These were Hussites, a little bit later then 1403. They used very different strategies and weapons from what was normal before them. That is why they were so able to crush knights so often and with so low casualties on their side. Here in Czech republic we are very fond of Hussites, because thay were so successful against all odds.
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that is true, that a recurve bow is stronger, but it is also shorter, which makes it weaker.
So you can get the same power of a longer bow in a shorter bow by using recurves, this is true.
But the angle of the string is also important in the comfort of shooting, thats why horse archers were using a thumb ring, while longbow archers were shooting with a glove or tap.
âShorterâ does not make it weaker, because draw length is the same. But as you talk about angle, a little curiosity came on my mind. Yes, short recurves canât be held with mediterranean draw which was common in Europe. BUT there is something called âslavic drawâ - look here http://www.rychla-lukostrelba.cz/pozice-sip-a-ruka/drzeni-tetivy-slovanske-drzeni.html either in video or in gallery at the end there is shown how it looks. It is probably a slavic way to overcome string angle problems. I can draw very short turkish style bow without any problems in this way (while I tried that mediterranean draw is really bad for such bow).
Unfortunatelly we know slavic draw only from middle-eastern sources (manuscripts translated to modern english with titles Arab Archery and Saracen Archery). It canât be found anywhere in sources from central Europe, so I expect that it was developed by slavs living in (or close to) arabian/turkish world. But it is just theory, as always ⊠evidence, that is the problem.
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Interesting, never knew about this drawing technique.
since the vid is in Czech and no subtitles can a description of the hold be typed out?
Sure, sorry. Here you can find Arab archery online: https://www.archerylibrary.com/books/faris-elmer/arab-archery/ , and this is the description of slavic draw there (chapter XV):
The Slavs ( al-áčąaqÄlibah ) have a peculiar draw which consists of locking the little finger, the ring finger, and the middle finger on the string, holding the index finger outstretched along the arrow, and completely ignoring the thumb. They also make for their fingers finger tips of gold, silver, copper, and iron, and draw with the bow upright.
(it is modern english translation of original Arabic text written in 1500. Similar description can be found in Saracen Archery, which originates even earlier, I think to 14th century)
In my video somewhere at the end I have short shots from BhĂștĂĄn, where they switched from original longbows with mediterranean draw to modern short compound bows, which forced them to use something very similar to slavic draw. They developed it themselves, without knowing anything about slavic draw.
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I thought Iâd add my little bit to the discussion. This isnât backed by any research from historical sources or anything, but I remember when I was younger and I used to do a lot of battle re-enactments (popular hobby in Bohemia), we would always wear our bows. Granted, they were a lot weaker than the real thing (even with corks on your arrows, you still wouldnât want to risk hurting anyone in any permanent way), so maybe it wouldnât work with a proper longbow, but we would put them on with the string across the chest from the right shoulder to the left hip and the stick around the back. Itâs not super-comfortable, but it frees your hands. I wonder whether thereâs evidence of anything similar in history or whether itâs even possible with a proper bow.
wouldnât that put a long term stress on a self bow? also werenât they covered when not in use to keep dry?
We would only do this when carrying bows over short distances. Iâm assuming itâs not particularly good for the bow and itâs probably like an equivalent of hanging a strung bow up on a wall, so youâre probably right.
Alternatively, free yourself of the problem entirely and use a sling!
What if you donât need to use the sling? well you donât have to wear it around on your hand like with a bow⊠No sir, one can merely hang it from your belt. What if you donât have a belt you say? Simple, you can use the sling as a belt and wrap it around your waist.
Do you hate having to endure agonizing walks through the Bohemian countryside, visiting those pesky fletchers or arrowmakers? Are you worried that they might be upping the cost because you are Henry? Some blacksmithâs son from that one village that the Cumanâs burnt down? Well, Sir. With this magical, glorious invention, you need only find a riverbed, or better yet, smash down some church windows and pilfer some lead. Now you will be killing Knights and Cumans in style, by literally beating their heads in with rocks.
Sir, If that offer is not enough of a deal-breaker for you, you can inscribe rude words or phallic images into your shots. Let the Cumanâs know how you really feel about their incursions, when they sport rude-words-laden bruise-marks.
And, because this is a game, Learning how to use one will be much easier than in real life! 
Kill with skill, kill with style, Kill biblically⊠Kill like David! Use the sling.
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How much does it cost? I need it now, at least 10 pieces! I canât live without this ingenious device!
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What is the relative cost of good 15th century Hemp, Flax, Wool or Leather within your kingdom, compared to the price of the average wage of the 1403 labourer?
With this simple answer, the price estimation of the sling can be easily solved, and it will likely be yours⊠for possibly under a groshen!
Compare this, as you will, to those cantankerous, expensive bows⊠or those equally atrocious crossbows. You would spend so much groschen on those, youâll be living under carts for a year at those prices! 
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Okay, more seriously. Do you have some practical experience with sling shooting? I recently read a bit of Xenophon (Anabasis) and at some point he says that Rhodos slingers outranged Persian archers. Do you know what can be effective range of a slinger with leaden bullet of about 20-50 grams weight? By âeffectiveâ I mean that he has to hit a single person (because it seems that Persians were scattered). It would give me some clue about how strong were Persian bows.
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I have some practical experience with the sling, on an amateur/novice footing.
I believe that Xenophon is an accurate source, at least basing on the exploits of sling users to the modern day. Larry Bray, in 1981 managed to hurl a 52 gram ovoid stone to a distance of 437.10 metres, using a 129.5cm sling.
If lead glandes were being used properly, with a clean release with a rifle-esque spin caused by twisting the wrist on the release, I wouldnât be surprised if a good slinger could theoretically achieve 500-600 metre throws, although a distance of 300-400 metres would likely be more average. I believe that initial projectile speeds of ~60-70 m/s would not be an unreasonable estimate.
Whilst I cannot really help you with the Persian archers, My assumption is that they would be using some variant of composite bow, and I assume that the draw-weight would likely fall somewhere within the ~75lb region, at least based on the diametres of some iron-age arrowhead sockets, although I cannot remember the source where I found this.
On the otherhand, The Persians also had slingers who were out-ranged by the Rhodian slingers. Due to the mentioning of âfist-sizedâ stones, I summise that the Persian slingers were likely using stones within the 100-200 gram region, and that the rough distance of these throws would roughly be within 160-200 metres, likely at speeds of roughly 40-50 m/s.
When it comes to slings, I believe that projectile masses as well as having skilled slingers plays a big role in the distance of sling throws. Novice sling users might only achieve average throws of 30-40 m/s with a medium-length sling, whilst skilled users could theoretically throw projectiles out to ~50-70 m/s, however, differing sling projectiles can cause a noticeable decrease in launch velocities.
As to accuracy regarding the sling. That is a very difficult question and likely one that will never be answered satisfactorily, especially when there is a dearth of scientific knowledge regarding the sling, especially when compared to the bow.
As to accuracy out to 400 metres, There is absolutely no way that they would be focusing on hitting singular targets. However, even if a glande were to miss the target, they would likely be capable of demoralising enemy skirmishers due to the wasp-like sound that rifling glandes make in flight.
Slingers might be able to make attacks on singular targets at roughly 100 metres distance, based on ancient sources and accounts in Polynesia and Asia during the 1600-1800âs. I think that it would be nearly impossible to achieve accurate throws to a singular man-sized target past 150 metres, but I think that this would be shared with archers also (But to a lesser extent).
I believe that slingers, at least concerning long-ranged engagements, were probably utilized in a role not to dissimilar to how modern-day suppressive fire is used, where it is not necessarily focused on hitting singular targets necessarily, but rather on groups, relying on the sounds of oncoming projectiles to keep heads down and shields out, which I believe would be especially useful against most skirmishing or archery-based troops which would likely have little to no armour except for shields.
Here is what sling glandes can sound like, though there could be differences in sound as the velocity of the projectile decreases in flight towards the target.
At a closer range, I believe that slingers would be much more analogous to other skirmishers, using heavy stones rather than lead glandes which would probably weight perhaps 100-300 grams at distances of roughly ~60-180 metres, where the mass of these stones would be likely to damage not only armour (Assuming that panoplies are being worn), but these could also theoretically damage some shields. These skirmishing slingers could also use shields themselves in an active role (Unlike archers, who might rely on shield-men such as Assyrian reliefs show) and might have been paired or used alongside javelin-equipped troops, with slingers presumably being there to give some returning fire to archers if they should try to loose at the javelin-equipped skirmishers as they go close, whilst also being used to add weight to a javelin barrage.
I wouldnât be surprised if the maximal range of the Persian archers would probably be somewhere around ~170-250 metres, though I imagine that the actual effective range would be somewhere around ~20-60 metres, much like with most other ranged weapons including slings.
Largely, I believe that the Rhodian slingers didnât necessarily cause much damage, rather that they demoralised or dismayed the Persians out of action due to the the prospect that in order for them to be able to attack, they would already be well within the range of the slingers, whilst the Persian slingers wouldnât be able to provide backup for their archers, because they too would be within range of the slingers. (The Persian slingers could use lighter stones or clay biconicals within a similar weight to lead glandes to achieve a distance of ~300-400 metres, but the actual damage that these projectiles would cause would likely be minimal, whereas the lead glandes, due to the high density and low surface-area in comparison to stone or clay projectiles, would probably be much more effective at causing damage despite both being within a similar weight-range. Against the likely limited armour worn by Persian archers or slingers, leaden projectiles would have a good chance of embedding within the flesh of exposed skin, or have a fair chance of causing bone fractures to certain bones in the body on impact, but would be less effective versus armour)
The Israeli police, for obvious reasons, have done research on the traumatic potential of slings. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28088089
âOur data indicated that projectiles shot from unconventional weapons such as a sling, have serious traumatic potential for unprotected individuals and can cause blunt trauma of moderate to critical severity such as fractures of the trunk, limb, and facial skull bone, depending on the weight and shape of the projectile and the distance from the source of danger. Asymmetrically shaped projectiles weighing more than 100g were the most dangerous. Projectiles weighing more than 100g can cause bone fractures of the trunk and limbs at distances of up to 60m from the target and may cause serious head injuries to an unprotected person (Abbreviated Injury Scale 4-5) at distances up to 200m from the target. Due to the traumatic potential of projectiles shot from a sling, the police must wear full riot gear and keep at a distance of at least 60m from the source of danger in order to avoid serious injury. Furthermore, given the potential for serious head injuries, wearing a helmet with a visor is mandatory at distances up to 200m from the source of danger.â
Given that most archers were often not provided with much in the way of armour, and due to the fact that most archers often did not use shields, I think that the Rhodians being equipped with lead projectiles was a big advantage for the Greeks in countering Persian archers, especially when one reads about the excerpt from the above document.
I would also highly recommend you to visit Slinging.org. There are users there with much more experience than me, who might have differing thoughts to me.
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Wow. That was much more than I hoped for. Thank you, I have much better idea now.
I would then expect Persians shooting from ~100m distance, which can be achieved with 40-50lbs bow. Maybe a bit stronger if they had heavier arrows. 75lbs seems too much to me, I expect lighter bows in this era (even in Byzantine times, Persians were famous for speed shooting with lighter bows; Byzantine ~90lbs bow was considered quite heavy). Cretan archers had problems to achieve the same reach, because they were trained rather in âcloserâ combat with direct shooting (there are some hints to it). And as you say, slingers could threaten compact army from like 300m, and from 150m they started to be serious danger even for scattered individuals.
Of course slingers would have slower cadence than archers, and would be more vulnerable from shorter distance. But Greek had Cretan archers and infantry to handle it, and were probably used to it. It was long-range fighting that caused them problems at the begining of âhomecomingâ part of anabasis.
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No problem. I always like to brush up on my knowledge of the sling whenever I can.
I personally donât think that ~75ld is too high (Iâd say ~80-90lb would be the max), when I think that the Archers present were likely foot-archers rather than horse-archers. Of course, there was likely a âlotâ of variance from archer to archer, it seems to me that foot-archers often used heavier bows than their cavalry-based counterparts.
Of course, I donât think we will ever know this question with any certainty.
Additionally, at around that distance, slingers can choose to use heavier stones. Heavier stones (Perhaps 100-150 grams) are not as fast-moving as lighter projectiles (20-80 gram), but they should have a bigger impact upon hitting. I wouldnât be too surprised to see impacts of around ~60-150J at 150 metres.
Luis Pons Livermore, for example consistently threw several 150gram stones at 50m/s towards several watermelons from 25 metres away (For a documentary on Menorca). Assuming that the speed and weight are accurate the impacts should be roughly ~180J (Which is frankly terrifying)
Iâm not entirely sold on this. While a slinger would likely have little to no armour, slingers sometimes used shields (Though not always), either simple hides that were grasped by the outstretched hand to create a canopy-covering, or with wicker, rawhide or wooden shields. I think that this is a distinguishing feature that does give a slinger some important benefits.
Given short-to-medium distance engagements though, Persian archers are likely quicker-firing and more accurate, though slingers do benefit from having projectiles that are less affected by adverse conditions than bows. Stones donât have as much concern for high-speed side-winds or wet weather than arrows. Additionally, sling stones can bounce on sandy (And sometimes on grassy) flat terrain whilst still going at a fast velocity. With large stones, this would certainly be a point of concern. I almost hit myself from a glancing slingstone that I threw at a tree about ten metres away from me (I barely even saw it, it was that fast), so I certainly wouldnât want a bouncing slingstone hitting me in the shin.
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To me it seems that slinger needs some time to prepare next shot; but the closer is the enemy, the more important is speed of your shooting. That is why I think that slinger would be vulnerable - you canât win skirmish by only protecting yourself with shield, but you wonât be given enough time to âreloadâ. Archer may not have shield, but can return fire pretty quickly. But I think we agreed on that.
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A column of archers/crossbowmen seems like itâd be more compact and therefore attack pattern more dense.
Slingers at distance would seem unnerving, but within (cross)bow range the reverse
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Iâd say that this is one reasons why slingers were over-time used less in a battlefield context, but seemingly they were seemingly used more-often in sieges (Slings are damned effective not only cost-wise, but are also highly efficient at hurling incendiaries long distances), but I think primarily the reason slingers werenât used in battles very often is less due to the density problem, (With the exclusion of Spain, Portugal and Andalusian Spain) but is probably more due to recruitment patterns being shifted in the High-period, with recruitment being focused less on rural levies and more on recruiting urban burghers. Shepherds are primarily within the rural classes, and so the likelihood of recruiting burghers with any practical experience of the sling would be very low. Burghers often didnât have very much experience with slings, but there might have been a few who have used bows, but I think that more would have had experience with crossbows. (High-quality Crossbows were often made in townships or cities, rather than in villages, as crossbow making can be a very complex art)
On the otherhand, I imagine that the sling was less used as a proper, dedicated class of weapon (Due to the above concerns which you have stated) but I think that the sling was probably used more-often on a personal level by foot-men than most people would think about the period. There is the odd depiction of the odd Landsknect hurling stones with a sling before an engagement, which I think would be pretty accurate, even though landsknects are from a later period.
As a weapon for the individual footman to hurl things at the enemy before an expected engagement, the sling has plenty of merit. You can literally store the sling from your belt until you need it. You also donât need to have all that much experience to use one from a short distance, because accuracy is not much of a concern when you are aiming for masses of troops. Of course, a novice slinger cannot throw stones near-as-hard as a skilled slinger, but novices can easily make up for this by using fist-sized or larger stones (Where mass can trump speed). The sling is also more convenient to use for foot-troops than the staff-sling, which was a popular weapon. For the defense of a township or fortification, I would prefer a staff-sling.
Additionally, because engagements were not often decisive, or might not even occur (There are events were armies literally stood about 50 metres away and did not engage eachother), having a sling on a personal level would be a good idea. If youâre bored as hell, slinging rocks at enemies would probably be a fine way of passing the time⊠with perhaps the odd cajoling or odd bet over who could hit mister âFrenchyâ or âDeutschyâ from across the field first.
I personally think that the opposite is true, and this is not due to me âwankingâ the sling here. Iâd rather take the long-range lead-glande fire over the short-range sling fire any day, just from personal experience throwing big-fucking stones. (Which I donât do very often⊠because I like my shoulders)
At close distances (Within ~60-100 metres), slingers can switch to what I refer to as âfuck-off-hugeâ stones (Similar to Staff-sling projectiles), the kind of stones that would literally make people clear the deck if they saw them coming from overhead.
There are mention of several events where Balearic slingers were reputed to have thrown stones weighing over 1 Roman mina, which is roughly similar to a pound (~450 grams), at short distances, and getting hit with one of those stones would not be fun, even in full harness.
Finds from Guam also show that slingstones could be the size of pineapples and might mass between 1-1.5 kilograms. (I also believe that what some might refer to as âStaffslingâ projectiles could also be used via hand sling.)
I personally tend to classify any stone heavier than 200 grams as being a âFuck-off-huge stoneâ, with a hearty Australian accent. Any time where you put a big stone in your sling, thereâs this little thought in the back of your head which goes âGeez, this is a bit much!â Because you can really feel it in your arms. You can also feel the pouch straining due to the size (I often use split-pouches when using big stones). That is how I tend to know when I am dealing with a very heavy stone. You donât get this experience with any other stones.
Crossbow users are really, really going to want pavises if they are expecting to combat slingers at a close range (60-120 metres), because getting hit with big-fucking stones is not going to be on their agenda (Whilst being hampered by slow-ish reload rates, perhaps ~15-25 seconds between reloads, although with arbalests this might be between ~30-45 seconds). Warbow archers might be able to withstand slingers (To a certain extent), they managed to do so at the battle of Najera, but I believe that the very fact that English warbow archers were armoured to a very-high extent whilst Spanish/Andalusian (Iâd imagine that there was a fair amount of interlap between the Spanish and Moorish/Andalusian slingers) were likely only wearing tunics, was one of the biggest reasons why the Slingers lost. I believe there was a passage written by Jean Froissart mentioning that archers bascinets were being dented from an extended range.
Anything which can dent a bascinet (Which are often around ~3mm thick at parts) would probably severly concuss or kill somebody with a lesser helmet from an extended range (It also tells you something about the size of the stones which the slingers might be using, Iâd guess 150-200 gram stones). Warbow archers can play real havok when facing against not-so-well armoured troops, even at a long distance.
So in my opinion, you would want to be a fair distance away, where your projectiles would be able to heavily wound and potentially kill enemy slingers (Dur to their lack of armour), but not too close (Within 60-120 metres), otherwise you would likely be contending with âbig-fucking stonesâ⊠and frankly Iâm not sure if most harnesses of the period would be able to afford you any adequate level of protection against such projectiles.
For an example, this is what a ~240 gram clay slingstone looks like. Iâd expect that a projectile weighing about a pound would probably be around a centimeter or two bigger by circumference.
That bastard hurt my arm, I tell you, although I got my revenge when it struck against several branches and veered course right into a big tree-trunk and literally exploded into bits. It sounded like an actual explosion and I almost shit my pants because I wasnât expecting it to be so loud.
When talking about slings, maybe people here will find it interesting that slingers were also used by Hussites in Hussite wars that started several years after events in KCD (priest Godwin talks about John Hus, whose followers will later start it all).
So these Hussites employed young boys to hurl stones at enemy by slings. They were only children, but they certainly did their part in harassing enemy and supporting main troops. Czech name for them was âprĂĄÄataâ, which would mean something like âsling childrenâ (âprakâ means âslingâ).
Hussites used these sling troops in the same time as crossbowmen and early firearm shooters.
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