Quote Originally Posted by desert View Post
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.