EB's reflection of archery

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

soembodt staded that composite bows could kill from afar. is this true?

Yes. Very much so. Specially dismounted versions. Range would variate from type of construction (many different types over the eras) as well as string tension and bow size. Penetration power would depend on arrow type.

can composite bow arrows really kill much?

Well, you could try asking Crassus but he is dead...

How muh will it be on avarage?

That is an impossible question to answer specifically. Much more than western self bows for sure.

like this: 40 fired 5 killed 5-40 this is common on rtw. how much will the be in ebtw? how much will peltasts be?

For the most powerfull and elite archers in the game it will be something smaller than that ratio. As for peltasts, their killing power as been very much reinforced. We are still working on both of these.

again: wich one will kill most infantrymen on a flat land? not vs each other but vs inf.

That depends on so many things that I cannot reply. Altitude, speed of enemy infantry unit, type of archer or javelliner. To vague...

[Orda Khan]

They were made from a single multilayered piece of wood, and therefore were functionally composite. They may, however, have more closely resembled self bows than Eastern composite bows in terms of construction. Either way is reasonable, neither is particularly better than the other, but if you use a definition of self bow that includes the longbow, the statement that "the composite bow was far superior to any self bow" is entirely unjustifiable.

-Simetrical

They were actually cut from the lowermost bough of the Yew tree and were not multi layered [ unless you refer to natural layering of the branch fibre? ] The rough bow stave was fashioned by the bowyer into the finished bow, which had the dark heartwood as the belly and the light sapwood as the back. Nonetheless it was constructed from a single piece of wood which is a world away from the Asiatic compsite constructions of wood, horn and sinew.

We could enter into a lengthy discussion about the performance of the Longbow v Asiatic but it really would be off topic due to the time scale. I am an archer myself and I can tell you that the Longbow performance has been blown out of all proportion

.......Orda

[Simetrical]

Well, you could try asking Crassus but he is dead...

Be fair, he wasn't killed by the bows. It was his army that was. He was killed the next day when negotiations turned ugly.

They were actually cut from the lowermost bough of the Yew tree and were not multi layered [ unless you refer to natural layering of the branch fibre? ]

Yes, I was.

We could enter into a lengthy discussion about the performance of the Longbow v Asiatic but it really would be off topic due to the time scale. I am an archer myself and I can tell you that the Longbow performance has been blown out of all proportion

You're right, this is off-topic, and I'll stop my part of this conversation here. I just think that it's more useful to consider the longbow as composite than as self, since it functionally is composite.

-Simetrical

[DemonArchangel]

I think it's actually fairly hard to break organized infantry formations with archery alone.

Think about Thermopylae.

Even at Carrhae, what won the battle was that the Romans were demoralized because they had no way of hitting back, not because the HAs were killing a lot of people.

[DemonArchangel]

note: Sorry can't edit.

Even if archery did break the Romans, it took the Parthians ALL DAY to do so.

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Be fair, he wasn't killed by the bows. It was his army that was. He was killed the next day when negotiations turned ugly.

Yes, indeed. But, nevertheless, he would be a good storyteller to tell us of the effectiveness of the parthian bows, if he was still alive. That is what I meant, not that he had been killed by the bow's use itself.

[Steppe Merc]

I think it's actually fairly hard to break organized infantry formations with archery alone.

Think about Thermopylae.

Even at Carrhae, what won the battle was that the Romans were demoralized because they had no way of hitting back, not because the HAs were killing a lot of people.

Even if archery did break the Romans, it took the Parthians ALL DAY to do so.

Well that's what the horse archers do. Kill and demoralize, and they are made to drag out a fight. It's not a weakness, it's part of their strategy. Darius couldn't beat the Scythians because they were perfectly willing to drag on his chasing them, demoralizing them without commiting to one big, quick battle.
As for Thermopylae, there wasn't room for a prolonged shower of arrows. I think that that is a bad example, do to extremely questionable tactics by Xerxes. A good general would have gone around, and not even bother fighting the Spartans.

[DemonArchangel]

The problem: Thermopylae was the ONLY pass.

[Steppe Merc]

But they had a huge navy! Couldn't they just sail around them?

[DemonArchangel]

The concept of naval landing and amphibious assault probably wasn't too developed back then.

[khelvan]

The naval battle played a key role in the ultimate results of the battle of Thermopylae, as did the other pass. However, that is a very long discussion, and not really on topic.

[Rodion Romanovich]

But they had a huge navy! Couldn't they just sail around them?

There was a naval battle just outside Thermopylae (Artemision) which ended in both the greek and persians fleets retreating. The persians eventually got a detachment around through the mountains far inland but that took time and Xerxes was probably impatient. Besides, the spartans only showed their front with all the armor to the persians, so bows could hardly be an effective way of dealing with them (but perhaps skirmishers sent to one end of the line and throwing their javelins diagonally into the phalanx, then retreating if attacked, would have been a little more effective, as they would then maybe be able to hit the unarmored parts of the hoplites - but that would also be tricky because the pass was so narrow that you wouldn't get a good angle for that).

[jerby]

Even at Carrhae, what won the battle was that the Romans were demoralized because they had no way of hitting back, not because the HAs were killing a lot of people.

demoralizing doesn't kill, arrows do
im still very intressersted in arrows. after the launch does it just fall on ints targets? do arrows, shot from distance, more damage than short ranged or opposite? so many variables...

how many 'types' of arrows will EB implement?

[Orda Khan]

A close range shot will be more accurate, armour piercing and deadly. An arrow once loosed is always slowing down due to resistance and therefore an arrow at the end of its flight has more or less lost its energy. It can still do damage but not nearly the damage it would at close range

........Orda

[GoreBag]

However, a shot from a longer range with a high arc may be able to regain some of its initial power, due to the force of gravity acting upon the arrows, hence why arrows shot from the top of a hill do more damage to troops below the hill. Of course, the more arc you want in the shot, the longer the shot will be (generally) and the less accurate it is. The most damage an arrow can do is from much closer, though, like Orda said. I once saw a reenactor fire an English (Welsh) longbow through a dummy from a few yards away. The arrow penetrated the breastplate and protruded almost completely from the dummy's back.

[Steppe Merc]

Exactly Orda. And the horse archers could and did gallop up close, fire and kill, then gallop out of range. They didn't just sit back and fire from far away, though of course they could do that.

[Sarcasm]

Their main ability was to close in, kill some and remain out of reach of the enemy. By doing this, they forced less mobile armies to either stay and die slowly, (because their cavalry can´t stand up to theirs) or break formation and be picked off one unit at a time, not necessarily defeat them head on.

[Simetrical]

A close range shot will be more accurate, armour piercing and deadly. An arrow once loosed is always slowing down due to resistance and therefore an arrow at the end of its flight has more or less lost its energy. It can still do damage but not nearly the damage it would at close range

As far as I know, though, nobody's thought of a way to implement this in RTW.

However, a shot from a longer range with a high arc may be able to regain some of its initial power, due to the force of gravity acting upon the arrows . . .

The force of gravity isn't nearly enough to meaningfully counteract air resistance of an arrow under typical circumstances, I don't think. I expect that the velocity of the arrow will pretty much be inversely proportional to the distance it's shot, given all the other independent variables as constant.

-Simetrical

[cunctator]

I have read some figures from trials with a reconstructed ancient composite bow. An arrow with a lenght of 0,9m and an amour piercing pyramid shaped iron head was used.

An arrow with a mass of 50g had an initial velocity of ca.~ 51 m/s. So the kinetic Energy of the arrow was (Ek=0,5*m*v²) ~ 63 Joule directly after it was fired.
The arrow was fired in an arc of 40° in a plain. The range was 188m, and the remaining kinetic energy on impact was still nearly ~ 50 Joule.

This figures are not typical for all kinds of arrows. The max range and the remaining kinetic energy very much depends on the shape and mass of the arrow.

An arrow shot on a scutum style, leather covered plywood shield at a
distance of 5 m penetrated the shield, but remained stuck into it.
The arrowhead was 0,32m behind the shield. So basically a
scutum could beware a legionaire from beeing killed.

[buujin]

Keep your hat on Jerby. Swearing is uncalled for.

Maybe you should do some research of your own .
Its no one's duty to answer your quieries, eccpecially if they are historical rather than game-related.

[Simetrical]

I have read some figures from trials with a reconstructed ancient composite bow. An arrow with a lenght of 0,9m and an amour piercing pyramid shaped iron head was used.

An arrow with a mass of 50g had an initial velocity of ca.~ 51 m/s. So the kinetic Energy of the arrow was (Ek=0,5*m*v²) ~ 63 Joule directly after it was fired.
The arrow was fired in an arc of 40° in a plain. The range was 188m, and the remaining kinetic energy on impact was still nearly ~ 50 Joule.

Hmm, very interesting. Do you remember where you saw this?

An arrow shot on a scutum style, leather covered plywood shield at a distance of 5 m penetrated the shield, but remained stuck into it. The arrowhead was 0,32m behind the shield. So basically a scutum could beware a legionaire from beeing killed.

I think we knew this already from ancient accounts of Carrhae. The legionaries' hands were said to have gotten pinned to their scuta.

-Simetrical

[jerby]

Keep your hat on Jerby. Swearing is uncalled for.

Maybe you should do some research of your own .
Its no one's duty to answer your quieries, eccpecially if they are historical rather than game-related.

looking at the titel i'm guessing the question is game related. and even a bit opion related.....

[cunctator]

It was in the book: "Die Reiter Roms, Teil 3, Zubehör, Reitweise, Bewaffnung, Verlag Phillip von Zabern, ISBN 3805312881" written by Marcus Junkelmann. (Roman horsemen, part 3 euqippment, riding, armament) Chapter II 3 "the attack weapons of the cavalry".
Dr. Markus Junkelmann is a german historian and reenactor/experimental aerchaelogian. He focuses on roman military history and uses real life and long time test with reconstructed equippment to examine how the roman army functioned.

http://junkelmann.de/


The bow itself was a "sasanid" late hunic composite bow. The bow and the arrows were reconstructed by Edward McEwen. an archer and bowyer of the society of archer antiquaries in London.

http://www.societyofarcher-antiquaries.org/

[Southern Hunter]

Just returning to the topic momentarily if I may....

In my R:TR experience, an army of missile armed troops will absolutely carve most enemy armies up, especially those of Macedon (small shields), but including Rome etc. Additionally, it is possible to skirmish with such armies and kill many of them and then leave the field. This is especially so with Slingers (Balearic or Rhodian preferably) which have almost unlimited ammo (I have never exhausted it).

I don't believe that this kind of result was often reproduced in history. Quite the opposite, the HI was considered the most important arm (Hoplites, Phalanx, Legion), and light troops skirmishing was considered a trivial preliminary. I am aware of the few exceptions, but they are still 'few'.

Surely something must be done to either:
- Limit the general effectiveness of the weapons, to prevent 'Agincourt style' tactics that I use often. This could be a lowering of the firing factor, or a greater inaccuracy, or a raising of shield values.
- Increase the cost (or reduce the number of men)
- Reduce the availability (I have whole armies virtually of archers and slingers, and there is no historical precedent for this at the time)

So what's the plan?

Hunter

[Rodion Romanovich]

Missile troops are never unimportant. If they don't kill much per volley, they can force an enemy into attacking if they only have enough ammo, or even without much ammo force an attack from undisciplined enemies. Armies had plenty of missile troops in battles, and they were certainly cheaper than training of legions. The only way I think missiles could be balanced to keep realism would be to reduce the attack statistics for them slightly, and/or make shields more effective. That's something I also think should be made to onagers with their attack vs men statistic. A reduction of perhaps 50% at least...?

[Randal]

Yes, onagers. Those are a far bigger problem than archery, especially combined with the brilliant battle AI that makes the enemy phalanx stand immobile whilst you chuck rocks at them.

Historically, siege engines were not used a lot on the field of battle in the period we describe. Dunno why, really. Perhaps they were just too difficult to transport? (Which could be reflected by lowering movement value even more.)

The only incident I can think of involving siege engines in a pitched battle would be Arrian's array against the Alans, which uses artillery pieces to help break up the enemy cavalry charge. But this took place way beyond EB's timeframe.

Well, at least onagers themselves won't be making an appearance in the mod, as those too are anachronistic. Probably the replacement catapults will not be as effective.

[jerby]

could EB implement a cover-animation? when shot at well-traianed men (or all) could raise their shield over their heads( like when climbing ladders)..

what will the stats be like in EB for archers ( just guessing, more less then rtw)

[cunctator]

Historically, siege engines were not used a lot on the field of battle in the period we describe. Dunno why, really. Perhaps they were just too difficult to transport? (Which could be reflected by lowering movement value even more.)

The only incident I can think of involving siege engines in a pitched battle would be Arrian's array against the Alans, which uses artillery pieces to help break up the enemy cavalry charge. But this took place way beyond EB's timeframe.

Artillery was mostly stationary especially the larger pieces. It was transported disasembled on mules for longer distances.
Reading Tacitus it looks like the romans used their artillery whenever it was possible but the low moblility limited that to stationary fighting. Like the forced crossing of river in Germannicus 15-16ad campaign. The only other pitched battle I know when artillery was used is the second battle near cremona in the 69ad civil war. There even stone throwers were used against the enemy formations like in RTW.

Tacitus Histories Book3 23
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/txt/ah/ta...History03.html

Later in arrians times the romans used carro balistae, bolt throwers on mule cars, as mobile field artillery.

[Randal]

Thanks, that explains quite a few things. I'll make sure to read some more Tacitus.

Anyway, (at the risk of going slightly off-topic) does that mean EB's artillery will be immobile? (and preferably not turnable, that ought to limit effectiveness) I was rather surprised when it turned out my onagers could be moved.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Am I totally wrong when I say I read in a book that roman legions around 100 AD used one ballista per centuria? It sounds strange - 60 per legion - but I thought I read that somewhere. If so, how were the ballistae employed in the line?