[Osium]

I believe the reason why the pull was around 40 pounds, was due to the fact the grip for the bow was located 1/3 of the way up. This means that significant poundage is going to exert a fair ammount of torque on your wrist to draw the bow and fire it accurately.

A good point was made, the arrows the japanese used were designed not for punching through thick metal armors, but for cutting bambo armor/lamenated armor or punching through it which is significantly less difficult to penetrate than something made of metal. This may also be a reason why the draw is seemingly lower than other bows of equal size, note I am going by modern useage of the bow. In fuedal times the bows very likely were strung more tightly but I still do not think in combat where volume of arrows is required you would want a bow strung THAT tightly simply due to the pressures exerted on the wrists because of its assymetrical design.

[ January 30, 2004, 00:06: Message edited by: Osium ]