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Old January 6th, 2005, 06:30 PM
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Default Re: OT: Archery in combat

There have been a number of shows on The History Channel discussing ancient arms and armor. The training to use the longbow was extensive and took a few years, you need a lot of upper body strength to pull it back so as to have the devastating effect.

The crossbow was the early answer to the training a longbow required. It was all about using technology to achieve a powerful flight without the need for human strength. From what I've seen on The History Channel, French soldiers and Italian mercenaries armed with crossbows were soon ablative meat when they met a force of trained British longbowmen.

Ha. Take that. U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! Ummm, wait no that doesn't work here. Uhhh. OK. Rule Britannia. Yeah. That works.

Now for my question. On The History Channel, there was this series about some guy who taught a group of amateurs to fight in each episode with ancient weapons. He did Roman legions, Vikings, even Pirates. He was a bald headed guy. Don't think he was British. Did anyone remember the show's title? I can't find it on the History Channel website, and I want to program it into Tivo in case it's rerun. Note, it's not the latest series on the History Channel, "The Weapons That Made Britain" -- which is pretty much the same topic. I saw that one.
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