LongBows and Archers

Well as you know English longbows where special for their ability to use their
bows in that matter : they shoot 1 arrow up then quickly reload and shot another one straight that way they double their effectiveness
( and they carry lots of ammo ).
in this game , shotting high occurs when the archers don't have straight eye sight to enemy and it causes the units to miss more...
I think that shotting high should be less effective to all archer units except English longbows. also they should reload faster and shot straight arrows after it
that will be a one wave and so on.
also after doing some research on that matter i found out that archers are most
effective when they have small hight advantage and they spread in a long line.
if archers are placed at a to much high ground they will shoot to high and miss
and therefor when you fighting with archers on a cliff they wont get advantage as they need to.
from a plain archers only in the front line will get the best shots.
i think CA needs to give the archers the ability to spread that way :

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

you cant spread archers to one line so this way both lines will get good shots
like in the start of lord of the ring the first movie with the elvish archers :D.
that way archers could be used better , also they need to fix the hight problem and the walls problem ... archers in front line on walls should get clear shots.

Any bow can be shot at a steeper angle, not just the longbow. When shot at very long distances you have to arch the arrow up high. If you have something blocking line of sight, then you can't know for sure where the enemy is. I think that's what the developer was trying to simulate with the reduced efficiency. In real life, several things affect the arrow efficiency when arched like that. Say you have this situation


XXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXX


OOOOOOOOOOO <- Wall


AAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAA <- Archers

The archers would have to shoot the arrows at a very steep angle to get over the wall and hit the men behind. Now arrows with feathers will sail in the wind. If you have any crosswind way up high, the arrows can be blown way off course. Also, while the arrows coming down will pick up speed due to gravity, it has lost most of the initial speed going up. Then there's the line of sight issue. The archers are shooting blind in this case.


I haven't really paid too much attention in game, but I think it is a bit strange that archers reach their max distance with a rather flat trajectory.

dude reread the post ...
i already knew this and mentioned it though its not directly.

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I think that shotting high should be less effective to all archer units except English longbows. also they should reload faster and shot straight arrows after it

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Over here you're saying that the English longbow should be more effective when arched than any bow. If that is not what you meant then I do apologize for the misunderstanding. The longbow is not the most efficient bow in the world, as a matter of fact it's pretty crude. There's nothing about the longbow that will give it an advantage when shot with a high arch.


What you're describing sounded like a trick shot to me, where a person shoots one arrow up high and shoot another one at a lower trajectory and hit the target at the same time. I'm no history expert, perhaps others can clarify this. But I doubt something like this was used in war.

what you described in now is what i meant , the fact that longbows shot two arrows at each wave ... :D that is historically correct.
that why you shouldn't do to a French guy V with you two middle fingers... because of the 100 years war and Longbows.

I don't see the advantage of shooting 2 shots like that though. It will complicate matters as you have to change angle every shot. Another disadvantage is you waste ammo. As the shots that goes up high won't have that much of an impact when it hits.

Now, in order for both arrows to impact together you have to be very very fast. There's only certain angle combinations where this will work. If the enemy is too far away that means the 2 angles that will allow similar impact is too close together. If the angles are too close to each other the time it takes to shoot the 2 arrows will also be too close to each other. If the enemy is too close, another issue as the time between arrows are now too far apart. The arrows that are shot in the air at a high angle will now take forever to come down.

On the other hand, I have heard rumors of English longbowmen putting 2 arrows in the air at the same time. But this has always been perceived as 2 rapid shots done at the same angle, such that as one arrow is about to hit, another is loosed. There's another thread on here somewhere that talked about this in great length. It's something that is possible, but perhaps not that common. Just like Howard Hill can shoot aspirin tablets tossed in the air with a longbow, yet not everyone else can do it.

Historically, shooting high angle shots had its advantages. It has been used a few times to cause arrows to land on top of men, bypassing their shield protection. One famous example is the Battle of Hastings, when William of Normandy ordered his archers to fire high above the shield wall. I'm not sure whether in real life whether this causes inaccuracy or any disadvantages due to the strange flight angle of the arrows, since its loss of forward force caused by the bow when flying downwards may reduce its AP ability?

generally soldiers would have a much smaller cross section from above plus they need only a rounded helmet and shoulder plates to deflect incoming projectiles. add that to a shield held aloft and you have a difficult target to take down except for random hits. i think the main reason for any arched fire was to hit the enemy as far as you could without being vulnerable to his missile fire.

given a choice when comparing ammo expenditure, penetration and accuracy im sure a longbowman would want to get a direct shot when he could. high arched fire probably caused more of morale drop then real damage but i could be wrong as i often times am but discussions are good.

i think the biggest factor about high arched fire that succeeded at hastings was because of harolds upward gander looking at the descending arrows when he should have had his down under the protection of his helmet and mail.

My guess is that historically, high angle arrows were used mainly at the same time as flat ones - that way the enemy couldn't easily protect both their heads and their front and some were bound to get through.

By the way the comment on how the arrow loses force when it is shot straight upward is false. An arrow shot vertically up will come down with about the same force it was shot up. The reason? The arrow first goes up overcoming gravity, assuming it was this means that it was gaining altitude, once it could no longer it began to slowly accelerate downwards at about the same speed that it was losing force before but instead now it is gaining so at point A (The shot) and point C (The landing) the arrow has the same amount of force where at point B (Where the loss of force is 0) is where the arrow stops for a moment before coming back down. Thus, given good angling, some experience and no difference in flight time between AC and BC, the striking force should be maximum.

You're a little off psych. You forgot about terminal velocity, the point at which atmospheric resistance counters any further gravitational acceleration. Granted, with something like an arrow it's pretty high because of the aerodynamics, but still... your statement is hardly absolute. Bullets fired upward seldom land with all the energy they launched with. But still, usually more than enough to hurt someone. However, a bullet has a much higher ballistic coefficient than an arrow.

Anyway Sextus, the arrows they fired were NOT light, they were pretty heavy and could come down with plenty of force. Parabolic fire was quite common with longbows. It was part of what made longbow training take so long. It wasn't just being able to put an arrow in a bullseye 20 yards away, and having the muscle developed to use the thing. It was also learning how to take long arching shots and adjust for wind, etc. THAT takes a lot of practice, even for landing it in a troop column.

Terminal velocity limit, indeed :

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Shot from an extremely powerful bow, the 60 gram arrow would be given an initial speed of almost 60 m s-1. Aimed high in the air, this arrow would have a maximum range of 240 m, and it would arrive with a speed of between 40 and 45 m s-1
Gareth Rees, Stortford Archery Club

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That's 55% loss of kinetic energy.

It actually all boils down to mathematics. The maximum product of range times arrow speed at the end of the flight path results when you fire at exactly 45° relative to horizontal, as well as greatest total range. At lower trajectories, range goes down while arrow speed goes up; at higher trajectories, vice versa. So in order to accurately render archers' range, the animations should have them fire at 45° at first. This would be shots at extremely long distances, with a lot of power, but greatly inaccurate. As the enemy closes, the archers' trajectory should become flatter, resulting in even more power, but shields and body armor might be a lot more effective. Archers should never fire at more than 45° relative to horizontal: Not only would these shots become highly inaccurate, they also wouldn't pack much of a punch.

guys ... there was a reason why i said only long bows should have better high shot hits. other bows didn't gave the same energy to the arrow that goes up
as the one goes up from the longbow , that why it was long to give more energy to the shot so he will go high but still high enough , and when he comes down
he comes with a lot of energy busting helmets off :D.
and if at the same time there is a wave of arrows from the front you cant block
both attacks ...
besides arrows like the ones fired from longbows were more accurate to the target but not all hit from above in the same direction which means that arrows
could have hit in tilt angle, therefore hitting hands and lags , see movies like braveheart or historical channel :D i watch both.

its hard to bust a helmet off or penetrate it when it glances off the rounded helm. a heavy arrow will carry an ability to maintain its course without as much deflection on impact however.

but fletchings definetly would not give an arrow the same velocity it left the bow with. and no matter how fast a bullet left the bore of a firearm it can never exceed the terminal velocity of 320 fps on the way down.

out to about 100 yds you might possibly still get a slight horizontal angle against soldiers but beyond that they will be descending more vetically i think.and the cross section of the target is several times less than it is horizontally.

but sextus could correct me on that if im wrong.

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Originally Posted by mad cat mech

out to about 100 yds you might possibly still get a slight horizontal angle against soldiers but beyond that they will be descending more vetically i think.and the cross section of the target is several times less than it is horizontally.

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You guys are off on this. You keep imagining an archer targeting a single soldier, and that's just not how it worked back then. Sure up close, but not past 40 yards. Imagine the enemy groups. They are lined up and stacked deep. Going down vertically, the area total of the group of soldiers can actually exceed it's surface area at the front horizontally. When you are firing at a group like that, you are matching surface area to probability. In this case, a narrow line has advantages over a deep column, exposing your troops less to falling shots.

Actually terminal velocity was exactly what I was talking about.

"The terminal velocity of an object falling towards the earth, in non-vacuum, is the speed at which the gravitational force is pulling it downwards and an opposing force is faced, by the resistance of air or fluid, resulting in a Drag (physics) (also called air resistance) pushing it upwards. As the object keeps on downwards accelerating, the drag produced is going higher. At a particular speed, the drag force produced will be equivalent to the downward force of the object. Eventually, it plummets at a constant speed called terminal velocity. Terminal velocity varies directly with the ratio of drag to mass. More drag means slower terminal velocity. More mass means more terminal velocity. An object moving downwards at greater than terminal velocity (for example because it previously used power to descend, it fell from a thinner part of the atmosphere or it changed shape) will slow until it reaches terminal velocity."

By the way 45/60 isn't a 55% loss, it's a 25%. I doubt that statement also because atmospheric pressure only changes about 1% per 80 meters, so it's doubtable that it would be substantial especially for an object with such small mass and hefty weight. Anyhow, it wouldn't be substantial or particularly noticeable.

No psych, YOU said an arrow fired upwards will return to earth at the same velocity it was launched with. YOU WERE WRONG. An arrow fired upwards will continue upwards until it's inertia is overcome by gravity. But it will only accelerate back downwards until it hits terminal velocity. Hence, if an arrow is fired upwards at much higher than it's terminal velocity, it will come down with less energy than it left with. EVERY TIME.

And 45/60 is not a 25% reduction in energy, what Ars was talking about. It is closer to his estimate. Ballistics/reloading 101: small increases in velocity equal larger increases in energy. And the inverse as well. It's a 25% reduction in velocity, not energy.

Well I admit im wrong.

It's more complex than one would think, I looked it up on google and there are many works on the velocity of a bow.

There really is nothing special about a longbow. If anything an arrow coming out of a Mongolian or Hungarian composite bows has more kick.

But I think we've gone a bit off track here, the original question was regarding the feasability of shooting one arrow up at high angle and one low and have both hit at the same time. Was this done in war?

I still maintain that, the advantage of having arrows coming towards the enemy from 2 angles is overcome by the disadvantage of loss in range and just complexity of the shot. A person can ony shoot so fast, so in order to have both arrows arrive at approximately the same time one arrow will have to spend 3-4 seconds longer in the air than the other. That's a very long time to hang up there. Long enough that the archer would have to aim off for the high shot and then recenter for the low one.

As far as terminal velocity goes, it only applies to the vertical component of the velocity. As long as the projectile is shot at an angle less than 90 degrees, it can still come down at speeds higher than the terminal velocity. As the projectile retains quite a bit of its horizontal velocity component. I don't know how many here watch Myth Busters. They did one with guns fired up in the air. If the bullets come back down at the terminal velocity, it will never kill anyone. But the fact is, falling bullets kill people every time. Same with arrows, but arrows do have another component that complicates matter more, its fletchings will also slow it way way down.

Apparently my previous post was too terse, causing some misunderstandings. Let me expand a bit :
Damage caused by a projectile is proportional to its kinetic energy, which is mass times speed squared (m*v^2). Thus a 40/60 reduction in speed corresponds to a 1600/3600=0.44 (44%) kinetic energy at moment of impact compared to the energy of the arrow when it leaves the bow.

But, as Sextus pointed out, we're taking this a bit too far. Back to the subject, it appears that at least some sources believe that firing at different angles was used on the battlefield.

From wikipedia :
"In combat, they would often shoot two arrows, one on a high trajectory and one on a low trajectory. These two arrows would hit the enemy simultaneously from two different angles, making defense difficult."

From ninjacops.com :
"A technique where an archer shoots two arrows at one time would bring down the enemy's defenses. One arrow is shot on a high trajectory and the other at a lower trajectory thus hitting the target on two different angles. "

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Originally Posted by psychologicalshock

Well I admit im wrong.

It's more complex than one would think, I looked it up on google and there are many works on the velocity of a bow.

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Sorry to come off a bit harsh there pysch, I didn't mean to. I was stressed when I wrote that. But anyway, you can see the physics is very complex, it gets hard to keep it straight. If you want to get really arcane, try "internal ballistics" for a firearm.

Anyway, I have some doubts about this "2 arrows at once" thing, high and low, from a single archer. That sounds like some minmaxing munchkin uberninjaish BS. As for groups firing both level and parabolic... the level group would have to be so much closer than the parabolic group, they would be in different areas of the field. Once you've gone that far, you'd probably try setting up an enfilade instead... you might as well, and it's far better.

I had physics a while ago, and rather a poor instructor at that. I was guessing that it lost some speed from drag and collision with atmospheric particles but I didn't know it was that significant. Still, I think the fact that there is less chance to block an attack from above should compensate.

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Originally Posted by JCoyote

You're a little off psych. You forgot about terminal velocity, the point at which atmospheric resistance counters any further gravitational acceleration. Granted, with something like an arrow it's pretty high because of the aerodynamics, but still... your statement is hardly absolute. Bullets fired upward seldom land with all the energy they launched with. But still, usually more than enough to hurt someone. However, a bullet has a much higher ballistic coefficient than an arrow.

Anyway Sextus, the arrows they fired were NOT light, they were pretty heavy and could come down with plenty of force. Parabolic fire was quite common with longbows. It was part of what made longbow training take so long. It wasn't just being able to put an arrow in a bullseye 20 yards away, and having the muscle developed to use the thing. It was also learning how to take long arching shots and adjust for wind, etc. THAT takes a lot of practice, even for landing it in a troop column.

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The main skill in longbowery is the ability to loose as many arrows in a minute. A good Longbowman was expected to fire about 20 arrows a minute. This is one area CA did not accuratly reproduce.

iunno... what I've always heard of in reference to multiple arrows in the air at once refered to an experienced archer who was simply able to fire quickly enough that his second or third arrow would be launched before the first finished crossing the distance to his target...

never heard of this high/low fire thing... seems more like a trick shot to be shown off in a fair than something to be used in war

problems being, as mentioned - an archer using a high arcing shot has a certain field of fire, an archer using a more direct angle has a field of fire as well, and while the two have a zone where they overlap - it is not complete... so for an archer to use this tactic he would have to keep his enemy within that overlapping area, which means he'd have to wait until they marched close enough and run away if they marched even closer... all of which begins to make it seem kinda silly

I mean, if the enemy marches closer, this increases the arc of his high shot, so he's going to end up shooting an arrow almost straight up, then stand and wait before firing again - if he's good enough to time that, and deliver both arrows in the general vicinity of his target... I would think his practice would've been better spent just aiming so he could simply shoot directly at the weak points in the enemies defenses - and there are always some

when you figure that simply firing directly and accurately he can increase the rate of his fire because he isn't trying to fiddle with timing... and his shots are going to be more lethal both because he's hitting weak spots, and he's firing directly at them.... once again - seems like putting a cannon on an elephants back or keeping a pen full of tar covered pigs nearby or a cellar full of old angry women

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and forgot, but finally - if as a commander I wanted the high/low shot effect - I would think it'd be much simpler to just order one group of my archers to fire directly, and the second to fire arcing shots.... mass production is the byword for effenciency - let the archer get in a rhythm... nobody wants to be jerking back and forth

Since I'm no expert, i'll try not to throw in any flaming torches on this subject,
considering the wranglings of the last longbow thread.

First of all: The English use of a long single material bow was not unique. What made the English longbow unique was its massed use, and the availability of a lot of trained archers. This was achieved through encouragements by the English kings to train with it. Kings sponsored prizes in competitions. Archery was allowed and encouraged on church holidays. In addition, noblemen and the King often retained good archers as gamesmen and foresters.

For a bow(or any missile weapon with KE-only kill capacity) to be effective militarily, the key is to get as many missiles as possible within a certain area to create a kill zone where any enemy will suffer hits. This is just as true with the longbow, as it is with the Vickers MG that the British used in a similar manner at times in WWI.

To kill or incapacitate(just as important in Medieval times as it is today), the missile must hit, and penetrate into the body of the opponent. Longbow arrows penetrated through leather and chainmaille. Plate armour was used to give better protection against the missile weapons of the day: Arrows and crossbow bolts.

The English masse use of the Longbow made sure that they could provide a large killing zone a long distance away from themselves(remember, the killing zone in the frontline of most medieval armies was just a few feet with spear or sword).

To achieve this killing zone with as much consistancy as can be expected from use of bow and arrow, it was important to have som depth in the ranks, and that all archers fired(ehm, released) their arrows at the same time, and in
the same angle. This was achieved by putting the best archers in the front ranks to gauge distance and other factors, and then have the rear just mimic their arm angles without seeing the target. After the initial volley, the object was to repeat the process as fast as possible. 20 arrows a minute seems highly unlikely, except for the strongest archers, though I doubt anyone can do that for more than a minute. Of course, a lot of things are possible to do when your life depends on it, as it certainly did for English archers in combat. Still, 12 arrows a minute, or a 'leisurely' pace of 6 arrows a minute, would consume two sheaves(sp?) of arrows(24 each) in 4 to 8 minutes.

I'm no physicist, but since someone put up the speeds of 45 and 60 m/s of a longbow arrow, I'll use 50 m/s as a mean speed throughout the arrows flight for the example. If the archers started shooting at extreme range, which has been stated as 250m by some sources(+/- 50m by some), that would give the arrow(please feel free to do real calculations to correct me) an estimated parabolic flight distance of some 350-400m. That's 8 sec flight time, and well within the possibility for some archers to put 2 arrows in the air at the same time.

When it comes to Med2 handling of the longbow, I feel the angled fire does not work as it should do. Also, the range is rather short, but a good compromise considering that there is no range effect on kill numbers.
The English longbowmen and all improved versions are also good close-in fighters, which should be expected by strong men, as they had to be to use those bows. I'm not sure how often that happened, but it is specifically stated about Agincourt that the archers threw down their bows when they had no more arrows and charged with swords, axes, hammers and mallets into the flanks of the columns of French knights and men-at-arms who lined up to get a piece of glory by killing or capturing the English knights, nobles and MAA. With the rate of fire being what it is, English archers seldom get to do this when used en masse in Med2.

well, that was just my pocket full of small change..:dizzy2: :dizzy2:

^ good post, just a note - the 20 arrows thing is both possible, and not really an extreme... it just requires experienced archers - if you practice something for years, you get good at it - good enough that it's hard for ppl who aren't experienced to find it believable... ie: if you presented a medieval person with an automobile and boasted that you could take it thru a windy road @ 80 mph, being that they'd have difficulty operating it at all - they'd be skeptical of your claim, which to you on the other hand is simply everyday life

and yeah, they would'nt have to keep that rate of fire up for long usually... the survivors of that type of treatment usually decide to run away and live to fight another day

in mythbusters they used a .30 cal with a standard ball round if im not corrected. if the projectile descended and reached 320 fps it would only have had 34 ftlbs of energy.

i think the weight of a musket ball was 3/4 of an ounce or roughly 330 grains so if it reached 320 fps it would have about 75 ftlbs of energy so descending projectiles lethality would depend on the weight of the projectile and its ability to penetrate. 34 ft lbs is about equivalent to a 22 cb while 74 would be equivalent to a 22 short i think which neither would penetrate plate armor.but they would still smart though.

dont know about the arrow though because of the drag on the fletchings.

That's the one Mad Cat. I can't remember what terminal velocity they measured. But the bullet had 2 inch penetration against desert soil. Don't seem like a lot to me. By their estimation it's not enough to penetrate unprotected skull. We should have Adam and Jamie do the arrow vs plate armor bit.

There's another problem with high-low shooting, unless it just happens naturally as a result of archers in the back rank shooting that way to avoid hitting the archer in front, in order to have the effect desired the 2 angles must be separated by quite a wide gap. This means the enemy must be darn close for it to work. When the enemy is far away the high trajectory and low trajectory would be almost the same.

With heavy arrows even when shot from heavy bows, the 60m low angle I would estimate to be about 25 degrees. Which means the high angle would be around 65. All they have to do is angle their shields up a bit and it'll catch both arrows. It's only about 30-40m where the high and low angle separate a lot. By that time I would think the enemy would begin marching at double speed if not already charging your line.

My angle estimations are based on modern recurve equipment with arrows travelling at 212fps.

this idea is like the technique self propelled guns are using in fire missions. namely one round is launched at a very high angle and then a round is fired at a lower angle. and they hit the target at the same time. and it is done from the same gun tube.

its probably possible for a archer to do that but it would be inaccurate and the distances involved would be make it completely different than what they do with artillery.