Forgotten Archery

[Ivanya]

I'm not sure if this has ever been posted before, but for anyone intrigued over ancient archery methods, and how they compared with today's, this should be worth a watch.

Reinventing the fastest forgotten archery. - YouTube

 

[Boneman]

That's great, and I can refer disbelieving readers there, when I train all my archers to fire this way!

 

[paranoid marvin]

Sounds like a bit of a longshot to me.

 

[Parson]

But I have often noticed that the pictures of archers seemed to have the bow held lower than what convention seems to dictate. It makes me tend to believe not only the video, but the presumed impetus for it.

 

[Brian G Turner]

That's really interesting - especially the notion that fast-shooting was a common ancient technique.

 

[Boneman]

I wish I could remember which documentary I saw about the archers in the ancient chinese (could have been mongolian armies) who fired a torrent of arrows from longbowmen - literally as fast as they could until their arms were exhausted and then cavalry shortbowmen would gallop in, and do the same to anyone left standing. I know they did use this in one of the films that came out around the 'Crouching tiger, hidden whatnot' time, but the documentary had 'evidence' from war manuals that this was the way to do it.

 

[Gramm838]

I'm sorry but I'm not having this - no bowman could keep that up in battle for anything more than a couple of minutes - if that - and look at the range he's shooting at; anyone firing a bow at an enemy that close should be dropping his bow and getting ready for hand to hand combat. The whole point of a bow is that it's a ranged weapon mainly designed to drop arrows almost vertically, not to be fired horizontally.

Its certainly not a technique that could be used with a longbow as the draw is too strong to do it that rapidly

 

[Null_Zone]

Seems to be hardly any draw on the bow and completely ingnores the fact the "targets" you are aiming for aren't going to be in a nice quiet environment & moving laterally. If he have manage that accuracy against an armoured All Black squad charging towards him in the certain knowledge he will be torn to peices it would be good.

 

[Ursa major]

Pardon a question based on total ignorance.

Wouldn't an archer on horseback - say a skirmisher - be closer to their target(s) than one taking the role of "light artillery"? And would they particularly care who they hit as long as they were hitting someone, as their aim (no pun intended) would be as much demoralisation of the enemy as causing injuries or fatalities?

It strikes me (again, no pun intended) that skirmishing, mounted archers would be interested in short, quick encounters, in which as many arrows as possible would be delivered in that short time.

 

[Mirannan]

I'm sorry but I'm not having this - no bowman could keep that up in battle for anything more than a couple of minutes - if that - and look at the range he's shooting at; anyone firing a bow at an enemy that close should be dropping his bow and getting ready for hand to hand combat. The whole point of a bow is that it's a ranged weapon mainly designed to drop arrows almost vertically, not to be fired horizontally.

Its certainly not a technique that could be used with a longbow as the draw is too strong to do it that rapidly

I disagree. You could, but there would be less power behind it. The draw weight of a longbow increases as the string is pulled back. I had a close look at the video, and it looks as if he's drawing the bow halfway at most.

That would be fine against unarmoured troops, probably, or even against most cavalry perhaps (the horse wasn't usually armoured at all) but getting through armour with an arrow fired from a half-drawn bow...

Also, archery tactics depend on bow and situation. It is certainly true that English longbowmen fired in a high arc in most situations, but I much doubt that the arc would be as high in the case of Mongol horse archers. They avoided getting involved in melee by mobility rather than being out of range. I imagine that bows were fairly often used in ambush situations as well; one or two rounds and then get ready to fight.

 

[Gramm838]

I disagree. You could, but there would be less power behind it. The draw weight of a longbow increases as the string is pulled back. I had a close look at the video, and it looks as if he's drawing the bow halfway at most.

That would be fine against unarmoured troops, probably, or even against most cavalry perhaps (the horse wasn't usually armoured at all) but getting through armour with an arrow fired from a half-drawn bow...

Also, archery tactics depend on bow and situation. It is certainly true that English longbowmen fired in a high arc in most situations, but I much doubt that the arc would be as high in the case of Mongol horse archers. They avoided getting involved in melee by mobility rather than being out of range. I imagine that bows were fairly often used in ambush situations as well; one or two rounds and then get ready to fight.

If you watch the technique in the video, it looks like, rather than drawing the sting backwards, he's pushing the bow forwards to generate the power, and therefore losing all accuracy.

The Mongolian archers may have used their mobility rather than distance as a defence, but they would still be firing at a solid group of men and so didn't need to be particularly accurate.

As for using a bow in an ambush situation, you have to remember that to be any good in that situation, you need to be able to hit the target, and that's not as easy as you may think

 

[JoanDrake]

I'm sorry but I'm not having this - no bowman could keep that up in battle for anything more than a couple of minutes - if that - and look at the range he's shooting at; anyone firing a bow at an enemy that close should be dropping his bow and getting ready for hand to hand combat. The whole point of a bow is that it's a ranged weapon mainly designed to drop arrows almost vertically, not to be fired horizontally.

Its certainly not a technique that could be used with a longbow as the draw is too strong to do it that rapidly

That's come under dispute just recently. Seems there's little archaeological evidence for many arrows dropping from overhead and very few illustrations of archers doing it in contemporary illustrations. Doesn't mean you're wrong, just saying.

 

[JoanDrake]

If you watch the technique in the video, it looks like, rather than drawing the sting backwards, he's pushing the bow forwards to generate the power, and therefore losing all accuracy.

The Mongolian archers may have used their mobility rather than distance as a defence, but they would still be firing at a solid group of men and so didn't need to be particularly accurate.

As for using a bow in an ambush situation, you have to remember that to be any good in that situation, you need to be able to hit the target, and that's not as easy as you may think

When you're just 10 feet away though...


The North American indigenes had something of reputation as archers but most of them drew by pulling on the ARROW, not the bowstring (as is evidenced by most of their arrows having some sort thickening at the very end to grasp) They relied upon stealth to get up close to their prey. Same thing might have applied to Robin Hood, at least most of the time.


Some English Longbows have a total draw of 150lbs. Considering the leverage (or actually the lack of same) that any bow gives you I find it incredible that even a strong and practiced archer could shoot arrows at any effective speed from a full draw on them. Yet many did shoot them quite quickly