Something actually amazing (Archery)

Off-topic
#1

We all know that most documentaries about the medieval period tend to be bad.

Mike Loades however is something of an exception. Now this relatively new documentary he presents had an amazing thing to show.

A 140 pound longbow is shot at a pig carcass to show how it punches through bone, afterwards some common armors are tested to see if they can resist the arrow.

my only reservations are that we do not know the distance at which the arrow was shot and that they didn’t test both higher and lower poundage bows.

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Armor Effectiveness: Realism vs. Balance
Enactment of Medieval Archery in the game
#2

Would love to see this with different arrowhead too. And as you said… distance.

#3

From what I could see of the arrowhead they use it was one intended for armor. I wonder what might work better.

#4

I really admire the 140 pound longbowman. Could’t even imagine to shoot the bow myself. :smiley:

Edit: The gambeston seems quite wonderful.

#5

It could be heavier.

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#6

170? Like… seriously?
I don´t think those things were used that much, because…well 170 pounds…that requires a hell lot of strength and when you have to pull that amount of weight, I can imagine that precise aiming with such a thing is…how should I put it…not that easily done.

#7

Almost 80 kg. One hand. Thank you very much :smiley:

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#8

There is a reason the continent didn’t feel much for longnows :smiley:

That said the way he draws it uses your lats, traps, delts and biceps instead of just delts and biceps.

#9

Yeah I recognized that too, he used the strength of his back and body rather than the strength of his arm. But -like I said- this has the big drawback of lowering the accuracy…a lot :slight_smile:
But no matter what, longbows were a fine weapon if you don´t exaggerate it like that(Poor medieval frenchmen!)

#10

How would it lower accuracy?

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#11

Well if you have to use this lot of strength, at least most people , won´t be able to take the time for aiming and won´t be able to concentrate on it like they could if they shot with a bow with a lower strength because it´s just too exhausting.

If I recall correctly the most common were around 120 pounds, that´s still quite a lot, enough to penetrate armor and stuff but not too much to use it for a longer amount of time.

#12

Well that’s why you train to make drawing it easy enough to take time to aim. Besides volley firing at an angle was the preferred tactic. The problem though is that we do not know what was the common poundage since so few were preserved. :frowning:

#13

Yeah of course you train^^But only if we talk about well trained archers that is.
But okay I have to admit that the kingdom with the highest usage of bows was England/ England + Wales…which had quite well trained archers.
And yes it is hard to say which poundage was used, I took the one which, as far as I know, is the most common used by “experts” :slight_smile:

#14

I wonder if barbell rows are a good equivalent of this.

#15

My two cents : In archery, you aim while you are drawing the bowstring as to keep an optimal precision and preserving strenght, so the poundage of the bow is irrelevant as long as you have the strenght to draw it.

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#16

I used to be a part of a medieval re-enactment society, and was an archer, used a 140lb longbow and made my own arrows, miss shooting with it quite a bit and this thread made me yearn for it again :stuck_out_tongue:

#17

Why’d you stop? Archery is good for you.

#18

They had up to 180lb war bows and i have yet to see anyone test that against plate.

#19

Longbowman of England had trained from age of 8-10 and when called to service around age 20 he had over 10 years of training and hand eye cordination like god, not to mention muscles on his body.

At Agincourt 5000 archers shot 75000 arrows in minute and in 10 minute that makes 750 000 arrows. Dam French got nice shadow to fight on. Try to imagine to be french knight in armor marching on muddy field while every step you take gets you closer to effective killing distance while arrows hit on your armor making unnerving sound. When they got close enough to charge, archers would start to shoot them in horizontal with armor piercing arrows.

#20

Yeah but archers carried a quiver with a maximum of 30 arrows instead of 150 so they had to have a few monkeys running around throwing filled quivers at every archer to keep up such a rate.

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