it isn't true by any means.  I know that tendons and sinew are/were highly valued for 'backing' a bow.  The tendons from the back legs of elks are bought and sold on e-bay for this purpose.  I have never seen it done, but I believe they take the dried tendon, hammer it until it breaks down in to long strips of fibre and glue it on to the back of the bow.  Native Americans used this technique extensively to significantly increase the power of their bows.  Rattlesnake skins were and still are used in the same manner.   Two great magazines with all sorts of information like this are "Traditional Archer" and "Primitive Archer".  I think they both have websites.  Thanks for all the input.  You folks are awesome!


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## Stuart John Evison

I made my own bow, it is a composite of four woods, from the outer bamboo to an inner of heartwood yew. It pulls about 65lbs and with self made hunting arrows is viciously accurate at 100yards.


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## Lightryu68

I love bows I wish I could get a better one, I have a 45# re-curve made from fiber glass I think. I have a few questions about bows in general

1. Can you mix the type of designs of bows such as a re-curve and a long bow? I have a book I am working on and the bow that comes to mind that my characters are using are something like Legolas from Lord of the Rings. 

2. If I mix a design like that what is a maximum draw weight on the bow? 

3. What is the pros and cons of having a quiver on the back vs. having the quiver on the hip

then the thing I want to comment on is the type of string when you talk of linen caged maiden is that the same thing as Flax or is that different


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## T.Allen.Smith

Lightryu68 said:
			
		

> I love bows I wish I could get a better one, I have a 45# re-curve made from fiber glass I think. I have a few questions about bows in general
> 
> 1. Can you mix the type of designs of bows such as a re-curve and a long bow? I have a book I am working on and the bow that comes to mind that my characters are using are something like Legolas from Lord of the Rings.
> 
> 2. If I mix a design like that what is a maximum draw weight on the bow?
> 
> 3. What is the pros and cons of having a quiver on the back vs. having the quiver on the hip
> 
> then the thing I want to comment on is the type of string when you talk of linen caged maiden is that the same thing as Flax or is that different



1. I don't see how you could mix a design of a recurve and a long bow. The advancement from long bow to recurve was a tech advancement. Before recurves, bow limbs only bent one way. The recurve design (2 curves on each bow limb) allowed for a more compact frame while still having a powerful draw weight. A recurve design & a long bow design are mutually exclusive.
I have seen recurve/compound bow hybrids where the limbs curve & compound pulleys lower on the bow limbs aid the ease of the draw. This would likely be too modern for most fantasy applications.

2) There technically is no maximum draw weight on a bow. The draw weight has three factors:
1- the thickness and quality of the materials used        2- the technique used in making the bow (design).  
3- the draw length of the archer. For example, an archer that has a draw length of 28 inches might draw 45 lbs of weight. An archer with longer arms might draw the same bow to 50 lbs of weight because he is pulling the limbs farther back & therefore increasing force. Usually bows are weighted something like this: 55lbs @ 30"

3) quiver placement is purely personal preference. Some quivers are even attached to the bow itself but these usually only hold 6 arrows & are more for modern hunting.
It makes sense to me that quiver placement would be dictated by where an individual wears their melee weapons. If I have 2 long knives in my hips I'd place the quiver on my back.


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## Caged Maiden

Historically, many archers never used quivers.  In a war setting, many used straw bales or the ground, and hunters frequently tucked three arrows in their belts.  I have many historical paintings referencing this for my quiver research paper.  

As far as a hip quiver or a back quiver?  As a female, bunches of straps crossing your chest makes things uncomfortable, but I am making a back quiver after I'm done with my hip quiver.  If you make it yourself, you can adjust for comfort in design.   We have several men and women who use both to great effect.  So personal preference is the deciding factor there.

When I shoot normal target, I use a hip quiver.  When I shoot speed rounds, I stick 8 arrows in my boot.  That way they don't move and they're always in the same place.  

Linen is made from flax, yes.


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## SeverinR

Caged Maiden said:


> Historically, many archers never used quivers.  In a war setting, many used straw bales or the ground, and hunters frequently tucked three arrows in their belts.  I have many historical paintings referencing this for my quiver research paper.
> 
> As far as a hip quiver or a back quiver?  As a female, bunches of straps crossing your chest makes things uncomfortable, but I am making a back quiver after I'm done with my hip quiver.  If you make it yourself, you can adjust for comfort in design.   We have several men and women who use both to great effect.  So personal preference is the deciding factor there.
> 
> When I shoot normal target, I use a hip quiver.  When I shoot speed rounds, I stick 8 arrows in my boot.  That way they don't move and they're always in the same place.



I guess you use only field points, broadheads in the boots or razor tips might hurt.

My first leather project was a quiver. Funny thing, I never attached the straps.


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## Caged Maiden

True that.  I only do target archery, and we aren't allowed to use broadheads.  I am using medieval bodkins for this next project, but only six of my twenty-four arrows will be pointed.  The rest will be field point.

I am making a really neat quiver right now.  If I get it done anytime soon, I'll post some pics.


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## Caged Maiden

Also, I'd like to note that a "quiver" is any container used for transporting arrows.  Historically, this might have meant a leather open quiver at the hip or on the back, or even a bladric style.  Also though, it is used to describe arrow bags which were made of linen and employed leather spacers to separate the arrows within.  It featured a drawstring bottom and top which would be pulled up and pulled tight to protect the feathers.  The arrows were meant to be pulled down and out the bottom in this case, because broadpoints will not pull up through the spacers, rather, the fletches passed down through them.

Also, a quiver might have been an ordinary wooden box and could have stored many arrows.  

Eastern quivers looked different than European ones, in that most often they were made of lacquered wood, sometimes strapped to a saddle to use while mounted.  Other times, they had hinged lids (leather hinges) and could be used on the hip or presumable the back.  

One thing about a back quiver, when making one, you need to make sure it either hangs at an angle which allows for a comfortable draw or cut it in a way so as to have one side mostly open.  Personally I'm used to using a hip quiver, but again, design is really important when going for function.  Back quivers are easier to travel with because they don't flop around when you are moving, but they can be trickier to draw an arrow from.  If speed is important, having arrows in your belt or in a hip quiver might be faster.

Okay so I am starting my tutorial.  I am cutting the videos right now and hope to have this project done by next week, so here's the link for those of you who want to follow and make your own arrows or just learn how they were made for your research.  Thank you for the support and interest.  http://mythicscribes.com/forums/research/3859-arrow-making-tutorial.html


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## Lightryu68

Awesome thanks for both of those posts. Also with that comes the next questions. What are the pros and cons of long bows vs. recurve bows? What wood is best to use in getting more power from the bow? I would imagine that a wood that is more flexible but still more stiff would have a higher draw weight because it would take more strength to bend it which would increase the power.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Lightryu68 said:
			
		

> Awesome thanks for both of those posts. Also with that comes the next questions. What are the pros and cons of long bows vs. recurve bows? What wood is best to use in getting more power from the bow? I would imagine that a wood that is more flexible but still more stiff would have a higher draw weight because it would take more strength to bend it which would increase the power.



Typically English long bows were made with yew. I do know that there are other woods that you can make a long bow from that can outperform yew, like Osage Orange.

The advantage to a recurve is that it isn't as diminished in power as a short bow would be. This is primarily due to the re-curve on the bow limbs. Modern recurves are lined with glass (fiber glass I think). Old style recurves used natural materials like sinew, skins, and bone. Some might called these composite bows.


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## Caged Maiden

Also, more power comes from an archer pulling back a higher pound bow, so keep that in mind.  Flexibility is good (my fiberglass bow is flexible) but it isn't rigid enough to have a high draw weight, and therefore at 40 feet, my arrows sometimes bounce off the target.


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## SeverinR

Can't find a picture of my quiver. Will have to take another.


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## Mindfire

What's the top range of, say, an Apache longbow? (The actual bow, not the attack helicopter.) What about other Native American groups?


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## T.Allen.Smith

Mindfire said:
			
		

> What's the top range of, say, an Apache longbow? (The actual bow, not the attack helicopter.) What about other Native American groups?



Wish I could help you here but I don't know very much about native American longbows. I know that some tribes used them including the Apaches but I don't think they commonly used longbows. 
If I remember correctly, the preferred bow of the Apache was what came to be called the D bow. It's shorter form aided use on horseback.

Sorry, that's all I have on this one.


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## RebekahAimee

People, for the love of kittens: _please_ don't gloss over stringing up your characters' bow! If they're shooting a recurve bow, it needs to be strung. You can keep the bow pre-strung in a dangerous city if nobody there has any objections. Trying to string a bow without a stringer can be a difficult task for someone who's just learned to shoot, unless s/he's also a mage and can string it by magic. Similarly, trying to string a bow in a tight pinch can be a convenient way to create suspense in an ambush and so on.


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## Caged Maiden

I don't know about recurve bows, but my 35 pound long bow strings in about 10 seconds (without a stringer, ankle and knee method).  HOWEVER I tried to cock a 150 pound crossbow last Saturday... and FAILED (almost made it though, but the string was pretty narrow and even with gloves it was really hard).  Oh man, any idiot cannot just pick up one of those and use it.  HA! I just wrote that crossbow into my WIP because it left quite an impression on me.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Most crossbows with that heavy of a draw weight used a crank system to cock the string.

If you were able to almost cock a 150lb draw weight thats actually pretty impressive. Might wanna think about upping that 35 pounder to 45. Lol


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## Mindfire

RebekahAimee said:


> People, for the love of kittens: _please_ don't gloss over stringing up your characters' bow! If they're shooting a recurve bow, it needs to be strung. You can keep the bow pre-strung in a dangerous city if nobody there has any objections. Trying to string a bow without a stringer can be a difficult task for someone who's just learned to shoot, unless s/he's also a mage and can string it by magic. Similarly, trying to string a bow in a tight pinch can be a convenient way to create suspense in an ambush and so on.



Wouldn't you just keep it always stringed (strung?)? If I had a bow and were in a situation where I'd need it readily, I'd not want to waste even 10 seconds stringing the thing. Of course, I have a very slight build so it'd likely take me longer than that. Even more reason to keep it strung (stringed?) constantly.


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## Caged Maiden

I dunno, I'm 125 pounds and 5'3" so I'm certainly not big.  The problem with leaving a bow strung is that it weakens the wood.  So in imminent danger, yes, while traveling, no.  Mine is strung for about two hours every Saturday, and certainly, I wouldn't consider unstringing it while I was still shooting, but the idea that like LOTR, where Legolas travels with his bow strung and carried over a shoulder... well that's just unrealistic.  

@ T Allen: yeah I want one now, but I think I'd go for about 120  both arms ought to be able to pull that for most tournaments, but this one my friend has is kinda wonky.  The stirrup is like hinged and it's sort of tricky.  Hard to get a good grip on the string.  So if I buy one, I'm making sure of two things; it isn't too heavy, and the stirrup isn't hinged.  What  stupid design.  Surely there ought to be a pin of something.


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## Mindfire

Caged Maiden said:


> I dunno, I'm 125 pounds and 5'3" so I'm certainly not big.  The problem with leaving a bow strung is that it weakens the wood.  So in imminent danger, yes, while traveling, no.  Mine is strung for about two hours every Saturday, and certainly, I wouldn't consider unstringing it while I was still shooting, but the idea that like LOTR, where Legolas travels with his bow strung and carried over a shoulder... well that's just unrealistic.



But... it's an elven bow. They don't weaken because... magic.


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## SeverinR

Caged Maiden said:


> I dunno, I'm 125 pounds and 5'3" so I'm certainly not big.  The problem with leaving a bow strung is that it weakens the wood.  So in imminent danger, yes, while traveling, no.  Mine is strung for about two hours every Saturday, and certainly, I wouldn't consider unstringing it while I was still shooting, but the idea that like LOTR, where Legolas travels with his bow strung and carried over a shoulder... well that's just unrealistic.
> .



I slid the bow over my shoulder while collecting arrows, it was not comfortable, Thin string wedged on the shoulder, feels like the string is cutting into skin.
I can't imagine traveling long distance like that. Also the tips tend to bump everything, snag everything.  Running through waist high grass? The string bow-wedge would probably snag the grass, throw off movement, or wear out the string, not to mention the grass clump in the bow.
Unstrung you can secure the bow in the best position to move, with the least chance of hitting something with it, or the least chance to snag on passing obsticles.


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## Mindfire

SeverinR said:


> I slid the bow over my shoulder while collecting arrows, it was not comfortable, Thin string wedged on the shoulder, feels like the string is cutting into skin.
> I can't imagine traveling long distance like that. Also the tips tend to bump everything, snag everything.  Running through waist high grass? The string bow-wedge would probably snag the grass, throw off movement, or wear out the string, not to mention the grass clump in the bow.
> Unstrung you can secure the bow in the best position to move, with the least chance of hitting something with it, or the least chance to snag on passing obsticles.



But... it's an elven bow. They don't do that because... magic.


No, but seriously, didn't Legolas have some kind of bow sheath or something in the movie? I don't think he ever actually hung it on his shoulder by the string.


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## Stuart John Evison

The idea that English longbows would be carried strung and ready for action is I believe incorrect. Most archers would be as well trained with a quarter staff as they were with the bow and a bow stave could be used effectively as a staff in any close quarter combat. If anyone has ever handled an English longbow pulling 150lb ( which would have been low average at Agincourt ) they would know that such a length of Yew is a substantial chunk of wood and takes an extremely strong, fit and practiced archer to handle it. They don't break if you hit someone with them, they hurt.
Bowstrings for such a weapon would be as treasured as the bow stave itself for they were as difficult to manufacture.


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## Caged Maiden

Bow strings were made of linen mostly, we mentioned it earlier, and archers usually carried swords or axes too for close combat.


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## Stuart John Evison

At Agincourt after decimating the charge of the French knights the English archers discarded their bows and other light weapons and sallied forth and picked up the heavier weapons that the French had dropped in their confusion. Dirty and ragged they threw themselves on the men at arms and used these weapons with deadly force against the slower armour encumbered knights, hundreds died this way.
I've made several linen bowstrings in the traditional way, believe me it is a hard skill to master and when you've made a good one you look after it.


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## Jabrosky

What sort of bow or other ranged weapon would best suit a stealthy espionage-type female character? I'm guessing a relatively short bow because she could hide it better.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Jabrosky said:
			
		

> What sort of bow or other ranged weapon would best suit a stealthy espionage-type female character? I'm guessing a relatively short bow because she could hide it better.



Does it have to be a bow type weapon?

If it were my spy character I'd be looking for concealment. Maybe darts or throwing knives would be better suited. Huge range difference but kinda hard to conceal a bow of any type.


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## Stuart John Evison

Recurved bows can be fairly short and are certainly easier to carry and quicker to "loose" when hunting. The Mongols (Genghis Khan and all that) certainly used composite recurves to devastating effect, firing when charging and over the horses rump when retreating. Thus I am sure that any competent fictional spy would have no problem.
The good thing about a traditional horse bow like the Mongols was that they had an ingenious double levered string release which makes it easy and quick to ready if you carry it unstrung.


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## Mindfire

Which would have been more accurate or practical, an early gun or a crossbow from the same period?

I ask this because one of my nations may invent guns and I'm wondering if that would just make more "traditional" weapons instantly obsolete or if the technology would need to evolve some first.


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## Stuart John Evison

I tried to answer the question about early guns before but for some reason it did not get here so:
As I understand it the early guns were used alongside crossbows and longbows for many years from the 16th to the 17th century. It was not until the flintlock replaced the matchlock at the end of the 17th that guns put paid to the old technology.
The introduction of rifling, where the inside of the barrel was given a spiral groove was another leap forward as we redcoats found to our cost when trying to stop the American colonies gaining independence. Incidentally Happy Independence Day U.S.A.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Stuart John Evison said:
			
		

> I tried to answer the question about early guns before but for some reason it did not get here so:
> As I understand it the early guns were used alongside crossbows and longbows for many years from the 16th to the 17th century. It was not until the flintlock replaced the matchlock at the end of the 17th that guns put paid to the old technology.
> The introduction of rifling, where the inside of the barrel was given a spiral groove was another leap forward as we redcoats found to our cost when trying to stop the American colonies gaining independence. Incidentally Happy Independence Day U.S.A.



This is what I understand as well. 

Matchlocks & wheel-locks were prone to misfire & did not function well in moist conditions. With the invention of the flintlock, these problems were minimized, or at least they were more easily guarded against.

Swords, armor, bows, crossbows, mounted knights, and firearms (even crude cannon) all existed together for a substantial amount of time. As firearms improved, they made the others obsolete. 

In a fantasy world though, as long as you can explain their coexistence logically then I wouldn't be too concerned. I understand the desire to have a similar chronology to our own though.


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## Mindfire

The reason for my question is this:

[EXPOSITION]During the course of my world's history, the throne of Elyssia is usurped by a new regime run by Hadrian Count Cicero and his wife Clementia, who then procede to invest heavily in new weapons technologies, resulting in the invention of the first firearms. After Hadrian's death, Clementia reverses his policy on closely guarding the secrets of dark magic, and begins teaching a hand-picked group of initiates in its use, resulting in a group of highly skilled assassins known as the Clementine Acolytes (name still in flux). Eventually this regime is overthrown by Titus Aquilus, true heir to the Elyssian throne.[/EXPOSITION]

So after Titus comes into power, I'm planning to have him make a clean break from the previous regime by getting rid of the new firearms, banning dark magic, and instead going back to using traditional weapons and only exploring peaceful uses for new technology. But I'm also thinking that he might still be pursuing more advanced firearms in secret. (He can't train new initiates in Dark Magic because all its users will likely be dead at the war's end, unless I have one of the Acolytes survive, but I doubt my heroes would let that happen.)

Given these circumstances, would it be believable that Titus would, at least publicly, discontinue the use of firearms as a show of good faith and arm his forces with spears, swords, crossbows, etc. while engineering better weapons in secret, if at all?


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## Caged Maiden

It might help if you detailed the sort of equivalent time period in Earth's history.  That might give you some ideas of relevant technologies.  Magic of course might be an equalizer, but if one side has canons and the other only has spears, that wouldn't be very likely.


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## ascanius

Sorry if some of this has already been answered.

Ok my first question concerns the difference between a reflex, and a recurve bow.  From what I have been able to gather a reflex bow forms a c away from the shooter when unstrung, while a recurve forms a [ away from the shooter.  Now my questions.  First what is the difference in performance between these two types.  From what I have read the reflex offers much more power due to the way energy is stored throughout the bow.  While the recurve offers a greater initial power due to how the ends store the majority of the power so it gets a sudden push off the bat.  Is that right? any other differences that I should note.

Also would you happen to know the process in making such bows, especially with the use of horn bows.  I know different strips of wood are glued together with the horn used on the outside but I have been unable to find the process, especially if they cut the wood in that shape or shape it through some other means.

Third.  The wood used, what type of wood is used in making bows, hard, soft, in between.  Are there any properties that are better suited to different types.  

Fourth.  What does the horn actually do for the bow?  How much is needed, what type?

Fifth.  What about the string?  I know it is sinew but how do you get a length of sinew for a bow string.  I've butchered animals before and I have never seen a nice string already made.

Sixth.  Are special considerations made for arrows of different types of bows?  Like does a long bow use a larger arrow than a recurve or vice versa.

Seven.  What about the optimal uses for each type of bow.


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## Stuart John Evison

Maybe the introduction of a character who is an alchemist, after all the knowledge of making explosive powders came about long before the introduction of cannons from which guns themselves were developed.
Gunpowder: Saltpetre 75%, charcoal 15% and sulphur 10% ground and pulverised. This produces grain powder and up until 1500 all gunpowder was like that. At this time it was discovered that to moisten it and work it into a dough, dry and reground it improved its explosive properties remarkably, putting it simply it made the ingredients combine more completely. This new meal powder was what really made small bore weapons efficient enough to replace bows and cross bows.


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## Stuart John Evison

You need the help of a real expert, a fletcher and bowmaker . Try Fairbow
James Farrar; [email protected]


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## Stuart John Evison

This was a great B.B.C. series
Battlefield Britain-Battle For Wales-Youtube


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## SeverinR

For the early firearms versus bows:
The bow could fire alot faster then a firearm, I believe the bow was alot more accurate and more reliable, plus it was the trusted favorite.
As firearms improved, the bow's advantage declined, the popularity of the firearm gained. 

The trusted favorite: Generations passed on to generations how to make and use bows and arrows. Constructing bow and arrows, and the use of them were a work of art.  Fletcher, bowsmith, and archers were part of an art form.
Firearms had to build up this following.  How many people are going to trust holding a moderate explosion near their body, even if they see someone else stupid enough to do it and survive?
Also the chance of accident or misfire, would be a big set back to someone trusting their life in a chunk of dull metal.  Misfire means the shooter was in danger of death while trying to clear the gun, while the accident meant the gun exploded, ruptured or caused injury to the shooter, two of three meant the shooter was without a weapon(it was destroyed), the last meant the shooter might be called lefty or the late Mr____.
What does the average archer shoot in a minute versus the faster firearm shooter in the beginning? 6 to 1, 8-1?
Early in conflicts, did the shooters even try to reload during or after a charge?


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## Caged Maiden

ascanius said:


> Third.  The wood used, what type of wood is used in making bows, hard, soft, in between.  Are there any properties that are better suited to different types.



Yew, hickory, You can pretty much use a wide variety, but those are popular.  Poundage makes a difference, but also how much you are using it.  Some woods hold up better to more use.




ascanius said:


> Fourth.  What does the horn actually do for the bow?  How much is needed, what type?



The horn is for the ends, it is what the string loops over  I have never seen horn used for the bow itself.
Incidentally, you can also use horn pieces for your nocks.



ascanius said:


> Fifth.  What about the string?  I know it is sinew but how do you get a length of sinew for a bow string.  I've butchered animals before and I have never seen a nice string already made.



I have already said that strings are linen.   You can use any fiber that is strong enough, but I have never seen a sinew string.  If you are talking about English long bows, the string is most likely linen.



ascanius said:


> Sixth.  Are special considerations made for arrows of different types of bows?  Like does a long bow use a larger arrow than a recurve or vice versa.


 Yes.  My arrows are approved up to a 45 pound bow.  After that, the shafts would have to be thicker to deal with the extra force of the string in the self nock.  My friend made an English war arrow, the king you use with a 150 pound bow, and it's freaking massive.  There is no reason you would use different arrows for a long bow or recurve, since your draw length is the same for them both.  Arrow lengths depend on the archer not the bow.  I'm small, so I cut 2"-3" off my shafts.  Someone really tall might have to order longer shafts because they wouldn't be able to use a shorter arrow at full draw.  When this happens, and your short arrow slips off the shelf or your hand, you end up with an arrow through your hand.  



ascanius said:


> Seven.  What about the optimal uses for each type of bow.



Well there are benefits to having a shorter bow if you are on horseback...


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## Caged Maiden

Here's my new quiver.








[/IMG]
	

	
	
		
		



		
		
	


	





[/IMG]


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## Caged Maiden

And the arrows I just did.







[/IMG]







[/IMG]


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## T.Allen.Smith

Primitive bowstrings were made from the sinew of many types of animals (deer, elk, buffalo, etc.). 

The method for making a bowstring from sinew is similar to the way you make a rope from plant fiber. It's basically a hook & twist knot that ties pieces of sinew together to make a long bowstring.


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## Caged Maiden

That may be true with native American bows.. but if we are talking European longbows, hemp cord and linen would have been most used.  Sinew rots quickly in moisture and would have been less desirable.  Linen is stronger than hemp, so for the bigger war bows, I'm sure it was preferred.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Caged Maiden said:
			
		

> That may be true with native American bows.. but if we are talking European longbows, hemp cord and linen would have been most used.  Sinew rots quickly in moisture and would have been less desirable.  Linen is stronger than hemp, so for the bigger war bows, I'm sure it was preferred.



Yes, I'm talking about primitive bows much earlier than the longbow or recurve designs.


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## Caged Maiden

A primitive bow is another thing altogether.  I just wanted to point out to Ascanius, who posted the strings were obviously made from sinew, that that is not the case with the types of bows mentioned in the post.  It would be an inappropriate choice depending on the weight of the bow and style, and for some reason, many people seem to assume all bows are strung with sinew, which they are not.  While sinew would function for one category of bow,there are plant materials which were far more common.


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## Ravana

ascanius said:


> Ok my first question concerns the difference between a reflex, and a recurve bow.  From what I have been able to gather a reflex bow forms a c away from the shooter when unstrung, while a recurve forms a [ away from the shooter.



Essentially you have it. A reflex bow curves completely away from the user; a recurve curves away at the tips. I can't speak directly to comparative performance, having only fired recurve and straight bows, but I would have to guess that reflex bows would at a minimum wear out more rapidly, as they are being put under greater stresses (that is, they're bent farther from their "natural" shape) simply by being strung. One would also expect them to be harder to string—which is my understanding. (One article mentions their propensity for "reversing themselves suddenly." Ouch.)

One might be tempted to evaluate performance based on the cultures which used each type. Most of Europe and Asia used recurves, for at least four thousand years, so it isn't a question of technological availability. The two major exceptions were the English—the longbow is a straight self bow, not a recurve or reflex; and the Mongols and their near kin (the Turks in particular)—who used reflex bows. That having been said… the longbow was also much longer than most bows it went up against (hence the name); the Mongol horse bow was shorter than most bows it went up against, due to the way it was intended to be used. So it becomes more a question of different solutions to achieving a goal than it does to inherent superiority of one construction over another. Certainly, a six-foot-tall reflex bow constructed in the Mongol fashion could be expected to have a pull weight greater than that of the longbow… so great no one could draw it, I would imagine.

Note also that all or nearly all reflex and recurve bows are composite bows, whereas the longbow is made from a single piece of wood. Which is why I specified "constructed in the Mongol fashion." A reflex bow made to less exacting demands wouldn't be as powerful; if you made a reflex bow from a single piece of wood you'd be fortunate if it didn't snap the first time you tried to string it. 



> Also would you happen to know the process in making such bows, especially with the use of horn bows.  I know different strips of wood are glued together with the horn used on the outside…
> 
> Fourth.  What does the horn actually do for the bow?  How much is needed, what type?



Yes. Horn was not used exclusively to reinforce the tips: in fact, as far as I know, doing so was a fairly late development, and was done for the same reasons it was done to other parts of the bow. Composite bows are made from a variety of materials, with wood being the core; horn would be glued to some of the surfaces facing the archer, as it has greater resistance to compression than wood; sinew would be glued to some of the opposite surfaces, as it can be stretched farther than wood, thereby allowing extra layers for which snapping under stress is not a worry. The wood itself might be made of multiple layers laminated together as well. In all cases, the glue would have been made from animal hide or fish swim bladders (I did not know the latter until just now). The bow's construction might be further reinforced by having sinew wrapped around it—this adds nothing to the force of the bow itself, only its resistance to coming apart.

The amount is not great: the horn layers are fairly thin. From what I'm reading, water buffalo is a good choice, most antelope, goat and sheep horn is acceptable (which makes sense, the Mongols not being great herders of water buffalo); most other cattle are not good sources, as the horn doesn't hold together as well over the long term. The horn is not carved, in case you were wondering: it was separated in layers and flattened.

Note that not all composite bows employed horn and/or sinew: some were made solely of laminated wood.



> Third.  The wood used, what type of wood is used in making bows, hard, soft, in between.  Are there any properties that are better suited to different types.



One that isn't likely to break when you bend it. 

Seriously: a great many woods have been used historically, and the choice probably had a lot more to do with what was available than what was "better." Here, however, is where the English longbow derived its "technological" advantage: most were made of yew, and of a very specific _part_ of the yew—the interface between outer sapwood and inner heartwood. The heartwood has a high resistance to compression, and goes on the inside of the bow, while the sapwood has a high tensile strength, and goes on the outside. Thus, by cutting the bow from the correct part of the tree, you obtain what is _effectively_ a composite bow… but from a single piece of wood. 

Elm, ash, hazel, hickory, and numerous other woods have seen use, as has bamboo; some pretty much require composite construction in order to make good bows, others can make reasonable, though not superior, bows by themselves. Mongol bows have a core of birch; Turkish, commonly of maple. I doubt pine would be very good; I also haven't seen willow mentioned—I would have thought the wood in the trunk at least would be good, but as with pine it might be a bit too flexible, or else store compressive strength poorly (or both).



> Fifth.  What about the string?  I know it is sinew but how do you get a length of sinew for a bow string.  I've butchered animals before and I have never seen a nice string already made.



You need to separate the strands and twist them, i.e. treat them like any other fiber. And, yes, it was a fairly common material in various places and times, if not one noted for resistance to water. Then again, flax and hemp strings aren't invulnerable to water, just less affected by it. Hemp was (and still is) used with the Japanese _yumi_. Silk, which I would imagine makes great string, saw employment in the east. Other materials include intestines, hide and, at least purportedly, hair. The Mongols used animal hide—preferring horse hide. (I would have thought sinew easier than slicing hide thin enough and stretching it. I guess, based on building bows the way they did, "easy" wasn't a major issue with them.)



> Sixth.  Are special considerations made for arrows of different types of bows?  Like does a long bow use a larger arrow than a recurve or vice versa.



The arrow length ought to correspond to the draw length. As mentioned, however, longbows were not necessarily drawn back as far as their size might suggest—the best evidence for this being from the _Mary Rose_: the arrows averaged 30 inches long, which is actually toward the short end of modern hobby archery arrows, and no longer than the average Mongol arrow. Japanese arrows ranged from 34 to 44 inches, depending on how tall the user was. Depending on available materials, arrows could be as long as five feet—but usually these were fired by crummy bows that needed the draw length to get enough force in the first place. 

While arrows for heavier draw weights might be thicker, this can be as much a result of opportunity as need: a heavier draw allows you to throw a heavier projectile the same distance as a lighter draw and shaft, thereby delivering greater force at the long end of the range. Also, heavier projectiles are less prone to drifting off course. Splitting _might_ be a problem, but it can be a problem no matter how thick the arrow is, since the force of the string is going to push along the grain of the shaft no matter what. If the fletches are tied, the sinew or thread will prevent the shaft from splitting… at least long enough to get it off the string once. 



> Seven.  What about the optimal uses for each type of bow.



To kill the other guy first. 

Shorter bows are easier to use from horseback, though the Japanese addressed this problem by making their bows asymmetrical, with the portion above the grip much longer than that below it. (Whether this was the original reason for the design or not is debated: the result was the same.) More powerful bows give you greater range, penetration, or both. So a short powerful bow is more desirable when mounted; when standing, length is less of an issue. Lighter bows are easier to draw, and to hold steady while aiming, though in massed fire this is rarely a consideration. (The English, by the way, _didn't_ "draw" their bows: they pushed. Which, I can tell you from experience, is a _lot_ easier. Not sure how many others did this… but it wasn't many.)

Beyond that, more depends on tactics than on bow type. And on training: in the end, what made the English and the Mongols superior bowmen was that they were raised to it—_all_ of them were, at least during the periods these weapons saw dominance on the field.


----------



## KorbentMarksman

T.Allen.Smith said:


> When you draw a powerful bow you can hear the string tense and the material of the limbs strain as they bend. You can both see and feel the muscles in your forearms ripple under the weight of the pull. You have to be conscious of your breathing so that it won't throw off your shot. You have to focus towards where you think your target will appear (or stay hidden until the target looks another way then draw). If your target is an animal with honed olfactory senses you may be concerned about getting winded from your body's odor created during the chase.
> 
> In a period of hypersensitivity I would focus on sensory details like these. The tension could be built up quite nicely to be let go when the father knows the son is safe.
> 
> The release of tension in this case would be a physical manifestation of the tension felt by a father protecting & worrying over the safety of their child. Also a great way to end a scene perhaps.
> 
> Of course this works best if the POV character is the one shooting the bow.



That was incredibly helpful, thank you very much.


----------



## wordwalker

Caged Maiden said:


> One thing about a back quiver, when making one, you need to make sure it either hangs at an angle which allows for a comfortable draw or cut it in a way so as to have one side mostly open.  Personally I'm used to using a hip quiver, but again, design is really important when going for function.  Back quivers are easier to travel with because they don't flop around when you are moving, but they can be trickier to draw an arrow from.  If speed is important, having arrows in your belt or in a hip quiver might be faster.http://mythicscribes.com/forums/research/3859-arrow-making-tutorial.html



I had heard that back quivers were pure Hollywood, or at least not used by English yeomen, because archery moves derived from hunting and drawing arrows from the back would be such a wide motion it would attract an animal's eye.


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## JOATWarrior

That's beautiful.  Really cool quiver.


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## grimreaper

This question is not directly archery-related, but I thought I should post it here. I have been reading a lot about how mounted archery was a tactic used by a lot of succesful warrior races. I even read that this was what caused the defeat of the Romans at the hands of the Visigoths. My question is, exactly how effective was this tactic? Also what measures could the opposing army take against this?


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## grimreaper

Also , on the subject of warrior races, can someone please tell me something about the Scythians? I know little about them , except that they were very brutal, had a fearsome reputation as warriors , lived on the Russian grasslands and were , possibly , great goldsmiths. Any help would be appreciated.


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## dangit

Ankari said:


> Questions:
> 
> 1) do archers need to wear gloves on both hands?  One for the string and and because the arrow rests on the hand?
> 
> 2) Modern archery uses a clasp around the string.  You press a release and the string shoots forth.  The theory is that it's better than using your fingers because fingers cause vibration.  Was something like this used in the past?



Archers need to wear a finger tab or glove on the hand drawing back the string 
	

	
	
		
		



		
			






.

And actually you don't need to use a release aid (the clamp you mentioned) for modern bows at least not all of them, you do need one for compound bows (often used for hunting they have pulleys that lesson the weight you're pulling back) but not for recurve bows (the kind used in the olympics).








 recurve.








 Compound.


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## Mindfire

What's the purpose of finger tabs? Did all archers use them, or only Europeans? I ask because I never see them used by Native American or Asian archers.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Fingers tabs and gloves lessen the impact of the string on the fingers and protect the skin. In the past, trained archers that shot all the time, developed hard callouses and therefore did not need leather tabs. In modern times, shooters don't use bows even nearing the amount of time that a military longbow archer would have. Therefore, shooters that use their weapons less would benefit from the finger protection.


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## dangit

T.Allen.Smith said:


> Fingers tabs and gloves lessen the impact of the string on the fingers and protect the skin. In the past, trained archers that shot all the time, developed hard callouses and therefore did not need leather tabs. In modern times, shooters don't use bows even nearing the amount of time that a military longbow archer would have. Therefore, shooters that use their weapons less would benefit from the finger protection.



Yeah T. Allen's right.


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## Caged Maiden

Actually, I just took a speed-shooting class, and I'll tell you what, it's way easier to shoot without a glove.  Problem is, yeah you can get nerve damage in your fingers if you say, shoot all afternoon, without callouses.  I have a friend who did that.

Even with gloves, your fingers can bleed after a tournament, depending on the weight.  I usually don't have many problems with my 30 pound bow.  I get sore through the glove, and I shoot every week.  The tab does the same thing, but it's only on the inside of your fingers.  

Mongol archers used a horn thumb ring to draw their strings, that's why they didn't have gloves and tabs.

As far as measures against mounted archers, pikemen are typically used for cavalry charges, but I'm not sure whether the Mongols often collided with Germans or English, who employed a lot of pikemen.  Caltrops are the best for that, laming the horses on the field, but I'm not very knowledgeable about the fighting styles themselves, just the concepts of archery.  However, the mounted archers would carry big quivers of arrows, and have several of them strapped to a saddle.  Their bows were small and light, and could fire quickly, plus they had the maneuverability of being mounted.  all in all, not a bad concept.  But, terrain might play a factor, as would feeding all those horses.  Remember, when armies moved, they had to maintain a lot of supplies.


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## Stuart John Evison

I make my own traditional longbows and whereas finger tabs help, having hardened craftsman hands and fingers helps more.


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## Caged Maiden

I want a really traditional long bow.  DO you trade?


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## dangit

Stuart John Evison said:


> I make my own traditional longbows and whereas finger tabs help, having hardened craftsman hands and fingers helps more.


I can see that.


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## Ireth

Quick question about a scenario in my book: A character is fleeing from a group of armed guards on horseback, toward a gateway between worlds. The guard at the front of the group is an archer, who fires at him as he jumps through the gateway. The arrow flies through the gate along with the fleeing character, who winds up a few feet from a brick wall on the other side. I intend for the arrow to miss the character and hit the wall instead. Would the impact make the arrow stick into the wall or just bounce off? It may be important to note that the arrowhead in question is bronze.


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## T.Allen.Smith

It might stick if it hit the mortar between the bricks regardless of arrow type. There, it may be brittle enough for deep penetration.

It also would depend on the type of arrowhead. I'm not talking about the material it is constructed from but rather, the design. There are field points, which are generally just a conical shaped heads mainly used for target practice. There are broadheads which are bladed heads. These can have anywhere from 2 to 4 blades and also may combine blades of different sizes (like 2 main blades and two smaller blades radiating out from the centers of the larger blades). There are also square heads, often with a pyramidal point on the tip. These would be used to punch through armor.

If I was the writer, I would have the tip design match its intended target. Are the target characters armored? If so, use a square head. That would offer the greatest potential for wall penetration as well. If they are not armored then a broadhead is most likely. For that, you'd probably have to hit the mortar between bricks or it would certainly break, bounce off, or both. Either way, the arrow would hit with enough force to damage the wall even if it doesn't stick. Perhaps that would serve your story in a similar fashion.


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## Ireth

Thanks T, this is quite helpful. ^^ The characters in question are not armored, so I think I'll go with a broadhead.


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## The Writer's Realms

I have read and viewed a lot of scenarios where a character uses a bow in hopes to score a kill stealthily, but usually I never observe these bows with silencers. When I shoot my recurve without silencers it's pretty noisy and seems to vibrate more as well. Is this the case for all bows or are some just made better for stealth?


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## T.Allen.Smith

I'm not certain of this but I believe that silencers are used more with recurves because the string contacts the limbs of the bow to a greater extent. The contact of the string on wood makes a lot of noise.


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## wordwalker

Um, what does a silencer on a bow look like? (_Strange_ images in my head...) And what does it bring the sound down to?


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## John McDonell

Longbows use silencers also.  A silencer is usually a specific type of fur, like beaver wove in to the bowstring halfway between the ends and the middle.  They are about 2-3 inches long usually and look like a ball of fur when placed on the string.  They work by dampening the sound of the "twang" that the string makes when released.  I am not sure if they are effective at reducing "string slap" on recurves as mentioned above.  Hunters use silencers because deer will often "jump the string" which means that when they hear the string "twang" they begin to jump.  The first part of the jump motion is actually a crouch so the arrow will pass over the top of the deer.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Modern bow silencers are most often made of rubber. There are many different shapes and types. Those I'm familiar with are shaped like a half sphere with the flat pointing down. The rounded rubber rests just on the limb under the lowest point where the string contacts the limb. The rubber then strikes the limb along with the string, reducing the twang.

There are also silencers that look like small tags of rubber, attached about 8-10" below the contact point. These are meant to absorb string vibration.

Older methods of reducing string noise (that are still occasionally used in combination with the above) are thin felt pads, attached to the upper sections of the bow limbs. These separate the string from the limbs and also help to deaden sound. I've seen many hunting bows where all three types are employed. 

There are certainly more types. These are the ones I have personal experience with.


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## BWFoster78

What considerations do I need to be concerned with if my scene takes place during a storm?  Will the archers completely avoid using their wood bows or is it not a big deal for a short time?  Will they just keep them protected until needed?  What happens to the bowstrings (I swear I've read a book or books where they were always concerned with keeping the strings dry)?

Thanks.


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## T.Allen.Smith

BWFoster78 said:


> What considerations do I need to be concerned with if my scene takes place during a storm?  Will the archers completely avoid using their wood bows or is it not a big deal for a short time?  Will they just keep them protected until needed?  What happens to the bowstrings (I swear I've read a book or books where they were always concerned with keeping the strings dry)?
> 
> Thanks.



It wet weather, archers had to protect their strings. Typically, strings were waxed to protect them from moisture (still used in some strings today) but wax coatings do not last forever. These wax coatings could protect for short intervals. A bow can be strung in seconds so keep that in mind when deciding when your characters will employ their bows. There are methods and tools that make the stringing of bows very efficient.

For the most part, bows would be left unstrung in wet conditions unless they were absolutely necessary. This has more to do with the strings than the bow staves themselves as the wood can be treated to better protect against the elements. Still, overexposure can cause wood to warp, or layers to loosen, diminishing the power or accuracy of the bow.

Also, archers usually carried several prepared bowstrings. They wear out over time from normal use but spares were also important to replace strings damaged by adverse weather.

The only other consideration, which is fairly obvious, is wind speed and it's impact on arrow flight.


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## BWFoster78

Good deal.  I got from that: the archers would be careful, but the bows can be used.


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## T.Allen.Smith

BWFoster78 said:


> Good deal.  I got from that: the archers would be careful, but the bows can be used.



Yes...unless they were down to their last or only string...then they might not.

I've hunted with a traditional longbow with traditional waxed strings in wet weather (some of my uncles make their own bows & my father used to make arrows they used to hunt) and never had problems. Typically, hunts would last 4 to 5 hours. But, we had a lot of strings at home if one went bad.

Having your archers be knowledgable enough to fashion strings in the field would go a long way in their willingness to use them in adverse conditions.


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## Stuart John Evison

Fire at a wall at an angle and the arrow will usually bounce off quite often in pieces. :0


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## KorbentMarksman

I have twp questions about bows, mainly of what they would be made of in certain environments.
1 - in a desert area similar to Egypt, what wood would they be made from?
2 - in a mountainous area like the Swiss Alps.


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## Lycan999

I do not know much about Indian and Chinese bows, but I can enlighten you a bit about Japanese bows traditionally used by samurai. The Japanese word for bow is yumi, and it is radically different than any of its Western counterparts. They were typically made of bamboo and usually quite larger than the actual archer, and had a slight recurve at the ends. The biggest difference, though, was unlike bows from the rest of that were gripped and held in the middle, the yumi was gripped at about 2/3 of the way down the bow. As I said before, this weapon was traditionally used by samurai and because of the shape it could be used both on foot or on horseback despite its size. It remained a prominent weapon in the samurai arsenal until the modernization of the Japanese army when samurai became more political figures than actual warriors, but the practice of making and using these bows survives to today, much like the legendary katana. It even survived the arrival of gunpowder weapons, mostly because it was still more reliable than the average firearm.


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## CupofJoe

KorbentMarksman said:


> I have twp questions about bows, mainly of what they would be made of in certain environments.
> 1 - in a desert area similar to Egypt, what wood would they be made from?
> 2 - in a mountainous area like the Swiss Alps.


I am no expert on this but in the Swiss Alps they should have Ash, Oak and Yew trees all of which make good bows.
As for Egypt, I would guess that horn bows were used as there may be a limitation on how much wood was available... but there was always trading to get the "good" weapons. Arms dealing has to be one of the oldest professions...


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## Sia

How are the different weapons (both manufacture of and use of)  affected by one little minor detail of my world: For some one reason, I have an awful lot of lefties running around. It's gotten to the point that like 90% of the population are lefties.


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## Valentinator

I have a question about modern sport bows that look fancy, have these counterweights etc.. Are they better in real battle or they are less practical? Would an ancient archer choose modern bow over his own if he had such chance?

I mean of course modern bows must be better I just need to know whether they need some additional modifications to be optimal for the battle.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Valentinator said:


> I have a question about modern sport bows that look fancy, have these counterweights etc.. Are they better in real battle or they are less practical? Would an ancient archer choose modern bow over his own if he had such chance?
> 
> I mean of course modern bows must be better I just need to know whether they need some additional modifications to be optimal for the battle.



Modern bows with mechanical systems really only accomplish one element in archery. They make holing the draw easier..lighter. For example, holding a 60 pound recurve bow or longbow at a 30 inch draw weight takes a good deal of strength to do for any length of time. Most longbows used in warfare were much heavier (100 pounds of draw weight took a long time to train up to, strength-wise).

If you pull a modern, mechanical bow, you'll notice a heavy initial pull. However, past the first 6 inches the pulleys take over, decreasing the draw weight to a minimal amount. This enables archers to hold their draw much longer & also, if they can handle the initial draw weight, use heavier weighted bows without the enormous amount of bow arm strength training.

Concerning normal arrow flight, power, range, speed, etc., nothing really changes outside of the elements that are affected by the bow's draw weight.

Modern recurves and other bows like this can be better also because of the ways layers are laminated with glass and other materials. I think your question referred mainly to compound bows and mechanical systems of that nature though.


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## Valentinator

Thanks a lot for the answer. I change a question a little bit - So you say modern bow is easier to pull and hold. Does it mean that if you take all modern technology and make a 100 pounds bow, you will get a extra powerful battle bow?


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## T.Allen.Smith

Valentinator said:


> Thanks a lot for the answer. I change a question a little bit - So you say modern bow is easier to pull and hold. Does it mean that if you take all modern technology and make a 100 pounds bow, you will get a extra powerful battle bow?



No. You still have a 100 pound bow that will apply the same force to the arrow as a 100 pound longbow. The only difference is the modern compound bow will be easier to draw & hold at full draw.


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## Chessie

I am still reading through this thread, but I wanted to say THANK YOU to those who have placed the information on here about bows! Its very interesting and also saves me valuable research time by providing a starting point. Sweet!


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## Valentinator

T.Allen.Smith said:


> No. You still have a 100 pound bow that will apply the same force to the arrow as a 100 pound longbow. The only difference is the modern compound bow will be easier to draw & hold at full draw.



Got it, I misunderstood the concept. OK, thanks for the information!


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## Stuart John Evison

The conversation on this thread has again piqued my interest and I again find I wish to contribute my three penny worth. The debate of whether modern bows are more deadly than their ancestors depends in practice totally on the archer. To illustrate I once knew a dart player whose party piece was to throw ordinary three inch nails at the dart board, his accuracy and proficiency with such a primitive arrow or dart was amazing and better than others throwing with a proper dart. My point being that there will always be an exception to any accepted rule about such matters and in archery there will always be a Robin Hood whose familiarity and talent with the bow will not only make the impossible seem commonplace, they will make the rest of us look like the amateurs we are even when using string and sticks.


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## Malik

I shoot a 55-lb. handmade recurve. I bowhunt, traditional style, spot-and-stalk and stillhunting.

The single thing that I see in books and movies time and again that drives me absolutely NUTS, which I haven't seen addressed here, is when *somebody gets shot with an arrow and the arrow sticks out of his chest -- or even worse, his stomach.* 

My father-in-law got a complete pass-through on a 300-lb. bear a few years ago with a 48-lb. longbow and a traditional steel broadhead. Double-lunged him. Missed the shoulders, but that's a big animal nonetheless. The arrow went so far into a thicket on the other side that he never recovered it. 

A well-made bow that transfers its force efficiently to the arrow can drive that arrow clear through anything on this planet that is made of meat. I've seen pass-through shots on 700-lb. bull elk with traditional tackle.

_Sharp hunting arrows shot by hunting-weight bows (40+ lbs.) at effective ranges do not stick out of man-sized bodies. _They do not. Ever. For that matter, the long, heavy armor-piercing arrowheads used against guys in mail would penetrate even better; they're _specifically built for maximum penetration._

Arrows do not hit and stick. They make holes; two of them, to be precise: an entrance hole and an exit hole. Big, nasty, ugly holes. You can practically drop a golf ball into the exit wound from a steel broadhead. 

This is a picture of a pass-through on a 200-lb. deer. Vegans, you can just leave this thread now.



Spoiler: GRAPHIC DEPICTION OF BROADHEAD EXIT WOUND.













What makes the bow such a frightening weapon, when you think about this (and can we PLEASE not turn this into an anti-hunting thread) is the reaction from the animals when you shoot them. If you're a target shooter, or if you're a gentle, decent soul who can only imagine killing something as a description in a book, you won't know this. You _can't_ know this. But it's important that you know this, because your characters will know this, and more importantly, it will keep you from being wrong when you write your archery scenes. 

The animal has NO IDEA what happened. There's no report, like there is with a gun. The arrow goes through -- yes, THROUGH -- so fast that you're sometimes unsure of whether or not you hit it or where. _(EDIT: Another thing: you count on a pass-through because recovering the arrow is key to tracking and recovering the animal; the type and amount of blood on the arrow lets you know where you hit the animal and therefore what to watch for.)_ The animals jump when they're hit, they scamper off, and they run for a bit and then pass out, usually under a tree where they think they're safe. They look very peaceful when you find them. They have no idea what happened.

If you were shot with an arrow, you'd have no clue what happened to you, either. Intellectually, you could probably put it together. This is where we differ from prey animals. We are an apex predator. We figure things out. 

It would probably feel like getting the wind knocked out of you -- you take a sledgehammer to the chest or the gut or the back, out of nowhere, and then suddenly you're bleeding everywhere and freaking out. (Tracking a double-lung-hit deer, it looks like someone was running full-speed through the woods with an open can of red paint.) 

You wouldn't hear the arrow, you wouldn't hear the string, you wouldn't even know what direction the arrow came from -- if you knew it was an arrow at all. It's not like you're going to go looking for it right then. You'd only know that you'd been shot if you had prior knowledge of what arrow wounds look like. Which, to be fair, most warrior-types or anyone who hunted for food would.

Think about that for a moment. Better yet, think about it for more than a moment; think about that and go back and re-write your archery scenes. Please.


----------



## KorbentMarksman

^ That was probably one of the best posts I've read on this forum.


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## Valentinator

Great post, Malik. 

I have another question about arrow penetration. Is there a "safe" distance for a person to stay? Tell me if I wrong, but an arrow must gain some speed before hitting the target. If I stay in 1,5 meters/ 5 feet distance, will it be powerful enough to kill me?


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## wordwalker

Definitely a doozie of a point (oops, pun...), one of those that keeps us from looking at archery quite the same way again.

Related question: how does armor affect this? Arrows might be built to pierce mail, but people claim that cloth or leather armor (and the padding under mail) can stop arrows. Maybe what that really means is that they can stop them at some distance-- I once saw a test of the Battle of CrÃ©cy that said the longbowmen would have gotten off two volleys, the first bouncing off and the second going right through the cavalry's armor.

(And all your examples are about a 50-lb hunting bow. A military archer might be someone trained from birth toward pulling a 100-150+ pound longbow..)


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## Sparkie

An all-time informative, practical knowledge post Malik.  Thank you.



Malik said:


> _(EDIT: Another thing: you count on a pass-through because recovering the arrow is key to tracking and recovering the animal; the type and amount of blood on the arrow lets you know where you hit the animal and therefore what to watch for.)_



Would you mind extrapolating on this point a bit?  You touch on it a little further on in the post, but I'd like to get a few more details if you'd be so kind.


----------



## Malik

About armor: I don't know. I have never shot a person in armor. (For that matter, I've never shot a human being with an arrow. Maybe there's something in human anatomy that automatically stops arrows and I'm way off base on all this.) 

My gut tells me that once you got penetration of the armor, the arrow will keep going, and you're going to get a pass-through or at least massive penetration. Bodies are soft and squishy; there's not much resistance there. 

There are so many types of armor that I just couldn't give a definitive answer. Thinking it through, though:

You won't get a pass-through on a 15th-Century field harness. Even if you penetrated the iron, the drag on the shaft from the sides of the hole would slow the arrow down. That's a no-brainer.

I'd think that mail wouldn't slow the arrow down enough to stop it, but the leather and felt beneath might prevent a complete pass-through. Some arrowheads were specifically built to defeat armor, of course, and this is what you'd want to use, but that initial shock as the arrowhead breaks the mail rings would burn up some of the kinetic energy, similar to a round shattering a ceramic bodyplate in modern bodyarmor. That coupled with the drag from the layers beneath the mail might slow the arrow down. It might.

Also, arrows spin, and when you stab a sword into riveted mail the links twist up and trap the blade. You never hear about that in fantasy novels, either, but that's physics. If you want to talk about that phenomenon, start another thread.

I've seen arrows hit hardwood trees and explode, leaving the heads buried in the trunk. I have to wonder if, given just the right amount of armor, this would be reproducible. You'd have a hell of a time getting the arrowhead out of the body. Ick.

Your best defense against an arrow is armor in layers, to strip the energy away. A coat of plates (I might be the only fantasy writer whose characters use a coat of plates, though), over mail, over a suede tabard, over a felt jerkin, over a linen arming jack. Even then, I wouldn't want to get shot with an arrow. No way. I'd be watching for archers every waking moment.


----------



## Ireth

About pass-through or the lack of it, what if the arrow lodged in a bone? What effect would that have on the wound?


----------



## Malik

Sparkie said:


> _(EDIT: Another thing: you count on a pass-through because recovering the arrow is key to tracking and recovering the animal; the type and amount of blood on the arrow lets you know where you hit the animal and therefore what to watch for.)_
> 
> Would you mind extrapolating on this point a bit?  You touch on it a little further on in the post, but I'd like to get a few more details if you'd be so kind.



Sure. This is gonna be gross so again, NSFV. (Not Safe For Vegans.)

Deer have remarkable reflexes. They have a habit of "jumping the string," meaning that in the quarter of a second between the time the arrow is loosed and its arrival they can jump in the air, or duck, or even spin around 180 degrees. I was hunting with a buddy who took a broadside shot on a deer at 15 yards, except it jumped in the air and turned 90 degrees at the sound of the string; the arrow entered the deer just under its tail, traversed the body cavity, and exited the neck. It fell over like it was poleaxed. That's gruesome but the point is, with a bow you don't always land the shot you take. 

This is important because you don't see the arrow in flight or when it makes contact. You have to find the arrow after you make the shot so that you know what you're looking for. The blood and hair on the arrow will tell you how to proceed. It's a puzzle and nothing is definite, but what follows is a quick overview.

Bright pink frothy blood with bubbles means a lung shot: look for big swaths of blood like a paintbrush at hip height; with a lung shot, the deer should be down in a few minutes and dead inside half an hour so don't start looking just yet. Let nature do its thing. 

Copious red blood with bubbles: you nailed it. You hit the lungs and heart. This is the shot you want, the shot you train for and the one you pray for. The deer should already be down by the time you find the arrow. Circle outward from the point of impact. It will be within 40 yards of you and it will be dead when you get there. 

Dark blood with tufts of hair and strings of meat means a meat hit: there's a "black hole" just above the lungs and below the spine, and another in the brisket (just before the shoulders under the neck) that a deer can walk away from and live out the rest of its life wiser for the experience -- it's like the "just winged me" shoulder-wound trope in TV westerns only in this case it's real. With a meat hit you start tracking now and see how much blood there is; if there are just a few drops here and there, odds are you're never going to find it. Mark the spot and the tracks, go back the next morning and start your search. Bring sandwiches because you'll be looking for a couple of days. Maybe you'll get lucky and have nicked a lung and it died during the night. Also check the tip: if the tip is folded over or mangled, then the deer jumped the string and you hit it through the hips. You may have hit the femoral artery and it's bleeding out not far from here. Probably not, though. You're usually not that lucky.

Green matter -- grass or cud -- on the arrow means a stomach hit. Creep away quietly in the opposite direction and come back in 12 hours. A stomach-hit deer can and will keep walking (or running!) when it hears you coming. They can be in the next ZIP code by the time you find them if you push them. That's the last thing you want. In my youth a buddy of mine called me to help him track a deer he'd accidentally pushed; I recovered it thirty hours and five miles from the initial hit. Five. ****ing. Miles.

Brown chunky matter is fecal matter and you are screwed. Sit down, break out a book, and don't even move for at least four hours. It's a very painful wound and often the hip or rear leg is involved so the deer won't go far if you don't chase it. The bad news is, sepsis is likely what's going to kill the deer so a lot of the meat will be ruined. Start looking the next morning and find a butcher you trust with your life.

It's your duty and responsibility to track the animal and give it a humane death, and to use as much of the animal as is usable. That is the inviolable rule and it has not changed since the days when we were hunting with rocks. 

I have found myself in places that I never would have dreamed of while tracking deer. More than once, I've stood on a ridgeline with a bow in my hand, listening to the wind, looking out over a valley, and beating my brains in trying to figure out where my deer went, only to realize that a thousand years ago -- maybe even five thousand years ago -- a man stood where I'm standing, doing the exact same thing. It makes my hair stand up just thinking about it. That's hunting. You're part of something so much older and so much larger than yourself that there are no words for it. In a world with domesticated cattle and farming -- the world that a lot of our characters inhabit, as do we -- men don't hunt for food and they don't hunt for killing. There, as here, men hunt for hunting.


----------



## Malik

Ireth said:


> About pass-through or the lack of it, what if the arrow lodged in a bone? What effect would that have on the wound?



Arrows don't lodge in anything. They split bone and exit. See post above regarding arrow sign; when you find the arrow you can tell if it hit bone because the tip will be mangled or maybe bent over. 

A shoulder on something like a bear or an elk will stop an arrow, but that's a bone that's far more massive than a human. I've seen pictures of feral hogs that have partial penetration but hogs are immensely tough. Their hide, their muscle, and their bone are all far more dense than other animals and they can weigh 400 lbs.


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## Sparkie

If there was a member-of-the-month award here, I'd nominate you, Malik.  Thanks!


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## T.Allen.Smith

Malik said:


> Arrows don't lodge in anything. They split bone and exit. See post above regarding arrow sign; when you find the arrow you can tell if it hit bone because the tip will be mangled or maybe bent over.
> 
> A shoulder on something like a bear or an elk will stop an arrow, but that's a bone that's far more massive than a human. I've seen pictures of feral hogs that have partial penetration but hogs are immensely tough. Their hide, their muscle, and their bone are all far more dense than other animals and they can weigh 400 lbs.



That's not always true. Although I agree that arrow penetration is underwhelming in books, and that most of the time full penetration and arrow exit is exactly what happens, I've seen two kills in my lifetime where the arrow did not exit. On both occasions, the prey was a whitetail deer and neither of massive size. One was an average sized, year and a half old buck (spike) the other was larger, while not huge, eight point which was 2 1/2 years.

The spike was shot at an almost straight down angle, as he passed under my stand, with a 55lb recurve & black diamond, 4 blade broadheads (that head is really double bladed with two smaller blades radiating out from the center). The heads are always razor sharp as my family believes that less than sharp blades are a form of cruelty. The arrow, in this case, passed at a angle from the right side of the spine, towards the right foreleg, striking the inner side of the right shoulder blade towards the bottom. The wound cut the right lung but the arrow did not exit the body cavity. During tracking we saw pink, frothy blood which sprayed from the nose & mouth. The animal died quickly.

The second was shot through the shoulder bone at about 20-25 yards. Normally you wait until the animal is looking away or has his head down to eat, and has the foreleg closest to you extended forward. This exposes the internals behind the shoulder. That's in a perfect world but it doesn't always turn out perfect. The arrow striking (and breaking through) the shoulder blade, slowed sufficiently to stick through the other side, causing an exit wound while not fully exiting. This deer didn't even go 40 yards before dying. This was not my kill but my uncles. He used a longbow that I'm unsure of the weight but I would say its substantially more powerful than my recurve. He makes his own bows from Osage orange wood and does phenomenal work.

Regardless, I agree with everything else you've said & it's a great post Malik. These two cases have been the exception among many. Yet, it is possible.


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## Malik

4-blade Zwickeys have a reputation for not penetrating but I haven't had a problem with them and I've been shooting them for 30 years. 

I agree; I shouldn't have said "never, ever, ever."

How about "Hardly, hardly, hardly ever." And sure as hell not as often as we see on TV. The partial penetration is definitely the exception; the rare shot where something goes wonky inside the critter and you hit every obstacle somehow. 

The point remains -- and I'm glad you agree -- this did not happen:








Unless you were shot by a six-year-old.

Cheers.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Malik said:


> 4-blade Zwickeys have a reputation for not penetrating but I haven't had a problem with them and I've been shooting them for 30 years.
> 
> I agree; I shouldn't have said "never, ever, ever."
> 
> How about "Hardly, hardly, hardly ever." And sure as hell not as often as we see on TV. The partial penetration is definitely the exception; the rare shot where something goes wonky inside the critter and you hit every obstacle somehow.
> 
> The point remains -- and I'm glad you agree -- this did not happen:
> 
> Unless you were shot by a six-year-old.
> 
> Cheers.



Haha...right on! The types of details you provided are one of the strengths of this community. People with knowledge in certain areas can make everyone's writing more accurate and realistic.

I wonder if the same is true in arrow volleys. The kind we see in mass warfare with large teams of archers shooting at distance. Surely the terminal velocity would be less than an arrow shot from 30 yards away. Or would the acceleration in descent equal or approach the same power?


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## Malik

The terminal velocity of a an indirect-fired arrow would in no way equal the out-of-the-gate energy of the same arrow fired inside duckable range. Not even close. There's a point on a parabola, I'd think a fairly shallow one, where the arrow is at its maximum energy; i.e. where drag and gravity haven't negated the initial burst of kinetic energy and the arrow is actually getting help from gravity. It's got to be shallow, though. As many arrows as I've shot, my gut says it's got to be pretty shallow. 

If you shoot an arrow into the ground, and then you shoot it up in the air and let it hit the ground, the one you shoot at the ground is going to be buried far deeper. Any ten-year-old knows that.

Man, now I'm thinking about archery tropes.

Let's talk about the mythical long shot; the 100-yard, across-the-battlefield bullseye of elven legend and 1066 and the bow it takes to get there.

It's not going to happen except out of sheer stupid luck, for the same reason that you can't land a 15-yard bullseye on an animal with a brain the size of a baseball: flight time. An arrow is not a bullet.

You have seconds -- almost two -- between the time you release an arrow and the time it lands 100 yards away. (Figuring 160-170 fps + the arc you'd need to get it that far, which is substantial.) Your target will not be in the same place. It's pointless to shoot that far unless you're part of an artillery platoon and you're firing for effect. Otherwise, all your target has to do is look up and take a quick step to the left. 

Which puts us in an interesting position with 100+ lb. longbows of yore. I'm winging it, here, but stick with me on this.

I'm physically strong. I'm 5'9" and 190 lbs., Army Airborne. I have a 17" neck and a 44" chest and I run a 5K in 22 minutes and change. I'm no Superman, but I'm strong and pretty fit. I've been shooting a bow since I was five. That's 37 years behind the riser with a few years off here and there, but I'd prefer it if you don't count.

I shoot a 55-lb. bow. Two hours of shooting destroys me. I'm sore for days, and at the end of a 2- or 3-hour competition I'm shooting like crap.

A friend at my archery club shoots a 70-lb. stickbow. I shot it once. Once. I shot it _once_ because I could barely hold it at full draw. I can deadlift 300 pounds and I couldn't hold a 70-lb. stickbow at 28" long enough to get a sight picture that I liked.

The reason for this is that the muscles that you use to draw a bow are all relatively small: the anterior and posterior deltoid, the fingers, the rhomboids, and to some degree the biceps. Some guys push heavy bows with their pecs while they draw back on the string. You lock in your anchor with your lats but you don't use them to draw. There is a finite limit to the amount of muscle you can recruit to draw a bow. The difference in perceived draw weight between a 50- and 60-lb. bow is massive, and this is why.

My buddy who shoots the 70-lb. bow is a brick wall, one of these guys who looks like he could pull a bus with his teeth. Corn-fed, linebacker, no-neck, Bubba big. He makes me look lean and svelte by comparison.

Howard Hill -- the greatest archer who has perhaps ever lived, Google him if you're reading this and you don't know him -- preferred 80-90 lb. bows, or so legend has it. Legend also has it that he used a 170-lb. bow to drop an elephant. Having fired a 70-lb. stickbow, I'm in the camp that he didn't. I believe my exact words on the subject were, "The hell he did."

100-lb. longbows have been recovered. They exist. I won't argue that they didn't exist. But I will argue that not every archer pulled them back to full poundage. 

I would bet that these bows were mass-produced at a certain weight (or as close as you could get to mass-produced back then). You drew the bow as far as you could and found an anchor point that you could hit consistently, and you learned to adjust your arc accordingly. Most of these guys were firing for effect, anyway. As I mentioned, at 100 yards your target isn't going to be there when your arrow lands, much less at 200 yards, so aiming (past the point of nailing down yardage) makes no sense until you're inside a range where your opponent can't just duck. That's about 40 yards. _(EDIT: Even at 40 yards, if you knew it was coming, you could get out of the way.)_

Inside 40 yards, you wouldn't need to go to full draw on a 100-lb. bow. Especially judging from the damage that a hunting bow half the weight can cause (and energy return vs. poundage is asymptotic; someone would have done the math on that by the time they developed longbows). 

I'm betting -- and in my books, I'm writing -- that few archers went to full draw; the rare man who could pull a longbow to full draw was highly valued and revered. I promise you that not everyone could. Everybody probably said he did when he was chasing girls and telling war stories, but in reality, I don't see it.

I can't help but think of the 150-lb. longbow as something akin to the 25-lb. sword from days of fantasy yore, which was based on ceremonial Claymores but had no basis in martial reality.

I could be wrong; I have no knowledge one way or the other and the plural of anecdote is not data. Just more food for thought.


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## Malik

I just cruised through this whole thread again, and Caged Maiden pointed out on the very first page that her instructor told her that war bows weren't pulled back fully. 



Caged Maiden said:


> In fact, my archery instructor said they were mostly pulled to mid chest rather than fully, and loosed very rapidly.  He's pretty well researched, but I cannot confirm whether that is true.



So . . . yeah. So there. Pulling back partially on a bow that big makes a hell of a lot more sense than the existence of a whole unit full of underfed guys who can pull and hold a 100-lb. bow.

I reiterate, though: the plural of anecdote is not data. If anybody has hard data on this, please post it.


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## Malik

Valentinator said:


> Great post, Malik.
> 
> I have another question about arrow penetration. Is there a "safe" distance for a person to stay? Tell me if I wrong, but an arrow must gain some speed before hitting the target. If I stay in 1,5 meters/ 5 feet distance, will it be powerful enough to kill me?



The speed is imparted to the arrow as soon as the string is released and the potential energy in the bow limbs becomes kinetic energy. The arrow slows down before it leaves the shelf completely; drag from the shelf on the shaft and the fletchings slows it down a little once it leaves the string and before it clears the shelf.

I know a guy who had an arrow slip off the shelf and he shot it through his hand due to overdrawing so I'm gonna say no on this one. (He jokes that he was cleaning his bow when it suddenly went off.)

If you interrupted the arrow before the bow was completely released, with something that could withstand the force of the arrow, then you might . . . _possibly_ . . . cause the string to snap or the bow to crack. Most likely, though, the arrow would just split from the nock and damage the string. And it would still probably deliver a heck of a wallop.

The only safe place from an arrow is behind the bow.


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## Valentinator

Awesome, I'm completely unable to use the knowledge of physics while thinking about archery.

Another question about shooting 2-3 arrows at the same time (common trick used in movies). It seems that 2 arrows must be twice less powerful according to the law of momentum conservation. How many arrows can I shoot at the same time without being completely ridiculous? The targets do not wear any armor.


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## wordwalker

Valentinator said:


> Another question about shooting 2-3 arrows at the same time (common trick used in movies). It seems that 2 arrows must be twice less powerful according to the law of momentum conservation. How many arrows can I shoot at the same time without being completely ridiculous? The targets do not wear any armor.



Can we qualify this that we're talking about shooting fixed targets close together at close range, like maybe preparing for when a couple of invaders come through a wide door together? (The archer's "shotgun.") I've seen a double-shot (one arrow on each side of the bow) hit two stationary targets at once, so it's not completely impossible--

Under _those_ circumstances. In a regular battle...


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## Valentinator

wordwalker said:


> Can we qualify this that we're talking about shooting fixed targets close together at close range, like maybe preparing for when a couple of invaders come through a wide door together? (The archer's "shotgun.") I've seen a double-shot (one arrow on each side of the bow) hit two stationary targets at once, so it's not completely impossible--
> 
> Under _those_ circumstances. In a regular battle...



Good point. That's more precise.


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## T.Allen.Smith

In a real combat situation, shooting more than one arrow at the same time wouldn't be done, ever. It's a trick shot. Trick shots have no place when lives are on the line.


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## Malik

I've tried it. The arrows go everyplace. The problem is that only one of them rests on the shelf. If you hold the bow horizontally it works a little better but shot placement trumps speed. I'm sure it can be done, but like Smith says, above: you would never rely on a trick shot.

What does work, though, is the Saracen technique of holding several arrows in the draw hand and feeding them into the bow. This technique has recently been rediscovered and it makes the bow about as fast as a gun. There are stories of American Indians being able to shoot a bow as fast as a repeating rifle. I would imagine this is how they did it. 

BTW, the comments section on this video makes me want to go on a crotch-punching spree. I'm actually hesitant to post this video because of all the neckbeard-sporting D&D'ers spouting comments that have been disproved in this very thread.






This guy is shooting a light bow, maybe 40 lbs., but as we've seen: 

A.) 40 lbs. is plenty. I hunted with a 40-lb. longbow (the lightest bow allowed by law for big game in this state) after having shoulder surgery and took an enormously fat blacktail buck with a complete pass-through using an ash arrow with a steel Zwickey broadhead, which looks like this:









Spoiler: GRAPHIC DEPICTION OF TASTY ANIMAL











He was eating my wife's prize roses during hunting season. Don't judge me. He made his own choice. 

B.) As we've discussed, English archers with their "longbows that could totally crush plate armor at 250 yards it says so in the rulebook and didn't you see Braveheart that totally happened" (insert masturbatory gesture here) most likely didn't hit full draw, anyway. 

In a pinch, if you really had to get several shots off in a hurry, the technique illustrated in the above video is completely plausible. After watching it, I have to wonder if I've been doing it wrong all my life.


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## Malik

Valentinator said:


> Awesome, I'm completely unable to use the knowledge of physics while thinking about archery.



I use my knowledge of physics when I'm making a sandwich. Physics and math are to the world around you what English and history are to your writing.


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## Valentinator

I understand it is a trick shot but can "an arrow shotgun" be technically feasible in terms of power? I mean, for an unskilled person even an ordinary one-arrow shot is a sort of a trick. For professional battle archers trick shots could be a second nature. IMO the goal of such technique could be not to hit the target but to suppress the enemy in general. Theoretically you can combine this with some high-speed shooting techniques and get "an automatic arrow shotgun" which seems quite awesome to me.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Valentinator said:


> I understand it is a trick shot but can "an arrow shotgun" be technically feasible in terms of power? I mean, for an unskilled person even an ordinary one-arrow shot is a sort of a trick. For professional battle archers trick shots could be a second nature. IMO the goal of such technique could be not to hit the target but to suppress the enemy in general. Theoretically you can combine this with some high-speed shooting techniques and get "an automatic arrow shotgun" which seems quite awesome to me.



It's fantasy fiction. You can write whatever you wish but you need to have plausibility.

Is it realistically feasible? No.

Would power diminish? Yes

Professional archers of the day when archers were warriors were not trick shot artists. Their arrows were valuable, expensive, and time consuming to make. Any sort of suppressive fire was done en masse, with volleys. Not by a single trick shot artist. In general, the concept of suppressive fire, is a modern one. With arrows, the archer hoped to find the mark. 

If you're aiming for any sort if realism to your fighting, I'd strongly urge against this idea. In my opinion, it sounds hokey.

Again though, write anything you want. Better make it plausible though or you'll lose readers.


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## Valentinator

T.Allen.Smith said:


> If you're aiming for any sort if realism to your fighting, I'd strongly urge against this idea. In my opinion, it sounds hokey.
> 
> Again though, write anything you want. Better make it plausible though or you'll lose readers.



I just want the fighting scenes to be realistic in *my* universe. I'm not really aiming for historical realism, because the laws of my world are quite different from the laws of real world Middle Ages. I can afford something like unlimited cheap arrows or super-strength. I'm asking to find out which parameter I have to adjust and which one to leave intact.


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## WeilderOfTheMonkeyBlade

"Longbows a had a much further range than crossbows because they launched a much heavier arrow than a crossbow could, which also gave it more penetration when it hit."
This does depend on the type of crossbow, but the more common windlass crossbows of around the time of the longbow had a far greater range than a longbow( but your archer could run in range and loose about 4-5 arrows in the time it takes to reload). 
I also believe that crossbows launched a bolt several times heavier than an arrow, and the impact was greater. 
the rest of the information was great though and I learnt some new stuff.


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## skip.knox

I have to ask Malik and others here an additional question on this matter of arrow penetration. What do you make of numerous reports in the Middle Ages of arrows sticking out of knights? The case I have in mind is during the Crusades, principally against Turkish archers. The knights wore simply chain mail with linen padding (which is surprisingly tough when layered or rolled). 

These reports to me indicate that arrows, but really certain kinds of bows, have a much lower ability to penetrate. I completely agree that the arrow-in-the-belly is just silly, but not everyone made great bows or great arrows, not everyone wielded them effectively, and not everyone shot from close distance. 

Rather than say unequivocally that arrows had X or Y ability to penetrate, I'd argue that it all depends on the circumstance of the particular shot. Which, in turn, means it depends on how you are setting up your battle or encounter.

Am I off base here?


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## Malik

skip.knox said:


> I have to ask Malik and others here an additional question on this matter of arrow penetration. What do you make of numerous reports in the Middle Ages of arrows sticking out of knights? The case I have in mind is during the Crusades, principally against Turkish archers. The knights wore simply chain mail with linen padding (which is surprisingly tough when layered or rolled).
> 
> These reports to me indicate that arrows, but really certain kinds of bows, have a much lower ability to penetrate. I completely agree that the arrow-in-the-belly is just silly, but not everyone made great bows or great arrows, not everyone wielded them effectively, and not everyone shot from close distance.
> 
> Rather than say unequivocally that arrows had X or Y ability to penetrate, I'd argue that it all depends on the circumstance of the particular shot. Which, in turn, means it depends on how you are setting up your battle or encounter.
> 
> Am I off base here?



The arrows stick out of knights in mail because under that shirt of mail is usually half an inch or more of felted wool or layers of linen, both of which are extremely dense. Often a tabard of leather was worn between the two. 

It takes a ridiculous amount of energy to break riveted mail (wearing butted mail -- the junk armor that you see in LARP and the SCA where the link ends are nipped clean and pinched closed without a rivet or weld -- would be suicidal). A riveted or welded mail shirt would suck the power out of any weapon strike the way that a shattering ceramic plate takes the energy out of a bullet in modern body armor. This is why a shirt of interlocking rings of metal was the predominant method of saving your ass for nearly two thousand years.

Riveted mail also twists up and tangles a penetrating object. (Butted mail does not; the links deform and self-destruct instead of trapping the weapon.) 






Arrows spin in flight (gyroscopic motion is what makes arrows fly true, the vanes are not tailfins) so this would be amplified. An arrow penetrating real mail would result in a horrific wound, with broken and tangled links of mail wrapped around the shaft and all of it jammed down into the puncture. Yes, the arrow would stick out. And also, ick.

But arrows from any bow big enough to take big game, or bigger, would go right through an unarmored or lightly-armored person, exiting the other side, faster than you could see it, anywhere it hit them, 90%, maybe even 99%, of the time. It would be a rare occurrence on par with a freak accident to see an arrow sticking out of an unarmored person.


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## Malik

Not Safe For Vegans. Arrow shots on man-sized living targets (deer). Keep in mind these are slowed-down to what looks to me like roughly quarter-speed. Real time, you don't see the arrow strike -- which is why these arrow nocks are illuminated; the latest thing in hunting technology.



Spoiler: WARNING: GRAPHIC


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## Malik

One other thing, too. I won't name names but I was just reading a book in which a character, an archer (an elf, of course) was trying out bows and he drew and fired a bow in a smith's shop with no arrow nocked. You know, to test it. 

If you dry-fire a bow, the energy that normally goes into the arrow will get returned to the bow itself. The string prevents the bow from reaching its normal state of rest and the resulting deceleration will at least crack it if not snap or delaminate a limb tip. Fiberglass and modern epoxies used in the construction of bows these days make them less prone to catastrophic failure, but dry-firing a bow made from pre-industrial materials can make the weapon go off in your hand like a grenade.

In traditional archery circles, if you dry-fire a bow, you buy it.

Dry-firing aftermath pictures:


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## Aprella

I have a question.... 

How long would it take for someone who has never wielded a long bow to master it?  The character will practise a lot, but if you never wielded it before... if do think that you eventually have to stop practising because the muscles hurt? Or am I wrong?


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## Caged Maiden

when you pick up a bow, even 20 pounds, you get tired within a few rounds.  Say a dozen arrows, then take a ten minute break and do another dozen, then another break.  However, I shoot somewhat regularly and with my 25 pound bow, can shoot four hours a day (intermittently) for three or four-day events no problem.  However, my friends who shoot 55 pound bows can't hang with me all day.  

Now, one hundred arrows a day is supposed to be good practice.  

Also, you can get relatively good in about 4 months.  But to become a master could take 30 years... so you have to be the judge of what "mastery" is to you.  If you're looking at Robin Hood, he's probably going to take the thirty years to attain.  However, a high-scoring target archer?  Probably more like five years.  Hunting is something altogether different.  It would help to understand what you mean by "master".  I know people who have shot for two years and are relatively proficient, and I know people who have shot for thirty years and are very good.  But they're no Robin Hoods.  One of my good friends, I just made a set of arrows for him, showed me a picture of his twenty-yard target and only one arrow was outside the red ring (the crooked arrow he straightened and now it shoots fine).  He makes me sick.  He's really really good.  But, he's been an archer for thirty years, was an avid bow hunter, and owns like ten bows.  I've been shooting for 3-4 years, talk a lot of smack on the line with my friends, and just have a good time, trying to get my stance and aiming adjusted.  I'm certainly not good by any stretch of the imagination.  Unless maybe I was killing zombies.  I could probably hit slow-moving targets up close.


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## Aprella

Okay  Thank you! 

Well the character is being trained to be an archer in a war, but he had never hold a bow since he comes from 'our' world and ends up in a medieval setting. There was this scene were I planned that he would kill a warg like creature by shooting it in the head with a single arrow after like a week or two of training... but it's a fast moving target so I don't think it will be possible so soon?


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## Caged Maiden

*Shooting two arrows at once and holding arrows in bow hand*

hey, I missed the two arrows at once conversation, but I'd like to weigh in on it.  

Okay, I shoot two arrows at once and also hold arrows in my bow hand as well as between the fingers of my nocking hand.  

When you shoot two arrows at once, the power is greatly diminished.  For a 20 yard target, I need to raise my aim point about 18 inches.  That's pretty huge at such a short distance.  However, both arrows land in the target within about eight inches of each other, so I can't complain. It's a free shot at that point.

I would never attempt this at thirty or forty yards.  I'd probably just break arrows.  And since I make my own and they aren't cheap... that would just be stupid.  

With holding arrows in your hands.   I know a guy who shoots 17 arrows in 30 seconds.  But... it's during a speed round... at twenty yards.... and he's very well practiced.  He holds three arrows in his bow (left) hand, and three in his string (right) hand.  One of those is nocked on the string, and the other two are pinched between his fingers, one between his pinky and ring finger and the second between his ring finger and middle.  Okay, so I've done this technique more than a few times, and all I can say, is that conditions must be ideal for it to be effective.  Let me explain:

Both arrows in your bow hand and string hand diminish your overall power because your grip is affected.  So short distances only.  Good thing our speed rounds are 20 yards, right?  Another thing, is that you cannot effectively hold the arrows pinched between your fingers if you're wearing a glove.  So either your bow needs to be weak enough or your callouses strong enough to make sure you don't need one to shoot.  My bow is 25 pounds, so I can take off the glove for the speed round.  Also, you have to be very careful not to hit the arrows you're holding in your bow hand.  One of my friends shattered his held arrow with his shot one only a couple weeks ago.  An expensive and scary lesson as splinters are hitting you.

Hope that clarifies for anyone still wondering


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## Caged Maiden

@ Aprella.  That's near impossible.  But anything can happen in a book.


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## Aprella

@Caged Maiden: well we want to keep a realistic feel to it. Thanks for the advice!


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## Caged Maiden

If you had a character who learned in a week, there's no way their muscles are even developed yet.  Starting out, you wouldn't want to shoot every day because of fatigue.  It's like if you've never been swimming before.  Can you swim a 1500m butterfly in a week?  Heck no, your muscles can't even handle it because it's a foreign movement.  In fact, to even draw a war bow in a week is impossible.  I recently brought out a friend (a male friend in his late 20's, not the brawniest guy, but full grown), and his arm was shaking from a 20 pound kid bow in like ten minutes.  Proper technique to stave off exhaustion takes months of regular practice.  I once drew a 150 pound war bow.  I'm proud to say I did as well as the big boys.  But when you draw such a bow, you're drawing to the chest, not to your jaw like a hunting or target bow.  

I'd think... any bow heavy enough to go through a warg skull, would be too heavy for me to draw even four years into my hobby.  My arrows would bounce off the skull at even thirty yards.  How do I know this?  haha my arrows bounce off a carpeted hay bale at thirty sometimes, and I'm using sharp bodkins, not dull field points.  

If you want my suggestion, make the character have some experience, even if it was just in high school or college.  Give him the muscle memory and the knowledge of correct stance and aiming as a foundation off which to build.  If he's truly completely green, there's no way the shot is plausible.  But again, you can make it a lucky shot.  

One of my favorite characters I ever wrote was my archer character in my last fantasy novel.  I love him because I got to combine two things I love.  But I had to make it realistic and his archery skills were the thing that got him his job, but I tried not to make his skill Robin Hoody.  It's just not believable.  

Best wishes.  Feel free to post more questions or read my article: Medieval Archery for Writers


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## Malik

@ Aprella, Caged Maiden is completely correct but I want to chime in, here, because I hunt and that sometimes involves moving targets, both of which are considerably different than anything your MC will have experienced if all he's done is shoot at a stationary target.

Against an aggressive animal, not only do you have to hit a moving target, but you have to hit a moving target in a place that will kill it or disable it. The only way to drop an aggressive animal with an arrow and not have it continue on and kill you is to either break its spine -- a very tough shot and impossible on a charging animal; plus, if you take the shot from the side and miss, you miss big: a high lung shot or meat hit between the spine and guts is only going to make whatever it is REALLY mad -- or to shoot it in the head, which is even tougher. An arrow can glance off a skull, and the brain on most non-humanoid animals is very small. A wolf's brain is about the size of a baseball, inside a very thick helmet of bone. Headshots on animals go horribly wrong more often than they work, which is why ethical hunters never take headshots. Headshots just don't work. There is a disabling shot on a four-legged creature that is effective but not immediately lethal: through the hips -- break the hips and it can't jump, can't charge, and can't run. Unfortunately, that's also a tricky shot, easy to miss from the side and fully impossible on a charging animal.

(The bow is a lousy defensive weapon. I keep a full-sized Ka-Bar knife at my belt when I bowhunt. I'd grab for it long before I'd use an arrow if an animal was intent on attacking me. I'd use the bow to fend it off and go for its face with the knife if it still felt like attacking me. Most things in this world will leave you alone if you stab them in the face. That's a tip, folks; write it down.)

Now, keep in mind that not only is the animal moving, but you need to factor in flight time for the arrow. A bow is not a rifle. An arrow travels 150-200 fps from traditional tackle. 200 fps is the great benchmark that bowyers try to hit and very few do. A lot can happen in a quarter of a second. An animal can "jump the string," meaning that between the time it hears the bow go THUNG! and the time the arrow arrives 60 feet later (1/4 - 1/3 of a second), a deer, bear, or wolf can duck, or jump, far enough that you will miss completely. At 50 yards, any intelligent creature can see an arrow coming and get out of the way. So, dynamics of the situation come into play unless you are close enough to reach out and swat the critter with your bow when you shoot.

On top of this is the skill required to hit a moving target. You have to be intimate with your bow's characteristics; i.e. you have to have shot that particular bow with those particular arrows enough that you know how long the arrow takes to travel a variety of distances. Then, you have to practice shooting while your bow moves. This is counterintuitive and usually presented incorrectly in movies and TV. You can't just hold on a point, fire, and hope the target runs into the arrow at the moment the arrow crosses its path. It doesn't work that way. You have to consciously keep moving the bow while tracking the target and leading it, and keep the bow moving ahead of the target's trajectory while you loose the arrow. On top of this, the target will never be moving perpendicular to the arrow's flight, so flight time is going to vary and so will your lead; you need to work it out in your head and adjust your lead accordingly depending if the target is angling toward you or away. As you're doing this, seconds count, because your arrow is traveling around 175 fps. If you have to calculate -- if you can't just feel the shot -- a running target will be too far away to hit by the time you have a firing solution. 50-60 yards -- one second of flight time -- is about the longest realistic range for a hunting bow; things get fuzzy after that with flight time and the weirdnesses of animals. A good archer can hit a hay bale at 75 yards but only by sheer stupid luck would he hit a running -- or even a walking -- animal at that range.

Then there's firing under stress, which is its own thing entirely. As a professional soldier I could talk about this for a week but I won't, here. Suffice it to say you have to practice under stress if you want to shoot accurately under stress.

Short of sheer, stupid beginner's luck -- which happens -- no one with less than maybe a solid year behind a bow, shooting every day, would hit a fast-moving living target, under stress, and disable it.

Now, if you're married to the scene, you could make that once-in-a-lifetime shot the beginning of your MC's love affair with the bow, or a sign that he's "a natural," or somesuch. Maybe make it the shot that he spends the rest of the series trying to repeat.


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## Valentinator

Let's say you got hit by an arrow to the stomach. What you should do in this case? How does it limit your fighting skills? Can you still fight well if you are in adrenaline rush? 

Another question. You are standing in front of the archer who wants to shoot you. There is no obvious place to hide and you don't have any weapons. The distance is 300ft (100m). What should you do to maximize you chances to survive?


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## CupofJoe

Valentinator said:


> Another question. You are standing in front of the archer who wants to shoot you. There is no obvious place to hide and you don't have any weapons. The distance is 300ft (100m). What should you do to maximize you chances to survive?


I'm half serious when I say
Stand still... 
Wait until they shoot and then run left or right, at 100m I would guess the flight time would be several seconds...


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## Malik

Valentinator said:


> Let's say you got hit by an arrow to the stomach. What you should do in this case? How does it limit your fighting skills? Can you still fight well if you are in adrenaline rush?
> 
> Another question. You are standing in front of the archer who wants to shoot you. There is no obvious place to hide and you don't have any weapons. The distance is 300ft (100m). What should you do to maximize you chances to survive?



It depends on the type of arrow tip and the location of the hit. If it only hits your stomach (the organ, not the area) then you've got hours before you bleed out. Stomach wounds were considered one of the worst ways to die, BTW. Extremely painful, and you die of sepsis, absolutely insane from sickness and pain. You could pack the wound off -- you'll need someone to help you pack off the exit wound in your back, BTW -- and you can live for a day or so.

If the tip so much as nicks your liver or a kidney, though, you're done. Both process so much blood every minute that an injury to either is like pulling the drain on a bathtub. You're dead in minutes. There's also spinal damage, nerve damage, broken bones, and/or damage to the diaphragm, all of which will inhibit movement and breathing. You could take a hit to the side of the stomach if you were really fat; it might miss anything vital and pass through. A bodkin point might -- might -- go through someone on a one-in-a-million shot and not hit anything. On a physically fit human being, though, everything's packed in there pretty neatly.

CupofJoe is correct. At 300 feet you have over a second and a half, maybe almost two seconds if it's a stickbow (stickbow = a single stick bent into bow as opposed to a recurve or laminated bow). Two seconds might as well be forever. 

It's a non-issue, though, because he won't shoot. He can't hit you from there if you can see him, and he knows it. 

The bow is an ambush weapon, or an area denial weapon when used en masse. One on one, it's pretty much useless, no matter what Hollywood tells you. Flight time negates its deterrent ability against a lone target at more than about 75 feet. 

Typical human reaction time is about .25 seconds; it's much faster than that for people who have ingrained responses: professional athletes, trained soldiers, etc.; ingrained "flinch" responses can take a tenth of a second or less, and part of military and martial arts training is molding flinch responses into useful ones. At 200 fps, .25 seconds gives you about 50 feet of effective range. That's with a good bow against a target who knows you're there and knows you're going to shoot, and knows what to do about it and won't panic. 

At 150 fps, that range now comes down to about 40 feet. 

At 150 fps (a primitive but still-powerful stickbow) your effective distance against a trained adversary could be down to 20 feet or less; more than close enough for him to slip the arrow -- or, if armored, swat it out of the way -- and then come kick your ass while you're reloading. 

There is nothing in the world as satisfying as having someone shoot at you and miss. At that moment, you are a god of war. A person you just missed with a weapon is a very, very dangerous man because he is now, in the parlance of our times, both validated and enabled. This is an absolute psychological phenomena and it is addictive. There would be men who would _want_ you to take the shot. Food for thought . . .


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## wordwalker

Serious statistics, great news for us writers, and evocative writing too. I may even stop making fun of Star Wars for implying no real hero ever gets shot. (Of course, those are supposed to be guns, and massed fire...)

I take it this is the kind of dodge that doesn't break your stride much, if you know what you're doing, so you aren't just giving the archer time to try again.


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## Caged Maiden

Yeah, wow 300 yards?  There;s no way a single archer, even a well trained one will hit a small human target at 300 yards.  It's just not going to happen.  The reason the English war bows were so deadly is that they fired every 6 seconds and rained down volleys of THOUSANDS of arrows upon an army.  A single archer wouldn't hit a buffalo standing stock still at that distance because they're firing up at the sky.  I participate in cloud shoots (shoots at about 150-200 yards).  THey paint a huge circle on the ground and twelve feet out, they put a second ring, and twelve feet further out, the third.  rrows score based on which ring they land in.  Does that give some perspective on how big the target t that range needs to be?    They;re called cloud shoots because you're aiming at the sky, in the general direction of the target, hoping the arrow lands in a circle.


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## Valentinator

Malik, Caged Maide, CupofJoe great answers, thanks a lot!


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## Ravana

Valentinator said:


> Let's say you got hit by an arrow to the stomach. What you should do in this case? How does it limit your fighting skills? Can you still fight well if you are in adrenaline rush?
> 
> Another question. You are standing in front of the archer who wants to shoot you. There is no obvious place to hide and you don't have any weapons. The distance is 300ft (100m). What should you do to maximize you chances to survive?



To maximize your chances of survival, stay at 100m. No experienced archer would waste an arrow on an isolated target at that range… not unless he was sniping, and the target was unaware of him. Which doesn't sound like the situation here. Or else just walk away.

Now, if if part of your problem is taking the archer out, that's another story altogether.… 

And the answer is basically close the distance as rapidly as possible, wait until it looks to you like he's ready to shoot, then start zigging about and hope he misses. Probably, he'll release at about 15-20m, depending on how rapidly he can draw his melee backup weapon. (At which point you're probably dead anyway, unless you meant "don't have any _ranged_ weapons": if you meant "don't have any weapons at all," you'd better be really good at tackling.…) He will not, in any event, wait until you're point blank, because he knows the odds of disabling you with a single shot aren't good, even if he does hit, which he knows is not guaranteed.

Which leads into your first question. A shot to the abdomen–I'm generalizing it from "stomach": I assumed you didn't mean that organ specifically–could cause anything from immediate shock to no visible hindrance whatsoever. The problem is that things such as shock are so idiosyncratic there's no way to predict them. Lots of people, especially those without military training but even some who have it, will go down to a single, non-disabling wound on just about any part of the body. Other people will keep coming even after suffering multiple wounds which are eventually but not immediately lethal–to lungs, kidneys, just about anything other than heart, brain or spine. Sometimes even heart or brain, depending on how great the damage is and exactly where. Also, blood loss will eventually begin to tell on the victim, though again this will depend on how rapid the rate of loss is, which in turn again depends on what's hit: if no major vessel is damaged, the loss of blood from a puncture wound may not matter for several minutes at least–you can lose more than a third of your blood and keep functioning–and, again, will depend on the victim himself. (I get dizzy whenever I have more than two vials drawn for testing. On the other hand, I'm not in a situation where I'm fighting for my life when that happens, so I might react differently on a battlefield. Or at least not notice the dizziness at the time.)

Example: consider the normal male reaction to a good knee shot to the groin. There's absolutely no reason whatsoever this ought to be disabling… it's only pain. But for most, it's more pain than their wiring can cope with. Most… but _not_ all: there _are_ those few who can shrug this off. Same applies to any other wound: unless the physical damage is such that it makes an action impossible, i.e. breaking a long bone in two, severing the spine, crushing the throat, etc., it's possible the victim will keep coming; it's also possible he'll fall to the ground and curl up in a ball from what is essentially a flesh wound.

So a gut shot could have pretty much any effect you felt like it having, in the short term. In the long term… it depends on what organ or organs are hit. Gut wounds have a very nasty tendency to be fatal in pre-modern settings, as internal infection is all but guaranteed unless the victim is immensely lucky and the arrow manages to slide between intestines rather than lacerating one (or more). A hit to a kidney is very likely to be fatal in the long term. Other organs, I'm less sure of. I'm pretty sure the liver can soak a lot of damage, as long as it's the only thing damaged, but don't quote me on that. Get some good medical charts to see what's behind what, if you intend to do into details; otherwise, if the situation requires the gut-shot character to survive, just have him be one of the fortunate few who's lucky enough to have all the important stuff missed, to have someone competent enough to draw the arrow without doing additional damage and clean and close the wound properly, and to escape peritonitis.


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## Ravana

wordwalker said:


> Serious statistics, great news for us writers, and evocative writing too. I may even stop making fun of Star Wars for implying no real hero ever gets shot. (Of course, those are supposed to be guns, and massed fire...)



Look up some statistics on bullets fired per casualty caused for something like WWII. You'll be astonished.


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## Ivan Sailor

This Thread is awesome. I think it should be made sticky along with the one about swords. 
I have a few questions though. Beyond the Recurve, Reflex, Longbow (or stick bows? which is it?) and weird Japanese Yumi are there any other types of bows?
I have a carbon (I think) recurve bow. One of the ends has bent slightly to the side, probably due to the fact that I kept it strung for months. Is there any way of repairing it?


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## wordwalker

Ivan Sailor said:


> This Thread is awesome. I think it should be made sticky along with the one about swords.



Amen to that!



Ravana said:


> Look up some statistics on bullets fired per casualty caused for something like WWII. You'll be astonished.



Hundreds of thousands of rounds per kill? Knew that-- but that's how people actually use guns, firing at long range or suppressive fire to keep the enemy from getting a clean shot, and using cover, along with all the machine guns that go through it all faster.

The point is, you can't simply dodge a bullet (the closest you can come is try to guess the moment he'll fire, and hope it's a single-shot gun)-- but now we know heroes CAN dodge an arrow.


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## Caged Maiden

Okay, I want to say something about heart wounds too... the heart is a massive muscle, right?  It's actually pretty tough.  One thing I learned in fencing is that in a real sword fight (unlike ours, where a touch is a kill), you must guard going in and guard coming out of a thrust.  Because in a real fight, even if you stab your opponent in the heart, he can live for twenty minutes!  Or he can die on the spot.. but let's just say that there's plenty of evidence of people being mortally wounded by a stab to the heart and running to a doctor to seek medical attention.  So I guess loads of things are possible in a literary sense.  You could make several outcomes happen, depending on what your story calls for.  One thing that makes people die quicker is panic.  A little off-topic, but I live where there are tons of Black Widows.  One thing you need to know about their bite, is that for normal, healthy people, the bite rarely proves fatal on its own.  Most people get flue-like symptoms and recover.  The normal, healthy people who die, usually die of cardiac arrest because they panicked when they got bit by a poisonous spider and they essentially killed themselves.  Or so Discovery says, anyways.  I dunno, I just squish the buggers when I see 'em and go about my gardening.  

But the way you react when you're injured has an effect on how you live or die.  Some people can remain calm, apply pressure and even stitch themselves and use herbs or minor medical/ survival training to prevent infection.  Infection kills a lot of people in wars, historically, sometimes more than lethal wounds that cause rather immediate death.  I have a mercenary character who travels with a little kit with needle and thread, antiseptics, salves, and a scalpel.  Heck, if you can't fix it with those, you can't fix it, right?


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## Valentinator

Shooting in heavy rain, how realistic is it? How do accuracy and distance change?


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## wordwalker

(Including, how hard is it to have a working bowstring in rain? Though even then, you might be shooting _out_ from a shelter.)


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## T.Allen.Smith

Traditional bow strings are waxed so they can operate for a time in wet weather. That will wear though. If the string gets too wet (penetrating through the wax coating), the string will stretch and be useless.

As long as the distances are short, rain shouldn't have a dramatic effect on an arrow's flight. Wind & obstacles like branches are a much greater concern for arrow flight. Bow limbs are typically treated to be water repellent, but like strings, that has a limit. Limbs can twist and warp, greatly dismissing accuracy, power, or both.


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## Jabrosky

Would it be possible for a pregnant or breastfeeding woman to use a bow and arrow? I ask this not for a story but because I have an anthropological hypothesis that projectile weapons like the bow and arrow came about so that pregnant or breastfeeding women in prehistoric times could hunt alongside men and unburdened women.


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## Lord Ben

I only read the first and last few pages but I have read that the Mary Rose bows were the elite people of their time and not the average longbow type wielders.   Arrows were longer and heavier than others found in the time period, etc.   Not sure if that's accurate but the English Longbow certainly suffers from a lot of the same type of things that the Japanese Katana does.  People tend to overemphasize it's advantages and dismiss it's disadvantages or take extreme examples like Mary Rose of the elite soldiers of the day and extrapolate that into the tens of thousands of archers in a mass battle from 200 years previous to the MR sinking.   Like anything else, war changes.

Also the "overly large arms" from skeletal remains happens to people who use one arm more than others in modern professions too.  Tennis players, construction workers who use their hammer in one hand, etc etc.  It didn't make them very obviously physically deformed or anything most likely.

My biggest pet peeve in archery is watching a "demonstration" of how easily an arrow can penetrate armor by firing one at near perfect angles into an unmoving target.   Armor exists to deflect the arrows and other blows as much as it does to simply soak up the damage through sheer thickness.   It's not unique to archery though, it repeats itself with people hacking apart mail, etc too with their swords and axes.

I've hunted with my bow and of all the things that annoy me in movies the most it's probably when people just keel over and die immediately.

RE: Pregnancy, I don't think it'd be an issue that couldn't be worked around.  I know quite a few females who hunt (and especially Men with pregnancy sized guts) and I don't remember any of them having to stop hunting hough I can't say it would be comfortable or easy if seriously pronounced.


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## Ankari

I'm using only the hours of talks I've had with my wife's doctors during her pregnancy, so I'm not an expert. From what I understand, women can perform physical activities during pregnancies, but there are windows where the baby is vulnerable. All women have different degrees of difficulty during pregnancies (my wife was an extreme case). I know some women who went to Crossfit while pregnant, but others who had to reduce their physical exertion considerable.

It wouldn't make sense for women to use bows for hunting during those times. They wouldn't know the difference why woman A had no problems while on hunt, but woman B lost her child. As a general rule, after the first few deaths, the society would link the high mortality rate with hunting and forbid the woman from doing so.

This would dovetail nicely with the fact that women ushered in the agricultural age. They were stationary, observant, and put two and two together. If they were hunters like the males, the agricultural age would have been delayed hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

Also, consider the children. Women who hunted would be required to leave their young at home. Who fended for the children if both male and female were hunting? The old? The average life expectancy was very low. There wasn't that many elders.

Finally, breastfeeding requires a lot of energy. For a woman to join the hunt would tax her body, possibly prevent the production of breastmilk. No milk for the child means death. There is no other substitute for breastmilk that will give the baby the same chance of survival, especially during those times.


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## John McDonell

Regarding shooting in the rain:
 Lots of traditional hunters use plastic bags to keep their fletchings dry in the rain. Compound bow arrows generally have plastic fletchings so it doesn't affect them. Turkey feather fletchings, however, tend to lay close to the  shaft and bunch up when wet so the result is that the arrow will fish-tail a bit, depending on how reduced the stabilizing effect of the feathers is. Accuracy will be reduced but not eliminated.
Regarding using a bow while breastfeeding:
Traditional archery clubs have lots of female members generally and some of them use a 'breast protector', for want of a better word. I am not sure what the actual name is. It is a device that basically compresses and protects the woman's left breast, (assuming she is shooting right handed...ie holding the bow with the left hand.), from being hit by the string. It is essentially a leather or hard pad that is held in place by a strap going around the shoulder, I think. I believe it is worn under a shirt. I have never seen a woman wearing one, just saying they are out there. I do know that it can be a problem for women, breast feeding or not, to avoid getting hit by the string. 
Proper shooting stance means you hold the bow straight out from your side, not out in front of you. When you shoot at a target you should be sideways to it, not facing it, so the string would necessarily pass close to one's chest. 
As for big stomach's, ahem not that I have one...well not too big at least. It isn't a problem because the 'v' of the string where the arrow is noched is usually anchored on your face when you draw. If you anchored on your belly it would be a problem I guess. You can also 'cant' the bow, meaning hold it diagonally, rather than straight up and down, that may or may not help with string positioning. Hope this helps.


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## John McDonell

Valentinator said:


> Shooting in heavy rain, how realistic is it? How do accuracy and distance change?



Sorry I missed the range thing. I am going out on a limb here and say that I don't think your bow's range would change much but your accurate range would. Most bow hunters I know would not take a shot at a deer over 30 yards away with traditional gear-longbow or recurve. That doesn't mean they couldn't hit it further away but ethically your chances of making a good killing shot would be less. For me I would be closer to 20-25 yards. Im not sure if I can give you actual numbers but say in optimum conditions I would shoot at a deer at 30 yards. In heavy rain I would probably not shoot more than 20 yards. I am guessing here and I'm not entirely sure what I would in those circumstances, but that might give you a basis to work from. Basically the heavy rain would reduce my accurate range by 1/3. Hope it helps.


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## Valentinator

*John, Allen* thanks a lot for the answers. It was really helpful.


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## Chessie

Does anyone here have information/knowledge about cable-back bows used by Inuit? Or anything similar? I've been doing my research but the internet--surprisingly--has been vague. I'm thinking of a short bow made of birch with a cable made of animal skin.


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## John McDonell

*backed bows*



Chesterama said:


> Does anyone here have information/knowledge about cable-back bows used by Inuit? Or anything similar? I've been doing my research but the internet--surprisingly--has been vague. I'm thinking of a short bow made of birch with a cable made of animal skin.



I haven't heard the term 'cable' backed, but I have heard of bows with backing. Basically it is a way to add strength to a wooden bow. I think it was used mainly in areas where there was a lack of strong types of wood for bow making. Many of the Native American tribes backed their bows with snake skin or elk sinew to add strength and there are still many bowyers today who back their bows. Rattlesnake skin is a popular backing because of the unique look it gives the bow. 
The sinews from elk legs can be bought on ebay from time to time for the purpose of backing a bow. The backing process is simple I think, although I am only going by what I have read or heard so I have no first hand experience. The skin or sinew is laid on the back of the bow, which is the part that faces forward when held properly. The material is expanded, by soaking it in water and stretching or the like, and then glued on to the bow. As it dries the material shrinks and tightens, thus adding it's strength to the bow.
I forget what the glues are made from but they are all natural ingredients. 
I am sure there are other types of sinews and skin that can be used for backing as well. I would be interested in learning more about the Inuit bow if you find more information.
Another interesting Native American bow is the Penobscot bow used by Native populations in Maine. It looks like a bow with a second bow attached, similar to this shape:      )(      although the forward side would be smaller. There are strings or sinews attaching the 4 ends, thus adding more snap and power. I am not sure how effective they were but they look cool.
Two good magazines for research are Traditional Archer and Primitive Archer.


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## Chessie

Wow, thank you for the information! I'll look up those archery mags.


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## servenvolley212

This seems relevant to this discussion. Saw it on Reddit today.

http://www.irasabs.com/?p=15799


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## Jabrosky

Has anyone in here seen the recent Hobbit sequel with the badass elf archers? I have to say I was amazed at how rapidly and yet accurately they were able to shoot on the run. How could they pull that off?


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## Guy

I chalked it up to the elven neuromuscular system.


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## SeverinR

Chesterama said:


> Wow, thank you for the information! I'll look up those archery mags.


Both are online:

Primitive Archer Online

The Traditional Archer - Traditional Archery and Traditional Bowhunting


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## morgana15

If these questions have been asked before, I apologize, but I have a few little things I need some clarification/input on.

1) If a person was shot in the neck with an arrow, it would most likely go all the way through, right? Rather than just sticking out of the neck.
2) What size bow would be good for a person who is just starting out with archery? They've used a bow before, and know the basics of how to use one, but the person is quite small and not very strong.


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## T.Allen.Smith

morgana15 said:


> 1) If a person was shot in the neck with an arrow, it would most likely go all the way through, right? Rather than just sticking out of the neck.



Almost certain it would pass through. Even contacting the vertebrae, an arrow shot by any bow of decent weight would likely shatter the bone and sever the spinal column, then pass through.            

I've shot deer in the spine before (from a tree stand right above them, straight down shot) and saw the arrowhead pass through the spine, through the chest cavity, and create an exit wound through the ribcage. I was a teen, using a bow measuring 45lbs @ 28". The range was about 18 feet, straight down.

A human neck doesn't have nearly that much tissue.             



morgana15 said:


> 2) What size bow would be good for a person who is just starting out with archery? They've used a bow before, and know the basics of how to use one, but the person is quite small and not very strong.



For someone small, likely a short bow, but it depends on the era you're writing in. By that I mean, what is the technology level?      Longbows might be rather hard for a small person to wield or draw. Most longbows I've seen are a minimum of 60lbs at a 30" draw length... Longbows made for war were significantly heavier.              

Recurve bows for hunting start at about 45lbs but most adults would use about 55lbs at a 28-30" draw length.  Of course you can use lighter weight bows but you sacrifice range and power/speed.             

You'll also notice above that I mentioned draw length twice. Your draw length will depend on your body type, longer arms means longer draw. A 30" draw will result in more power than someone smaller with a 25" draw...with the same bow, the longer draw will flex the limbs more, resulting in greater power and speed. Therefore, most bows come with measurements like 45lbs @ 28".              

Other than design, material technology also comes into play. Are composite bows available or only wood? Do they know about backing limbs with sinew or other natural materials, or are they advanced enough to back the limbs with fiberglass or other synthetics? These methods were developed to improve power and flight speed with shorter limbs.    

If your character isn't strong, have them use a low weight bow BUT have the performance suffer in exchange for their inability to draw and wield a heavier bow.       

There's a reason it took so long to train good archers...strength to pull a war bow being one, accuracy another.


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## morgana15

My book takes place in a medieval-like setting, so I'm assuming they'd be using bows made out of natural materials. I was thinking my character would need to be using a shorter bow, and that she probably wouldn't be very good at archery anyway because of her lack of strength. Thank you for the answers!

I do have another question. Even if two people are using similar bows of a similar size, would it make sense that one person would be strong enough to operate their own bow (like pulling the string back as far as necessary to shoot an arrow) but not the other person's? Or would that be more dependent on the size/composition of the bow?


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## Noma Galway

Does similar size also mean similar draw weight? If not, bows can be of similar size and have different draw weights, as far as I know. If this isn't the case, correct me. 
If they have different draw weights, yes, a person might not be able to draw a bow of similar size far enough to shoot. Then again, you don't have bring the arrow to full draw before shooting it.


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## T.Allen.Smith

morgana15 said:


> ...would it make sense that one person would be strong enough to operate their own bow (like pulling the string back as far as necessary to shoot an arrow) but not the other person's? Or would that be more dependent on the size/composition of the bow?


It's not size as much as draw weight that matters. Yes, typically heavier draw weights are bigger bows, but I have seen bows with heavier draw weights with smaller limbs than another, lighter weight bow. 

So yes, one person could operate their own bow while not being able to pull another's. If you're going for realism though, the difference will be more readily accepted by a reader if you describe a difference in size that corresponds to what the smaller character experiences when trying to pull the heavier bow.


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## Caged Maiden

It depends on draw weight.  So, for example, I shoot a 25# bow.  I can draw my friend's 40# bow, but not more than a few times before I get tired.  The reason I use my weak bow is because I often shoot for 9 hours over a weekend.  That's just impossible for me with a 40# bow.  I CAN draw a 55# bow, but not regularly.  And, I discovered I CAN'T draw a 150# war bow past my left shoulder (which was as far as the boys got, too, so I'm happy), and I CAN'T draw a 150# crossbow without a fixed stirrup.  

So... if two people are using the exact same long bow, made of oak, backed with linen, say.  And one is made with a 60# draw weight and the other with a 30# draw weight.  While both bows look identical, the weaker archer won't be able to draw the heavier bow and the person with the heavier bow will have greater speed and accuracy t distances over 40 meters-ish.  At 20 meters, both bows will function perfectly well, but the heavier bow will get better penetration.  Also, aiming will be different.  So... I know my bow.  if I want to his a bullseye, I need to aim a little low and to the left.  My friend with a 65# bow, actually has to aim his arrow point about 20" below his target to get it to his a bullseye.  So, switching bows is very difficult and it's near impossible to say, loot one off a corpse and just start shooting well.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Noma Galway said:


> Does similar size also mean similar draw weight?


Not always, but length of the limbs do play a role most of the time. 



Noma Galway said:


> If not, bows can be of similar size and have different draw weights, as far as I know. If this isn't the case, correct me. If they have different draw weights, yes, a person might not be able to draw a bow of similar size far enough to shoot.


True to a point, however I don't think that would be the case in a medieval setting. Nowadays, sure but that has a lot more to do with design and materials of the modern era.



Noma Galway said:


> Then again, you don't have bring the arrow to full draw before shooting it.


No you don't. Though, archers are trained for full draw. To be a good archer you need to have consistency in how you draw, hold, aim, & release. Small variations in technique can make a vast difference in result. Therefore, I'd find it unlikely for an archer to have a partial draw and be on target with any consistency.


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## Caged Maiden

For speed rounds, consistently at twenty yards, I sometimes don't do a full draw.  But it's so close, who cares.  I'm going for speed.  i don't aim either.  

However, you can bet your butt, if I was trying to kill my food for dinner or bring down a charging wild animal, or trying to kill the guy that just ran off with my horse.. I'd take a second to take a breath and aim and draw all the way, because with archery, you only get one shot.  By the time you get your second one, the target is probably too far away.  And you almost never get a third chance.


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## Caged Maiden

so, just to reiterate about bow sizes, even though it's earlier in this thread.  

Longbow= big straight stick of wood when unstrung.  Could be harder wood or softer.  It's aged and straight, often backed with another material.  Sometimes has horn tips for the string to rest in.

Recurve= either  one-piece or three-piece bow, with limbs attached to a handle segment.  the curve gives it more power without the length of a long bow.  The recurve is curved when unstrung.


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## Malik

Caged Maiden said:


> switching bows is very difficult and it's near impossible to say, loot one off a corpse and just start shooting well.



This. 

I can use someone else's bow and get a tight grouping (all the arrows near each other in the target), but the grouping will most likely not be anywhere near the bullseye.


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## Jonathan Waller

Two longbows can be of similar lengths and different draw weights, due to thickness of the limbs, density of the grain etc. However  a bow of a certain length will not generally go over a certain draw weight as the greater strength add more strain to the limbs so one makes a the limbs longer to spread that strain. 

As to picking up a bow and being able to use it, maybe not the first shot if you haven't shot it before. but a good archer can be flexible especially if one shoots different bows on a regular basis.

If some one is an archer, not just someone who has done it a few times, then will be strong enough to consistently shoot a bow to do the job they do, whether for hunting or war, in general a bow for war is likely to draw a greater weight than one for hunting.

ALso on full draw and aiming, with instinctive shooting one is aiming as one draws, so when hits full draw one can loose. One can shoot from the chest, but in the middle ages the face, corner fo the jaw back to the ear or even beyond are the normal draw lengths.

The idea of aiming think of the differences between how a modern firearm target shooter takes aim and how a combat shooter aims. Most modern archers, who have been taught through the approach of target shooting aim like target shooters, real "instinctive" shooters aim like combat shooters.

There was also a note on the materials used in laminated bows. The main thing used is horn, which wasn't mentioned.


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## James Chandler

This a long thread and I didn't have the patience to read it all, so forgive me if this has been asked before. I know they make modern laminate bows that break down into three pieces, the riser and then the two arms.

Is it plausible for someone to make a short recurve style bow, something like the Mongol bows discussed, that can break down for travel?


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## Jonathan Waller

Bows known as carriage bows (long bows) were quite common in the Victorian period and there are records that suggest going back to the Elizabethan and possibly earlier, don't have my sources to hand.
With shorter limbed recurved bows there is less need as they are already pretty short


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## Joe the Gnarled

Wow, this has been a great read.  Thank you all for the information.  Mods, I recommend a sticky.

Caged Maiden: Somewhere around page nine or so you mentioned a horn thumb ring used by the Mongolians.  I was wondering if you could describe this device in a bit more detail.

Also, I did a bit of target shooting with compound bows when I was younger, but have not touched it in 25 years or so.  Where would you recommend I go to get started again.  Short of going to Wal-Mart, buying a cheap bow and firing rounds at home plate on the ball field (probably not the best idea).

Specifically I am interested in traditional long and recurve bows.  Clearly I would need someone to coach me on technique, along with lots of practice before I could participate in any tournaments.  What groups are out there to help someone like me get started?


Malik:  Do you have a thread specifically geared towards hunting, tracking and general outdoorsmanship?

If yes, where is it?

If no, why not?  (J/K... but seriously, why not?   )



Once again, awesome thread, thank you all for the info.


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## Caged Maiden

the horn ring looks like a metal ring one would wear on his finger, but it's worn on the thumb I believe and one end is oblong, sticking out.  I'll find a historical one rather than a modern one and get back to you.  I'm sure a google search would turn up finds.  Might have been from a Chinese tomb.


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## Malik

I haven't, but that's such a specific body of knowledge that I wouldn't think that it's that relevant. By which I mean you can get it ridiculously wrong and no one will know. I am perhaps uniquely qualified in this area, though. Start a new thread with your questions on tracking and woodcraft. I'm deployed right now but I'll answer questions as time permits.


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## Sheilawisz

Thank you Joe the Gnarled, that is an excellent suggestion!

I agree that this awesome thread should become a Sticky, so it can shine together with _Ask me about Swords_ and the recent _Ask me about Warfare_.

We all can enjoy benefits from _Ask me about Archery_, so I shall grant it the Sticky status now.


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## Ankari

Malik said:


> I haven't, but that's such a specific body of knowledge that I wouldn't think that it's that relevant. By which I mean you can get it ridiculously wrong and no one will know. I am perhaps uniquely qualified in this area, though. Start a new thread with your questions on tracking and woodcraft. I'm deployed right now but I'll answer questions as time permits.



Prepare for the flood of questions. I wonder so much about how hunting and tracking is portrayed in fantasy. I have a feeling 50% of what I read is completely fabricated.


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## Malik

Based on what I've read it's closer to 90%. Tracking and hunting - real, boot-to-hoof-in-God's-arena hunting; not sitting in a treestand with a rifle overlooking an alfalfa field - is about as relevant in our modern society as vaudeville. And about as many tricks of either trade are well-known. Bring your questions.

Edit: I kinda don't want to do this, though; I'd like my series' elves to retain their competitive edge.


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## Queshire

Well, since this has become a sticky I might as well ask a question. What I've heard suggests that the Japanese style of archery is rather different from the Western version, but my "sources" tend to be anime and fiction and not very clear in the first place, so if anyone can offer some clarity on it, that'd be cool. What I've heard;

>Some Japanese bows sort of snap to the opposite position after being used so that instead of being like ( with a normal bow it ends up as ) Is that true and if so do they need to bend it back in the proper shape or do they just spin the bow around?

>That one of the styles of archery is grabbing the arrow from the quiver, drawing it back in the bow, and releasing it all in one smooth motion with the philosophical idea that the arrow knows where it's going and that aiming only confuses it or something.

>That one of the styles is to draw back the bow and just hold it with the idea that releasing the bow should happen naturally, not as a result of any conscious action.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Ankari said:


> Prepare for the flood of questions. I wonder so much about how hunting and tracking is portrayed in fantasy. I have a feeling 50% of what I read is completely fabricated.



I can help Malik on this topic. I come from a long line of very serious hunters who make all their own archery equipment. 

They employ a rather primitive hunting style for deer and only use firearms for Turkey.

Growing up in this family, I have a good bit of experience to share on hunting & woodcraft. I'd agree with Malik too that 90% of literary depictions are off the mark. They make it too simple and easy. Hunting is hard & animals who fight for survival every day are not easy game to take.


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## Jabrosky

I would be interested in a hunting thread too.


T.Allen.Smith said:


> Growing up in this family, I have a good bit of experience to share on hunting & woodcraft. I'd agree with Malik too that 90% of literary depictions are off the mark. They make it too simple and easy. Hunting is hard & animals who fight for survival every day are not easy game to take.


I've read a few hunting stories. One was a real-life account from the 1950s about a guy hunting a huge elephant in Angola. Another was a short by H. Rider Haggard about his character Allan Quartermain, which featured encounters with lions and a buffalo. These particular stories definitely did not give me the impression that hunting was a simple and easy undertaking even if they benefited from firearms instead of bows and arrows.

If anything, it sounds like an arduous process with a lot of tracking and waiting. I would expect a writer to condense all that and hurry to the thrilling parts.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Jabrosky said:


> I've read a few hunting stories. One was a real-life account from the 1950s about a guy hunting a huge elephant in Angola. Another was a short by H. Rider Haggard about his character Allan Quartermain, which featured encounters with lions and a buffalo. These particular stories definitely did not give me the impression that hunting was a simple and easy undertaking even if they benefited from firearms instead of bows and arrows.  If anything, it sounds like an arduous process with a lot of tracking and waiting. I would expect a writer to condense all that and hurry to the thrilling parts.


I haven't read those stories. Also, let me be clear, my experiences lie in archery hunting, firearm hunting, & North American game: whitetail deer primarily, turkey, small game, and fishing.

I agree that many writers would wish to be brief with depictions of hunting if the hunt isn't really a part of the story and its inclusion is more backdrop than anything else. However, in stories where the character's very nature is grown from the hunt (like Quartermain I assume) or where hunting is a primary element of plot, then those details may become important. 

I can think of many situations where wood lore & bushcraft skills might come into play for a fictional character...some very basic ones. Often, those primitive skills are very misunderstood and usually it's because they're depicted as easy or commonplace....anyone can do it.

Let me ask a few questions in example.... How many people reading this thread think they can start a fire with no modern equipment? How many think they could do so with some primitive equipment like a knife and flint? How many have actually tried anything like that?..... Starting a fire is not easy without modern conveniences. There are many techniques and there is most certainly skill & experience involved. It's difficult in the best conditions. In worse weather conditions, the knowledge and skill requirements increase rapidly.

Are details like these necessary for every story? No, certainly not. But, I can understand why a writer would like to know such things. Having a basic knowledge of a topic, even if it is not used it the story proper, can bleed some realism into the tale.


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## psychotick

Hi,

Firestarting if you have a flint, some metal and dry tinder / moss is easy enough. Even I can do it. But all those guys rubbing sticks together and twirling arrows etc I have to doubt. It's just way too much effort. And of course a lot of firestarting is about finding dry tinder which people seem to ignore.

However the one hunting trope that constantly gets used and which I seriously don't believe, is the tracker sitting there staring at a broken twig and telling you five hunters and a blind mule went this way forty two minutes ago. As far as I can see its a very hit and miss sort of skill and what a tracker can generally tell you - especially if they don't have footprints in soft mud - is quite limited.

Cheers, Greg.


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## Queshire

Well, like you said, it requires a flint and some metal. A bow drill is significantly less resource intensive and while it might be a lot of effort, having a fire allows you to cook food, keep warm, could be used to signal rescuers, keep wild animals away, and if you're smart about it, it can be easily maintained once you get it going so lighting a fire is often worth the effort. As for finding tinder, as much as it's important for survival, it's not really that interesting so most writers just gloss over it.

Vice versa, near mystical tracking is pretty interesting even if the readers don't care about the actual  mechanics and the writer glosses over them. Five hunters and a blind mule would be pretty easy to track. I mean, just the blind mule itself is going to be breaking twigs, leaving footprints, pooping, and so on. The five hunters would also be five times as easy to track than a lone hunter especially if they aren't making an effort to be stealthy, for instance if they are on their way towards their hunting ground and don't care about possibly disturbing the animals on the trip there. You're looking at previous campsites, five sets of feet walking through the forest breaking twigs, markings on trees so that the hunters can find their way back, maybe arrows sticking out of trees from mucking about; think the ye olde' days equivalent of following the hunter's trail of empty beer cans.

A good tracker doesn't rely solely on just information from in the field. If they know that they're looking for five hunters and a blind mule then adding up the clues to five hunters and a blind mule would be a lot easier. Otherwise the tracker might get the blind mule, I don't know how different mule poop is from horse or donkey or if the strangeness in the mule's path would add up to being blind or would just be labeled strange. Otherwise he'd probably just say some large animal, most likely a pack animal 'considering there wouldn't be much other reason for a large animal to travel with a pack of hunters, but that there was something strange with it. For the hunters, the trail they left would be larger than what one person could leave by themselves, but smaller than if there was a band of twenty or so. He could reasonably estimate their numbers as over three but under five. He could reasonably enough deduce that they're people who spend significant time in the wilds. The way they move through the wilderness, find their way around tricky stretches, make up camp, etc and so on, would speak of the experience they would have as hunters. Now, if the tracker finds a previous camp site of theirs, well it would help confirm what he already deduced and might shed new clues, who knows?


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## psychotick

Hi,

But in the middle ages carrying around a tinderbox (basically a box with a flint, a steel and some tinder) was relatively common for those travelling. In fact archaeologists are digging up more of them all the time and are now starting to realise that some of the things they had previously found and assumed were something else or else were rubbish, are actually tinderboxes. It was the simplest way to make fire and as you say fire was valuable.

As for the trackers trope, it's not that they can't work out a lot, it's the ludicrous amount of detail that's given in the works from something like a broken twig that annoys me. For a long time during the Victorian era when explorers were all the rage and their stories - real and fake - were serialised etc, the mystique of the great Indian etc tracker was immense. They became almost a mythical being. And some of that still continues in a lot of work today.

Cheers, Greg.


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## wordwalker

One thing about the "telltale twig": tracking would be much more a process like Queshire said, and it's also a process of noting one sign after another and slowly building a more accurate picture of what you're most likely following. This tends to get condensed in careless stories because they don't take time to show those earlier signs and the narrowing of "maybe, maybe"s, they just show one twig and imply that it gave the whole picture.

--Then again, if the tracker wanted to show off, that might be just how he'd act. 

Or, the process might be cut this short if the characters were in a hurried chase. "There's a broken twig, come ON!" (Which can lead to a lot of wrong turns.)


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## CupofJoe

And from what I was told by a South African tracker [and ex-soldier] about things like the Tell-tale twig, was that most trackers are somewhat limited in their range. They will know the land and conditions they grow up in or train on but may be far less useful 50-500 miles away. Everything he knew he said he got through repetition and practice... 
When on walks with him he would often take long loops back across our path to see how our footprints to see how they were changing after half an hour, an hour, three hours etc. He'd also muddy pools to watch how the water cleared [or didn't].


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## wordwalker

Here's one that's been bugging me a while:

What happens if someone with plenty of all-around strength tries to learn to use a high-powered bow? It's been said that bows involve pulling with the arms' and fingers' small muscles, so are there any examples of a weightlifter still not being able to manage the bigger bows? Or is it even worse, that at some power level you almost have to train young to handle it, when the muscles are still forming, rather than just training a lot?

I'm talking about bending the bow, not the extra practice it would take to aim with it-- unless the problem is that what carries over least is the strength to hold it steady and control it. (Would even a seasoned archer, if he'd never used a bow that really tested his strength before, be near to Square One with the big one?)


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## Caged Maiden

I am not a very good archer.  I'm certainly not the sort of physique you're talking about.  I drew a 150 pound bow to my chest and my string made it to my left bicep...same as the big boys.  I'm 5'3" and 120 lbs. (or 8 stone 8 for some of you  ).

Now the thing about those war bows and say, the English bowmen at Agincourt, is that they could draw that bow for a long time and retain accuracy with it (along with 3000 of their friends) and put up a staggering number of arrows every few seconds.

Can a strong person draw the big bow?  Sure, why not?  I did as well as my brawny friends.  But won't all his friends laugh when he can't properly nock the arrow and it falls on the ground because he doesn't know how to spin the string into the self-nock?  Or, when the string bites him?  Oh, I'm sure his friends will have a laugh at that bruise tomorrow.

There is so much more to archery than being able to draw the string.  Seriously, I watched a first-time brawny guy out on the field a few months ago and it took him like 20 seconds just to get the arrow to stay on the string.  With a shelf!  So yeah, it might look easy, like shooting a gun is sort of point and click, but really, most people wouldn't hit the paper target with a rifle on their first go either, and with that, there isn't the same kind of little challenges.  When you draw a bow, you push out from your body with your bow hand and pull back with your string hand (or at least I try.  Just pulling, you tire much quicker).  When you release, your bow hand wants to jerk to the side, throwing off your aim at the last second.  You have to train yourself to maintain that posture after releasing.  That sounds easy but is harder in practice.  Also, primitive bows didn't have a shelf.  You have to get the arrow to stay nestled against the bow, on your hand.  It doesn't want to be there though, it wants to follow gravity and fall on the ground.  Then, the string itself is another problem for inexperienced archers.  When using self-nocking arrows (not plastic nocks that snap onto the string) you spin the string so the arrow stays in there a little tighter.  I don't, but I always use the same arrows and I cut the nocks tight-ish and anyways, I'm used to how they feel.  But my friends do.  I'm just so distracted by other things, I tend to skip steps that my better archery companions swear by.  But I'd assume if you're using army arrows, because no one would go hunting with this kind of bow, it's simply used for warfare, you're using pretty resilient arrows.  Who knows what the nocks would look like.

The thing is, when talking about hunting and war bows, the two didn't mix.  No one took a war bow hunting.  In fact,  know plenty of people who swear they hunt with a 45# bow.  I dunno, I guess with a broad head on it, it might cut the mustard, but I'd assume hunters needed a little more oomph.  Guess not.  

The thing about prey is that you aren't running through the woods, chasing prey. Anything that humans eat can outrun us.  You become an ambush hunter and use your bow from a hiding place.  I guess a 45# bow could work in that case.  I mean, 50 yards is pretty long and you can shoot a target from that distance with even my little training.

Either way, I think the most confusing things about archery in (I'm not even going to say literature/ movies) people's minds, is segregating archery for war and everyday archery.  The thing is, if you're writing a ranger/ woodsman/ hunter-type character, he isn't toting around a war bow.  That's like the equivalent of him carrying a sniper rifle, yes, very cool, certainly has a use and is a terrific weapon, but not great in all situations.  He'll want him a nice hunting rifle, maybe a shotgun.  Or as I like to think of the archery equivalent, a 50# bow he can shoot all day if he needs to, but can make new arrows for everywhere he goes and gets the job done with minimal fuss/ unnecessary tiring.

The bigger the bow, the bigger the ammunition.  Where are you going to find shafts for a 150# bow?  Not in any village you pass.  But you could find shafts for a hunting bow anywhere...oh and look, geese.  I'll have some of those feathers, too.  Voila, tonight, he's sitting at the fire, fletching a few arrows to replace the ones he broke when he missed his last deer and shattered them on trees.  Luckily, he found the points, so no need to pay for those again.

On hunting...my neighbors hunt turkey, antelope, deer, and elk.  They sit out for a whole weekend in the fields and scrub of the southwest, for some of the best turkey meat you'll ever eat, but it takes four solid days of waiting, to bag two birds.  Of course, if your world is less populated with people, you may have game running all over.  That would be fortunate.  I made game scarce in my land where soldiers were marching through the woods, scaring animals away.

Oh well, just as a closing thought, I've broken loads of arrows, I've seen a bow break while someone drew it.  I've seen speed-shooting (and try to employ all the techniques I learned but they're not easy), I sometimes shoot two arrows at once (also looks easier than it is.  Who knew that much about physics?), have drawn a war bow (and couldn't pull a 150# crossbow, BTW), and learned how to aim two years into my archery journey.  I love it, I'm totally excited to get new equipment and make my quivers and arrows.  But writing it like real life can be a touch boring.  I'm not advocating going the Hollywood route, just being creative might add a little flavor to the story.  A couple details will lend authenticity.


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## ThinkerX

> Let me ask a few questions in example.... How many people reading this thread think they can start a fire with no modern equipment? How many think they could do so with some primitive equipment like a knife and flint? How many have actually tried anything like that?.....



Starting a fire with no modern equipment...been there, tried that...repeatedly...back when I was young.  Sparking flints?  (striking them together) Yes, you get sparks...but it be a big step from 'spark' to 'fire' even with good quality tinder.  And if it be raining or there be a bit of a breeze...well forget it, unless your a pro.  Tried the bow drill thing as well.  Much the same.  Getting that tinder to light and STAY lit is *hard*.

As to hunting...some bowhunters around here, but mostly firearms.  Just finding game is a major pain.  At work, I get to see the harvest reports for bear, moose, and the like the local hunters send to Fish & Game (little postcard sized thing).  Lots of them go hunting.  Not many (report) catching anything.  

I used to walk all through the woods hereabouts, going out a mile or more on paths and tracks.  I see moose - they're common around here.  I also see spruce chickens.  But other critters?  Last time I saw a live porcupine was five years ago - and they are also supposed to be common.  (I do see road killed porcupines a few times a year, though).   Bear? Maybe three times a year.  Caribou?  About as often as bear, and that's because they hang out on dried up lake beds.


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## Caged Maiden

I wanted to post this video about hunting.  I hope watching a kill helps people get a better understanding of how primitive bowhunting happened.  Warning:  a deer dies.  But this guy made his equipment and takes it all seriously, so even if you love animals, he has deep respect for history and life and death.  

I think this video gives a better perspective of what hunting is really like.  Rather than walking through the forest, picking off game when you're hungry, it takes planning.  I don't use flint arrowheads, but medieval bodkins.  But the principal is the same.  You use what you need to hunt with, not what a soldier carries into war.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VCYlg9w7dE


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## Valentinator

Let's say that a waterbender creates a waterwall in front of him 3 feet/1 meter thick. What will happen to the arrow going through this obstacle?


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## Bortasz

Valentinator said:


> Let's say that a waterbender creates a waterwall in front of him 3 feet/1 meter thick. What will happen to the arrow going through this obstacle?



Does this is standing water or there are currents? 
How far is archer? 
How strong is his bow?


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## Valentinator

Bortasz said:


> Does this is standing water or there are currents?
> How far is archer?
> How strong is his bow?



Let's imagine 2 cases:

1. Still water, 100 ft, 'average' medieval longbow.
2. Current like in 10ft high waterfall, 100 ft, 'average' medieval longbow.


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## Bortasz

Valentinator said:


> Let's imagine 2 cases:
> 
> 1. Still water, 100 ft, 'average' medieval longbow.
> 2. Current like in 10ft high waterfall, 100 ft, 'average' medieval longbow.



1. Arrow hit the water. Lose all momentum and fall slowly on the ground.  

2. The water pull arrow to the ground. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duC26qlgIkU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxLbdtqkmPA

Density - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Water is almost 1000 more denser than air. So it is like going through 1000 meters of air.


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## Valentinator

Bortasz said:


> 1. Arrow hit the water. Lose all momentum and fall slowly on the ground.
> 
> 2. The water pull arrow to the ground.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duC26qlgIkU
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxLbdtqkmPA
> 
> Density - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
> Water is almost 1000 more denser than air. So it is like going through 1000 meters of air.



Thanks for the response. I think first video doesn't suit me since the bow is immersed in water and the arrow doesn't have the chance to accelerate but the second one seems OK. Still, the second video shows that the arrow travels the distance of like 2 meters before stopping. Are you sure that the mathematical relationship between density and distance is linear? Than it kind of implies that the arrow travelled through 2000 meters of air, doesn't it?


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## Bortasz

Valentinator said:


> Thanks for the response. I think first video doesn't suit me since the bow is immersed in water and the arrow doesn't have the chance to accelerate but the second one seems OK. Still, the second video shows that the arrow travels the distance of like 2 meters before stopping. Are you sure that the mathematical relationship between density and distance is linear? Than it kind of implies that the arrow travelled through 2000 meters of air, doesn't it?



Not sure. Maybe somebody can give you better equation for that. 

I know just that Water is almost 1000 more denser than air. With give quite bigger friction and stoping power.


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## Mr. Steve

A quick question regarding recurve bows:

I seem to remember reading somewhere that a recurve bow design allows for more power with a lighter pull.  I'm almost certainly remembering it incorrectly, unless I'm not; would someone let me know one way or the other?


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## T.Allen.Smith

The recurve design doesn't help with pull weight (like the pulleys on a modern compound bow lighten the hold weight) but it does increase power. In that sense, a recurve generates more arrow speed with a smaller bow & lighter draw weight than a long bow.


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## Jabrosky

I wonder which would make less noise, a hunting firearm or an old-school bow and arrow? I would think that would be an important difference if you're hunting and you don't want to spook prey or inadvertently summon predators.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Jabrosky said:


> I wonder which would make less noise, a hunting firearm or an old-school bow and arrow? I would think that would be an important difference if you're hunting and you don't want to spook prey or inadvertently summon predators.


I'm not sure I understand the question. I have to assume you mean prior to the actual shot. 

If that's the case, then it would depend on the firearm and period. A modern firearm is virtually silent before the shot. Any hunter would already have a round chambered. The only sound before the bang would be the click of the safety disengaging (which can be performed quietly) and the hunter's body motion when raising the rifle. 

Antique firearms, like wheel locks, flintlocks, and similar muskets, are quite different. Depending on design there can be a loud click, and even a flash of powder in the musket's pan before the charge ignites. Other bore-loaded guns might use a percussion cap firing system which significantly improves ignition. 

A bow is quiet in draw, but there are things that can complicate the sound issue. A string rubbing on clothing, for example. The release of the string causes a snapping sound as limbs release stored power. This can be dampened by placing silencers where the string contacts each limb. Common materials for silencers were hide or felt. In modern times, hunters use rubber. Some hunters place tabs further down the string, above and below the knocking point and centered to the limb's tip. The intention there is to dampen vibration. 

I've seen deer jump at a bow shot, usually an instinctual hop or duck in reaction to a twang, and luckily avoid an arrow. But, for the most part, once the arrow is loosed, it's too late (within acceptable ranges). Dependable ranges, hunting with a standard hunting bow, are around 20 feet with a far reaching maximum of 40-50'. 

Firearms are far more effective hunting tools for one main reason...range. The difficulty curve, regarding the animal noticing the hunter, skyrockets in closer ranges. For the most part, bow hunters wait to draw until their prey's attention is focused away from their position. Distance and range alleviates much of that concern, along with concerns over sound.


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## Jabrosky

T.Allen.Smith said:


> I'm not sure I understand the question. I have to assume you mean prior to the actual shot.


Actually I was referring to the actual shot itself.


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## T.Allen.Smith

The firearm, of any caliber, is a lot louder. The exception might be a subsonic round that has been suppressed. That would probably be close in decibel strength to the sound of a bow string. 

For a firearm though, sound of the shot wouldn't matter. Even the slower (common) rounds like a 45 ACP travel 700+ feet per second. That's too fast for an animal's reaction to make a difference in close quarters. Hunting calibers are significantly faster than a .45, which is a defensive pistol cartridge. Even big bore elephant guns, like the 375 H&H Magnum travel over 2000 FPS. The sound barrier is 1128 FPS. 

At longer ranges, hunting rifles used to reach out and touch someone, travel a lot fast than that. They'll impact the target before the sound even reaches their ears. The animal won't react until struck.


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## X Equestris

So here's a question:  how would horse archers like the Mongols, Scythians, Parthians, etc. have carried their bows while on the march or when they weren't actively engaging?  The illustrations I have found point to a scabbard attached to the saddle, but I'd like to confirm that if someone knows for sure.


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## Laurence

I just read this entire thread and I couldn't help but register to the forums. Thanks so much Maiden, Allen, Valent, Quesh, Jonathan and Malik.

Sword thread here I come.

EDIT: Here's a question. The English are always pictured with longbows, but it's been said multiple times here that longbows are entirely unideal for hunting. If that's the case, what would the hunting bows of western Europe have been like?


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## Malik

Laurence said:


> what would the hunting bows of western Europe have been like?



Small. 

You only need about 20-30 lbs. of pull. If that. My wife is 100 lbs, and takes small game with a recurve that IIRC is in the 25-lb. range. I've seen her make an 80-yard shot on a still target (a foam buffalo, so a BIG target) with it. A simple 40-lb. stickbow will put a traditional hunting arrow completely through a deer and out the other side. My hunting bow is 55 pounds, and it is a rocket launcher as recurves go. Heavy, fast, flat-shooting, and makes catastrophic holes in critters. War bows could have been 100 lbs or more. That's like hunting with a Barrett .50 cal. You can; you just don't need it.

One big thing here is that, with a lighter bow, you have a shorter bow, so it's easier to carry and draw without being seen. The sight of a bowstick going vertical, with the limbtip moving from one side to another like a speedometer needle, is enough to make a deer run into the next ZIP code. Nothing in nature moves like that. Also, you can draw a lighter bow slowly, which gives you an edge on stealth; you could draw it s-l-o-w-l-y without alerting your prey. Pulling my 55# recurve to full draw over ten seconds is murderously difficult. I can't imagine it with a 100+ pound longbow. Yow.

Glad you enjoyed it. Welcome to Mythic Scribes.


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## Tom

Laurence said:


> I just read this entire thread and I couldn't help but register to the forums. Thanks so much Maiden, Allen, Valent, Quesh, Jonathan and Malik.
> 
> Sword thread here I come.
> 
> EDIT: Here's a question. The English are always pictured with longbows, but it's been said multiple times here that longbows are entirely unideal for hunting. If that's the case, what would the hunting bows of western Europe have been like?



Hey, welcome to the forums! Hope you like it here. 

Now for your question. Let's see--Western European hunting bows would probably have been self bows, smaller than longbows, but still made of a single piece of wood. Their draw weight would have ranged anywhere from 30 to 90 lbs (sorry I can't provide the metric; this is off the top of my head), depending on what kind of game they were used for. 30 pounds may not sound like a lot, but 30 lbs is just a little below the minimum draw weight for the bow season for deer here in New York.

Historians have speculated that ancient/medieval Western Europe knew of the composite or recurve bow, such as the type the Mongols used, but evidence for this is rare.


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## Laurence

There is a race in my story based on the  ancient Chinese, so I'll keep the composite bow mostly to them for now. My westerners can make do with short self bows for hunting and longbows for battle! Am I right in thinking that the Chinese would have both fought and hunted with their composite bows?


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## wordwalker

I'd like to know how much the Chinese and other non-Mongol Asian cultures used recurve bows myself; odds are the Chinese invented them first but they didn't catch on as well as in the steppes. 

But a real signature weapon of Chinese armies was the crossbow, often mass-produced and fired in mass formations, or even the repeating crossbow as far back as 400 BC


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## T.Allen.Smith

wordwalker said:


> I'd like to know how much the Chinese and other non-Mongol Asian cultures used recurve bows myself; odds are the Chinese invented them first but they didn't catch on as well as in the steppes.


I believe the recurve was invented by the Assyrians. Maintaining a shorter length, while increasing power, made it valuable for their horsemen.


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## Laurence

Is it likely that the ancient Chinese may have used both composite and recurve bows for hunting and in battle when on horseback? Crossbows in battle when not on horseback? Or can you not generalise that much?


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## Tom

Laurence said:


> Is it likely that the ancient Chinese may have used both composite and recurve bows for hunting and in battle when on horseback? Crossbows in battle when not on horseback? Or can you not generalise that much?



I'm not sure about crossbows, but yes, they generally would have used recurve/composite bows on horseback. Recurves are short, but due to their design they have a much higher draw weight than a self bow the same length/size. Their combination of power and small size makes them the best candidate for horseback archery.


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## Svrtnsse

This video may have been posted in the thread already so please bear with me if it's a double post (a forum search on Lars Andersen didn't find and I didn't look through all 24 pages). I found it quite impressive, but my knowledge of archery is very limited so I don't know how complicated or how well known these techniques are.


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## Laurence

That video gets amazing from like 1:15 onwards.

Arrow left around the bow.


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## wordwalker

Wow indeed. And a lot of it makes sense, as ways to combine the pictoral records and what a battle archer might really need to do (as opposed to a sports or maybe a hunting archer, taking more time per shot).

Now if only they could get some of those moves onto TV's _Arrow_, I might almost stop grumbling about working a bow faster than three gunmen work their trigger fingers.


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## Gurkhal

Great thread with many interesting parts in it. The only problem I would see for writing is that if a character pulled off the kind of stunts in the video the average reader would dismiss it as unrealistic.


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## Tom

That video was amazing. I've never seen anything like that. I felt vindicated when the uselessness of back quivers was pointed out--I've been griping about their tendency to spill arrows for years. 3 shots in less than 2 seconds. Unbelievable. Makes me feel slow at 3 in 8 seconds.

I feel the temptation to bump my own archer character up to a Lars Andersen level of awesome, but I don't think it would be realistic. Tom's only about seventeen, so I don't think he would have the experience or the muscle development to shoot at such a high skill level.


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## wordwalker

Another point: how heavy is that bow Lars is using? That kind of speed can't be easy with a serious warbow. (Then again, if you knew your enemies weren't at long range or with heavy armor, this kind of speed-bow might be just what you wanted anyway.)


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## Tom

wordwalker said:


> Another point: how heavy is that bow Lars is using? That kind of speed can't be easy with a serious warbow. (Then again, if you knew your enemies weren't at long range or with heavy armor, this kind of speed-bow might be just what you wanted anyway.)



It looked to be quite powerful--his arrows were able to punch through both chainmail and the gambeson beneath at close range. I'd estimate that its draw weight clocked in at approximately 80-90 pounds.


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## cupiscent

Regarding that video - which I agree, is totally amazing, and I respect that guy's hard-practiced skill! - but here's some discussion of that in the wider context of historic archery usages: Regarding Lars Andersen.

In short: what Lars is doing is high on mobility and lone-ninja application, especially against an unsuspecting or unarmored target, or from horseback. But in larger groups and against armour, you probably want different things from your archers that will require a different sort of bow and shooting.


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## wordwalker

Thinking about it, you're right. I remember one test of the battle of CrÃ©cy showed that even the full English longbow would only pierce mail at the closer ranges too.


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## Laurence

I imagine he used a different bow for the shots where he pierced mail, not to mention the fact that during jumping shots etc. it's unlikely he draws it back very far.

Minus the flips, however, a character could use the arrow in hand technique with a big ol' warbow still?


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## Laurence

Is it usually the string that snaps before the wood of a bow?


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## Tom

Laurence said:


> Is it usually the string that snaps before the wood of a bow?



Um...usually the bow, I think, unless it's the string that's weak or fraying. Even then, bows usually don't break when their strings do. Usually bows snapping is the result of the integrity of the wood being compromised in some way, so it's the bow component that would snap first.

I actually had a self bow that snapped. It was the result of storing it in my garage over the winter. The winters here are extremely cold, so the wood of the bow first shrank, and then expanded again when the spring thaw came. All in all it was too much for it, and the next time I went to use it it broke neatly in half with this almightly _crack_. 

I hand-crafted that bow out of seasoned hickory, and was very upset when it gave up the ghost...


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## Laurence

That's what I wanted to hear. Thank you and I'm sorry for your loss aha. 

When it comes to whittling basic arrows from sticks (say you were in the wild), how quickly do you guys think somebody could do this? Could it be done with sticks that are still living?

Edit: Bare in mind the trees in the location I'm thinking will generally be based on bamboo and other native Chinese trees.


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## wordwalker

A related point to making your own arrows:

_Mythbusters_ (pause for the cheering) did a test that found that arrows that just used their sharpened tips as points were nearly as good as those with stone heads, and a lot faster to make. 

(This led to a fun debate of why archeologists still find _so_ many arrowheads. Conclusions: 1) even a slight edge might be worth it if it kept you fed, 2) prestige, or as they called it "caveman bling, baby!" and 3) stone arrowheads last longer than sticks, so who knows how many more headless arrows there were for every arrowhead that survived for us to find?)


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## CupofJoe

wordwalker said:


> ...so who knows how many more headless arrows there were for every arrowhead that survived for us to find?)


I have heard that argument made about ancient China/Cambodia/Vietnam and why there seems to be little/less evidence of a Stone/Bronze Age given the complex societies that have been found.... They had Bamboo... Stone and softer metals were not as much as an advantage to them as they had access to almost limitless supplies of Bamboo that could be cut to shape and sharpened far more quickly. Once discarded the item quickly rotted away or were used in some other format.
I've also had it put forward that many of the Stone Axes that have been found were Trophies ["Caveman bling" as it were] as there is usually no evidence of their being used... Okay, that could be why they survived and the used ones are the broken bits that we've been ignoring...


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## Laurence

So my character should be able to quickly make bamboo arrows with little effort. Awesome. 

How plausible does it sound to be able to make these arrows and use them before the bamboo has even fully died?


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## CupofJoe

I've never made a bamboo arrow but I would guess that they would need a tip as Bamboo is hollow [or at least really blunt ended] and the arrow would need fletchings [and straitening ? - but maybe not so much], so they would still require a fair amount of work... but maybe less that spending hour chipping away at a flint... been there done that, its hard work for someone not skilled... and I am really not skilled at flint knapping.
Do you mean dried bamboo?
I guess you could use green bamboo as long as you were going to use them quickly... I think their tube-ness would make then stiffer than a green twig of similar dimensions... And I'm guessing that they would not be a durable a a more traditionally created arrow... but if you wanted fast and dirty... maybe.


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## Laurence

The fletching is going to be a pain in my arse, but if I avoid that then my story would be less plausible than I'd like. I don't suppose there are any fletchings you'd be likely to find in the same area as bamboo? Any suitable birds?

On a separate note: how much blunt force could an arrow apply if it hit me in the head while I was wearing a mail coif or plate helmet? (Riveted mail or I'm assuming most well placed arrows would go straight through.)

Could a shot from a 150lb war bow knock someone out through either of these helmets? Or a 40lb bow for that matter?


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## CupofJoe

Almost any flight feathers would work as fletchings as far as I know. They just have to be relatively straight and stiff. I think Goose was only favoured because it was very common... In use I have seen Pigeon, Magpie, Raven and Eagle [but that was a Native American Tribal made arrow and might have been just for show... I've forgotten what tribe I an sorry to say]
I have never been hit in the head by an arrow  so everything is guess work for me.
At short range [where the head could be aimed at] I would think that any arrow loosed would be a stunning blow. A mail coif would offer little protection without a padded inner to distribute the impact. A more solid helm might even make things worse by not absorbing any of the force but transferring it all to the neck or head. I could be persuaded that a huge 150lb bow might just snap your neck if you were unlucky. It would make your ears ring I would bet.
I had a great deal of fun learning to fire a bow at a local archery club. Most offer starter courses [of a few hours for a few weeks] at a fairly cheap rate. Highly recommended way to spend a Saturday morning or three...


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## Laurence

Good stuff! Snapping necks is what I'm all about.


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## wordwalker

Here's another analysis on the Lars Andersen archery video. According to Elizabeth Bear, probably the most respected military fantasy writer today:



> That guy's a really good marketer.



It's a long post (and it has some interesting related links at the end too), but its upshot is that Andersen is using high-speed techniques that sacrifice _all_ the power real archery would need. Ah well.


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## Laurence

I understand that he may lack the power for armoured foes but surely he could still do some very cool hunting.


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## John McDonell

I remember reading in "The Witchery of Archery" something about making their own arrows from long saplings, sorry I don't remember which type, and they were very effective. They were hunting I believe in the southern U.S. and they fire-hardened the tips. Mostly used for hunting birds I think.


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## John McDonell

Laurence said:


> That's what I wanted to hear. Thank you and I'm sorry for your loss aha.
> 
> When it comes to whittling basic arrows from sticks (say you were in the wild), how quickly do you guys think somebody could do this? Could it be done with sticks that are still living?
> 
> Edit: Bare in mind the trees in the location I'm thinking will generally be based on bamboo and other native Chinese trees.



Sorry the above post was in reference to this.


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## Russ

On the question of how much "force" an arrow might apply to a plate helmet, I and many others have been struck by arrows with heads replaced with empty 9mm casings fired from traditional longbows with draws from 40-80 pounds at shorter than traditional use ranges.  On a plate helmet it is pretty much a noise and you almost cannot feel it.  I don't think an arrow from any draw of bow could render someone in a plate helm unconscious.  

I have not worn, nor does anyone I know wear a plate helm without a good padded lining.  Mine is made traditionally with horse hair.

But with a real point I would sure not feel particularly safe even if I was wearing my riveted maille.  A plate helmet is a very rounded and tough target though for any arrow.  But do watch out for those damned eye slits!


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## Laurence

I feel like an arrow with the right tip would apply a lot more force as it would bite in to the metal rather than glancing off. 

I hope so, anyway. I was looking forward to crumpling some helmets and snapping some kneels with a bow in my story!


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## Guy

Concerning arrows vs armor, there are many variables:  the bow's draw weight, the type of arrow head used and what it's made from, the armor it's being used against. War bows typically had draw weights that started at 80 pounds and went up from there. English long bows could go 120 lbs. I've heard of some that were around 150, and I can't remember where I read this but I could swear I once read of one that was estimated to be 180 lbs. Asian composite bows would go 160. Then there's the arrow head. There were broad cutting heads used for hunting and narrow pointed armor piercers (bodkins). Arrow heads made of steel would perform better than those made of iron. Plate armor was usually made of iron. It wasn't until the 15th century that they were able to make it out of steel, and there was huge variation in quality, so an arrow might pierce an iron plate but not a steel one. Moreover, armor was of varying thickness. Armor for the limbs was thinner than armor for the chest. Visors on helms were usually thinner than the top of the helm, and there are accounts of archer deliberately aiming for the visors for this very reason. Plate armor was rounded for two reasons - to conform to the shape of the human body but also to present a curved surface so a blade would glance off. It was also usually polished to make it smoother and therefore more difficult for a blade to grab a purchase on.


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## wordwalker

Especially:



Guy said:


> ...
> Arrow heads made of steel would perform better than those made of iron. Plate armor was usually made of iron. It wasn't until the 15th century that they were able to make it out of steel...



Every time you see a test or calculation of weapon-vs-armor, if the armor isn't iron it's only testing a tiny sliver of history.

(And, composite bows? The Mongol bow's a top pick for best pre-gunpowder weapon ever, but _160 pounds_? Yowza!)


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## MRAcadence

Okay so writing an adventure and there are a few people who are being trained within 2 days to use a bow.  The guy teaching them is very very skilled.  Would you say that it is possible to have them be proficient enough to hit a moving target like a group of 10 or so men charging at them in that amount of time ?


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## T.Allen.Smith

Anything is _possible_, but it's not plausible.

Archery takes years of training to become proficient, regardless of the instructor's skill. There are many variables to consider, like strength in muscle groups you wouldn't normally use to pull and hold a bow at draw while aiming. Even more importantly, an archer needs to shoot a lot of arrows to work out mechanics of a proper draw and release.


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## Malik

wordwalker said:


> Especially:
> 
> The Mongol bow's a top pick for best pre-gunpowder weapon ever, but _160 pounds_? Yowza!



I recently shot a 100-lb. longbow. It takes immense strength and perfect form. It was a hell of a weapon, though. The one I shot was flat-shooting and fast, with surprisingly little handshock. It was exceptionally accurate, with a five-shot group inside an area the size of my palm, but part of that may be the fact that I had to draw it carefully and precisely to get it back to anchor. It also drove the arrows so far into the hay bales that it took two of us to pull them out again. 

This is not a beginner's weapon. I assess that it would take you a month to train someone how to draw a heavy bow correctly in the first place -- it's all in the geometry -- and another six months to refine their form and exercise them enough that they could even pull a 100-lb. war bow, much less use one all afternoon to train on it. I'm a strong guy. A couple of minutes with that 100-lb. bow was plenty for me, thanks. 

I shot a 70-lb. bow a few years ago -- a guy in my archery club has one. I have to admit that it may not have been built well -- and also that this 100-lb. bow may have been of extraordinary craftsmanship -- because the bigger bow was easier and smoother to pull, and had far less handshock, than I remember from the 70-lb. bow. It's possible that the 70-lb. bow was stacking.

Stacking refers to a bow's spring rate curve. Draw weight is not linear (unless you have a compound bow); it increases with each inch of draw. All bows stack; it's a matter of physics. It's just a matter of when they start to really stack and affect the feel of the draw.  The bow will eventually hit a point where the draw weight increases disproportionately to the amount of flexion (and therefore potential energy), and you can physically feel the string "hit the wall" as the force curve goes geometric. The trick is to make a bow that doesn't noticeably stack until it's past the draw point of 30" or so. One thing about this 100-lb. bow is that it was FREAKING HUGE, like, probably over 6' long. This is mathematically interesting because if you think about spring rates, longer bow limbs will stack later in the draw. Long enough bow limbs would conceivably start to stack past the hold.

My primary hunting bow is a 55# recurve, which is considered pretty stout. She'll take it out of you after an hour of shooting. Anything over 60# is usually considered a monster. I had never seen a commercially-produced 100-lb. bow and I see absolutely no practical reason to own one. I certainly wouldn't use one in a competition. It is so physically large -- literally, taller than I am -- that I see no way to hunt with it or even carry it in the woods. It would snag on everything and make a hell of a racket. Especially around here with the thick underbrush.

Seeing what a beast the 100-lb. bow is compared to my 55# bow, I still maintain that the 150-lb. bow is historically equivalent to the 25-lb. sword. Massive jeweled swords with overbuilt furnishings and oversized blades existed, but they weren't used for combat. They were wall decorations or ceremonial weapons, and it was archaeologists who'd studied rapier fencing in college and then handled these ornamental swords and tried to fence with them who started the whole idea that medieval swords were blunderous, exhausting things. I have to wonder if an archaeologist uncovered a massive Mongol bow that was actually ceremonial, or built to hang over a fireplace as a memento, or given to someone as a practical joke long ago or something, and did the math and thought, "Gee, all Mongols used 160-lb. bows. Wow, they were strong."


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## MiguelDHorcrux

Just an innocent question: Is it feasible for arrows to be really poisoned? I've seen movies where they will dip the tips in poison before firing it. Won't the air pressure dry or shake the poison off?


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## X Equestris

MiguelDHorcrux said:


> Just an innocent question: Is it feasible for arrows to be really poisoned? I've seen movies where they will dip the tips in poison before firing it. Won't the air pressure dry or shake the poison off?



Oh, it's very feasible:

Arrow poison - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## DMThaane

The word 'toxin' actually derives from the Greek word for bow, so it's not only very feasible but its use actually worked its way into our language.


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## TheKillerBs

Malik said:


> Seeing what a beast the 100-lb. bow is compared to my 55# bow, I still maintain that the 150-lb. bow is historically equivalent to the 25-lb. sword. Massive jeweled swords with overbuilt furnishings and oversized blades existed, but they weren't used for combat. They were wall decorations or ceremonial weapons, and it was archaeologists who'd studied rapier fencing in college and then handled these ornamental swords and tried to fence with them who started the whole idea that medieval swords were blunderous, exhausting things. I have to wonder if an archaeologist uncovered a massive Mongol bow that was actually ceremonial, or built to hang over a fireplace as a memento, or given to someone as a practical joke long ago or something, and did the math and thought, "Gee, all Mongols used 160-lb. bows. Wow, they were strong."



I get where you're coming from (sort of), but there's two things where your theory falls flat. First of all, there is evidence of war bows that were actually used for war that are in the 150+ range - the most complete collection comes from the Mary Rose ship in the 16th century. The Mary Rose bows ranged up to 180 lbs draw weight, though the most common draw weight was about 140 lbs.

The second point is that the comparison to 25 lb swords is meaningless. 25 lb swords are practically unusable, but a 150-lb war bow is perfectly usable (Guiness record is 200 lbs). Just because a 100-lb bow is overkill these days, when if you want a ranged war weapon you get yourself a military gun, which is the harder, better, faster, stronger option does not mean that was the case in pre-gunpowder and early gunpowder times. These bows shot massive arrows designed to skewer people who were not heavily armoured at a fairly long range, and marching armies were not particularly concerned with stealth either.


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## Guy

TheKillerBs said:


> I get where you're coming from (sort of), but there's two things where your theory falls flat. First of all, there is evidence of war bows that were actually used for war that are in the 150+ range - the most complete collection comes from the Mary Rose ship in the 16th century. The Mary Rose bows ranged up to 180 lbs draw weight, though the most common draw weight was about 140 lbs.


I was going to post this, but you beat me to it. Since those bows were recovered from an active war ship, it's unlikely they were for ceremonial purposes. 

English archers were trained from boyhood, starting around age seven. As they grew, they moved up to heavier draw weights, spending years gradually working their way up until they could draw the heavy ones. The same would've applied to the Mongols. They paid a price, though. Skeletal remains believed to be those of archers show heavy wear on bones in the shoulders, arms, and upper back.


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## Russ

TheKillerBs said:


> I get where you're coming from (sort of), but there's two things where your theory falls flat. First of all, there is evidence of war bows that were actually used for war that are in the 150+ range - the most complete collection comes from the Mary Rose ship in the 16th century. The Mary Rose bows ranged up to 180 lbs draw weight, though the most common draw weight was about 140 lbs.
> 
> The second point is that the comparison to 25 lb swords is meaningless. 25 lb swords are practically unusable, but a 150-lb war bow is perfectly usable (Guiness record is 200 lbs). Just because a 100-lb bow is overkill these days, when if you want a ranged war weapon you get yourself a military gun, which is the harder, better, faster, stronger option does not mean that was the case in pre-gunpowder and early gunpowder times. These bows shot massive arrows designed to skewer people who were not heavily armoured at a fairly long range, and marching armies were not particularly concerned with stealth either.



I have to agree.  The evidence from the Mary Rose and a few other sources makes it pretty clear that 150  lb bows were used on battlefields in medieval Europe.


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## Zack

I used to shoot a compound bow when I was younger, but I know very little about recurve bows or longbows. Both follow the same principle of a fixed strong on flexible limbs, right? I remember compound bows being very loud when fired, making a whip-like crack. Of course you can put silencers on the limbs to make them quieter, but do receive and long bows have the same problem? Most people think bows are silent and I know compounds are not,  but what of the other types?


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## Zack

Sorry about the mis-spelling.


----------



## Pendragon II

All right. I have a situation to present to you.

 One of my MCs is an archer, but with a twist. He is part of an independent branch of the Thorician (read: homeland) military known as the Snakekillers. The name is of course derived from the saying, _Cut the head from the snake and the body shall wither_, so I suppose it's fairly obvious what their battlefield application is. Killing the enemy officers from afar, strategically removing the opposing army's leaders to send their men into disarray; they're pretty much medieval snipers. Of course, this is fantasy, so there's some magic in there too, and this is where my question lies. 

 Some exposition... there are two factors that set Snakekillers above the average archer. One, extensive training which takes place over years and includes skill, physical, and mental training. Two, each receives a "rune" (a way of bestowing an amplification enchantment onto a living creature) at each rank of Snakekiller, up to five. The first rune bestows increased strength and durability to the arms, back, and neck in order to aid in the use of high draw-weight longbows. To put this in perspective, I would say the strength allows for one and a half times the range of a normal man. The second rune bestows enhanced eyesight, including limited zoom which can be activated manually by focusing. This is manifested as a second iris ring. Meanwhile the third rune sharpens the mind; the fourth enhances abdominal, leg muscles, etc; and the fifth adds a third ring to the eyes. 

My question is, to begin with: Is this feasible? If so, (or if not) what would the range be for such an individual, assuming they have a very powerful longbow? 

This is a rather brief explanation of the Snakekillers, but hopefully it will suffice. Any thoughts you have are welcome.


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## TheKillerBs

Eh... there's several issues I have with this, but the biggest one is that it's practically impossible to shoot accurately at long range with any sort of bow and human eyesight is not exactly the biggest issue.


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## Zack

TheKillerBs, what about an enchantment to increase accuracy? Kind of like a heat-seeking missile but with magic... Unless that sounds stupid. I do like Pendragon ll's Snakekiller concept. Would be interesting. You could do a lot of infiltration and covert operations with an assasin group like that.


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## Zack

By the way the iris manifestation of enhanced eyesight would look really cool! Keep that! It would give a Snakekiller a unique characteristic.


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## T.Allen.Smith

Zack said:


> I remember compound bows being very loud when fired, making a whip-like crack. Of course you can put silencers on the limbs to make them quieter, but do recurve and long bows have the same problem? Most people think bows are silent and I know compounds are not,  but what of the other types?


I know for certain that silencers can be used for recurves. As a younger man, I used them myself for deer hunting. Modern silencers are typically made from rubber, but there are older examples made of natural materials like hide and even cloth like felt. The limbs themselves could also be lined on the areas where the string contacts the bow limb to make it quieter still.  

I'm not certain about long bows.


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## MiguelDHorcrux

Another noob question (though I guess this is what the thread is for after all haha)

How do flaming arrows work? Do they even work? I mean, won't the wind extinguish the flames? Another thing, do arrows really spin when fired and do they "drill" through their targets on impact? And lastly, how realistic are multiple arrows being fired at the same time from a longbow? I have seen crossbows that fire multiple darts at the same time but I guess those are different from actual bows.


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## Russ

T.Allen.Smith said:


> I know for certain that silencers can be used for recurves. As a younger man, I used them myself for deer hunting. Modern silencers are typically made from rubber, but there are older examples made of natural materials like hide and even cloth like felt. The limbs themselves could also be lined on the areas where the string contacts the bow limb to make it quieter still.
> 
> I'm not certain about long bows.



My longbow is not very loud at all.  Compound bows sound much louder to me.  Next time I am at the range I will listen a little more carefully and let you know what I find.  Never much thought about it.


----------



## Russ

MiguelDHorcrux said:


> Another noob question (though I guess this is what the thread is for after all haha)
> 
> How do flaming arrows work? Do they even work? I mean, won't the wind extinguish the flames? Another thing, do arrows really spin when fired and do they "drill" through their targets on impact? And lastly, how realistic are multiple arrows being fired at the same time from a longbow? I have seen crossbows that fire multiple darts at the same time but I guess those are different from actual bows.



Flaming arrows work.  I have done them.

We used to do them by tightly wrapping some cloth around the shaft just behind the head and then soaking it in lighter fluid.  Works quite well.  I suspect there are other methods.  

In fact at our medieval camping weekends we let the kids start the big bonfire that way.  Place boar's  head on carefully treated wood and away you go...






I do not think you could fire multiple arrows at the same time from a long bow.


----------



## Demesnedenoir

You could fire multiple arrows... but uhm, no, not accurately. 

String silencers would be a must for this sort of application, assuming they are sneaking in tight to perimeter patrols. Longbows tend to be quieter than compounds, but still, silencing them when your life is on the line is a good idea.


----------



## intipablo

What do you know about the Ancient Mauryan Empires longbows? I read somewhere about them and I was wondering if any of you knew anything?


----------



## Mr. Steve

I'm sure we know the adage "If you want to train a longbowman, start with his grandfather."  However, what is the feasibility of training large numbers of infantry in basic archery with small bows?

In my work in (perpetual) progress I have, of course, specialized foot archers that use a longbow-type bow; however, I have also issued small bows and a small number of arrows to the well-armored heavy infantry, allowing them to loose a few volleys while the lines close before the charge.  All infantry in this army have received basic archery training, they are far from expert, but competent enough in the basics to have some effect on thinning the enemy ranks before the lines collide.

So now I suppose the question is two-fold: 1) Is it feasible to mass train infantry in basic archery to make them at least functional archers in this limited capacity and 2) Are armored heavy infantry capable of effectively using bows, or will such equipment interfere with the motions?  And hell, I suppose 3) How heavily can you armor archers before their armor gets in the way of the motions?

Thanks in advance everyone.


----------



## DMThaane

Mr. Steve said:


> In my work in (perpetual) progress I have, of course, specialized foot archers that use a longbow-type bow; however, I have also issued small bows and a small number of arrows to the well-armored heavy infantry, allowing them to loose a few volleys while the lines close before the charge.  All infantry in this army have received basic archery training, they are far from expert, but competent enough in the basics to have some effect on thinning the enemy ranks before the lines collide.



The most obvious problems I see with this are logistics and training. Bows take a fair amount of training and if these smaller bows have weak draw weights they may struggle for distance and armour penetration. If they have heavy draws then being small won't take away from the need to build muscle. Time spent training with these bows is time not spent training with their melee weapons and learning how to fight and manoeuvre in formation. Bows will also need to be manufactured in large numbers, you'll need arrows, a lot of arrows. Your supply train will need to carry all these arrows. If these bows use arrows of a different length you've just introduced another complexity. Furthermore these soldiers will now have to carry  and care for these bows and these arrows and fight while carrying them. They're likely to be resentful of that as they'll already be carrying and looking after a lot of equipment.

That said, nothing is impossible in fantasy and you could certainly make it sound convincing enough for most readers. There are also historical equivalents you could consider. The Romans equipped their infantry with pila (which are basically a form of javelin) and later with weighted darts called plumbata and 10th century Byzantine war manuals recommend equipping every man with a sling. A benefit of slings is that plentiful ammunition can be found just lying on the ground.



> So now I suppose the question is two-fold: 1) Is it feasible to mass train infantry in basic archery to make them at least functional archers in this limited capacity and 2) Are armored heavy infantry capable of effectively using bows, or will such equipment interfere with the motions?  And hell, I suppose 3) How heavily can you armor archers before their armor gets in the way of the motions?



1) is possible but you'll need an archery culture that heavily incentivises studying the art, either for philosophical, social, or legal reasons. You'd probably want to recruit primarily from higher classes of society for your infantry, as they'd have more spare time to practice multiple arts. This would likely be true even if you have a devoted military class. 2) is a little outside my area but while armour may reduce the draw weight you'd be capable of drawing I don't see decently designed armour preventing use of a bow, especially not in a culture that prized it so high. 3) again, a little outside my area but I suspect that if you're too heavily armoured to even use a bow then you're too heavily armoured to actually fight. You're basically talking jousting armour at this point and that was never meant to see a war.


----------



## Russ

Mr. Steve said:


> In my work in (perpetual) progress I have, of course, specialized foot archers that use a longbow-type bow; however, I have also issued small bows and a small number of arrows to the well-armored heavy infantry, allowing them to loose a few volleys while the lines close before the charge.  All infantry in this army have received basic archery training, they are far from expert, but competent enough in the basics to have some effect on thinning the enemy ranks before the lines collide.
> 
> So now I suppose the question is two-fold: 1) Is it feasible to mass train infantry in basic archery to make them at least functional archers in this limited capacity and 2) Are armored heavy infantry capable of effectively using bows, or will such equipment interfere with the motions?  And hell, I suppose 3) How heavily can you armor archers before their armor gets in the way of the motions?



Interesting questions.  I agree with DM Thane about the logistical and cost problems, but vary a little bit on the technical aspects.

It is not the size of the bow that really requires training, it is the pull.  For indoor shooting I own a long bow, six foot in length that only pulls 40 lbs.  It is not hard to train someone to use that bow competently enough for some short range shooting.  Your problem then becomes time.  If the enemy is charging you (particularly on horseback) they can close the distance pretty quick, and then you have to put away your bow and prepare your next weapon after you have loosed your "thinning" volleys...sounds hard.  Woe betide you if you don't complete your weapons switch before the enemy makes contact.

I forsee a problems carrying all this stuff into battle.  If your heavy infantry has to carry their bow, plus quivers, plus all their melee weapons onto the field of battle, and then off the field of battle afterward that sounds like a lot of work and bulk to haul around.  Plus who will maintain all their bows and their melee weapons in between battles.  Normally a soldier does most of his own maintainance but as you add new classes of weapons you increase the demand for skills for each soldier, unless you have some sort of specialized or sophisticated maintainence system.

Armour could get in the way of bow use.  If you are in full plate armour it would be very hard.  Anything that binds up your shoulders would be a problem, and any kind of closed or full face helmet could also be a problem.  I think your breastplate could be a problem, but am not sure.  Maybe I should try it at home.  Gauntlets would definately be a problem in  handling.

Mixed roles are a tricky thing on the "combined arms" battlefield, and often, armies evolve towards having more specialists rather than multi-role fighting men.  Lots to think about and discuss though.


----------



## SaltyDog

Zack said:


> I used to shoot a compound bow when I was younger, but I know very little about recurve bows or longbows. Both follow the same principle of a fixed strong on flexible limbs, right? I remember compound bows being very loud when fired, making a whip-like crack. Of course you can put silencers on the limbs to make them quieter, but do receive and long bows have the same problem? Most people think bows are silent and I know compounds are not,  but what of the other types?



It depends on the bow.  I think all have the possibility of being loud or quiet, without silencers of course.  One recurve I shot with for a couple of years was quite silent even without a silencer.  Some however I have shot are loud, very loud in fact.


----------



## rlswink

I have a question. If someone gets shot in the right shoulder with a basic arrow how long it would take to heal if it didn't hit anything major?


----------



## Malik

rlswink said:


> I have a question. If someone gets shot in the right shoulder with a basic arrow how long it would take to heal if it didn't hit anything major?



Literally, forever. It's like getting shot in the knee. 

Everything in the shoulder is major. 

I hunt big game with a 55-lb. recurve and hand-made arrows. A wooden arrow with a steel tip will shatter the shoulder on a large deer or small bear -- 200-250 lbs., and a bone much heavier than a human's shoulder -- and then exit the body cavity on the other side, landing in the bushes several yards away. On a human, a broken scapula is crippling, and a shattered scapula requires hours of surgery with modern medicine -- screws and wire and pins. 

A broadhead (your "basic arrow") is built to sever arteries and tendons and makes a horrific wound. Arrows spin in flight -- the fletchings are not stabilizers; arrows fly straight because of gyroscopic forces -- and they drill into flesh. The resulting wound channel is sufficient to pass a golf ball through. 

As we discussed in the first thread linked above, if you sever the acromiothoracic artery or hit the brachial plexus -- which are about as far apart as the opposing radii of a baseball, and again, look at that wound channel -- your target is dead. If you miss all of that, you will likely shatter the scapula, and if a bone fragment gets driven into the lungs or a major artery -- and the scapula can explode under an arrow like shooting an air rifle at a dinner plate -- cancel Christmas. 

If you graze the target on the meat of the shoulder -- the medial head of the deltoid, well outside of the joint itself -- then it's a handful of stitches and a pain in the ass for a few weeks. Hit that joint, though, and your target is crippled at best.


----------



## HiddenVale

What would be the most ideal kinds of durable wood for crafting longbows?


----------



## T.Allen.Smith

HiddenVale said:


> What would be the most ideal kinds of durable wood for crafting longbows?



Traditionally English longbows were made of Yew. It's a good wood for a bow, but the reason it was used primarily is because it was also plentiful. 

I have uncles who make their own bows and arrows for hunting. They're craftsmen far beyond my ability, but I do know they use Osage Orange to make their bows. In modern times, when we can get whatever materials we want, they chose Osage Orange. I don't know the specifics as to why, but I'm willing to bet there are benefits to Osage Orange.


----------



## Peregrine

Is it physically possible to shoot from a bow or a crossbow from a flying mount?

If the flying mount is a giant eagle for example.

Would the mount be too fast to shoot anything or not?
Horses are fast too and horse archery requires quickness.


----------



## jedellion

Hi There. 
I make and shoot traditional English/Welsh longbows and am a qualified archery cach for Archery GB. My sons are also archers and my youngest is soon to be one of the youngest archery coaches in Britain at 15 years old.

Feel free to ask me if there is no one else around although the thread originator covered the basics really well.


----------



## jedellion

Italian yew was best. Ironically most 'English' Longbows were made from Italian yew.


----------



## jedellion

MRAcadence said:


> Okay so writing an adventure and there are a few people who are being trained within 2 days to use a bow.  The guy teaching them is very very skilled.  Would you say that it is possible to have them be proficient enough to hit a moving target like a group of 10 or so men charging at them in that amount of time ?



Probably not with any degree of accuracy other than the right general dirction. I teach archery courses over six weeks. Occasionally an archer will get good enogh to grop arrows in the gold. but that's with a recurve bow with sights. With a trad bow you could get them to shoot with a half decent technique in two days, but their muscle use would be underdeveloped and they would not be able to draw any decent strength bow. And bear in mind arm muscles have nothing to do with drawing a bow. Sheer arm strength means nothing. 

Also learning to aim with a longbow with any accuracy takes a long time and rquires muscle memory to be developed.


----------



## jedellion

MiguelDHorcrux said:


> Another noob question (though I guess this is what the thread is for after all haha)
> 
> How do flaming arrows work? Do they even work? I mean, won't the wind extinguish the flames? Another thing, do arrows really spin when fired and do they "drill" through their targets on impact? And lastly, how realistic are multiple arrows being fired at the same time from a longbow? I have seen crossbows that fire multiple darts at the same time but I guess those are different from actual bows.



There were a few methods. generally you could use hot coals held in a little latice frame that could set fire to straw, cloth etc. 
Cltoh wrapped arrows treated withpitch or oil were used but only at short range and they tend to go out very quickly.


----------



## jedellion

Pendragon II said:


> All right. I have a situation to present to you.
> 
> One of my MCs is an archer, but with a twist. He is part of an independent branch of the Thorician (read: homeland) military known as the Snakekillers. The name is of course derived from the saying, _Cut the head from the snake and the body shall wither_, so I suppose it's fairly obvious what their battlefield application is. Killing the enemy officers from afar, strategically removing the opposing army's leaders to send their men into disarray; they're pretty much medieval snipers. Of course, this is fantasy, so there's some magic in there too, and this is where my question lies.
> 
> Some exposition... there are two factors that set Snakekillers above the average archer. One, extensive training which takes place over years and includes skill, physical, and mental training. Two, each receives a "rune" (a way of bestowing an amplification enchantment onto a living creature) at each rank of Snakekiller, up to five. The first rune bestows increased strength and durability to the arms, back, and neck in order to aid in the use of high draw-weight longbows. To put this in perspective, I would say the strength allows for one and a half times the range of a normal man. The second rune bestows enhanced eyesight, including limited zoom which can be activated manually by focusing. This is manifested as a second iris ring. Meanwhile the third rune sharpens the mind; the fourth enhances abdominal, leg muscles, etc; and the fifth adds a third ring to the eyes.
> 
> My question is, to begin with: Is this feasible? If so, (or if not) what would the range be for such an individual, assuming they have a very powerful longbow?
> 
> This is a rather brief explanation of the Snakekillers, but hopefully it will suffice. Any thoughts you have are welcome.




Big issue her eis that, generally when you are shooting at long range, you are shooting in an arc. If I'm shooting at 100 yads I sight on the target then I angle upwards around 35 degrees to get my arc of fire so my arrow is pointing at the sky. 

The best you can do at long ranges is train youe body to learn the rnages and angles. It becomes instinctive and you just.... do it. Now a more powerful bow would have a shallower arc, but realistically if you need enhaced vision to see the target, the arrow is going be arcing hard.


----------



## psychotick

Hi Pendragon,

You're trying a form of an arcane archer? If so I would probably change the second rune to maybe include some sort of eyesight / focus, but also something to do with the steadiness of the arm / body. That's going to be critical for accuracy. Maybe the third rune might be something to do with sensing air currents etc through the coordination of senses so wind isn't an issue. Maybe the fourth could be speed, so the snake killer can pull, nock, draw and release an arrow twice as fast as normal.

Cheers, Greg.


----------



## yli

Malik said:


> Literally, forever. It's like getting shot in the knee.
> 
> Everything in the shoulder is major.
> 
> I hunt big game with a 55-lb. recurve and hand-made arrows. A wooden arrow with a steel tip will shatter the shoulder on a large deer or small bear -- 200-250 lbs., and a bone much heavier than a human's shoulder -- and then exit the body cavity on the other side, landing in the bushes several yards away. On a human, a broken scapula is crippling, and a shattered scapula requires hours of surgery with modern medicine -- screws and wire and pins.
> 
> A broadhead (your "basic arrow") is built to sever arteries and tendons and makes a horrific wound. Arrows spin in flight -- the fletchings are not stabilizers; arrows fly straight because of gyroscopic forces -- and they drill into flesh. The resulting wound channel is sufficient to pass a golf ball through.
> 
> As we discussed in the first thread linked above, if you sever the acromiothoracic artery or hit the brachial plexus -- which are about as far apart as the opposing radii of a baseball, and again, look at that wound channel -- your target is dead. If you miss all of that, you will likely shatter the scapula, and if a bone fragment gets driven into the lungs or a major artery -- and the scapula can explode under an arrow like shooting an air rifle at a dinner plate -- cancel Christmas.
> 
> If you graze the target on the meat of the shoulder -- the medial head of the deltoid, well outside of the joint itself -- then it's a handful of stitches and a pain in the ass for a few weeks. Hit that joint, though, and your target is crippled at best.



Fun fact: The Manchu people (who had phenomenally powerful composite bows), didn't bother to sharpen their standard, all-purpose war arrow. Instead, the edges were merely flattened, like you would a garden trowel. The arrows were intended to pulverize flesh and bone instead of cutting it, and to reduce the incidences of pass-throughs, since arrows were often in excess of 40 inches (1m) long and would do more to immobilize the target if left inside of it. Despite having unsharpened arrows, Manchu archers were able often able to shoot through two people at once. IfI have my archers in my story shoot through two people at once on a regular basis, readers would struggle to believe it. 

"The Manchus had long emphasized mounted archery... ...when they first established their state their archery was as follows: they used bows of eight li draw weight [approx. *106 pounds*]... ...whatever they hit, they pierced, and they could even transfix two men with some power to spare.”- From the _Qingbao leichao_ 清稗類鈔 "Categorized Anthology of Petty Matters from the Qing Period".


----------



## DFWriterX

Wow! Many thanks for this thread! I've always wanted to learn archery but never did however would like to mention it in my stories so this thread really helps me out alot!!


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## Wiglaf

Great article, John - so useful! Specialist knowledge like this is invaluable to those of us who don't practice the old skills. Thanks for sharing. Your piece is bookmarked, and will surely be used as a resource for many up and coming stories. Don't suppose you know anything about blacksmithing ..? (LOL)


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## Malik

My wife and I were plinking the other day, standing at two different points in the yard shooting at the same target, from about 15-20 yards. She shoots a 30-lb. recurve; I shoot a 55-lb. recurve.

My arrow is the wooden one, which, even with a simple target tip, broke her aluminum arrow in half on contact.

It's hard to overstate the power of a well-tuned, hunting-weight bow inside about 30 yards.








Her next shot then broke my arrow, because that's how we roll.


----------



## Ned Marcus

Does anyone know how long it would take to reload a crossbow?


----------



## Demesnedenoir

Ned Marcus said:


> Does anyone know how long it would take to reload a crossbow?



Anywhere from a few seconds to never if you’re too weak, heh heh. But seriously, Huge differences here. The Chinese had a (weak) repeating crossbow, then you have the windlass, others have different cocking mechanisms... so, there’s no single answer.


----------



## Ned Marcus

Demesnedenoir said:


> Anywhere from a few seconds to never if you’re too weak, heh heh. But seriously, Huge differences here.


Thanks. I imagined there would be differences. I've read stories where characters seem to just use the crossbow once, then toss it aside and pull out a sword, and was never sure how accurate that would be. I guess it depends on how far away the enemy is.


----------



## Demesnedenoir

How far away and which crossbow. The heavy, slow draw weights are an issue of energy efficiency... with a crossbow of a draw easy to cock, the short limbs aren’t going to match the power of the longbow... hence the insane draw weights of crossbows. They need to be that way to match the power of a longbow. The real advantage of a crossbow was its relative accuracy for someone with limited training.

Caveat, that’s how my brain recalls looking into the issue many years ago. 



Ned Marcus said:


> Thanks. I imagined there would be differences. I've read stories where characters seem to just use the crossbow once, then toss it aside and pull out a sword, and was never sure how accurate that would be. I guess it depends on how far away the enemy is.


----------



## skip.knox

I don't know of any historical examples where the crossbowmen turned into swordsmen on the fly. A crossbow is cumbersome, heavy, and expensive. A soldier isn't going to just toss it aside. Plus, can you picture hundreds of crossbows littering the field of battle? It'd look like Keystone Kops Go To War. 

Crossbowmen tended to be specialists, a kind of unit of artillery, with a specific role on the battlefield (or in siegecraft). I'm not sure about the training issue; I'll yield to others on the point. I do know that crossbows were a weapon of choice for city militia, but I think that had more to do with how to defend walls than any other factor. The crossbowmen in the field I know about were all mercenaries (this is 14thc-15thc).

Were crossbows used in China? India? Africa?


----------



## Malik

skip.knox said:


> I don't know of any historical examples where the crossbowmen turned into swordsmen on the fly. A crossbow is cumbersome, heavy, and expensive. A soldier isn't going to just toss it aside. Plus, can you picture hundreds of crossbows littering the field of battle? It'd look like Keystone Kops Go To War.



You could also just heft it like a bat and beat the crap out of someone with it if you couldn't get it loaded in time.

I would not want to get hit with one. Yeeowch.


----------



## MorioKitsune

I would be afraid in shooting myself in the foot with the foot stirup way of cocking a crossbow. For me I always prefer the using a bow normally a recurve, never got into stick and twig shooting and i think compounds are cheating.


----------



## Demesnedenoir

skip.knox said:


> I don't know of any historical examples where the crossbowmen turned into swordsmen on the fly. A crossbow is cumbersome, heavy, and expensive. A soldier isn't going to just toss it aside. Plus, can you picture hundreds of crossbows littering the field of battle? It'd look like Keystone Kops Go To War.
> 
> Crossbowmen tended to be specialists, a kind of unit of artillery, with a specific role on the battlefield (or in siegecraft). I'm not sure about the training issue; I'll yield to others on the point. I do know that crossbows were a weapon of choice for city militia, but I think that had more to do with how to defend walls than any other factor. The crossbowmen in the field I know about were all mercenaries (this is 14thc-15thc).
> 
> Were crossbows used in China? India? Africa?



The Chinese used crossbows a little, almost bid on an example once when I was single and had money, LOL. Compared to longbowmen... yeah, the crossbow is easier to use for the layman to just pick up and point. Now, lobbing bolts long distance would still take a certain skill and experience. How much of a big deal it was, who knows, but the crossbow’s reputation was one of accuracy and ease of use in period. Of course, it also had major drawbacks. How does one string a thousand pound draw weight crossbow in the field? This kept strings on the crossbow whereas the longbowman could tuck their strings away to stay draw. Instead of keep your powder dry, keep your string dry, heh heh. Seems there was a battle where this reputedly came into play, another one of those English kick the crap out of French deals.


----------



## skip.knox

>. Instead of keep your powder dry, keep your string dry, heh heh. Seems there was a battle where this reputedly came into play, another one of those English kick the crap out of French deals.

Crécy. 1346. The French had a whole contingent of Genoese crossbowmen. When a rainstorm broke out just as everyone was deploying, the crossbowmen either didn't or couldn't (I'm inclined to the latter--these guys were pros) unstring their bows to keep the strings dry. The battle is a whole course in What Not To Do.

Strikes me this is a good example of where realism won't do in fiction. If I serve up a big set-piece battle, and one side wins in part because of rain, the reader's going to feel cheated. Doesn't matter that it's how it could and did happen; story trumps realism.


----------



## Demesnedenoir

Thanks Skip, that name escaped me completely, LOL.

I dunno, I think it could be pulled off. In particular from the loser’s side. But, battles or so inherently dramatic, if done well, it’ll work.


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## Malik

MorioKitsune said:


> I would be afraid in shooting myself in the foot with the foot stirup way of cocking a crossbow.



You cock it first, then set the arrow on the skein afterwards.

The roller nut, which holds the skein, sits on a simple axle (more complex axles appeared later), with a steel-reinforced notch (the "sear") locking against the end of the trigger, which was basically a big, angled steel bar. It takes some oomph to release the trigger, which is why the levers are so big. Even if you did load it as you cocked it, it would be almost impossible to fire accidentally.


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## MorioKitsune

Ah thank you for the explaination. Still I am not sure about leaning over something with that much stored energy...


----------



## Ned Marcus

skip.knox said:


> I don't know of any historical examples where the crossbowmen turned into swordsmen on the fly. A crossbow is cumbersome, heavy, and expensive. A soldier isn't going to just toss it aside. Plus, can you picture hundreds of crossbows littering the field of battle? It'd look like Keystone Kops Go To War.


I was thinking of fantasy examples  Usually when someone used a crossbow, then dropped it to use a sword. If they were still alive after, then they'd pick it up.


----------



## skip.knox

I'm generally pretty tolerant, but I think that would jar me. A crossbowman and a swordsman are just two different sorts of soldiers. Plus, as per Malik, I'd be worried someone else on the battlefield would pick it up and brain me with it from behind.


----------



## Demesnedenoir

I know in D&D games we had adventurers tossing crossbows aside all the time, LOL. I don’t recall reading this in a book, but I’m sure it’s done.

In war, impractical, but in an “elite fighting force” adventure, it does seem kind of manly and better than fixing a bayonet, heh heh. Depends on the story whether it would work.


----------



## TheKillerBs

skip.knox said:


> I'm generally pretty tolerant, but I think that would jar me. A crossbowman and a swordsman are just two different sorts of soldiers. Plus, as per Malik, I'd be worried someone else on the battlefield would pick it up and brain me with it from behind.


So you don't think a crossbowman would have a backup weapon in case things go south, and if things did go south, they would not leave their primary weapon behind to pull out their potentially life-saving backup weapon?


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## skip.knox

So, if you're defending a castle or a town, things going south means you've pretty much lost. Time to surrender.

Out on the field of battle, if things go south, you are only a rather small contingent in a larger army. Time to withdraw or just plain run. If you're a crossbowman and the enemy is within arm's reach, you were in trouble a long time ago.

That said, pretty much any man-at-arms would have had a dagger. That's for if you run and they catch you. 

For fantasy yeah sure, have at it. I'm just saying how things look from here. I'm pretty sure musketeers and other gunners didn't carry swords either. I'm absolutely open to seeing evidence to the contrary though. I'm a socio-economic historian, not a military one.


----------



## TheKillerBs

skip.knox said:


> So, if you're defending a castle or a town, things going south means you've pretty much lost. Time to surrender.


Sure. I mean, not necessarily but 999 times out of 1000, this is the case.



> Out on the field of battle, if things go south, you are only a rather small contingent in a larger army. Time to withdraw or just plain run. If you're a crossbowman and the enemy is within arm's reach, you were in trouble a long time ago.


Or you got ambushed and didn't have time to withdraw or run.



> That said, pretty much any man-at-arms would have had a dagger. That's for if you run and they catch you.


Or an arming sword. One-handed swords, much like daggers, were mostly backup weapons.



> For fantasy yeah sure, have at it. I'm just saying how things look from here. I'm pretty sure musketeers and other gunners didn't carry swords either. I'm absolutely open to seeing evidence to the contrary though. I'm a socio-economic historian, not a military one.


Most gunners actually did carry swords, up to the 19th and (possibly) the early 20th century. Here's a bit about the swords of the Royal Artillery Gunner's sword from the early 19th century: Royal Artillery Gunner's Sword (Peninsular War, War of 1812, Waterloo)


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## Ned Marcus

skip.knox said:


> A crossbowman and a swordsman are just two different sorts of soldiers. Plus, as per Malik, I'd be worried someone else on the battlefield would pick it up and brain me with it from behind.


I agree. The actual story I was thinking of (can't remember the title) it was an assassin with a small crossbow and knives. And another similar one where it was a crossbow and sword. But for the battlefield, it wouldn't work.


----------



## Gray-Hand

skip.knox said:


> So, if you're defending a castle or a town, things going south means you've pretty much lost. Time to surrender.
> 
> Out on the field of battle, if things go south, you are only a rather small contingent in a larger army. Time to withdraw or just plain run. If you're a crossbowman and the enemy is within arm's reach, you were in trouble a long time ago.
> 
> That said, pretty much any man-at-arms would have had a dagger. That's for if you run and they catch you.
> 
> For fantasy yeah sure, have at it. I'm just saying how things look from here. I'm pretty sure musketeers and other gunners didn't carry swords either. I'm absolutely open to seeing evidence to the contrary though. I'm a socio-economic historian, not a military one.


Crossbowmen were professional soldiers.  The idea that they either chose to or were unable to perform any other military or fighting role is not even remotely accurate.

Think of all the scenarios that would crop up on a military campaign where a crossbow couldn’t be used:

The rain.
Fog.
The sun goes down.
In the woods or in a city where the enemy can get close to they can only get off a single shot before the enemy closes.
After they run out of ammunition.
Their crossbow gets damaged or lost.

The idea that a professional soldier confronted by any of those scenarios would have no choice but to immediately throw their hands in the air and surrender is not realistic.


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## skip.knox

Now I'm wondering if we have any historical examples of an assassin using a crossbow. The few I know about (pre-firearms) were daggers or swords or throttling.


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## Malik

We talked about this before, but it's really damned hard to ensure that you're going to kill somebody with one shot from a bow, even a crossbow. I mean, arrow wounds can be, and often are, horrific, but people on the whole are surprisingly death-averse and can survive some amazing stuff if they really want to. Choking them out or knifing the hell out of them are much more certain.

Also, a crossbow isn't much faster than a normal bow. I remember reading somewhere that historical crossbows range between 200-250 fps. A good longbow or recurve is going to be in the 150-175 fps range. That's not a significant enough difference in travel time that you're ever going to ensure that you land the shot you take; again, bows aren't guns. All the target has to do is flinch at the noise and that center-mass shot becomes an upper-arm graze. And then what?

Plus, it's hard enough to see where an arrow impacts its target. As discussed much further upthread, an arrow typically passes through an unarmored, man-sized target. It happens commonly enough that part of bowhunting is retrieving the arrow and examining it to see what part of the critter you hit so that you know how to track it. A crossbow bolt is smaller than an arrow and moving faster. You'd likely never know where you hit the target, especially in low light.


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## skip.knox

Yup and yup. But I have a more general problem with assassins (and thieves) in fantasy anyway. People hire people to kill people, but it's a rough way to make a living. Even Assassins weren't hired; they did it out of religious fervor. They also, btw, made their kills with no expectation of living through it. Making a career out of hits just seems silly to me, more especially in a pre-modern society (and economy). And don't even get me started on having a guild of assassins.

Choking and knifing for sure. There's the famous example of the assassination of Conrad of Montferrat in 1192 (ok, famous among crusading historians *shrug*). The killers, possibly disguised as monks, approached the marquis as he was walking through the streets. Knifed him. Done and done. Not really juicy meat for the novelist, but a good example in practical terms.


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## Ned Marcus

I'm sure that knife would be more effective than any long-range weapon in general.

I agree that assassins probably didn't, and don't, have much of a career structure. Not a job with a lot of security. But there have always been political, as well as religious, assassinations. And sometimes these assassins would have been supported financially by rich patrons.

And some assassinations would have been carried out purely to settle a grudge.


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## skip.knox

There have always been assassinations, no question. It's the notion that there might be dozens or scores of such, working full-time, and needing to be organized into a guild. Or that it would be a kind of specialty, with its own set of skills, like carpentry. 

Naw. You walk up to the guy, you stab him, done. If anything, you would want to hire someone expendable. In fact, expendable would be ideal. If the killer lives, he can be caught; if he's caught, he can be made to say who hired him. Much better he should die on the spot, at the hands of his target's bodyguards.

But I've wandered far from archery and crossbows.


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## Malik

We need an "Ask Me About Assassination" thread.

"Hi, Scribes! I'm an expert in . . . um . . . hmm. You know? Never mind. I'll show myself out."


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## Malik

On a related note, I should probably be deleting my browser history more assiduously.


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## skip.knox

Modern assassins don't even need a knife, do we ... er, they?  A drone serves nicely.  (have you read Daniel Suarez's stuff?)


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## Ned Marcus

skip.knox said:


> It's the notion that there might be dozens or scores of such, working full-time, and needing to be organized into a guild. Or that it would be a kind of specialty, with its own set of skills, like carpentry.


Agreed. That would be hard to imagine.


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## skip.knox

Over on another forum someone posted a YouTube video about various types of arrowheads (link below). It was worth watching but it brought up a question that I posed but didn't get answered over there. So I brought it here.

Do we know about different types of heads on crossbow bolts? 

The question occurred to me because I happened to be reading about Catalan crossbowmen, who were famous in their day and were particularly valued as marines (Catalans were great sailors). Each of them knew how to construct a crossbow from scratch. Some carried a very small crossbow that could be wielded with one hand--great for boarding, I should think. Anyway, the juxtaposition of my reading and that video is what prompted the question. I doubt we'd know anything specifically about Catalan mariner crossbow bolts, as most of them would be rusted away at the bottom of the sea.


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## Demesnedenoir

I’m not an expert... but from what I know you will find a similar variety in bolt heads as you will arrowheads... specialized down to square heads with 4 points theoretically to not skip off heavy armor so easy. And of course hunting tips could vary widely, crescent tips for hunting birds... you name, somebody probably tried it.

More peculiar to my mind are bolts without fletching.

And apparently the Genoese had a guild making the bolts, so one should be able find what they used..


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## skip.knox

Yeah, one reason I asked was because I figured the arrow-dynamics (*chortle*) might be different. 

I also wonder if knights wore their armor on board, during a battle. Seems a bit chancy, but maybe you figure you can get out of the suit before the ship goes down. And anyway if you can't swim, it's a moot point?  Obscure stuff, I know. I'll just give all my crossbowmen magic flaming arrows that can go around corners, right?


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## Demesnedenoir

I’d expect knights on a ship to armor up as they saw fit. You probably don’t know how to swim anyhow, as a knight on a ship, so the rate of drowning might be faster, but...


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## Insolent Lad

I remember Conan Doyle putting a sea battle into one of his medieval romances. The White Company, I'm pretty sure. When the captured pirate captain is told he's going to be hung from his own yardarm (or some part of the ship, anyway), he commits suicide by leaping overboard in full armor and sinking like a, well, man in a suit of armor. But first grabbing one of his enemies to take with him to hell.


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## Gray-Hand

Modern studies have found that it is actually possible to swim (very slowly and awkwardly) in full plate. you wouldn’t want to have guys shooting arrows at you from a boat, but you can keep your head above water easily enough.

Armour would probably be preferable on a boat.  The restricted space, uneven footing of a boat deck and the pitching and rolling of a boat at sea would seriously impact a fighter’s ability to use their footwork to dodge blows from an enemy, so being able to absorb a hit would be invaluable.  Experience in fighting at sea would be invaluable.


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## Malik

We need an Ask Me About Armor thread but holy crap, I get tired just thinking about it.


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## Malik

Gray-Hand said:


> Modern studies have found that it is actually possible to swim (very slowly and awkwardly) in full plate. you wouldn’t want to have guys shooting arrows at you from a boat, but you can keep your head above water easily enough.



I've done water survival training in a full combat load with boots and a rifle, no armor. It takes a startling amount of effort, like no-shit flashes of "This is it; this is how I die" just getting to the edge of the pool. I don't doubt that someone motivated and extremely physically fit could keep their face above water in armor for a few minutes, but I'd likely argue the word "easily." Do you have a link to the article? I'm intrigued.


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## Gray-Hand

I’ve read several articles over the years.  A google search will give you several results if you want to look into it further. 

Here’s a video:


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## Malik

Gray-Hand said:


> I’ve read several articles over the years.  A google search will give you several results if you want to look into it further.
> 
> Here’s a video:



Thanks for this. This tracks with my experience in modern-day military gear.

He also isn't wearing a helm, a coif, an arming jack, a felted tabard, a surcoat, sidearms, faulds, and a shirt of maille, even a partial one; he's about 20-30 lbs. light (far more, when wet) and even then, he's good for about ten yards. It could be done, but it's not like you can be knocked overboard at sea in Maximilian harness and tread water until they circle back for you.

Interesting concept, though. Great link.


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## joshua mcdermott

got my new bow the other day:  Qing Dragon 2 - 65lb at 36" draw.   still waiting on my more traditional and heavier arrows, but the thing works!

I do mostly asian archery, so if you have questions on that I maybe can help.  others know more, but I know a bit.  

sorry i tried this media imbed thing and they uploaded sideways... but you get the idea.    That was NOT from very far away as its my backyard but I was still impressed with myself.












Qing1



__ joshua mcdermott
__ Sep 17, 2020


















Qing



__ joshua mcdermott
__ Sep 17, 2020


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## skip.knox

Is there a word--English, but French, German, Italian, or Spanish will do--for the hand that holds the bow? And one for the hand that holds the arrow, or draws the string? A list of archery terms didn't return anything.

Bonus points for use of antiquated terms.


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## joshua mcdermott

sadly I know of nothing interesting.  In English as far as I know its just referred to as its descriptor:  "bow hand" and the other the "draw hand" or similar  

the draw hand does not hold the arrow... the string does that.  the draw hand draws the string.  

"Bow Hand" is pretty universal I think-  the same is used in music.  the hand that holds a bow.. of any type, is the bow hand.  super not exciting I know.


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## S.T. Ockenner

Are shortbows really a thing?


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## skip.knox

Yup. Picture the kind of bow used by Mongol warriors.


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## joshua mcdermott

sometimes called "horse bows" for obvious reasons


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## Malik

S.T. Ockenner said:


> Are shortbows really a thing?



The problem with building a small hunting-weight bow is _stacking_, which is an exponential increase in draw weight past a certain point.

Drawing a bow stores potential energy by creating tension on the insides of the limbs and flexion on the outsides.

When you draw a bow past its ideal point--which gets progressively smaller as the limbs shorten--the draw weight increases without adding significant potential energy to the limbs. This is why 100+ lb. bows are six feet long. So, a powerful short bow is tricky to build, especially with pre-industrial materials.

That said, it doesn't take much force to put an arrow through a living creature. My wife hunts small game with a 30-lb. recurve bow. It's illegal in this state to take big game with a bow under 40 lbs., but I have no doubt hers would do the job.

I've said this before on here, but I've seen longbows and recurves in the 40-45 lb. range put hunting arrows completely through elk, which are the size of  small horses at 600-700 lbs.

I hunt with a 55-lb. custom recurve (edit: 54# at 28" but I have arms like an orangutan), which is arguably a short(ish) bow, and the last time I shot a deer--which is almost exactly human-sized--the arrow entered through a rib on the left side, shattering it; traversed the liver and both lungs; exited the right shoulder, splitting the bone in two; and traveled nearly another 20 yards and lodged in the trunk of a tree. It was a standard steel broadhead on an ash shaft, nothing special other than being tuned really well (I make my own arrows).

If you're not going up against someone in iron plate or brigandine, you don't need much bow.




​


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## Malik

joshua mcdermott said:


> Qing
> 
> 
> 
> __ joshua mcdermott
> __ Sep 17, 2020



Nice group.


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## Demesnedenoir

I have a 50 or 60# recurve based on the Scythian recurve (if my memory is right, it’s been years since I bought it) and it is SHORT, but like you’re saying, they’ll punch through a critter right easy. The primary utility of 100+ longbows is range extension in warfare, not that the extra power would lack use against some armors. I seem to have a memory in my head of Native American bows not being particularly powerful, and that sure as hell didn’t stop them from killing stuff.

But on the short bow, I think much of the issue for me comes from D&D and the term short bow, and it caught on. It was basically a longbow only short (instead of being of composite materials), and wimpy. If you see a Hungarian recurve and think “short = wimpy” you have another coming, heh heh.

There was an awesome spreadsheet I found many years ago, put together by some hard core gamers, where you pick the length of draw, weight of arrow, and several other statistics and figure a basic maximum range, and other details. While made for gaming, it was based on science and I think reasonably accurate. I need to track that down, it was fun. 



Malik said:


> The problem with building a small hunting-weight bow is _stacking_, which is an exponential increase in draw weight past a certain point.
> 
> Drawing a bow stores potential energy by creating tension on the insides of the limbs and flexion on the outsides.
> 
> When you draw a bow past its ideal point--which gets progressively smaller as the limbs shorten--the draw weight increases without adding significant potential energy to the limbs. This is why 100+ lb. bows are six feet long. So, a powerful short bow is tricky to build, especially with pre-industrial materials.
> 
> That said, it doesn't take much force to put an arrow through a living creature. My wife hunts small game with a 30-lb. recurve bow. It's illegal in this state to take big game with a bow under 40 lbs., but I have no doubt hers would do the job.
> 
> I've said this before on here, but I've seen longbows and recurves in the 40-45 lb. range put hunting arrows completely through elk, which are the size of  small horses at 600-700 lbs.
> 
> I hunt with a 55-lb. custom recurve (edit: 54# at 28" but I have arms like an orangutan), which is arguably a short(ish) bow, and the last time I shot a deer--which is almost exactly human-sized--the arrow entered through a rib on the left side, shattering it; traversed the liver and both lungs; exited the right shoulder, splitting the bone in two; and traveled nearly another 20 yards and lodged in the trunk of a tree. It was a standard steel broadhead on an ash shaft, nothing special other than being tuned really well (I make my own arrows).
> 
> If you're not going up against someone in iron plate or brigandine, you don't need much bow.
> 
> View attachment 2849​


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## joshua mcdermott

my "short" bows are all not that short as I am tall with long arms and to comfortably shoot at my draw length they do have to be a certain size.  I guess relative to my height they are short.. if a 5' person held some they might look long.      I think in DND they just needed a simple short hand for it.

one thing to say about the "short bows" is they were often for hunting or on horseback.  so hunting the prey does not have armor, and on a horse you often are able to get quite close and punch the arrow in at close range.  "long bows" were for footmen - castle guards etc.  range and stopping power.    It is funny how people will have their dnd character shooting a 'long bow' from a horse which would not be easy - probably not even possible with a traditional english long (war) bow that were somewhere around 150lb draw etc and upwards of 7 foot long.   or hunting with one, hard to sneak through a forrest holding that huge thing..

look at this beauty but good luck on a horse!  and that is only 40lbs..

http://www.arundown.org.uk/wp-conte...rundstrom-40lb-Mary-Rose-style-Bow-900pxl.jpg


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## skip.knox

Here's one for the Assembled Wisdom. I have in mind a scene in which crossbowmen are posted in an elevated position. Maybe atop boulders, maybe in trees. Their target is a creature that is sensitive to vibrations, so my archers would have to draw and load their crossbows before the creature arrives.

The question: how long before the tension of the string becomes an issue? I know it would depend on the type of material being used. I'm not looking for precision, only for a range. I'm presuming that after a time, the tension would lessen, and at some further point the bolt would no longer be effective.

Is it a matter of minutes? Hours? Days? Assume no rain.


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## joshua mcdermott

I would not worry about it for days.  it does depend on the materials as you say (assuming this is not spring steel)- but it should be fine if the crossbows are of any quality.  long term its probably not the best for them but if one needs to...


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## skip.knox

They're wielded by Catalan crossbowmen, who were famous in the Middle Ages for their skill. They even made their own bows!

Days will serve. I really only need an hour or two. Just long enough for the creature to think it's all safe again. Thx!


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## Demesnedenoir

You are plenty safe, the main danger to crossbows is rain and strings. Limbs are tougher than hell, short and stout for the most part from my understanding. There’s already good tension from being strung and I don’t recall it ever being said that anything other than the string will weaken/stretch in a reasonable amount of time.
Side note: stringing a crossbow is pain the ass, heh heh.



skip.knox said:


> They're wielded by Catalan crossbowmen, who were famous in the Middle Ages for their skill. They even made their own bows!
> 
> Days will serve. I really only need an hour or two. Just long enough for the creature to think it's all safe again. Thx!


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## joshua mcdermott

Demesnedenoir said:


> Side note: stringing a crossbow is pain the ass, heh heh.


 heh.  never thought of that but makes sense!


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