Main Discussion Area > English Warbow
Warbow FPS?
Joec123able:
Squirrelslinger there's no freakin way any arrow is going to knock any one down in fact even the heaviest of warbow arrows from the heaviest bow wouldn't even nudge an average man now of course if you shot an unarmoured man with a blunt heavy arrow it would shatter bones that's for sure but wouldn't move him at all.
Heffalump:
--- Quote from: Joec123able on November 05, 2013, 04:37:05 am ---Squirrelslinger there's no freakin way any arrow is going to knock any one down in fact even the heaviest of warbow arrows from the heaviest bow wouldn't even nudge an average man now of course if you shot an unarmoured man with a blunt heavy arrow it would shatter bones that's for sure but wouldn't move him at all.
--- End quote ---
....so by your reckoning Joe, if we were to take a guy in full armour, he wouldn't even notice a series of 1/2" shafted rubber tipped blunts shot at him, they'd be like flies buzzing around outside his steel suit?........
http://youtu.be/_pxHnntyduw
Really? Have you ever even handled a half-inch hardwood shafted 32" long war arrow and considered the associated point loading if shot from a heavy bow? Kinetic energy anyone?! ::) LoL
WillS:
There's also that brilliant 2 hour special from Mike Loades on medieval life, and he ropes in EWBS Joe Gibbs and mark Stretton to shoot warbows at a force meter which is covered with linen, chain and padding and the force punched into the meter is clearly enormous and easily enough to stagger an oncoming man, and quite probably drive him onto the floor if he wasn't bracing deliberately.
Plus the old Conquest videos on YouTube of the host wearing FULL plate harness being shot at by light Victorian bows and 3/8" arrows and he's not exactly walking through them like rain.
You have to bear in mind that these bows were designed for one single purpose : to destroy a human being and punch through any armour available at the time. They weren't designed to get close, or annoy (although the Bearing arrows were probably harrassing arrows rather than plate cutters) they were created to kill.
If you take a lump of wood (and half inch of solid wood with a whacking 40gram 4inch plate cutter on the end is BIG) and throw it out of a bow with a draw weight of 150lbs straight into somebody's chest, they're going to not only feel it, but it will be like pounding them on the chest with a baseball bat.
Atlatlista:
The idea isn't to stagger the guy though, that's counter-productive. The idea is to penetrate the target clean through and leave a gaping wound channel behind. Staggering someone is a result of the force being transmitted, not to the cutting of the wound channel, but to the surrounding body/armor. This is energy lost for the purpose of the shot to begin with. So, an ideal archery shot doesn't stagger anybody. It treats the body like a viscous fluid, the arrow passes clean through and the target has a moment of reflection as he realizes that there are holes where his insides used to be, and that this is problematic for him. Of course, given the constraints of medieval weapons and armor, there is going to be a significant amount of energy lost, resulting in that sort of baseball bat-like punch, but the punch is secondary to the cut.
WillS:
Ah, ideal worlds :P
I dunno, I can't imagine blacksmiths (no matter how skilled!) imagining that their plate cutters are actually going to pass clean through? It must have been a more realistic expectation to assume the arrow only gets as far as going in a few inches, breaking off and leaving festering diseased wounds, while simultaneously dropping the guys backwards so they're not a problem anymore.
Still, ideals apart, the fact remains that if you get hit by a war arrow going full bananas and you're wearing protective armour, you're going to be moved by the force. The statement "the heaviest of warbow arrows from the heaviest bow wouldn't even nudge an average man" was a bit.... Yeah.
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