So you think 25 yds. is a long shot?

[Pruneemac]

I just pulled this history lesson from a Brit web site. With all the talk about practice distances I thought this might put things in a different perspective...

The normal practice range for bowmen was 220 yards, with most archers able to loose 8 - 10 well aimed arrows per minute. Some archers were even able to fire 20 arrows per minute. The maximum range for longbows was more than 220 yards, but their shortcoming was that they lacked penetrating power against armour at this range. A mounted knight could cover this distance in about 15 seconds, so the longbowmen's rate of fire was very important. Armoured footsoldiers would take about a minute and a half to cover the same distance. For the last 50 yards, the arrows could punch through the finest armour.

[McDave]

In the battle of Crecy, about 8,000 - 10,000 English archers shot about 500,000 arrows to kill 15,000 - 20,000 Frenchmen.  These numbers are very speculative, but the proportions are probably correct.

The objective was for as large a group of archers as possible to shoot arrows into the sky, from where they would come down on the enemy.  Any hit was a good hit if it took an enemy soldier out of the battle, whether the arrow hit the enemy soldier's foot or the flank of his horse.

Archery practice meant learning the proper angle to shoot the arrow into the air so it would land a certain distance away, and of course learning to pull the heavy, 100 lb or so warbows.  If there were enough arrows in the air landing more or less 200 yards away, some of them would hit the enemy soldiers who were advancing at that distance.

At one time, it was required of all able-bodied Englishmen to practice archery, but forbidden to practice at distances of less than 100 yards.  No point in training people to get too skillful in taking the king's deer!

The thing that puzzles me is that from about the time of King Henry VIII to well into the 1700's, the longbow was actually more effective than the musket: it could get off more shots per minute, had a longer range, and you could fire it in the rain.  And yet the musket quickly replaced the longbow on the battlefield almost from the time it was invented.  I don't know why that happened, other than the musket made a lot more noise and was a lot easier to train people on than the longbow.

[TRS]

My guess on the musket taking over was the trajectory. A flatter line had a better chance of hitting than a single inpact point.

[HissBliss]

McDave thats so funny! I always wondered the same exact thing. Why not have a line of archers behind your musket men raining arrows on an enemy formation after the first volley of musket fire. Imagine the chaos in an enemy line as they try to reload in a hailstorm of arrows! To my understanding an archer can loose 3 to 4 arrows to every musket ball. Its just crazy to me that a battle like this was never documented.

[Pruneemac]

because everybody wanted to be a Rambo!

[Soilarch]

Have you seen Rambo shoot his exploding tipped arrows, and how his bow made 200yard shots easy...and how his bow sounds just like a musket?  (Think it was Rambo 1...you'll get a kick out of it)

I'd say that training was a big part of it.  I'd suspect the cannon helped the musket out too.  Now there is a weapon that DOES outperform the warbow, and if you go to the trouble of making and having all that gunpowder and lead on hand.....  

I think trajectory may have made the longbow/musket dilemma a dead heat.  More shots with a bow, but better chance of multiple hits/glances with a musket.  

Psychology too.  Imagine yourself holding a stick and string and watching a line of rifleman bellow out smoke, fire and thunder...and your buddies getting ripped to shreds by "invisible arrows".
Never studied war, but am a firm believer in psychology's importance in competitive sports (from experience) and war is competition with very very high stakes, at least for the guy holding the stick and string!  

Thought of another plus for the musket:
For a bow you need a "window" in a wall several inches wide by probably at least a half foot tall, and it must be at the right height/s.  A musket needs a 2" square...maybe the first ones needed 3" square... and could be at any height.   Suddenly every knook and cranny could be a firing point.

Anybody know a statistic for mortality rate of musket wounds verse arrow wounds.

Anyone know what the manufacturing rate for a musket versus a bow AND several dozen arrows?  With the arrows thrown in the mix it might have made a munitions-supply factor take effect.

I have no doubt that the "production rate" of both would astound us today considering what they had to work with.

They also had salesmen back then just like know.  And technology sells, technology isn't new.

[Pope Co.]

I'm thinging it is a matter of commitment. I read a while back that it took a life time of ongoing training to produce an archer of the caliber were talking about. Once the crossbow and musket came along a soldier could be trained in a few weeks. Once there was a weapon that was easier to master it was just a matter of time before that kind of warfare would become history.

[Rick P]

Guys European field archery competitions are still 60 80 and 100 meters. I practice out to 60 and from my experience once you have windage down elevation is not a big issue. Also these guys were using 100lbs+ English war bows and the object wasn't to hit a specific target but rather blanket the field with arrows. Very much like muskets fired in rank formation.

PS Muskets took over for as much physiological reasons as accuracy and effective range. A blast of smoke and fire is much better at striking fear in the hart of your enemy than the twang of a bow string, especially if he has never seen a fire arm before. Same holds true of the early cannons, sieg machines of the time were much more effective but not nearly as scary.

[Pruneemac]

good discussion! My point was; I keep reading posts that talk about how they cant close the deal on a 25 yd. shot! What's the use of practicing at 5 yds.? From reading your posts I think the majority agree we need to practice at longer distance to build CONFIDENCE! Lack of confidence is why 25 yds. seems like a long shot. If archers would practice at 40 then a 25 yd. shot would become a no brainer... JMO

[Capt]

The bow was stilled used by Eastern and Eastern European cultures into the 17th century.  These were the famed horse cavalry of the Polish, Russians and Tartars.

[Rick P]

Originally posted by Pruneemac:
good discussion! My point was; I keep reading posts that talk about how they cant close the deal on a 25 yd. shot! What's the use of practicing at 5 yds.? From reading your posts I think the majority agree we need to practice at longer distance to build CONFIDENCE! Lack of confidence is why 25 yds. seems like a long shot. If archers would practice at 40 then a 25 yd. shot would become a no brainer... JMO

Thus practicing out to 60 yards + it's fun! One slight disagreement though. When I practice I shoot multiple distances at different angles including 5 yard and shorter shots. By always varying the distance I no longer have to think "now this is about 20 yards so I'll just hold 3 inches high and be on the money" adjusting elevation for distance is instinctive for me now. I also practice in different stances, kneeling, standing and even a stance based on "seal walking" used by native Alaskan hunters that is basically on your belly. Sounds bizarre but it has come in very handy when hunting areas of low cover like the north slope tundra or alpine hunting.

[flatsboat]

Frenchmen don't jump the string at 100 yards like a white tail at 25 yards.

[Traxx]

LOL!!!!!
Good one flatsboat.

[artifaker1]

Pruneemac: We had this discussion on paleo planet last summer and if you check into it you'll find that they were penetrating armor out to 250. They had that in an article about Crecy in primitive archer, and they explained how the french knights had to ride broadside to the British longbow men at about 250 if I remember right.
The bows recovered from the Mary Rose were Italian Yew and went from 110# to 160# I think. The arrows went for about 1500 grains and had a 500 or 600 grain bodkins on the front of them (ash shafts). And there are people who have replicated this stuff and have been able to penetrate armor at these distances. I personally think that the different bow weights were to compensate for different draw lengths, with the arrow standardized.
I shoot all the time at 35 myself and move to the 45 when things are going well. I don't have to bare shaft because I get such a good look at the arrow flight at longer distance. So it helps a lot in tuning. But before any big game hunting I will practice up close a lot more. I don't want to risk wounding one.

[O.L. Adcock]

"Frenchmen don't jump the string at 100 yards like a white tail at 25 yards."

LOL! Good one...Have you guys looked at some of the flight records? Even with conventional bows they'll really reach out there. Not much past 300 yards however for anything resembling a war arrow...O.L.

[Grant Young]

Greatpoint O.L.- Combat and military scenarios aren't really compatiblr with the hunter's objective; no matter how much you liked "The Deer Hunter." I'd also question the "well aimed" statement. A regiment is a pretty big target. Remeber this is a bowhunting forum- not paramilitary.

[artifaker1]

O.L., I saw a link to a page about turkish bow replicas that was real interesting. They had a flight bow replica that was shooting 360 FPS and it hadn't really been tuned yet or dried out thoroughly. The bow was 125# pounds and they were shooting 220 grain arrows off it on a shooting machine. Some of the arrows were blowing up. They calculated that the Turk who set a record of 888 meters bow was shooting at 400 FPS.
I can try and post a link to that page if anyone is interested. It has a lot of info related to arrow tuning.
They also mentioned a yew ELB war bow replica that is around 125# and it shoots 1500 grain arrows at 180 Fps.
I think the longbow is more suited to shooting the heavier arrow well. The horse bow limbs will move faster with a lighter arrow but the longbows seem to have more torque with heavier weight. The Turks war bows were shooting 500 to 600 grain arrows and there replica Turk (horse) war bow was moving these at around 240 FPS. This bow was also well over 100#.

[O.L. Adcock]

artifaker1, Yes sir, I've read a lot about what the Turks did but much of it I'm afraid is like fish caught on Saturday being "bigger" on Monday after they ate em on Sunday!    Their documentation leaves a lot to be desired. I'd like to think those talented enough to build replicas would be able to reach half the distances in the history books but they haven't been able to do it with others watching!    The Turkish bow distance record is only 291 yards. The unlimited (draw weight) ELB is 371 with light arrows and ELB's hold none of the heavy arrow broadhead records. So take what you read with a big grain of salt and if they really got the goods they should put them on the track.....O.L.

[artifaker1]

O.L. I didn't realize that there was such a large disparity between modern records and historic claims. It wasn't meant to be a put down towards modern bowyers and flight shooters. I see this same thing in other endeavours, people are often not to comfortable when they see high levels of adeptness in any time frame before now.
But your right if those guys do have bows like that they ought to get them out to the flight shoots. If they can find some one who can draw them and stand the hand shock with such light arrows.

[O.L. Adcock]

"It wasn't meant to be a put down towards modern bowyers and flight shooters."

Oh I didn't take it that way. I'm fasinated by bows of all types and crave to understand how they work. The more I learn from testing and real world shooting, the more I find out how similar they all are no matter what they look like.

What may be driving the Turkish records is to shoot in the Turkish class they must shoot a thumb ring and a siper. The siper would allow shooting very short arrows with a very long power stroke, exactly what's needed to shoot extreme distances. The difficulty in getting a clean shot off with a siper IMO is nothing more then dumb luck so either no one has tried with enough skill or it's just too difficult to do consistantly no matter their skill. The Turkish bows can be shot with fingers and no siper in the complex composite class. The record holder in that class I believe was shooting a Turkish style bow and that record is 619 yards by Don Brown who shot very heavy bows. So that's reaching out there but still nowhere close to 800+. Don also holds the unlimited field recurve (modern) record and that's 674 yards but that's probably with carbon arrows. I've found between wood arrows off the shelf to carbon off an elevated rest will roughly be 50-100 yards difference from the same bow. So that puts them close to on par. Still nothing to be ashamed of!   ....O.L.