For reasons unclear to me, the composite horn-wood-sinew bow widely used in the East never made it to Europe, at least not until after firearms made bows militarily obsolete. How did it compare as a weapon to the simple English yew long bow? I gather it had the same high draw but was much shorter. In particular, it was practical as a mounted warriors’s weapon, which the longbow certainly wasn’t.
That’s about accurate. You can rack up another point for geography. Horsemen on the plains didn’t have a need for a long range, powerful bow - they needed an accurate short range bow. Their enemies wore less armor and generally were also mounted, whereas European armies generally fought differently.
Is the debate here about which is better? Or what? On the open steppes of Central Asia, the Mongols could have probably whipped the Brits. Trying to hold land in England, they would be reduced to hit and runs.
I believe it had a similar draw to the lightest yew longbows, but this was pretty much its limit. By simply making a bigger, thicker piece of yew the longbow draw-weight could increase vastly further. Draw-weights of well over a hundred pounds required training from childhood, and thus many Welsh and English peasants were mandated to practise every day by their feudal lord - I would be surprised if the mongols could even use a bow with which an experienced Welshman could put a swallow-head arrow halfway through an armoured horse.
As Zag said, the “who beats who” game must consider all kinds of variables - the specific year is even important due to the technological “arms race” in Europe in the 1300’s in particular.
IIRC, it is mentioned in How Great Generals Win that Mongolian bodkin-tipped arrows could easily penetrate a knight’s armor. And, IIRC, according to a history of the longbow that I have around somewhere, the composite bow’s spring was the fastest until modern spring steel. I’ve read that the Mongols had tremendous draws on their bows, some estimates going into the realm of the ridiculous. However, the Mongols were armored in metal and even had heavy lancers similar to European cavalry, so I would imagine that they were subject to the same armor piercing need as Europeans. The power of the bow comes not only from its draw weight, but also the length of draw, and IIRC the Mongols could get similar draw length from their bows. Since they were a herding people, a lot of their fighting men grew up riding horses and shooting bows all day. There’s every reason to expect that they’d be just as strong as a Welshman who spent his life practicing with a longbow.
OTOH, I seem to recall that the composite bow is failry sensitive to the environment and took special care to maintain. Additionally, they took a long time to make. Compare that to the modern archery who, dissapointed that he didn’t bring his bow to an archer competition, cuts down a sapling and achieves an impressive finish. The composite bow balances the compressive elasticity of the horn with the stretchy elasticity of the animal sinew to get its results; the yew comes self-contained with these elements built in and there isn’t that much to be done.
One more thing to note is that longbowmen used heavier arrows and were more efficient because of that. They wasted less energy, and a heavier arrow would deliver more momentum to the target, all else equal.
The Mongol bow, it must be remembered, is the final stage of the development of the composite bow. Which, in one form already existed in ancient Egypt and the Near-East. The Scythian bow is about the first type in the line and was much weaker than the Mongol.
The Romans, espescially after their conflicts with the Sarmatians and Persians, scaled up their use of the bow considerably and it was in use in Europe as well.
There are finds of bone stiffeners for composite bows all over the place.
Regarding the point that the longbow could have a much stronger draw;
Yes, but the whole point of the composite bow is that you don’t need the same draw-strength to get the same result. The trick is in the ‘springyness’ of the release.
Though the composite bow needs to be treated carefully, when not in use, I wonder how long a strip of yew retains its flexibility.
Hmmm…Chambers disagrees:
*Every man carried a wicker shield covered in thick leather while on his side hung two bows, one for long range and one for short range…
The mediaevel English longbow had a pull of seventy-five pounds and a range of up to two hundred and fifty yards, but the smaller, reflex composite bows used by the Mongols had a pull of between a hundred and a hundred and sixty pounds and a range of over three hundred and fifty yards.*
From The Devil’s Horsemen: The Mongol Invasion of Europe by James Chambers ( 1979, Atheneum ).
- Tamerlane
That crashing sound is the sound of several of my misconceptions shattering on reality. I had always heard that the English Longbow was the ultimate bow (for range, power and accuracy), and that Welsh archers were the finest archers in the world.
I have a question though…wasn’t the English Longbow composed of yew and another wood bonded together?? I didn’t think it was made of yew exclusively. Maybe another misconception on my part.
-XT
Gotta love them Scythians
One question comes up in my mind that I don’t know the answer to - rate of release. I would imagine that a short composite bow would have a slightly faster rate of fire. I mean, slightly slightly, but maybe enough to get the draw on an enemy.
From all I’ve read, they had to be treated carefully as well. Well, all bows do, so that isn’t saying much, I guess.
Well, I suppose one of the great Matchups of History would be England v. Mongolia c. 1300… like we’ve said, it would depend on a lot of variables. The CA steppes are an entire different tactical world than England.
From my understanding (flawed as it turns out to be) the Mongols would have easily crushed the English…granting they could get across the channel of course. For one thing, there were a hell of a lot more of them…their armies were huge, especially compared to the English, who never really fielded huge armies from what I recall.
For another, their armies were very disiplined and well trained and armed. In addition to light, medium and even heavy cavalry they also had heavy foot troops by 1300, though their emphasis was on cavalry from what I remember. They were almost a force of nature and they pretty much wiped out every army before them.
I never thought that the English (or any other European power) could match the Mongols straight up…but I thought that the English Longbow was the ultimate bow until the advent of modern materials and the compound bow. I also didn’t know that the Mongols used bodkin type arrows which are great for piercing arrows…I assumed they used broadhead arrows.
-XT
It was made from one piece of yew. I can’t seem to find a link at the moment, but IIRC yew was used because it had a stiff outer edge and a springy inner core. So a bow made from yew would have a stiff front and a springy back.
Yeah, that’s what made it self-contained. I’ll see if I can quickly find the book tonight, not that I can just open it up and spout useful info, but it is an interesting reference. Plus, it has a technical chapter on piercing armor.
It seems reasonble that the long- and composite bow were stiff to the limit of human strength. Why wouldn’t they be?
160 pounds??? I never even remotely considered that a so powerful bow could be used. I can’t begin to imagine how one would draw such a thing…
Just for the sake of comparison, does anybody has an idea of the pull of a medieval crossbow? Both the light crossbow, and the “crank” crossbow?
160lbs sounds ridiculous to me, too. I can well imagine that there are guys who can pull that weight with one arm on a gym machine, but with two fingertips? On a horse? And hold steady enough to hit anything?
Colour me skeptical.
I doubt if either author personally pulled such a bow, or even "hefted’ one. Note they are both “pre-mongal” writers, and thus their opinion is suspect- and in this case they have no facts, just their opinions.
Note that even a Longbow could usually goe thru plate. Even some guns couldn’t go thru may breastplates. So stating barefaced that “that Mongolian bodkin-tipped arrows could easily penetrate a knight’s armor.” is streching things- as so could many bows- at the armour’s weak points. Ture- the Mongols wore metal armour- light chainmail. Note that “Chambers” seems to downplay the English/welsh longbow and play up the comp bow.
Frankly- the two were about the same. Both took a lifetime of practice to even PULL (and they have found skeltons of english longbowmen with their arms.shoulders warped in strange ways form the strain- can they show the same with the mongols? :dubious: ). The Longbow used a heavier/longer arrow, which was more effective, and could penetrate better. Putting the clothyard shafts point down into the ground allowed for VERY fast fire.
The Composite bow could be used on horseback, OTOH.
Thats “prO-mongol” writers. Authors tend to fall in love with their subject. Books heavily fixated on one subject will rarely be unbiased.
This is true enough.
No archer, I. Other than rubberbands, I’ve never fired anything that didn’t require gunpowder ;). Chambers may well be unreliable for the particular claim of draw weight, though I think his other descriptions of equipment are all based on first hand accounts. In the meantime I came across this faq ( with a reference or two ) that discusses the manufacture of Asian/Turkish recurved bows ( which were probably reasonably similar to the classic Mongol design ). It concludes in part:
The weight of the bows generally varied from 20 lb (Chinese infantry) to probably up to 100 lb. Turkish flight bows were usually 65 lb (the conditioning process however, see above, could easily add another 20 lb). There was a separate class of very heavy exercise bows. Military examinations in China required drawing heavy bows, up to 200 lb (!).
From here: http://www.student.utwente.nl/~sagi/faq/asianbow.shtml#mongdraw
So perhaps 65-90 lbs is a more reasonable number :). Which as DrDeth notes would probably put it in about the same general range as the English longbow.
- Tamerlane
If the fighting took place in Britain, the English could have handily handed the Mongols their asses, assuming they knew where the landing area would be. All they would have had to do was completely burn the vegetation from the landing area to the nearest defensible (hilly) position. If they could ward off an attack for a fewdays, the Mongols’ horses would simply starve.
(Don’t have a cite, but) didn’t the Mongols had larger bows for sieges, that they were able to pull by sitting on the ground and bracing the bow with their feet while drawing with both hands? I recall reading of these in an account of their use against the elephant-mounted Burmese.
I don’t have a cite for this, but a Welsh friend related that one tactic welsh archers used was very similar: In an ambush of the english near his hometown, the longbowmen lay on their backs on the other side of a hill and pulled the bows two-handed to fire over the hill into the English army which was out of sight.
Also, from personal experience, I really doubt the figure of 70lb pulls as a maximum for longbows. I did basic archery training with yew bows and the strongest bow we novices used had a 70lb pull. The trainer said she had stronger longbows (all traditional yew) but regarded them as unsafe to use in the practice field.
I’ve found sites claiming a variety of pulls(80-120lbs , 80 to 110 pounds ,
75-100lbs, )
but I don’t know how reliable they are.