The English Longbow

[Vladimir]

Someone in a previous thread about this included the weight of each arrow. I forget how much it was but getting your bell, or helmet, rung by a few of them and penetration doesn't matter. Plus, longbows firing from the "V" formation were able to cover a large area with fire.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Pah!


I bet not even one hundred of these flea-infested English peasants with their little bow-and-arrows are a match for the fighting prowess of even a single armoured French knight.


'Raymond! Call together our finest knights! Send them to charge those two hundred insolent peasants! No, no need for supporting units, the Englishman will run before the valiance of our finest and best armoured!'

[Raz]

It is not simply armour penetration that determines effectiveness.

http://www.currentmiddleages.org/art...ry-Testing.pdf

A test I read a few weeks back, interesting read. 4 different arrows tested each against different types of armour.

Too long, didn't read (still pretty long summary though :D):
The guy uses a 75lb bow at point-blank range (10 yards for safety), however this simulates a 110lb bow being used at 250 yards (maximum effective range).
He tests for not just armour penetration, but also tests the depth of the wound that the arrow would have reached as well as body deformation (blunt force trauma).

What he was looking for is [sic] "Can an average longbow, (average draw weight and average arrow weight) at range, defeat the armour that [he] tested."

The tester came to the conclusion that regardless of what a soldier was wearing, he would be at risk of lethal injury on the battlefield from an average longbowman. Steel mail was still either penetrated or deformed enough to cause a lethal wound by all four arrows that were tested at the equivalent of 250 yards. Heck, even with plate armour and padding, an average longbow at it's maximum range with a needle-bodkin arrow could penetrate the armour enough to cause a lethal wound.

Using this as a basis, I personally would believe that the longbow was indeed the formidable weapon of the era that the propaganda suggests.

EDIT: Of course, that's the weapon itself which is formidable, but the years required for proficiency and strain it placed on the body both long-term and short-term (incredibly exhausting during battle with a low rate-of-fire), I'm left to assume that longbowmen were a rather "profit-neutral" investment, with only a tactical edge (albeit a very strong tactical edge).

[CBR]

The best thing to do about that test is to delete the pdf from your computer and try to forget you ever read it, seriously. He manages to get the Type 7 needle bodkin to be the best penetrator against plate! That just shows something is up with the type of steel plate he uses as it would have to be soft steel and therefore such a test shows absolutely nothing.

[al Roumi]

I have to agree with CBR... While the test methodology seems reasonable, there is precious little about anything to with the armour tested -all the blurb is about the longbow and arrows. The images of the coat of plates and plate armour don't look at all authentic, the metal just looks like rolled steel -it is in no way representative of what contemporary armour was like. Such a flat sheet of steel almost makes a mockery of what plate armour really was.

[Brandy Blue]

One consideration is how much longbowmen were paid. I haven't found what I wanted - a comparison of how much longbowmen and crossbowmen were paid by the same employer at roughly the same time in the same general area for the same duty (garrison, escort, offensive campaign or whatever.) The coin used to pay is important too, since the value of a denier (French penny) would not necessarily be the same as an English penny.

Well, I couldn't find data like that, but I did pull up a couple of things on the web.

Apparently, longbowmen were paid 2 to 6 pence per day until the price was standardized at the beginning of the 15th century at 6 pence, except garrison archers in England who only got 4 pence. (English longbowman, 1330-1515 by Clive Bartlett - page 9.)

http://books.google.com/books?id=P21...page&q&f=false

Crossbowmen got paid from 3 pence at Dover but as high as 4-6 pence "in other places". (Daily life in medieval Europe by Jeffrey L. Singman - page 123)

http://books.google.com/books?id=SOd...20paid&f=false

So on the face of it, longbowmen started off with comparable, sometimes lower pay, than crossbowmen, but later on the situation was reversed and it was the crossbowmen who sometimes got less. Unfortunately, the numbers are not really comparable because Singman appears to be talking about the 1260's (its not altogether clear) and probably about garrison crossbowmen only (The title of the chapter was "Castle Life") who may not have had the same rate as crossbowmen in offensive campaigns.

Okay, so these numbers don't really let us make a good comparison of how much crossbowmen and longbowmen were paid, but as far as I can tell the difference in range of rates of pay was not huge, whereas Singman says ( page 124) that the "ordinary soldier" got 2 pence a day. As we've seen, crossbowmen and longbowmen might make two or three times as much. This suggests that both longbowmen and crossbowmen were quite effective. Otherwise they would not have been paid so well. That does not directly answer how effective longbows were against various kinds of armor, but it does provide some perspective.

I've run across a couple of websites that claim that crossbowmen were paid more than longbowmen and so must have been "better." However, these sites either don't tell how much they were paid or use over simplistic comparisons (Not all crossbowmen were paid 3 pence and not all longbowmen were paid 2 pence, so you can't make a sweeping statement that crossbowmen were paid a penny more.)

[edyzmedieval]

I don't know about you folks but I would rather focus on the power draw of the longbowman and the force of the longbow itself... Holding and firing a 2m yew longbow would need some MASSIVE arms and the amount of damage it can make from close quarters is something to look upon.

I fired a carbon fibre bow that took me around thirty seconds to fully pull, from 15m out. The arrow shot through 15cms of polyurethane and smashed through a 2.5cm thick wood plank. The arrow just shot right through the target and the wooden support and there was around 3.5cms between the tip of the arrow and the wooden planking, that's how much it penetrated.

Imagine the power of a longbow, which needed three or four times the amount of strength. Bodkin arrows from 200 metres can pierce armour. That's why Agincourt turned out that way.

[CBR]

... but i believe that the major advantage of massed longbow was when used against a a cavalry charge or any charge in that case.

Yes but we should not think they were that great at it though. Cavalry managed to connect with archers on several occasions. And then add the holes and ditches they dug in front of their formation or the later use of stakes or the Burgundians who used pikemen in front of their missile troops. I don't know, one could get the impression that missile troops didn't expect their bows would do all the work

It would be very interesting to see bit more high quality tests to be made.

Indeed. In "The Great Warbow" several tests are mentioned but still each has their limits in setup like too weak bows or flat instead of curved armour and no padding. Nonetheless the conclusion so far is that good quality armour could protect quite well and that such armour did exist in mid 14th century, and makes sense with the battle of Poitiers where English archers had to move into the flank of the some French cavalry before they could hurt them.

Someone in a previous thread about this included the weight of each arrow. I forget how much it was but getting your bell, or helmet, rung by a few of them and penetration doesn't matter.

Heavy arrows would be about 100-110 grams max and velocity 55-40 m/s depending on range and bow. That is similar if not less momentum than from a baseball thrown by some major league pitcher. Now I have no experience in being hit by neither a baseball nor an arrow but FWIW I'd say as long as the arrow didn't penetrate and the target was not scared by the sound of impact he would be fine.

Plus, longbows firing from the "V" formation were able to cover a large area with fire.

V formation as the wedge? There is really no evidence of such a specific formation and it all boils down to the use of the word "Herce". Other sources for that battle (Crécy) mentions the archers on the wings, so as to stay clear of the men-at-arms. Of course things can never be easy because another source says the archers were behind the English and Welsh infantry...duh

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Heavy arrows would be about 100-110 grams max and velocity 55-40 m/s depending on range and bow. That is similar if not less momentum than from a baseball thrown by some major league pitcher. Now I have no experience in being hit by neither a baseball nor an arrow but FWIW I'd say as long as the arrow didn't penetrate and the target was not scared by the sound of impact he would be fine.

Getting hit by a baseball by a major league pitcher hurts. A blow to an unprotected head (if the pitcher was hurling their best stuff) could easily kill you. I would think that your helmet would be knocked back and it would make a nice sound, if it didn't penetrate.

[CBR]

Getting hit by a baseball by a major league pitcher hurts. A blow to an unprotected head (if the pitcher was hurling their best stuff) could easily kill you. I would think that your helmet would be knocked back and it would make a nice sound, if it didn't penetrate.

Sure it can kill you and has happened IIRC but the momentum is by itself not something that will knock people over. Depending on type of armour and energy of the impact there could be blunt trauma of course.

When it comes to wages then crossbowmen were not paid less. There was a difference between foot and mounted archers and same thing with crossbowmen. AFAIK missile armed soldiers apparently had higher wages than basic infantry although their wages could vary too: Edward II was willing to pay 4d for the best-armed spearmen, 3d for half-armed and 2d for the rest and that was when foot archers would be getting 2-3d.

[Brandy Blue]

When it comes to wages then crossbowmen were not paid less. There was a difference between foot and mounted archers and same thing with crossbowmen. AFAIK missile armed soldiers apparently had higher wages than basic infantry although their wages could vary too: Edward II was willing to pay 4d for the best-armed spearmen, 3d for half-armed and 2d for the rest and that was when foot archers would be getting 2-3d.

Thanks, CBR. That's the kind of information I wanted to dig up but don't have time to. In my opinion its more important than whether or not longbow arrows could penetrate white armor. It gives a general feel for how useful the troops were from the viewpoint of their paymaster.

[Fisherking]

The info I saw stated that foot archers at the time of Crecy were paid 4d per day and that mounted archers were paid 6d.

The Genoways Crossbowmen were paid more but they fought as part of a 3 or 4 man crew. The extra men handled the shields and cocked other bows for the archer. They out ranged the longbows and had greater accuracy.

We know that the best armor was proof against longbow arrows. We see that as early as Poitiers but it still did its work more than 50 years later at Agincourt. But Verneuil once again showed the power of good armor when the bowmen on one flank were swept from the field by Lombard mercenaries. Here we are told the arrows bounced off the armor of the horses.

The crossbow was always superior to the longbow in range and armor penetration and common bows could also produce an arrow storm of almost equal effect on unarmored opponents but we don’t find them in use. By the end we have the arbalest, a steel prod crossbow that can shoot 900 meters.

A 70 lbs. bow will not even penetrate good quality mail at 10 meters, from the tests I have seen, so it must be the high draw weight bows that were the key to the effectiveness.

The 150 lbs bow tested still doesn’t measure up to the lower tier of the bows we know of and we can not replicate the metals used at the time. Iron has not been produced in the developed world since 1963. What we call Iron is steel with an admixture of slag and would still have more hardness than pure iron. We can see that even then that the 150 lbs. bow will pierce untempered steel but not the tempered and case hardened steel, to significant effect. Also the alloying agents make a significant difference over pure iron or simple steel of only Iron and 0.2% carbon.

Only armor coming from Augsburg or Milan, and made from some of the Austrian iron ores would have been close to the metals we take for granted today.

My difficulty is more with the validity of the tests.

Minute changes in carbon content make a huge difference in the way the metal performs, as would perhaps another 10 to 30 lbs of the draw weight of the bow.

[CBR]

We see that as early as early as Poitiers but it still did its work more than 50 years later at Agincourt.

Yeah sure, archers did something but even an English source (Gesta) only mentions arrows penetrating visors and the side of helmets.

Crossbows came in different types. One of the more widespread types seems to have been using a belt claw or hook and IIRC estimates vary from 330 to maybe 400 pounds, give or take a few, and comparable in power to strong warbows.

Genoese crossbowmen might generally have been using a heavier type that used a windlass. Not sure where you get a 900 meters range from. One test with a 1200 pound steel type managed 460 yards with bolts of around 85 grams.

Metallurgical tests of historical armour has come a long way, so it certainly is possible to get something close to what they made back then. A lot of tests have problems regarding metal quality though, and that is with the arrow heads as they are too hard. I don't think I have encountered any who complained about the armour being too good in the various tests I have seen.

I'm not sure what you mean by "The 150 lbs bow tested still doesn’t measure up to the lower tier of the bows we know of" Of the 130+ bows found in Mary Rose the average draw weight was around 140 or 150 pounds and the largest bow was at first estimated to be 180 pounds at 30 inches draw but as one expert judged it would break at such a long draw, it was reduced to 172 pounds at 28 inch draw. So why worry about a few extra pounds in draw weight when it is at the extreme end?

[al Roumi]

Getting hit by a baseball by a major league pitcher hurts. A blow to an unprotected head (if the pitcher was hurling their best stuff) could easily kill you. I would think that your helmet would be knocked back and it would make a nice sound, if it didn't penetrate.

But the point (aha) of an arrow is that the impact surface area is much smaller -hence the importance of different arrow-head types. So whatever impact force a baseball has (given its comparatively large contact area during impact), would equate to a greater impact force by an arrow head.

Different gemoetric profiles will have different penetration/trauma effects depending on the armour material -that much IS verfied by the test Raz provided. In theory, a needle bodkin would have the greatest force per contact area -but that alone is absolutely not enough to say it would have the best penetration, as the armour material (and how it reacts to different load types) is just as important as the arrow-head.

[CBR]

The needle bodkin should be seen as something used for flight arrows. AFAIK uncovered arrow heads of this type have so far been only unhardened iron, therefore as cheap as they come and meant more for quantity and range than penetration or damage.

[Brenus]

“That's why Agincourt turned out that way.” I would not be so sure of this. Azincourt turned out this way because the French Nobility just ignored the Plan.

The 3 main example of the success of the Long Bow are Crecy, Poitiers and Azincourt. Each time the English Kings or Generals turned the geography at their advantage At Crecy, the top of the hill and the ditches that will break the French charge, in Poitiers top of the hills and natural obstacles, in Azincout the bottleneck configuration and the mud, all this combined with a rain of arrows.
The French re-conquest will be to deny this advantage (in building castles), and then turned the Long Bow required tactic against the English by the use of artillery.
To be efficient, the Archers have to be able to shoot a massive amount of arrows, and they need to be gathered. So they became vulnerable to the slow but long-range canons. If they spread or are unprepared, they become easy picking for the French Cavalry (as in the battle of Patay, and use of artillery for Formigny, Castillon)…