Re: OT: Archery in combat
 

As long as it appears at a reasonable time before the collapse of the civilization, and they have somebody who understands the "olde" version of the language the books are written in, they should be OK.

Re: OT: Archery in combat
 

Fall into disrepair and irradiate something big?

Re: OT: Archery in combat
 

Actually it was a movie. A Nimitz-class carrier somehow gets transported back in time to WWII. What should the captain do? What is his duty? Unfortunately, the film-makers spent most of their time on dumbed-down philosophical discussions rather than action, so it was OK to watch once on TV but not worth remembering the name. (On the other hand, I was much younger then, so maybe I just didn't have the depth to appreciate it.)

Re: OT: Archery in combat
 

The Final Countdown. A mostly forgettable movie starring Martin Sheen and Kirk Douglas.

Re: OT: Archery in combat
 

I nominate that for best answer yet.

Re: OT: Archery in combat
 

What would Napoleon do had he had the USS Voyager?

Try to burn it for being a blasphemous heresy?

Try to man it for exactly the same reason?

Pray to it?

Accidentally jettison the warp core, blowing the entire Eurasian plate into oblivion?

Re: OT: Archery in combat
 

Hmmm, interesting...

A modern FULLY SUPPLIED aircraft carrier would include NUCLEAR weapons... can anyone say WORLD DOMINATION?

... now back to the original discussion -
The English Longbow.

One limiting factor would be the need to strenght train the bowmen - An English Longbow had a pull strenght requirement of 90 pounds or more. That is a lot of pull for those who are not archery buffs. (An average bow had a pull of only 50 to 60 pounds.) And remember that this is a single shaft bow, not a modern day compound bow. The average man would quickly tire out if he had to use such a bow for long...

Re: OT: Archery in combat
 

There's a slight catch to that - until they had seen the effect up close, few rulers would believe the tales of the survivors (and those who do see the effect from close enough to be considered "up close" would die shortly afterwards), and the reliable scouts sent to the devastation zone would tend not to come back (radiation poisoning over a few weeks travel to get to an area that looks like something more than a bad storm had hit the place) so they would probably have to keep "demonstrating" the nukes until after they were out to get any real use out of the threat.

However, a single fighter using a single missle to demolish one of the castle's towers, followed by a "tour" of the ship sufficient to note that the carrier holds many such, and each fighter carries many such missles, about five or ten times (once per bigwig ruler), would be sufficent threat to have most of Europe bowing and scraping.

Re: OT: Archery in combat
 

One word: 1632. It's a series of books from Baen Publishing, that deals with a small town (from west virginia, of all places) being transported intact to 1632 Germany, and how they deal with it and such. The Baen forums have entire sections dedicated to discussing the way our tech would transfer to their time, etc. It's pretty interesting, all told.

So far as longbows go, my thought is simple: thier hard to manufacture in terms of men, bows, and arrows. If it were my call i'd use them as snipers hiding in forested areas to demoralize the other troops and force them to use men and ammunition trying to flush them out. To use them en masse might work a few times, but i just can't envision a scenario where they'd really make a huge difference. Another thing to consider is that - for a great while there - the tactics of europe were pretty standardized on the "line up and shoot at the enemy" model; this is often brought up in reference to the geurilla tactics employed by the americans during the revolutionary war.

Just a thought,
Deth

Re: OT: Archery in combat
 

Forget the USS Voyager. Napoleon could have acchieved his dreams and been Emporor of Europe with a couple dozen 5 dollar walkie-talkies from Radio Shack. Just a little better real-time battlefield communication and he probably could have turned Waterloo around.