[OT] Mongol Arrows

[desert]

So, the Mongols had armor-piercing super arrows that pwned everything, right? And the best bows in the world.
If they were represented in EB, what would their missile attack be?

20?
More?

[Aemilius Paulus]

The arrows weren't anything special, or as far as I know. However, the bows were special:



An attack of 8 with a extremely long range would be accurate.

Bit off topic, but in my opinion, the EB team was wrong to give the Indian longbowmen and the Cretans such a high attack and range. The Cretans used the worst kind of bows - self bows, although with high skill. The Indians used the longbow, the best of the self bows, but woefully inadequate (in power, range, velocity, ease & speed of loading) compared to the composite bows. The archers of the East should have had the best stats in EB.

[desert]

Really? Just 8? The Mongols had THE best bow of all time, better than the English longbow, which could slaughter heavily armed knights, and one of the arrow-types they used was a special armor-piercing arrow.

http://www.coldsiberia.org/monbow.htm
http://www.accd.edu/sac/history/kell...s/empsub2.html
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m..._15282531/pg_2

I would give them a 9 just for the bow, and a 3 for skill. Fine, maybe just a +1 bonus to represent use of heavy arrows. But still, that's 13.

[The Persian Cataphract]

Actually, those factors did not matter as much as one thing. It wasn't about having the sickest arrow or bow, or having the raddest draw.

It was actually about the sound of the discharge itself. The Persian scholar Juvayni contended that the sound of the Mongolian barrages epitomized terror itself with their distinctive sound during flight. For those of you have seen Sergei Bodrov's feature film "Mongol" must certainly have noticed that if something was done on the behalf of Mongolian archery, it would have been this.

The Mongolian bow itself was little different from the Turkish bow, which itself was partly of Sassanian design, in particular of the later modular Nawak-type; it was instead the Mongolian draw which added that extra range and punch. However, it should not be called "Mongolian" by pure technicality, because it was used centuries before the Mongolians ever became a unified entity. Let us compare two Sassanian dishes:



Typically early Sassanian era. Nothing too funky.



Late Sassanian style dish, late Sassanian or post-Sassanian, of Pûr-î Vahman hunting. Besides different dress-code and the fact that the latter features stirrups, look at the draw of the bow-strings. Shâpûr II pulls it as far as his ear, in relative terms. Pûr-î Vahman pulls the string all the way to his shoulder.

Now look at their respective grips. Shâpûr uses the finger-draw with his index-finger providing the aim, while Pûr-î Vahman uses a thumb-draw (Which could have been supported by a thumb-ring).

These small things, techniques of application were usually more than enough to utilize more of an advanced piece of equipment such as a composite bow. The Sassanian-style bow with its distinctive siyah (Ears) outlived its late-Parthian roots from whence it developed from the Scythic bow, several centuries well into the Mongolian invasions. The bows did not differ by an awful lot, but the Mongolian arrows, as I earlier pointed out had a distinction to them which instilled fear and potentially chaos amongst the adversary. The exact character of this modification is not known, but must certainly have been effective.

[MerlinusCDXX]

The arrows weren't anything special, or as far as I know. However, the bows were special:



An attack of 8 with a extremely long range would be accurate.

Bit off topic, but in my opinion, the EB team was wrong to give the Indian longbowmen and the Cretans such a high attack and range. The Cretans used the worst kind of bows - self bows, although with high skill. The Indians used the longbow, the best of the self bows, but woefully inadequate (in power, range, velocity, ease & speed of loading) compared to the composite bows. The archers of the East should have had the best stats in EB.

Attributing a long range being given to Indian Longbowmen in EB is a common mistake. In actuality, Indian Longbowmen have the shortest range (170) of all the archers in the east, followed by the Persian Archer-spearmen (175.4?, not sure of the digit behind the decimal) with the longest range going to Saka foot archers (209), most other eastern archers weigh in at either 180, 192.5 or 198.5 for their range. This info comes directly from the EDU file (the unit list/ unit compare tool has some outdated info, so the EDU is the only place to get accurate current stats).

[desert]

Well, the Mongols had whistling arrows, but those were really for battlefield communication purposes.
And the Mongol bow would still be pretty effective, considering that it technically had greater draw weight than any other bow.

[Reverend Joe]

Okay, just a question here:



If the part circled in red is really the final part of the bow shooting sequence, how in the hell do you reload the bow? The logistical problems inherent here would be absurd.

Edited... fucking Imageshack. Who gives a shit if fish get thirsty?

[MerlinusCDXX]

Okay, just a question here:



If the part circled in red is really the final part of the bow shooting sequence, how in the hell do you reload the bow? The logistical problems inherent here would be absurd.

Edited... fucking Imageshack. Who gives a shit if fish get thirsty?

I think that the part you refer to would be the shape of the bow when unstrung. on your edit..agreed WTF do I care about thirsty fish?

[Apgad]

If the part circled in red is really the final part of the bow shooting sequence, how in the hell do you reload the bow? The logistical problems inherent here would be absurd.

I think that's what it looks like when it's unstrung. The "middle" configuration with a vertical bowstring looks like the resting strung state.

[gamegeek2]

The mongol bow evolved out of the Hun bow AFAIK, and the Saka use an early version of the Hun bow.

I'm fairly sure that, by the EB timeframe, the Cretans would have imported superior bow technology due to Hellenic full-scale contact with the East. I could be wrong, this is just a hypothesis. At any rate, I'm sure they had composite bows by the time of the ERE, though this is far removed from EB.

[The Persian Cataphract]

Well, the Mongols had whistling arrows, but those were really for battlefield communication purposes.
And the Mongol bow would still be pretty effective, considering that it technically had greater draw weight than any other bow.

It is true that the Mongolian bow did allow for a greater draw than most other bow types of its time, particularly for a draw to the opposite shoulder, but this attribute is hardly unique to it nor did the Mongolians coin or invent this drawing technique as can be seen on the Pûr-î Vahman dish. The success of the Mongolian archery relies upon many other factors, and if we take the Ilkhanate-era Persian source by Juvayni into account, the fear brought by the arrows themselves may be one such factor, besides highly successful tactical application of the weapon. Now there is some argument whether or not whistling arrows were solely used to issue orders, but with the crucial tactical tidbits provided by Juvayni, we should maybe not be so quick in dismissing that this "whistling" may have been the hallmark of Mongolian archery. To a culture, with an archery-tradition spanning thousands of years, both as the main weapon of infantry and as an equestrian art, the Mongolian tradition must have appeared peculiar for the Iranians, who at the time were highly familiarized with the Turkic techniques.

Remember, the accounts of effective composite bows, and armour-penetrating missiles is hardly anything new. If we wished for it, we may as well as go back to the battle of Carrhae, 53 BCE and recite Plutarch's passages on the effectiveness of Parthian archery. The truth is that past selected sources, archery has always been effective enough, given that ideal conditions were met, to have been favoured by nomadic tribes and confederacies as well as Persianates throughout centuries.

[The Persian Cataphract]

The mongol bow evolved out of the Hun bow AFAIK, and the Saka use an early version of the Hun bow.

I'm fairly sure that, by the EB timeframe, the Cretans would have imported superior bow technology due to Hellenic full-scale contact with the East. I could be wrong, this is just a hypothesis. At any rate, I'm sure they had composite bows by the time of the ERE, though this is far removed from EB.

In what sense are you referring to the "Hunnic bow"? In my understanding this model, unlike the Sassanian, Turkish and Mongolian types, was asymmetric and had a biased upper belly (As it was normally wielded upright for the best possible aim). The proto-Hunnic bow used by certain Saka units are thus derived.

[Pontius Pilate]

you also must remember it wasn't just the bow but the man too. these mongols must have learned(learnt) archery as soon as they could walk and the same goes for horseback riding. so by the time they were an adult they were masters of both.



EDIT: I wonder if fish really do get thirsty??

[gamegeek2]

Yeah, the Mongols were even more nomadic than their eastern cousins, because there wasn't Hellenism to influence them settling down; they conquered before they settled. You would learn to ride as soon as walk, and everyone would be an expert with the bow, especially the warriors.

[Oleander Ardens]

Well as Persian Cataphract said, the composite reflex bow was know for at least 2000 years before the Mongolian expansion. While the bow did evolve and changed shape there is little evidence that the specific Mongolian design makes it inherently superior to other variants. Nor do their arrowheads and arrow differ markedly from many other cultures in the Euroasian steppes or those used in China.

Fact is that a well-made reflex bow of composite design is far superior to the European Warbow in efficiency, especially when casting light arrows. The gap narrows somewhat when heavy arrows are used.

The assymetric bow was widely used around 300BC, from the Pacific to the Crimea. Seems that his use originated in an area around the Altai and spread from 700BC onwards to other regions.

[gamegeek2]

The Altai is the debated homeland of multiple cultures that feature nomads: the Altaics and Turks probably originated in this general area. The Indo-Iranians were somewhat to the west, I think.

[Celtic_Punk]

I learnt to hunt from a very young age. The first weapon I used was an English Longbow. The Nomads of the East would have relied almost exclusively on the bow to feed themselves. Which accounts for why they were quite strong ---- High protein + daily labour = crazy muscles and strength! Nomadism (new word? IM SHAKESPEARE!!! WOOO) itself thins out the population and forces Darwinism into overdrive.

[desert]

You learned to hunt with an English longbow?

That's like, 5 different levels of WTF.

How can a small boy use such a huge weapon? You need years of practice, and it causes deformities in the bones.

And why a longbow? Why not just a regular bow?

[Strategos Alexandros]

I don't know anything about Mongol bows, but Longbows are pretty easy to make and more powerful than a regular bow. I couldn't use one till I was 13 though so kudos to you Celtic Punk. Have a balloon:

[Celtic_Punk]

I couldn't draw the bow till i was 10, i couldnt draw it fully till about 2 years ago maybe lol. I didn't make my first kill with it till last year actually. Bagged a 500lbs Caribou with a shot to the throat. Hunting with a bow takes an enormous amount of skill and strength. Your only advantage is the relative silence you get from a botched shot. But if that arrow comes within 20 feet of yer target its gone.
DEFORMITIES?! what deformities? other than stretched shoulders. thats all I can think of. I sometimes have back problems but then again who doesn't now n then?

By the way anyone who thinks a composite bow is awesome, just wait till you get in the rain. It falls apart into a couple of harmless pieces of wood. Well i guess you could hit someone with it but still. I'll take my longbow thanks.
hunting with a bow puts you as one with nature. shooting animals is hardly even sport. Guns should be reserved for the 'most dangerous game'.

[desert]

Anyway, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_longbow#Use
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/YALDlongbow.htm
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/...nglish-longbow

I feel for you, man, I really do.