John McDonell
Dreamer
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.
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.
Vala
Archmage
