130 lbs., 120 lbs., tomato, tomahto. It’s still a hell of a lot more than people today or even most people back then could do.
Well it’s obvious you’re not an “average schmoe” when comes to archery. Besides, the limitation to draw strength isn’t your fingers, it’s your back muscles. I can hold 80 lbs. with three fingers all day. Trying to pull that back half of that with only my back muscles is a bitch and a half. Someone like rower wouldn’t have a hard time, but the average schmoe certainly would. The English trained since childhood with the bow, so they muscles were pretty much optimized.
I hope you two aren’t including me on that list. I know that battle plate was not as protective (especially in the head) as joust armor, but in Barbara Tuchman’s “A Distant Mirror,” she refers to armor that became thicker and thicker around the turn of the 14th century until knights were known to die of heart failure on the battle as well as from wounds.
Well then that’s what has to be determined. Does she know what she’s talking about or no?
Also, plate mail’s weighted changed little over time. That was the remarkable thing about these smiths. They could cover you in perfectly articulated plate and not tirn you into an unmovable statue.
So could an arrow pierce your average plate mail or not? Seems the answer is “only at close range if at all.” Is this accurate? How about a big-ass thrown spear?
Only at a very close range is right, and then only on a solid hit.
In otherwords, you have a much better chance of harming the person wearing the plate mail by hitting him in a vulnerable area protected only by chainmail, like the joints.
And that’s typically what happenned.
You had several hundred archers targetting a unit of a hundred or so knights. They cna loose thousands of arrows a minute. Even so, their not going to kill many knights, but they are going to kill some mounts and injure some of the riders who just happen to get hit in a vulnerable area.
I am an average schmoe. I’m lazy. I drive the car too much. I’ve got a pot belly. I’m about twenty pounds overweight. I go to the range a couple of times a year just for fun. I am not some kind of special athlete with super powers who can draw this incredibly heavy bow because he looks like the hulk. If I didn’t have that lump of lard hanging over my belt I’d weigh about 135 pounds and look like your stereotypical pencil necked geek.
A simple, straight draw is pretty damned hard. I don’t do it that way, and neither does anyone else. Watch the guys in some old Robin Hood movie or on the sports channel some time. You start out with the bow pointing upwards and pull the fingers holding the string down towards the corner of your mouth. Now you bring the bow down and level with your left hand. Pulling it down that way forces the grip away from you. As you bring your left hand down, you draw back the last little bit with the right hand. The hard part is holding the bow in that position long enough to aim. If you are really good at this, you aim as you draw so that when everything properly positioned you just release the arrow in one flowing motion - draw, aim, release. No pause, no hesitation.
It is a damned sight easier that way than a straight draw. There’s more technique involved than there is raw muscle strength.
This would also be the way the English did it. But, they would have also had the practice to hold that heavy bow for a while, seconds at least - constant practice does help. There was a reason the English kings made it law that there were to be no other sports practiced besides archery. Practice and excercise do make a difference.
