Just wanted to know. 
I think I read it someplace too.
Indeed, even if it doesn’t kill you, it’s just damned ANNOYING to be pelted by arrows while you try to get close enough to fight them, constantly having to heft that sheild up above your head and hoping that a lucky shot doesn’t get you in the eye.
Meanwhile, that freaking jerk that you want to bludgeon in the head with a mace (in the manner which gentlemen were MEANT to fight in) is just sitting on his horse laughing at you at the top of that muddy hill so he can fight you while he’s all rested. Bastard.
Well, a man wants to consider his choices before he chooses a career path in the armed forces. 
I knew a guy who made the mistake of enlisting in the Cavalry before he found out what it entailed. Spent six years following a knight around with a wheelbarrow, he did. nods sagely
By law in the middle ages all males in the countryside(not sure about the towns ) were required to practice archery on Sundays(though the lads often prefered to play football when they could get away with it)
So usually it WAS the shmucks off of the local farm .
Proffesional archers in year round military service ,as opposed to the conscripted were also highly trained in forms of unarmed combat and the use of short swords and daggers.
I saw a massed(well a hundred anyway) longbow demonstration at the Weald and Downland museum and one man in particular was pointed out as having the typical build for the archer of the day.
His shoulders were massive but instead of being square were very rounded ,somewhat similar to the arc of a wagon wheel.
Against mounted knights the arrows were most effective at bringing down horses
with the archers and Men at arms running forward to those closest and stabbing the prone knights through their eyeslits ,or flexibility gaps in the plate armour,under the armpits ,skirts etc. with misericords or similar.
Within reason, of course. Wikipedia says that it was a serious offence to be found in possession of bodkin arrowheads in time of peace. They had no use other than to pierce noblemen’s armour, and if your country’s not at war, whom were you planning to use them on, churl? :dubious:
The Jet Li movie Hero had scenes of an attacking army using footbows. Basically had a couple hundred soldiers fire at the castle or building, and it was akin to an artillery barrage. I imagine it would be horrific to be on the receiving end
It’s not surprising that a footbow should be so powerful, of course. It’s the difference between arm-curls and dead-lifts, with the added bonus of not having to support your own weight.
Wouldn’t that seem to imply there was some sort of knock back associated with the arrow striking? I would have thought that the mass of a shield versus the mass of an arrow (even at flight speed) would have pretty much cancelled out any knockback. And any force was concentrated into the tip of the arrow – isn’t that kind of the whole purpose.
Of course I’ve never caught an arrow on a shield, but still…
-rainy
Sounds like a job for the Mythbusters!
Out of curiosity, what kind of deformities did they have?
Regards,
Shodan
I don’t know, they really overlooked some basic stuff in the “Robin Hood spliting an arrow in twain” episode.
I still think they’ve got the coolest job on the face of the planet, though.
-rainy
Some pictures of early crossbows I’ve seen look like footbows mounted on a frame. And they were cocked using the feet and hands.
I saw in a movie (a reliable source ;)) a crossbow team in which one guy cocked and loaded while the archer fired. Sounds likely.
And;
I remember from a high school physics class that maximum range is attained with a launch angle of 45 degrees. How would it be to aim at this angle? Did they have some sort of sight?
Peace,
mangeorge
My modern, compound bow shoots arrows with 45 ft/lbs of energy, some shoot with more energy. A randomly selected .30-30 round has 1902 ft/lbs of energy at the muzzle. If a bullet (as tested by Mythbusters) won’t knock you back, the arrow certainly isn’t.
45 degrees will give the most distance for a ballistic trajectory. As the longbow is not a “precision” weapon, it was not sighted, and 45 degrees is pretty easy to judge. From my experience on the 3d range, the traditional guys with no sights pretty much “feel” the right elevation for the range. If you did this all day long, it gets pretty easy… in a past life, I often had to calculate the height of buildings for radio links. We had a fancy tool for it, but after a while, I was able to guess “close enough” without the fancy tool. (We still did “the measurement,” as an error could have gotten expensive) I am learning to judge distance on the 3d course to within 2 yards to a maximum distance of 50 yds or so. It just takes practice.
Saw that episode and they didn’t address what my understanding of bullet knockback was – that if the bullet impacted dense enough bone to stop further penetration then the unspent energy of the bullet became knockback. Sort of the difference between shooting through someone and lodging the bullet against the spine.
-rainy
I don’t know, but given that the record is for ‘Unlimited Footbow’, I suspect that it wasn’t set using medieval longbow technology, but rather a bow designed with modern materials to be used as a footbow only.
Completely irrelevant. Energy does not, can not, and never will knock someone back. What matters is momentum. And since an arrow has a higher mass than a bullet, it might actually even have more momentum, even though it has less kinetic energy. In fact, if those arrows of yours weigh at least 43 times more than the .30-30 bullet, they will have more momentum.
Clifford J. Rogers in “The Military Revolutions of the Hundred Years War,” found in his edited work The Military a Revolution Debate, he makes some interesting observations on the Longbow and its use. “The new success of infantry forces in Western Europe rested on a number of developments. In the case of the English, the development of the 6-foot yew Longbow, substantially more powerful than the approximately 4-foot Welsh elm bows of the early 13th century, played an important role. According to P. H. Blythe, for a given drawstring thin distance a six-foot Longbow stores 25% more energy than a 4’8” bow. The Longbow, however, is drawn to the ear rather than to the chest (as the Welsh bow was), increasing draw distance by several inches. Since the draw force of the Longbow plotted against draw distance shows nearly linear relationship…, each extra inch of draw adds more stored energy than the previous one. Those extra few inches are, therefore, of critical importance.
Thus a six-foot Longbow which at a 28-inch draw has the same draw are all weight as a 4’8" bow, would have a substantially higher draw weight than its full 32 inch draw, and would in total store about half again more energy than the shorter draw. It seems reasonable to hypothesize that this increase could make the difference between ineffectiveness and lethality when attempting to penetrate an enemy is in my mind armor. Even arrows fired from the strong short bows of the Moslems in the Crusades of the late 12th century proved rather ineffective against European armor. In contrast, a later medieval writer held that “the most important thing in the world, for battles, is the archers.” Of course, the draw weight increased with draw distance, so the Longbow required a very strong archer to use it effectively. Archaeological evidence shows that some medieval archers used longbows with draw weights up to 180 pounds, and the average was probably around 100. England developed a pool of strong human archers over decades of war or less constant warfare against the Scots and the Welsh – it is no coincidence that Cheshire archers, considered the best in England, came from the Welsh marches. The French, despite numerous attempts, never succeeded in producing a comparable body of skilled archers. Indeed, one could argue that France failed to join in on the infantry Revolution until the late 15th century, and that many of her military failures prior to the advent of the artillery revolution in the mid-15th century could be ascribed to that fact."
In the note to his article, Rogers refutes the myth that only England trusted its commoners with the Longbow and as a result was able to reap the benefits. He notes, for instance, that “in 1384… Charles VI of France prohibited any games except those involving the Longbow or crossbow.” Although the use of the Longbow was not as common in the French military of the Middle Ages, the notion that the French peasantry did not have access to the weapon, is in my mind, wrong.
To answer Shodan’s question, Rogers writes that the remains of archers on Mary Rose consisted of “compressed left forearms, twisted spines, and flattened draw fingers.”
I’ve always had a problem believing that 150 to 200 lb. draw-weights were common. On a PBS show on the construction of trebuchets several years ago, I recall that they did some testing with a replica of a lonbow from Mary Rose and discovered that effective distance was about 200 yds. The reason for the bow test was that builders of engines must be out of arrow range while working. This seemed a rational assumption and I suspect, guided engineers of the past, too.
Some relevant links:
The Physics of Medieval Archery
They give what I consider to be fairly conservative estimates (arrow weight of 60 g seems a bit light) and give an effective range of 240 m.
On the Mechanics of some Replica Bows
Bullet Energy Transfer and Wounding Mechanisms
Mass and velocity don’t tell the whole story when it comes to wounding.
If you want to run some numbers, a heavy .30-30 bullet is 180 grains at the outside, 100 grains average = 6.67 to at most 12 grams. War arrow mass depended a bit on the archer and a lot on the selected arrowhead = between 60 and 100 grams. Shaft lengths were relatively uniform on mass-produced stuff, but could vary with the archer-made arrows. Average shaft length was about 27–28 inches, shafts were made of ash, preferably, which is a relatively hard and heavy wood. Draw lengths were longer relative to stature due to shooting style. Longbows were drawn to the ear, whereas modern archery teaches a chest or cheek release. Draw length has more influence on arrow performance than draw weight due to the physics involved.
I found something on atlatl darts (PDF) a while ago that does a decent comparison between a few different projectiles. An atlatl could be used to take a mammoth. Bowhunting sites don’t recommend heavy draw weights (over 70 lbs) for anything less than really big game, like Cape Buffalo or Musk Ox. I think it’s safe to say that a medieval longbow would probably be more than enough to take down just about any animal that walks the earth.
To give you some basis for comparison between the article and what we’re talking about, atlatl darts are around 100 grams. Primitive bows usually had a draw weight of around 40 lbs, versus the longbow’s 110–180 lbs and a longer draw length than any ancient bows seem designed for. Modern arrows tend to be light, much lighter than medieval war arrows, and modern bows, while more efficient, don’t run anywhere near the draw weights or lengths of a 1500s longbow.
The effectiveness of archery in warfare was due to more than a single arrow’s individual wounding characteristics. To those who were doubting bruising or knockback effects, keep in mind that you’re not talking about one measly arrow, you’re looking at a volley. That’s dozens of arrows landing in a small space at almost the same time. That’s combined kinetic energy for those missiles. I don’t doubt that stopping a volley with a shield would hurt like hell, or that you could get knocked off your feet if you weren’t braced properly. No armor is without gaps, and in a literal rain of arrows a few would probably find the weak spots.
As an aside, it’s dangerous to shoot an arrow that’s too light (bow limbs can overflex and shatter, you can break strings and have a limb rebound in your face) and working with an arrow that’s matched to the draw weight reduces hand shock and increases accuracy. You need a stiff heavy arrow for something that draws as heavy as an English longbow or Mongolian recurve.
Anecdotally, I know that a medium-weight target shaft with a blunt conical point will penetrate deeply enough into an oak tree that it takes a wood chisel and about 10 minutes work with a hammer to dig the damn thing out when shot from about 30 yards from a 50 lb draw weight compound bow. It penetrated about an inch and a half into the trunk. Obviously, you can actually kill someone with a target arrow like that. Imagine what a heavy arrow with a warhead on it would do.
I’ve heard, and read, that North American Indigenous Peoples’ bows were quite low power, and that they used stealth to get close to their prey. I’ve also heard, but not read, that they had very powerful bows and could drop birds in flight.
I’m inviting generalization, I realize, but what’s the skinny on American Indian “bows and arrows” overall?
Peace,
mangeorge
No cites right now, but I seem to recall reading a while back that archers pulled out of bogs or dug up from battlefields showed warping of the bone structure of their forearms, due to the repetitive strain of the bow pulling over the course of a lifetime.
Think Popeye forearms, is what the article said. I’ll see if I can find it.
I found two citations online. There are also a few scholarly articles that require fees to access. Despite numerous mentions of the skeletons found on the Mary Rose showing occupational adaptations, I can’t find any sourced articles. These are about remains from Towton.
"A few years ago, archeaologists on a dig at the site of the 1461 Battle of Towton, the bloodiest of the Wars of the Roses, found that some of the skeletons appeared lop-sided, with higher bone density and more muscles one one side than on the other.
“These were archers, and their prolonged use of the longbow from an early age meant their bodies adapted in order to cope with the demands of their deadly trade.”
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/110494518/ABSTRACT
Activity-related skeletal change in medieval humeri: Cross-sectional and architectural alterations
I also found some mentions of a decree from Henry VIII that required adult men to be capable of shooting a minimum of 220 yards, and has been mentioned already Henry thought that the standards of archery in his time were low compared to those of the past.