OT: Archery in combat

[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.