Archery like the world hasn't seen in hundreds of years

Gameplay
#1

It would seem that our take on Archery is not the true way of combat archery in the past. At least for certain cultures. The devs and community may be entirely happy with the archery mechanic as it’s planned, but this may make for an interesting mechanic indeed. Regardless, I’m sure the archery enthusiasts and history enthusiasts will be very interested to see this video.

Watch this video and be amazed. This guy can hit 3 targets in less than 1.5 seconds. He also broke a world record by being able to fire 11 arrows into the air before the first one hit the ground.

The video is roughly 5 minutes. I’d recommend watching the whole thing, but the really cool stuff happens at 4 minutes.

Cheers!

5 Likes
Lars Andersen: a New Level of Archery, debunked
Realistic archery
Enactment of Medieval Archery in the game
#2

Please do a search before posting there are the following topics on this. this video and many others have also been posted several times.

Realistic Archery
Archery Mechanics
Dont Forget Archery

#3

This is great skill, but… there are many ‘but’-s.
For starters, look at the arrows. Aluminium body, field point. Also, most of them (except for Kassai) are on foot. You should search for the bow poundage too, because you will not like what you’ll see. For some reason, the targets are never at - for example - 80 meters. Also, there are some depictions of arrows held in the bow-, or the pulling hand, but not many (in comparsion with the whole data), and even there only two or three arrows; so those fine chaps on the historical sources also never make a christmas tree out of their bows with arrows.

So… yeah. Today you can see extreme good and mad looking skills at the tricky basketball shows also, but for some reason, you never see those on an actual basketball match.

#4

Please watch the video. Because unless someone else has posted about this particular style (doubt it) or unless you have something to add you can kindly visit another thread.

#5

It looks like hes not even pulling it back all the way.

#6

Reinvented

at 20 yards distance

With a 30 pound bow carbon fiber bow

5 Likes
#7

And not at full draw, either.

topkek

#8

I think that is the point of quick firing and it might work in ways the mongols used it but with a way higher poundage (though they did have recurve composite bows)

#9

Hey, we are in medieval central Europe. Not mongolia, hungary or wherever else. Keep it to the historical facts.

I think we should see more crossbows in the game, than actual longbows, as they were much wider used in Bohemia and Germany around 1400.
Simple idea: strong soldiers of Germany and Bohemia wore pretty decent armor, crossbow has much higher penetration potential, although it shoots on shorter distance.

  1. it is much easier to learn a soldier shoot (and hit the target with bolts from) the crossbow than a bow.
#10

We had this discussion on crossbows and longbow about six times or so.

That said perhaps the Cumans (damn the heathens) might use the same technique and everything seems to point to us encountering them.

#11

i do agree. the crossbows does not require as much skill as a bow. so this was a weapon peasants could use without much training.

#12

I did watch the video the first time it was posted. I did add something that you should post this in you know maybe one of the many already existing threads about archery.

In any case there is little evidence showing it being a historically accurate practice. this also wouldn’t be fitting our setting of Bohemia.

#13

i like how their proof that medieval archers shot arrows from their chest were paintings and tapestries where not only the proportions and dimensions were clearly completely screwed up, but the characters could have been doing any number of things other than shooting.

and none of the paintings showed people holding 3 arrows in their hands like that, but lets disregard that.

confirmation bias and professional sounding narrator. so much credibility.

2 Likes
#14

Professional Robo-Narrator knows his stuff, man.

#15

About the crossbows, weren’t they banned by the Church and only to be used on Crusade? Using them against Europeans would warrant excommunication or was this repealed later on after the 12th century?

so yeah sure, it’s a bad quality video, he can still shoot faster than anyone in the world today and still hit a bullseye. While this wouldn’t necessarily be a common practice for a foot soldier, for someone riding a horse this would be very practical.

@213 They’re proof isn’t coming from the depictions, it’s coming from old texts that describe the technique. Why is that so many people only focus on one aspect of something and think that that’s the whole thing? How about looking at how effective his shooting is? Think about that from a moving horse? He’s got a video of him doing this on the back of a moving motorcycle, it’s very impressive.

and

Neat article as well

#16

Yes, it says as much. You’re not supposed to with this technique. He has shown that with what appears to be a 50 pound draw, and blunt arrows and without a full draw, you can still pierce chain mail. At a distance that would be common for a horse archer.

#17

strange that he is laying arrows on wrong side of his bow, seen from the perspective of medieval archer.

regarding crossbows: yes, as wikipedia: “Can. 29 of the Second Lateran Council under Pope Innocent II in 1139 banned the use of crossbows, as well as slings and bows, against Christians.[61] Although the authenticity, interpretation and translation of this source is contested.[62]”

but, in reality, i.e. venetian or milan mercenaries carried almost exclusively crossbows (relatively small, unencumbrant, easy to use, top effective weapon known vs armour from all projectile weapons). Also, around 1420, crossbow was the weapon of choice for a lot of Husites. And crusader knights sent to repel “Bohemian uprising” were not particularly happy about it, you can imagine :slight_smile:

#18

So, we are comparing a guy sitting on a motorcycle with a foot stand going at lord knows, what speed, shooting at targets at - let’s be generous - 5 meters away (=“common distance for a horse archer”); to a galloping horse with a stirrup?
…my friend, I live in a country very proud of it’s horse archery “tradition” (rather history than tradition) and bows in general. Tons of people have replica bows, and as such, we have a good number of idiots and some very promising researches as well. We have a huge horse archery school (actually, more than one), we have a national society researching just the composite bows, we have events when 1500-2200 archers shoot together in an army. People argue about horse archery methods, means to draw the bow, reasonable shooting distance, archeometallurgy of arrowheads, archeobotanics of shafts, argue just about everything. And I have yet to encounter one single serious horse riding user of for example the Mamluke Handbook who thinks that this (or “yours”) is legit. Just one. I even had a quarrel with these guys:


As you can imagine, they think that theirs is the One True Way as well.
All of the tale does not change the fact (apart from that I am not entirely sure what it all has to do with KCD) that those are inspiring and respectable performances of individuals - but nothing more. József Mónus holds the distance record of these bows with 653 meters, and also hit a 140x140 centimeters target at 453 meters with his sixth arrow. So what now, I should say that “ancient, forgotten archers killed people from 400 meters”? You don’t think so? Why? Ottomans even have memorials for distance shooting competition winners! But back to fast shooting, so people of today (and middle-ages) are all clumsy and simply forgot a devastatingly effective super-weapon, because… uh… I don’t know, they changed their tactics to heavy cavalry-based, for example. Why? Again, I don’t know, when the ultra-archery simply “penetrates their chain mail”.

But forget all that, let’s ask people who still has some kind of tradition in archery with the composite bow! Let’s ask mongolians, koreans, chinese and so on, how they feel about that they are doing their archery all wrong:

So it’s a little bit “Everyone is an idiot, I’m the only helicopter around here”-kind of situation from the point we are trying to make mass history out of this. (Edit: Just to clarify, I’m not talking about you, as a reader and watcher of this practice in any ways; I’m talking about every “I “reinvented” something revolutionary, this is how it always was!”-mentality.)
Fortunately, this does barely effects KCD in any ways.

@Balduin: As far as I can tell, he is pulling with his thumb, this is why he shoots from the right side of the bow.

3 Likes
#19

Correct, did not notice that.
BTW: did he, while shooting in the garden the “Full draw” shots, put one of the arrows on the left side ? Or am I misled again ? :slight_smile:

#20

Impressive! Would love a bit more accurate archery as well, but you can easily get lost in perfectionism. It needs to be a good balance between realism and fun.

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