Quote:
Originally Posted by Scarlioni
In the Bayeux tapestry Norman archers are shown with their arrows in the dirt. The only reason to do this is because you don't want to defecate into your quiver. Horse archers weren't able to do this, having to draw their arrows from quivers, and no one ever complained that it slowed their rate of fire.
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I've read that arrows were stuck into the dirt because that way they were more readily available. I don't know how long it takes to pull an arrow from a quiver, but for long arrows it's faster to stick them to the ground and grab the closest one. I'm not sure how long the arrows for a longbow would be, but if they're long enough the archer wouldn't even have to bow down that much.
Horse archers' fire rate wouldn't have mattered as much, because they didn't do the "arrow storm" thing AFAIK. Weren't horse archers all about hit-and-run: riding near the enemy force with an arrow ready, letting it loose, and then riding out of their archers' range and readying another arrow?
Also, horse archers couldn't use longbows because they were too long. The longer arrows could also be slower to draw from a quiver.
Re: Bows
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