# How large could you make a bow?



## Grimbold (Oct 16, 2012)

Hi all,
I'm having a goblin army run out of caves at somepoint with trolls, however i want the trolls to have some sort of, troll sized/ballastaeish bows...Is it possible?


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## CupofJoe (Oct 16, 2012)

Leonardo Da Vinci drew up plans for a crossbow about 25m tip to tip...
Roman Balista are often recreated 2-3m tip to tip.
My Longbow is about 6ft 6in [2m] and they have been found in excess of 7ft [2.15m]
So I would guess your average size Troll should be able to heft a balista [cocking and loading - I don't know about...]


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## Grimbold (Oct 16, 2012)

From your post i did some research and found out about the Scorpio, a sort of baby balasta/adult crossbow shooting a bolt 70cm long...Seams about right, not as complicated as a roman catapult, but still big enough


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## Zero Angel (Oct 16, 2012)

Especially if you have non-standard materials, you can basically do anything you want. 

For instance, one particular type of material I use in an epic bow has reactive properties where it responds to the stimulus of pulling with even more energy. The longer you resist the pullback of the bow, the more energy the bow releases when it finally fires (to potentially explosive amounts that will wreck the bow and the archer). Although this "appears" to violate Newton's laws, well, it doesn't violate them (although it's a bit of a maze how it doesn't, it ends up working ).


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## StuartEWise (Oct 16, 2012)

Terry Pratchett has the troll, Detritus using a siege bow in a couple of the Discworld books - he picks it up in 'Men at Arms.'

'This little bow scare you?' said Nobby. 'No. Right. This is a little bow. A little bow wouldnt scare a man like you, because its such a little bow. I'd need a bigger bow than this to scare a man like you.'

Angua would have given a months pay to see the quartermaster's face from the front. She'd watched as Detritus has lifted down the siege bow, cocked it with one hand and a barely audible grunt, and stepped forward. Now she could imagine the eyeballs swivelling as the coldness of the metal penetrated the back of the armourer's fleshy red neck.

'Now the one behnind you, thats a _big _bow,' said Nobby.

It wasn't as though the six-foot iron arrow was sharp. It was supposed to smash through doorways, not do surgery.

Pratchett. T [1993]. _Men at Arms_. Gollancz. London.

At the end of the day your character is a Troll, so as long as you are consistent with what you allow that race to do, you can pretty much have him wielding anything you like.

Have fun with it


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 16, 2012)

My first thought was:

Depends on the size of the ribbon...


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## psychotick (Oct 16, 2012)

Hi,

Depends on the size and strength of the character. Longbows can be maybe a tiny bit taller than the man weilding them, but any larger and the bow would be too large to carry, it'd keep tripping around their feet, and the draw too long. If its an actual ballista then because its not carried I assume, it can be bigger. But don't forget that size isn't everything. If you toughen the strings and increase the tensile recoil force needed to pull the string back, a smaller bow can do the same job.

Cheers, Greg.


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## CupofJoe (Oct 17, 2012)

It took me a while to think of this but I'm sure I have seen huge longbows 8-10 ft used supine -  the bow held by the feet and drawn back towards the chin.


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## psychotick (Oct 17, 2012)

Hi CupofJoe,

I remember seeing images of that as well somewhere, but I'm not sure whether it was real or an illustration for a book etc. It would be damned awkward though, and I'd suspect that whatever strength you might gain would be more than offset by the loss of accuracy.

Cheers, Greg.


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## CupofJoe (Oct 17, 2012)

psychotick said:


> Hi CupofJoe,
> 
> I remember seeing images of that as well somewhere, but I'm not sure whether it was real or an illustration for a book etc. It would be damned awkward though, and I'd suspect that whatever strength you might gain would be more than offset by the loss of accuracy.
> 
> Cheers, Greg.


Greg
I'm not sure either but I think it was more of a siege / tactical weapon. At least that is how I would use it. I would be worried about a failure; too much energy and you have a problem if it shatters [ala Zero Angel's bow]. Having a 30lb flat bow snap on you is enough of a shock...


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## Frog (Oct 18, 2012)

CupofJoe said:


> I would be worried about a failure; too much energy and you have a problem if it shatters [ala Zero Angel's bow]. Having a 30lb flat bow snap on you is enough of a shock...



Yeah, but this is a troll we're talking about.  He may not care too much about that sort of thing.


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## Shadow Fox (Oct 28, 2012)

I actually recall  special on TV that talked about how the Ottoman turks used bows in such a way (by drawing the string with both hands and lying on their backs) and that they would fire arrows great distances with such bows, though I'm not sure if the bows were that long or not.


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## FatCat (Oct 29, 2012)

Shadow Fox said:


> I actually recall  special on TV that talked about how the Ottoman turks used bows in such a way (by drawing the string with both hands and lying on their backs) and that they would fire arrows great distances with such bows, though I'm not sure if the bows were that long or not.



Sounds a bit like this. @50 seconds in


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## SeverinR (Oct 30, 2012)

Fatcat: Great video.
But, I would think having your archers draw back and hold would be very tiring even for someone who's only job was too shoot the bow. Better to give the command to draw back, with the fire command following not long after.
Of course, it was probably only done for suspence in the scene.

I also wonder about using two men to fire one bow, when one could do it. (arrow carriers) Of course the arrow carrier could also defend the archers with sword if the battle got to close. Drop the arrows and pull their swords, or a backup force to send in after the main troops to tip the battle.  
One archer could carry their own arrows on the hip(rather then back), thus they could lay down without obstruction, and pull an arrow quickly, without waiting for the arrows to be delivered.  They would need some men to resupply the archers if they were sending many volleys. But not 1-1. Maybe 1 man supplying 3 archers. But again, probably not as impressive to the scene.


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## Zero Angel (Oct 30, 2012)

SeverinR said:


> Fatcat: Great video.
> But, I would think having your archers draw back and hold would be very tiring even for someone who's only job was too shoot the bow. Better to give the command to draw back, with the fire command following not long after.
> Of course, it was probably only done for suspence in the scene.
> 
> ...



Great questions. In my research, arrow carriers were used when they could to greatly increase the rate-of-fire of the bowman. You have the trained bowman whose accuracy and ability is desired, and a relatively untrained person that just needs to put the arrow in the right place at the right time. Additionally, although bowmen would start with a full quiver (or however many arrows), but if available, they should have resupplies brought to them (or else they'd either be useless or have to go retrieve). 

I agree that in the video this is probably mostly done for effect.

Everything I've read said that the average military man was expected to fire 12 aimed shots in a minute, but the better someone was, the more they could fire (obviously). 

As far as holding the bow back, it depends how tiring it is. For a short bow-ish bow, it's not that tiring. For a longbow, I cannot imagine holding it back for long. We're talking about 100 lb+ pulls that require your entire body to pull. 

For those unaware, only modern compound bows are easy to keep the pull. Old-fashioned bows all require you to maintain pressure to keep a bow drawn. Compound bows make it so that only a fraction of the full weight is needed after you draw it fully.


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## Shockley (Oct 30, 2012)

I know they were using some rather large bows in the 2nd and 3rd century China, though those fell out of favor as more bizarre pieces of technology (like the repeating crossbow) became popular.


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## Akahige (Oct 31, 2012)

I've studied a bit of bow-making.  With a bow that large, you'd have a tremendous amount of what's called stacking.  In simple terms, that refers to how when you draw a bow back, there's a certain distance in which the pull will be relatively easy.  After that, the draw becomes significantly and proportionally more difficult.  To get a really thick bow to full draw would require an inconceivable amount of strength.  That said, if it were long enough relative to the thickness of the limbs, the draw would become much easier with minimal stacking.

Have you considered a recurve?  They store more energy in the limbs and can shoot with more power (albeit with a sacrifice to accuracy and increased stacking relative to the size).


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## SeverinR (Oct 31, 2012)

Zero Angel said:


> Great questions. In my research, arrow carriers were used when they could to greatly increase the rate-of-fire of the bowman. You have the trained bowman whose accuracy and ability is desired, and a relatively untrained person that just needs to put the arrow in the right place at the right time. Additionally, although bowmen would start with a full quiver (or however many arrows), but if available, they should have resupplies brought to them (or else they'd either be useless or have to go retrieve).
> 
> 
> As far as holding the bow back, it depends how tiring it is. For a short bow-ish bow, it's not that tiring. For a longbow, I cannot imagine holding it back for long. We're talking about 100 lb+ pulls that require your entire body to pull.
> ...


I could see rate of fire increase with a loader, if they can work together.

I couldn't guess how hard it would be to hold the bow back in that position, but unlike the compound bow the tension is always max.


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