what lbs makes it a warbow insted of a longbow

[youngbowyer]

a warbow is a SELFBOW.

[alanesq]

a warbow is a SELFBOW.

A warbow was a self bow - but is it now ?

i.e. are you saying that if your bow isnt a self bow with natural string and sidenocks etc. then you can't call it a warbow ?

actually - to take it to the extreme then a warbow is basically one of the Mary Rose bows - anything else is a replica

[triton]

it's all getting a bit silly now 

If you'd been practicing at least weekly with the bow from the age of 7, you ought to be able to draw 100LB as easily as a modern archer draws 50 or 60LB and hit the mark at 200 yards by the time you were of age to go to war.  therefore it would be pointless handing out bows less than 120LB.
They knew full well what was required to penetrate the enemy and what was needed to get it there, hence the need to train from an early age.
A laminate is not IMO a replica warbow, an English bow of warbow draw weight perhaps.  As far as I'm aware there is no evidence that English bows were laminated or of composite build, though they would have obviously been aware of the technology due to mongolian bows brought here by the Romans.
If you couldn't draw the bows issued, an average of 140LB, you didn't make muster and stayed home with your mum.

[Barrage]

If you couldn't draw the bows issued, an average of 140LB, you didn't make muster and stayed home with your mum.

Or at least given a pointy stick and called infantry.

[triton]

If you couldn't draw the bows issued, an average of 140LB, you didn't make muster and stayed home with your mum.

Or at least given a pointy stick and called infantry.

[youngbowyer]

a warbow is a SELFBOW.

A warbow was a self bow - but is it now ?

i.e. are you saying that if your bow isnt a self bow with natural string and sidenocks etc. then you can't call it a warbow ?

actually - to take it to the extreme then a warbow is basically one of the Mary Rose bows - anything else is a replica

tu

No. What I'm saying is a laminated bow is not a replica but it would be a warbow but a true warbow is a selfbow. So here is my opinion: It's 2009 and not 1415 technology has advanced and people now make laminated warbows instead of selfbows. My opinion is that if you want a true warbow you should buy a selfbow. But in my eyes a laminate bow of high draw weigth is a warbow.

[alanesq]

Yep - I would agree with that :-)


That is the point I was trying to make myself:

there is a replica warbow (which should be a self bow, sidenocks etc. as it is supposed to be as close as possible an exact copy of the bows of old)

and there is a "modern" warbow (a bow based loosely on the bow above which is similar to shoot/use but not necessarily made of the same materials etc.)

[Justin Snyder]

I have to agree with you alanesq.

How many of you got a new Ferrari when you first started driving.  I didn't, I started with a broken down 20 year old truck.  For me laminated bows are cheaper to make.  Lets say I want to make a 200# MR replica. I need to buy a $400 high quality yew stave.  The problem is I cannot pull 200#.  Well I'm not going to buy 10 $400 yew staves so I can work my way up to 200#.  I am going to make a 100# laminate then a 110, 120 and on up to my goal.  When I can shoot my 200# beautiful yew MR replica selfbow it will be great.  But I can get there with $200 worth of laminates not $4000 worth of imported yew.  To me the laminate don't look so bad, I just wont call it a replica.

Back to the original question, "What lbs makes it a warbow instead of a longbow."   Maybe he wants to start as low as he can and still maintain controll of the bow with a reasonable amount of accuracy. Yet if he goes to light some people will give him so much crap about calling it a warbow that he will switch to another sport and go away with the attitude that archers are jerks.  I think it was a legitimate question.

Let me offer something up for thought.  The original English war archers were not shooting at armor.  That came later and the weights of bows increased to compensate.  So were the earlier bows not warbows because they were lighter than the later bows.  Did the English longbow become a warbow when it became the standard bow used in war or when it penetrated armor. Justin

[youngbowyer]

Well said Justin!

[stevesjem]

Just to throw my thouhts into the mix,
A true Warbow or a longbow designed to be used in a war situation....well we only really have the MR bows to go on and these are all self yew bows, there is evidence that they were side nocked and very heavy draw weights,..140+lbs, personally I believe the draw weights were a bit higher but 140 is a good starting pont.

laminates cannot really be classed as "True warbows", 1stly because there is no evidence of laminated woods being used for bows used in warfare in the middle ages in England, however replica heavy weight bows are made nowadays which bend full compass in the characteristic manner of a medieval warbow and can and do shoot heavy arrows a long way with great power, however these are a modern representation of what once was and as there are no heavy weight longbows used in warfare nowadays they cannot be classed in the same way as the self yew warbow of the medieval period.

The heavy weight self yew replica "warbows" that are made today, again are exactly that "Replica's" of what was once used in medieval warefare, these are not real warbows but accurate representations, there is evidence of sidenocks on the MR bows, there is also pictorial evidence that front facing horn nocks were used, the one common factor of the nocks is that they were of cow horn.

Anyway back to the question, in my opinion a "Warbow", this is a bow made for the purpose of killing people in warfare in the middle ages, some of whom may be wearing plate armour, needs to be a very heavy draw weight.... 140lb+, probably more like 160+.

Steve

[youngbowyer]

I agree Steve. Here is my new thought: A laminate bow is a "fake" warbow and a selfbow is a true warbow.

[Rod]

If I was pressed and had to make a distinction, I would call anything over 100 pounds a "heavy" bow.

If it was used in warfare or for representing that historic use I might think about calling a "warbow" but probably would not....
But I might call it an "English bowe" if it was a single stave selfbow in yew, elm or ash and looked right.

IMHO a heavy laminated longbow is just that, a heavy laminated longbow.
Nothing wrong with that.

As to what poundage makes a "warbow", it seems likely that an arms race took place where the beginnings would have been with useful hunting weights and escalated from there in response to the tactical demands of the situation.

Heavy weights will have been current for as long as defensibly dressed men have been shooting arrows at each other and even before that when they were just trying to outrange each other on open ground with shafts of increasing weight.

There are cultures that use or have used weights in the 100lb range for hunting, one good example being the Liangulu elephant bow.
I once had a bloke show me one of these and asked if I could confirm that it was an old English longbow.
He got it in a house clearance and was not swayed by the wealth of Africana amongst which he found it.
It was round in section throughout, about 90" long and if it had a string on it would have pulled about 100lb with ease.
It even had the mark on the lower limb where the rawhide or sinew wrap for the stringing toehold used to be.

He asked me to make a string for it so that he could sell it as a "longbow".
I said I didn't have any giraffe sinew handy but would buy it off him at a sensible price if he was interested.
He wanted silly money for it so I let it go....

Rod.

[alanesq]

The term "longbow" has been in use for some time (I was surprised myself recently to discover this)

Here is a quote From 1515 which uses it:
"Whether the Kinges subjectes, not lame nor having no lawfull impediment, and beinge within the age of XI yeares, excepte Spiritual men, Justices etc. and Barons of the Exchequer, use shoting on longe bowes, and have bowe continually in his house, to use himself and that fathers and governours of chyldren teache them to shote, and that bowes and arrowes be bought for chyldren under XVII and above VII yere, by him that has such a chylde in his house, and the Maister maye stoppe it againe of his wages, and after that age he to provideb them himselfe: and who that is founde in defaute, in not having bowes and arrowes by the space of a moneth, to forfayte xiid.. And boyers for everie bowe of ewe, to make two of Elme wiche or othere wood of meane price, and if thei be founde to doe the contrarie, to be committed to warde, by the space of viii daies or more."
- from http://www.scortonarrow.com/features/Archery_its%20the%20law.htm

So we shouldn't really call any laminated bow a longbow either (as a longbow was a self bow) ?

[Rod]

I believe the first known mention is commonly accepted as being from one of the Paston letters. In any case, quite late in the story of the English bowe, but not quite as late as 1515.
I suspect the first mention of the "warbow" was equally close to being "after the event".

Rod.

[alanesq]

I think Robert Hardy was the first to use the term warbow ?