Main Discussion Area > English Warbow
Evidence OTHER than MR Bows of 120+ bows?
Del the cat:
They all seem to do this, get to full draw, dip down and then come up to 45(ish) degrees...
In one slo mo vid, I could see the dip down was the bow arm rather than torso lowering to help the last few inches of draw and bringing it down to the chest level...
Can't see why he dips in this vid... he looks comfortable enough.
Any one know what the dip is all about?
Del
Atlatlista:
--- Quote from: WillS on November 22, 2013, 06:17:07 am ---I'm sure everybody's already seen this, but hopefully it adds something to the discussion.
If you consider that archers would have been trained from a fairly young age if they lived in a location/era where warfare could be won with a bow, I don't think it's at all unreasonable that 200lbs was an achievable, and possibly average draw weight. Here's "that" now famous video of Joe Gibbs (age 28) shooting six heavy arrows pretty damn easily from a 170lb warbow. Bear in mind Joe hasn't been shooting a particularly long time (11 years I think he said) and certainly hasn't been pushed into training for warfare which would probably give you a kick up the arse to use heavier bows, so if he can achieve this then I think 240lbs for a trained, hardened warrior isn't at all crazy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-2KLuAH4GY&feature=c4-overview&list=UUgkVHUxltoZ_uoNUFlJ_B7A
Mark Stretton of course has successfully shot 3 arrows in succession from a 202lb warbow, so adding 38lbs with years and years of training plus the pressure of warfare and it all seems pretty logical. I know nobody's really disputing that it's true, but it does put the idea of a 36lb "warbow" into perspective - that just doesn't make any sense!
--- End quote ---
Shooting 3 arrows from a "warbow" doesn't make any sense either. If that's the best you can do, then you're going to be very dead, and your corpse is going to have a very full quiver when all is said and done. And again, the idea that 200 pounds might have been "average" is pure speculation. None of the available evidence suggests this. We have hundreds of bows, and the high end is 130 pounds of draw weight, with the low end being around 90. How in the world can you reason from that evidence that the average was 200 pounds?
In addition, I think the notion of training from a young age is overblown. Men like Mark Stretton who have been training for years, very hard, in a modern society, with the benefit of a modern diet and modern medicine and modern levels of leisure time, probably have achieved all that our medieval ancestors did, and possibly more. Archers were required by law to practice once per week. How many people on this forum practice a hell of a lot more than that? Granted, it's possible medieval archers practiced more as well, but they didn't have the kind of leisure time that we do in the modern western world, so I find it unlucky that they could have crammed as much training into a year as we can.
WillS:
--- Quote from: Atlatlista on November 22, 2013, 11:03:01 am ---
--- Quote from: WillS on November 22, 2013, 06:17:07 am ---I'm sure everybody's already seen this, but hopefully it adds something to the discussion.
If you consider that archers would have been trained from a fairly young age if they lived in a location/era where warfare could be won with a bow, I don't think it's at all unreasonable that 200lbs was an achievable, and possibly average draw weight. Here's "that" now famous video of Joe Gibbs (age 28) shooting six heavy arrows pretty damn easily from a 170lb warbow. Bear in mind Joe hasn't been shooting a particularly long time (11 years I think he said) and certainly hasn't been pushed into training for warfare which would probably give you a kick up the arse to use heavier bows, so if he can achieve this then I think 240lbs for a trained, hardened warrior isn't at all crazy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-2KLuAH4GY&feature=c4-overview&list=UUgkVHUxltoZ_uoNUFlJ_B7A
Mark Stretton of course has successfully shot 3 arrows in succession from a 202lb warbow, so adding 38lbs with years and years of training plus the pressure of warfare and it all seems pretty logical. I know nobody's really disputing that it's true, but it does put the idea of a 36lb "warbow" into perspective - that just doesn't make any sense!
--- End quote ---
Shooting 3 arrows from a "warbow" doesn't make any sense either. If that's the best you can do, then you're going to be very dead, and your corpse is going to have a very full quiver when all is said and done. And again, the idea that 200 pounds might have been "average" is pure speculation. None of the available evidence suggests this. We have hundreds of bows, and the high end is 130 pounds of draw weight, with the low end being around 90. How in the world can you reason from that evidence that the average was 200 pounds?
In addition, I think the notion of training from a young age is overblown. Men like Mark Stretton who have been training for years, very hard, in a modern society, with the benefit of a modern diet and modern medicine and modern levels of leisure time, probably have achieved all that our medieval ancestors did, and possibly more. Archers were required by law to practice once per week. How many people on this forum practice a hell of a lot more than that? Granted, it's possible medieval archers practiced more as well, but they didn't have the kind of leisure time that we do in the modern western world, so I find it unlucky that they could have crammed as much training into a year as we can.
--- End quote ---
Just to be clear, I didn't mean (or say) that 200lb WAS average, I said it wasn't unreasonable that 200lb was POSSIBLY an average draw weight. Possibly. Because I don't know, despite the fact that we have young guys over here drawing 170lb with ease, despite never having military-intensive training routines or the pressure of survival. So it's a good POSSIBILITY.
Mark hasn't been training since he was 7, which is more or less the accepted and recorded (I believe?) age that English archers started. Whether that's right or wrong I don't know, but he was approached by Pip Bickerstaffe purely because he was already built more or less the way Pip believed medieval archers to have been built, and that's what got him started. He can now shoot 190lb bows all day, so 200lbs for an archer training since childhood is pretty obviously achievable. And if it's achievable, why wouldn't it be done? Yeah, you can use the modern medicine, modern diet argument for sure, but to counter it I would say we are as a generation MUCH softer than the medieval period - we don't HAVE to train to fight with a bow, whereas they did.
As always, it's all speculation. If it wasn't, there wouldn't be a discussion in the first place. The fact that guys like Joe and Mark can shoot what is essentially 200lbs constantly for a period of time proves that it can be done (which I know isn't being argued) so my point is - if us soft modern generation can do it without the pressure of survival, does it really make sense for somebody in a time of warfare where a bow can decide if you live or die choose to shoot a 36lb bow in the first place?
Also, as a sidenote, can you actually call a 36lb bow a "warbow" anyway? If you can, why then isn't every bow ever made a warbow? Where does the definition "warbow" come into play?
WillS:
--- Quote from: Atlatlista on November 22, 2013, 11:03:01 am ---We have hundreds of bows, and the high end is 130 pounds of draw weight, with the low end being around 90.
--- End quote ---
Which bows does this statement refer to? I ask because all the replicas of the Mary Rose bows using identical timber from the same part of the world and made to exact dimensions have come out between 150 and 200lbs.
Benjamin H. Abbott:
--- Quote from: Atlatlista on November 22, 2013, 02:16:50 am ---To be fair, I like Adam Karpowicz's work, but on several threads he has shown a consistent bias towards higher bow weights in his calculations from the actual result on bows where dimensions and known draw weight are available. I think there is a certain bias in the warbow community towards trumpeting the heaviest possible draw weights and the heaviest possible interpretations of bows. This may be a justifiable reaction to previous theories (and some extant theories) that heavy bows didn't exist, but it has its own problems. In addition, the sample size of known warbows from periods for which they were actually used is ludicrously small.
The textual evidence is valuable, but I just quoted a source that says 36 pounds as a minimum and you refuse to believe it, but I'm expected to take at face value your quotations of much heavier draw weights as "overwhelming evidence."
--- End quote ---
Asking for a source isn't refusing to believe. I'm actually familiar with the 36lb figure; I wanted to know where it came from. Thanks for providing a citation. Contrary to your assertion, I've provided lots of sources. They're remarkably consistent across time and space. though I'll grant some uncertainty around draw weight numbers in Ming and Qing China. In addition to Li Chengfen, back in 2005, Stephen Selby supposed said that Qing infantry bows draw 75lbs and cavalry bows 45lbs. However, many period texts suggest otherwise. Mark C. Elliot's The Manchu Way includes translations and summaries of these sources. He writes that a six-strength bow was considered the minimum for a grown man and ten strength was required to go on hunts. A military report in 1735 cautioned that few of the younger soldiers at a certain garrison were able to handle strength greater than seven or eight with ease, unambiguously indicating that these and higher were desirable draw weights for the field. Because of intense competition to draw heavy bows, the emperor issued a statement describing six strength or greater as sufficient for mounted military use. Elliot estimates each degree of strength as representing 10 catties (5.97kg); some decades earlier 1 li equaled 9 catties, 4 ounces (5.521kg). So the Qing minimum cavalry bow by these sources was 72.9-78.8lbs, and officers worried that younger soldiers weren't able to easily handle bows above 85-105lb - also probably on horseback. Records of military exams do show that significant numbers of soldiers couldn't handle a six-strength bow, but this wasn't considered acceptable and such soldiers received extra training to get them up to standard.
--- Quote ---Personally, I'm not sure why our competing ideas can't both be right. People, and bows, would have had great variability, and quite light bows are still capable of killing. Not everyone was focused on penetrating plate armor.
--- End quote ---
That's all true enough. The late Ming author I mentioned earlier, Yingxing Song, wrote that weak archers - those who drew 78.8lb bows - could still conquer via accuracy. However, he noted the need for strong archers - drawing 157.6lbs - to pierce enemies' chests (implying armor) and shields.
--- Quote ---I mean, Chinese sources also list zhugenu as being military weapons, and we all know what light draw weights they have.
--- End quote ---
Song specifically dismissed them as military weapons for this reason, writing that they were home-defense weapons for keeping off bandits.
--- Quote ---So, on the sum of things, I don't think there's anything inherently ridiculous about 50-60 pound bows being used in the context of military archery from pre-modern periods (certainly nothing meriting scoffing lord of the rings references).
--- End quote ---
That's fair. However, in the Qing army in the eighteenth century, as described above, soldiers who couldn't handle 72.9-78.8lbs received extra training. 50-60lbs wasn't considered enough in that time and place.
--- Quote ---In addition, I think the notion of training from a young age is overblown. Men like Mark Stretton who have been training for years, very hard, in a modern society, with the benefit of a modern diet and modern medicine and modern levels of leisure time, probably have achieved all that our medieval ancestors did, and possibly more. Archers were required by law to practice once per week. How many people on this forum practice a hell of a lot more than that? Granted, it's possible medieval archers practiced more as well, but they didn't have the kind of leisure time that we do in the modern western world, so I find it unlucky that they could have crammed as much training into a year as we can.
--- End quote ---
Elite historical archers literally fought for a living. English archers might have had agricultural responsibilities while not on campaign, but folks like the Manchu bannermen were professional soldiers and part of ruling warrior class. You saw similar arrangements in Egypt, Japan, etc. Professional and aristocratic warriors had all the time in the world to practice shootings, because that's fundamentally what they did. Also, note that it's only rather recently that you find significant numbers of folks drawing 100+lb bows. That wasn't the case a mere few decades ago.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version