Longbows are no good

[AussieGiant]

@AussieGiant: that's true, at 100m an arrow trajectory that would hit someone in the chest will probably hit the guy behind him in the crotch. But it's nowhere near as flat as trajectories of bullets. Keep in mind, while it's 160lbs it's also shooting very heavy arrows.

Did the welsh field as many longbows as the english did later on though? I don't think the longbows are super weapons, but it's no slouch either. Good enough to create chaos and panic in the opposing line.

Thanks for the information SextusTheLewd. How heavy are arrows actually?

[Orda Khan]

Okay, so the only people whom the medieval English conquered were the Welsh....who were using the longbow.


So explain to me why I should be so impressed by the longbow?

Maybe because it took them 200 years to do so? Or that in order to do so required calling upon English interests in France to bolster their army? Even then they relied heavily upon loyal Welsh troops from mid Wales. And finally more castles than any other country in order to keep the Welsh in place. All this for a nation of fairly easy going people.

The cast of an arrow depends on how the bow is being used. It is true that the cast follows a parabolic but the arrow can also be aimed higher so that it falls downwards. Obviously the range is affected but 100m plus is easily achieved even with a fairly light bow

........Orda

[pike master]

i read an article yesterday that said they weighed a 1000 grains or roughly a little over two ounces so if you multiply them by what i figure the velocity of a longbow shot an arrow out (280 fps).

280*280*1000/450,240=174 ft lbs

that did surprise me i didnt expect that they would have that much power.

of course that is at the moment of release and although an arrow is designed to fly straight because the feathers catch air and stabilize it like a mortar round they are also have more drag. there has to be a trade off the bigger the feathers or whatever would be used the more drag but the better accuracy. so by the time the arrow has traveled say 50 yds it has probably lost quite a bit of speed but when elevated when the arrow reaches the peak of its descent it begins to accellerate as goes downward but will have to be less than 32 fps per second because of the wind drag.

but at close range say within 20 to 30 yds that would explain why the arrow could be so destructive against armor.

in comparison i would say that an early firearm used something close to a two ounce slug which would balance out to about 880 grains and mean velocity could be anywhere between 600 to 1200 fps so if we use the low figure.

600*600*880/450,240=704ftlbs

1200*1200*880/450,240=2,814ft lbs

i sure hope it aint the lower figure but i figure myself it would be between 600 to 900 fps.

but as you can clearly see your talking about a lot more power from a firearm and a lot more trauma plus superior velocity and force would outweigh projectile shape from a lower velocity weapon when penetrating.

but it did surprise me about the amount of force from a longbow if it is 280 fps. some state of the art compound bows in the 85 lb range are shooting at 340 fps but that is because of gradual acceleration due to the cams, a dropping arrow rest and lighter arrows. compound bows are much more efficient than traditional bows. but sextus may have shot his through a chronograph so it would be nice to know what the velocities actually are from the longbows they shoot.

174 ft lbs is superior to just about any 22lr cartridge except the stinger and velicotor from cci.

[Doug-Thompson]

Re: Conquering Wales and why we should be impressed with the longbow.

Edward I was very impressed with the longbow after his Welsh campaigning. So impressed, he started using and training them in mass.

[CBR]

Heavy war arrows would be 90-110 grams. The velocity would be 50-55 m/s for such heavy arrows and using 150+ pound draw weight bows.

At 100 meters range such arrows would have a drop of around 16 cm per meter.


CBR

[pike master]

55 ms would translate out to 181 fps. 110 grams would translate out to 1707 grains so 181*181*1707/450240=124ft lbs

[Von Nanega]

Re: Conquering Wales and why we should be impressed with the longbow.

Edward I was very impressed with the longbow after his Welsh campaigning. So impressed, he started using and training them in mass.

Maybe because it took them 200 years to do so? Or that in order to do so required calling upon English interests in France to bolster their army? Even then they relied heavily upon loyal Welsh troops from mid Wales. And finally more castles than any other country in order to keep the Welsh in place. All this for a nation of fairly easy going people.

The cast of an arrow depends on how the bow is being used. It is true that the cast follows a parabolic but the arrow can also be aimed higher so that it falls downwards. Obviously the range is affected but 100m plus is easily achieved even with a fairly light bow

........Orda

Sense and thought from these two gentlemen! Hear hear!!!

[Lord Fluffy]

I find it hard to believe longbows can shoot arrows at 280fps. The fastest recurve today using lightweight carbon arrows(spined for the bow of course) maxes out at around 230fps. Compound bows can reach around 280fps and beyond.

Now that other figure of 181fps sounds more like it. The flight of those heavy arrows would probably approximate heavy weight aluminum arrows, I've seen those shot at tournaments. At 90m those will parachute down at quite a steep angle. Specially since they won't have mylar vanes back then, I would think these war arrows used feathers.

The flatest flight I've seen is of a carbon arrow shot from a 65 lb bow. This guy was just going for speed, initial velocity of the arrow was 227fps. Shot from 70m the arrow dropped about 2 bale thickness in the last 35m, that would translate to about 3cm per m. Now keep in mind these are super light weight arrows with mylar fletching. Put feather on it and it will parachute.

[CBR]

In "The great warbow" some tests are described using a 150 pound bow with authentic arrows. 95 grams arrows did on average 53 m/s and had a max range of 235 meters. Drawlength was 30 inches.

edit: impact velocity was 43 m/s

CBR

[stev666]

I find that far from being "no good" longbows do take a bit more skill to use effecitvly. Which in a way sort of emulates how they were in life as in reality longbows did take more skill to use. Not only that they can be invaluable in sieges with the flaming arrow ability, many's the time my towers have failed to take out a ram and left it to me to get the job done. Sherwood archers for example even as oddly balanced ( strange that their melee is higher than their missle attack, alot higher in fact) as they are can quickly decimate enemy forces if used well.

[pike master]

i wasnt trying to make the exact claim about the velocity being 280 i was just trying to estimate because a freind of mine has a 2000 dollar compound bow that chrons out at 340 but his is top of line.

i am glad to get the input on that so we have a pretty accurate estimate on the actual power of the arrow and not just the pull weight which at 124 ft lbs is still average to high power for a .22 lr.

i can tell sextus is very knowledgable in archery because i knew and now know he is into chroning them and you cant argue with facts. as i said i was just guessing on that 280 fps.

my specialty is high powered rifles not much on archery. and thinking on it somemore i would be close to certian that firearms probably shot around the 600 fps mark and the lead shot weight is a guess but i figure since the bores varied but a lot of em were around an inch. maybe someone might know how much the lead balls weighed for arquebuses?

[pike master]

just did some checking up on some arquebus reference sites and turns out the bullet weights are not as high as i expected nor the bore sizes. they were more like .5 to .75 caliber and the velocity instead of being only 600 ranged from 800 fps for a .75 cal to 1500 fps for a .50 cal.

but i still dont know exact bullet weights but one site mentioned it at 3/4 ounce so if we take the lower velocity of 800*800*330grains/450240 we get an energy of 470 ft lbs but i dont know what cal the 3/4 ounce slug went to.i do know that 50 cal bullets these days usually average about 300 grains for an automatic pistol. so a ball would probably be lighter than a bullet.

so 3/4 of an ounce would probably have been for the .75 caliber.

[Carl]

I'd also point out that regardless of how flat a trajectory a bulet would have had at 100M, the lack of rifiling in fact made any kind of accurrate shooting impossibbile and i'm lead to belive that 100M was the limit of effective volley fire.

[Orda Khan]

I never argue physics, once the calculations begin I start off on a reverie. However, 280 fps for a longbow or any traditional set up is expecting a lot

......Orda

[CBR]

An arquebus would be of around 15mm and bullet weight of 20 grams. Muskets could be monsters of 20+mm and 50+ gram bullets but they did vary in caliber and generally fell below 20mm by the start of the 17th century IIRC. Muzzle velocites would have been 350 m/s and I have seen some tests showing 500+ IIRC. The recoil described even when using heavy weapons suggests pretty high velocities for muskets. The handguns of early/mid 15th century would have had 200+ m/s.


CBR

[CBR]

However, 280 fps for a longbow or any traditional set up is expecting a lot

......Orda

The heavy draw weight Turkish bows using extremely light flight arrows would most likely come near 400 fps. With such velocities its possible to do these insane 8-900 yard shots.


CBR

[pike master]

based on the stats cbr gave that would place the projectile at 310 grains compared to my 330 grains.

velocity would be 1155 fps for the arquebus which would give it roughly about 780 ft lbs. thats pretty powerful.

[Lord Fluffy]

The heavy draw weight Turkish bows using extremely light flight arrows would most likely come near 400 fps. With such velocities its possible to do these insane 8-900 yard shots.


CBR

Oh if you're talking about flight archery, they use overdraws to shoot ridiculously short arrows, they can go all the way out to a mile.

They did a test on the accuracy of civil war era muskets. Even from up close that thing is not very accurate at all. I'd say the human sized target was no more than 20m away. It took the "firearm expert" 4 or 5 shots to hit it. I forgot what show it was on, but I guess fired in mass and at a large densely packed formation, somebody is bound to get hit.

[dopp]

Which is why they had riflemen for the marksmanship. The musket was for the sheer firepower. Armies actually resisted rifled weapons for many centuries because it would complicate the drill procedure and reduce the rate of fire. Incidentally, the command for firing volleys was not 'aim' but simply 'level', with a sergeant sometimes using a halberd to make sure everyone's barrel was in line. It's doubtful whether musketeers bothered to aim at all. That's what the skirmishers with the rifles were for. Nevertheless, musket volleys were extremely devastating and could put entire formations to flight in an instant.

[Doug-Thompson]

Small detail here:

The invention of the Mine' ball shortly before the U.S. Civil War made reloading a rifle just as fast as reloading a musket. It was before that invention that rifled bullets had to be literally hammered down the barrel with a metal ramrod, making them slow to reload. Riflemen in the 18th century and early 19th would often load a rifle round and then switch to smooth musketballs after the initial volley. The Mine' ball had an expandable base. It slipped down the barrel as easily as a musketball. When the gun fired, the base expanded and the lead "bit" into the rifling in the barrel, giving a tight fit and the rifling effect.

Anyway, back to MTW2.

[dopp]

Of course, the muskets in M2TW are not the later muskets that equipped the armies of Napleon and so on, but much heavier weapons fired from a stock.

[Frankmuddy]

I think the number you are looking for is 12. 20 = an arrow every three seconds. That is seriously fast. Not only is it fast but it would drain the poor archer very fast as well.

It's fast, but not impossible. Keep in mind that you're shooting clout, you've been doing this every sunday for your entire adult life, And your only concern for accuracy is not hitting the guy directly in front of you.

[dopp]

It's not impossible, but unlikely to be as fast as on a shooting range since you need to conserve energy and ammo, you're timing your volley with everyone else, and you're in a tense battle situation.

[JCoyote]

They did a test on the accuracy of civil war era muskets. Even from up close that thing is not very accurate at all. I'd say the human sized target was no more than 20m away. It took the "firearm expert" 4 or 5 shots to hit it. I forgot what show it was on, but I guess fired in mass and at a large densely packed formation, somebody is bound to get hit.

In the US Civil War most weapons were about .58 caliber and rifled. They fired mine' balls. At 12 years old, I fired a replica Cook & Brother carbine, .58 caliber using Mine' ball. The target was a tree branch about 5" diameter, about 50 yards away. We were hunting mistletoe (a holiday shooting tradition). I hit that branch not more than a few millimeters off dead center. That was the first time I ever fired that weapon as well... And that's not a full rifle, that was a shorter carbine. I know people with original Civil War rifles who still use them for hunting every year with Mine' ball. No accuracy issues there either.

Anyway, not only were earlier medieval/renaissance era matchlocks heavier than later muskets, they also had tighter bore-to-ball fitting. Like later early rifles, many had the shot hammered down into the bore. This translated into superior range and accuracy over the US Revolution era muskets... but slower firing speed. Given the relatively poor accuracy of most conscript shooters, along with the hesitance of humans in killing other humans. reduced range and accuracy was considered ok to sacrifice for faster speed. There weren't sights on many military weapons... they fired on formations, not individuals. The looser bore fitting also aided in mass production of muskets and ammunition allowing some margin in production. By that time there were steps up in lock mechanisms and priming, manufacturing, etc but accuracy of the common firearm had decreased in many cases. More specialized arms, and private arms, like early rifles and the sort, were superior in accuracy though.

Anyway, as for the energy figures I've seen posted, you have to remember the severe difference in penetration ability between hardened pointed steel and a soft round lead ball. Energy isn't all of the equation, you have to drive a soft piece of lead much, MUCH faster to penetrate hard metal objects. Hence some of the velocity disparity. Small differences in hardness make large differences in penetration. We had a damaged car door off of a Suzuki Samurai, and we tested a few pistols on it. We had a .380 ACP firing FMJ, 9mm firing FMJ, .38 Special firing RN lead +P, and a 10mm firing JHP. The only one that didn't penetrate the door was the .38 special. The slower, significantly lower energy and velocity bur similar caliber .380 did most of the time. The 9mm did all the time, in spite of being a slight bit lower in power than the .38. Of course the 10mm plowed through every single time as well as anything placed behind the door. The point being, the copper cladding on an FMJ makes the round somewhat harder than plain lead, and the hardness made the difference going through even low quality sheet metal. On a side note, firing a modern .38 Special to stop a charging late medieval plate covered knight is ill advised.

That all being said, the early firearms DID have better armor penetration, and superior horse killing power.

Anyway, weapon system advances do not always translate into direct battlefield advantages. And urbanization IS a big deal for longbows. Unless you can conjure quality yew staves out of thin air, you can't make longbows without decent tracts of forest. Importing yew from the continent is not logistically sound and gets expensive. Longbows wear out, and keeping a longbowman in training with the things takes more yew... A firearm, even the early ones, lasts as long as it is decently cared for and someone doesn't pack too much or too tight powder in it.

As for industry, my reference wasn't to assembly lines per se, but to act like production didn't happen back then is silly. Even samurai swords, those wonderful pieces of custom craftsmanship, were often the result of work from a half dozen or more people. The blade, tsuba, fittings, etc were all usually different artisans, and the final polishing and sharpening was often a specialist as well. The same holds true for early firearms... while you might have a gunsmith set up production and teach each stage what to do (why they were so well paid) production could involve lots of people. People making barrels, other people making locks, and yet more people making stocks. While not a production line as we currently understand it, it offers many of the benefits and was a form of early industrialization. Production was rarely a matter of just one guy sitting around going through all the stages. Even small shops had apprentices doing grunt work.

And the english were fielding firearms and longbows together for quite a long time. Better part of a century. That speaks to each having separate advantages on the battlefield. In such cases where systems acted as contemporaries for long periods of time, it usually isn't there merits of vices versus each other that led to the abandonment of one or the other, but instead factors outside their direct comparison.

[Lord_hazard]

It's fast, but not impossible. Keep in mind that you're shooting clout, you've been doing this every sunday for your entire adult life, And your only concern for accuracy is not hitting the guy directly in front of you.

Good point, they were prob the equivalent of elite soldiers today, in regards of training.

[fenir]

Maybe because it took them 200 years to do so? Or that in order to do so required calling upon English interests in France to bolster their army? Even then they relied heavily upon loyal Welsh troops from mid Wales. And finally more castles than any other country in order to keep the Welsh in place. All this for a nation of fairly easy going people.


........Orda

No sorry Orda,
before Edward finally had enough of the northern wales, as Wales had been England since roman times, various Lords who had sworen fealty would go raiding(by defination, English Lords), where by the princes, as they are so styled themselves in the 1200's, and Edward allowed them to keep the title in 1278AD treaty, were allowed to live under treaty most of the time.
Even King Henry III smacked north Wales because they would raid other areas. Generally just causing trouble, but they where not independant, and hadn't been since well before King Stephen's time. They lived under treaty by their overlord the King.
You cannot Conquer what is already yours.

Easy Going people? yeah who would go killing stealing and raping :) Real easy going.
More castles than what nation? that would be Luxemburg and germany per sq km. Or even per population.

Wales even in Stephen, and William the I times, was England, and a province of Such, just as (Wessux and Anglia and Mercia) as is it's offical status today.

There was not any relying on Loyal welsh troops as you put it, they used mainly marcher lord troops, and royal army(the northern one). Mostly troops from the then Royal Marcher of Cheshire.
Hence the famous Edwardian Castles are only in the north west of Wales.
The last Rising in Wales was English lords in 1400's or late 1300's.
But Wales has been no different to any other area, every now and again, people disagreed and would resort to arms.


Edward being impressed By Welch Archers? No
England Already was using the Longbow, the Welch campign made them famous.
Edward took Longbowman from Surrey with him in the VIII Crusade 1271AD, and his father used longbowman before him in Battle of Lewes ~1264AD against Montfort, who also used them.

ARCHERY LAW OF ENGLAND......1252AD (BEFORE EDWARD was born).
All Men age between 15 to 60, must train, and equip themselves for service of the King....oh dear? thats before!!! Edward, heck thats before his father.

A musket even up to the 1800's is a useless weapon over 60 meters, surely someone thought to think, well i wonder why they marched in a line close packed and fire there weapons at point blank.
Does make one question doesn't it.



PS: OFFICALLY the two most powerful bows in the World are the longbow and African elephant bow. Both of which top 220lb (900n).
The average power for bows of all designs is about 50 pounds (220 newtons) at 28 inches (70 cm) of draw.


LONGBOW.... there are three main head types for the longbow.
short bodkin ........used against armnour plate <---- this is the one that killed all the French nobles (In plate Armour) at crecy with the English losing only 50 odd men. The Longbow stopped an enitre attack before it started.
Long bodkin........Against chainmail
swallowtails........used against horses.

Longbowman, where also trained swords man, because after the battle of Crecy 1364...the French King Decreed that every Longbowman Caught with have his Two Fingers cut off.....hence even today, we give the Fingers to someone we don't like.
They where trained in a Butt.
where by military training armed and unarmed, and command training was given.

....Ready your Bows...
....Nock...fit Arrow
....Mark....like aiming
....Draw... pull bow back
....Loose...FIRE!

[Kruniac]

Battle Report - Me (England) - 6 Units of Yeomen Archers, 3 Units of Dismounted Feudal Knights, 1 ** Star General

vs

France - 4 Units of Dismounted Feudal Knights, 4 Units of Mounted Feudal Knights, 3 Units Peasant Archers - 1 * Star General

Situation - Longbows up front, Knights behind. General in the very back. SLIGHT high ground advantage, being on a long slope. Woodland area, situated across a clearing the enemy would have to go through.

Final Result - English casualities 0, French losses TOTAL

..Longbows rock. Especially with the HORRIBLE AI that causes the enemy to "retreat" from missile fire, only to resume charging after losing 50% of the ground the covered.

Medium/Medium Difficulty - No routs, except for the VERY last few kills

[Orda Khan]

No sorry Orda,
before Edward finally had enough of the northern wales, as Wales had been England since roman times, various Lords who had sworen fealty would go raiding(by defination, English Lords), where by the princes, as they are so styled themselves in the 1200's, and Edward allowed them to keep the title in 1278AD treaty, were allowed to live under treaty most of the time.
Even King Henry III smacked north Wales because they would raid other areas. Generally just causing trouble, but they where not independant, and hadn't been since well before King Stephen's time. They lived under treaty by their overlord the King.
You cannot Conquer what is already yours.

Easy Going people? yeah who would go killing stealing and raping :) Real easy going.
More castles than what nation? that would be Luxemburg and germany per sq km. Or even per population.

Wales even in Stephen, and William the I times, was England, and a province of Such, just as (Wessux and Anglia and Mercia) as is it's offical status today.

There was not any relying on Loyal welsh troops as you put it, they used mainly marcher lord troops, and royal army(the northern one). Mostly troops from the then Royal Marcher of Cheshire.
Hence the famous Edwardian Castles are only in the north west of Wales.
The last Rising in Wales was English lords in 1400's or late 1300's.
But Wales has been no different to any other area, every now and again, people disagreed and would resort to arms.


Edward being impressed By Welch Archers? No
England Already was using the Longbow, the Welch campign made them famous.
Edward took Longbowman from Surrey with him in the VIII Crusade 1271AD, and his father used longbowman before him in Battle of Lewes ~1264AD against Montfort, who also used them.

ARCHERY LAW OF ENGLAND......1252AD (BEFORE EDWARD was born).
All Men age between 15 to 60, must train, and equip themselves for service of the King....oh dear? thats before!!! Edward, heck thats before his father.

Very concise... The fact still remains that the Welsh, as I stated, were very easy going; something that remains true today, always willing to do someone else's bidding. Raiding was carried out by many people in many countries considered 'vassals', however it does not usually take 200 years to sort out a small problem.
Did these raids occur simply because they were a bad lot or was it something provoked? Such as treatment by the so called Marcher Lords?
Sure Germany and Luxembourg have many castles but I think they were built by themselves.

The troops from Brycheiniog never joined Edward? He never received reinforcement from France?
And then finally in 15thC the last rising was by an English Lord? Owain Glyndwr...or more correctly Owain Glyndyfrdwr was an Englishman? I think not

........Orda

[Orda Khan]

There is a world of difference between flight arrows and war arrows. Those crazy distances from Turkish bows are achieved by use of an arrow guide and arrows that resemble darts. Likewise, modern equipment like compounds and recurves can not be used for comparison, they are completely different and the technology did not exist in Mediaeval times. Same thing applies to carbon arrows.
Similarly, because a bow of a certain poundage has been made we should not assume that it is practical to use or even that a stronger one couldn't be made tomorrow. I am sure it would be possible to make a Turkish bow of 250lbs but its use would be totally impractical

.....Orda

[dopp]

What would be a reasonable distance for war-arrows? Some historians suggest 200-250 yards for longbows, quite a bit shorter than the opt-quoted 300 yards.