OT: Archery in combat

[geoschmo]

The Frag newsletter has an interesting bit about the history of the english long bow. Something in it raised a question for me. Maybe some of you know.

Interestingly, during the Napoleonic era a British army officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Lee of the 44th Foot, recommended bringing back the longbow. It was as accurate as the muskets of the time, had a longer range, a higher rate of fire, and in a period when armor was not used anymore would prove even more devastating. All sound arguments, but the high command passed on the suggestion due to the fact that a soldier could be trained in the use of a musket in a day, while proper archery would take years
to develop (and let's not forget years to make a bow!).

Does this make sense? I can believe that it would take years to train a guy to shot a bullseye from 100 yards, but in battalion level combat does an archer need to be that accurate? Isn't the idea to have a couple hundred archers shooting a constant stream of arrows and blanketing a target area? Couldn't a guy be taught in a few minutes how to shoot an arrow into a target field the size of formation of hundreds of soldiers? I would think anyone with just basic hand eye coordination could probably do that with no training whatsoever given some arrows and few minutes to figure it out on their own.

I suspect a better (and perhaps more accurate) reason to choose muskets and balls over bows and arrows is the ability to produce the ammunition rapidly and lug it into combat. I imagine just about anyone could melt lead and use a mold and produce hundreds of balls an hour, while it would take a highly skilled fletcher to produce combat useable arrows, and he'd do so at a much slower rate. And it's easier to carry a bag of balls and enough powder to shoot it then to lug around a full quiver.

Am I on track here?

[Urendi Maleldil]

I suppose they could've trained an elite few in the use of the longbow and sent them out on commando raids. It would slow down your enemy a little by making them wear armor.

It probably wouldn't be worth it to train a whole army to use longbows though

[Hugh Manatee]

wouldn't cheap to make tower shields with holes cut in them for muskets foil the "blanket archerey'?

[Suicide Junkie]

That's when everybody lined up together in rows to shoot, right?

Proper archery, pshaw
That's like demanding sharpshooters for your musketeers.

All you need to do is get the arrow to fly far enough, and you're almost guaranteed to score a hit on somebody!

---

I agree that making ammo would be much harder...
You wouldn't have to use it in every battle though.
Save up production, and pass out the arrows for a special operation. Attract a big opposing force, and surprise (read slaughter) them with a rapid-fire barrage of arrows

[dogscoff]

Interesting. I had a go at archery recently, and after an hour of training our entire group (including teenagers as well as adults) were burying arrows two or three inches into metre-round targets (or into the ground sensibly near the targets) at about 20 metres or so (what's that in yards?) Probably a third of arrows fired were going into the targets. I had plenty of distance left in mine as well, but I'm reasonably strong with a long reach and I'm still not at all sure I'd be able to fire one of those things to a hundred yards without a LOT more training. As distance increases, I imagine accuracy decreases exponentially, with training time to become an effective weapon increasing at the same time, so I could believe a years would be necessary to fire effectively at anything more than close range.

mind you we were using training bows rather than longbows, which probably skews my observations though, since by definition I would expect the training bow to be easier to use.

Longbows, used skillfully, really are devastating. Obviously they have nothing on modern rifles, but the power behind them really is startling when demonstrated, probably at least equal to antique muskets and such. At the height of their era, a skilled archer could loose a good half-dozen or more arrows per minute, all of them well aimed, which again is probably well in excess of what early firearms were capable of. Once on TV (a documentary, not LotR ) I saw a longbow fired at an armoured dummy designed to have the same sort of density/ toughness/ whatever as a human. It was fairly close range, admittedly, but the arrow went clear through the armour, through the dummy and stuck out the other side. I wouldn't have thought it possible before seeing that.

As to answering any of your questions... ummm.... don't know.

[Rasorow]

Something to think about is the bow (not necessarily the longbow though) did go up against the early muskets. It was the colonization of North America. A native american warrior armed with a bow fired at least twice as often as a soldier with a musket.


Also while I dont know about much about archery... I do know that the upper body strength required with the longbow was fairly impressive - even for a warrior. The entire army may not have been strong enough to use the longbow. Additionally didn't the bow have to be matched to the warrior? It had to be a certain measure depending on the height and strength of the archer?

IMO there was alot more craftmanship in the average "archaic" darkage/middle age weapons then in the average weapon of the modern era.

[DarkHorse]

at about 20 metres or so (what's that in yards?)

1 meter = 1.094 yards,
so 20 meters = 21.87 yards

www.convert-me.com is a really handy site for converting things.

[dmm]

Remember that during the heyday of longbows, the English army was small, even by standards of the day. For example, the French had them way outnumbered at all three decisive battles of the 100 Years War (Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt). Perhaps this was because the English army in all 3 battles was only an "expeditionary force" or perhaps they could never muster large numbers of trained longbowmen.
Anyway, by the Napoleonic era, armies were much larger. Agriculture had undergone a revolution, freeing up a lot of manpower for warfare. Plus, more of that manpower lived in urban areas where there was less opportunity for practicing archery. Plus, governments began relying more on conscription and the "citizen soldier," especially during times of crisis. Lastly, the generals were a bunch of retards who used up the lives of the foot-soldiers like they were squirrels. So the government didn't want to spend large amounts of money training them. (In fact, some governments put criminals into the army, perhaps explaining somewhat the generals' attitude toward footsoldiers.)
Oh, five more things: 1) muskets are easier to use in trenches and forts and lying down; 2) you can put bayonets on them; 3) you can have several muskets loaded and ready, so the initial rate of fire can be quite high; 4) non-combatants can load the muskets behind the lines, again upping your rate of fire; and 5) gunpowder and lead can be used as ammo for muskets, pistols, rifles, cannons, and petards.

[Atrocities]

With progress old skills and technology are phased out. Think of the skill one would have had to have to be an archer in midevil times.

I would love to go back in time and bring someone back and show them what the world has become. I think they would cry.

With each new technological advancement we leave behind a skill that in time does fade into the fog of history. How many of you can ride a horse? How many of you can make a saddel? How many of you can forge steel, let along mine it?

How many of you can make something usefull out of a block of steel?

It saddens me to think that if something were ever to happen to the US, most people would die because they lack the simple skills needed to stay alive. I am sorry, but your cell phone cannot be used to kill dinner. No, that big SUV does not make for a good wagon once its out of gas.

No you cannot drink something all because it is clear... rule one... unless you KNOW its water, don't drink it.

What would be do now if we had no technology? I know I can shoot a bow, and fish, hunt too, but build a shelter or make a bow?

[Ruatha]

Atrocities said:
How many of you can ride a horse? How many of you can make a saddel? How many of you can forge steel, let along mine it?

How many of you can make something usefull out of a block of steel?

In past days it wasn't very common to own a horse, the ones who could afford had oxens or mules, horses where for the welthy (Talking robin hood europe).
making a saddle, forge steel, mining and making something useful out of steel has never been common knowledge, it's handicraft for specialized workers, was so then and is so now.
I'd guess more people today forge steel than in midevial europe (In numbers, not percentage) as the population is much larger now.
There is plenty of smiths making hand forged objects, art, horse shoes, nails etc.

A simple bow is easy to make, haven't we all made several when we where kids?
Making a good bow is much harder but with practice perhaps..

Darned, edited in alot about mining but the computer fouled up and I can't get the entusiasm to rewrite, just imagina I've written alot useless info on mining.