Ask me about archery, longbows especially.

[T.Allen.Smith]

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.

 

[BWFoster78]

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

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

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.

 

[Stuart John Evison]

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

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[CupofJoe]

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...

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

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.

 

[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?

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

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.

 

[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!

 

[Valentinator]

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!

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[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?

 

[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 Crécy 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..)

 

[Sparkie]

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

(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.