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Post by batfink on Feb 7, 2015 21:45:11 GMT -5
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm going to go. I will be making my own arrows with goose fletchings and of course the bow. Let me know if you get anything decided, I'll meet you in France or England before hand
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Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2015 7:21:55 GMT -5
Perv, I saw that guy before, some crazy skills. Not sure how practical any of it would be, for a start I think he uses a 35lb toy bow. But still impressive none the less. He really should have upped the poundage from his last video to prove the point, I think it was posted a few years back, so its not like he hasn't had the time, in saying that his technique wouldn't be as strenous as a modern draw as he is barely holding the draw, he is basically spiking the bow. The historical side of it interests me more than him spliting arrows, very little is know especially about longbows, you basically have the Mary Rose find and a few quotes, interestingly though, in a lot of the period art, the right handed guys are shooting of the right of the bow and the left handed guys shoot of the left? And there is also this quote. "[My yeoman father] taught me how to draw, how to lay my body in my bow ... not to draw with strength of arms as divers other nations do ... I had my bows bought me according to my age and strength, as I increased in them, so my bows were made bigger and bigger. For men shall never shoot well unless they be brought up to it."  It does make me wonder if archery today has it wrong, particulary on the longbow, before the Mary Rose no one would ever imagine the bows would be of that poundage up to 185lbs draw weight. The English bowmen were arguablely the most famous war archers in history, looking at the Saracens manuals I do wonder if we have sold them short in simply clout shooting. A lot of modern tests seem to suggest that arrows were largely ineffective against armour, that simply could not be the case, otherwise the English would not have used them for as long as they did. |
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Post by kappa on Feb 8, 2015 14:09:04 GMT -5
For every dude w/ armor there was prolly 10 or 20 w/out? I'm pulling those numbers outta my ass but armor had to be reserved for upper class dudes..
I thought the longbows w/ proper arrow/arrowheads could penetrate armor rather easy?
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Post by ink on Feb 8, 2015 16:06:33 GMT -5
For every dude w/ armor there was prolly 10 or 20 w/out? I'm pulling those numbers outta my ass but armor had to be reserved for upper class dudes.. I thought the longbows w/ proper arrow/arrowheads could penetrate armor rather easy? they could the English longbow was anywhere from 110 lbs to 180 and could fly over 240 yards. imagine a couple hundred guys tossing those suckers out.....damn |
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Post by gman on Feb 8, 2015 21:45:12 GMT -5
It was, and it was almost entirely French nobles at Agincourt, they in fact banned the 6000 lower class without armor who volunteered to fight, as they weren't "chivalrous" enough, and too low class, so it's likely nearly all the troops on the French side had some sort of plate armor combined with mail.
The war bows from the Mary Rose are capable of descending indirect fire of up to 375 yards, some have been measured to over 400. I agree regarding direct fire penetration, 200 to 250 I think is a safe estimation of a reasonable combat effective range for volleys in 1415. I don't think historians have figured it all out yet. I do think that at Agincourt the majority of the troops on the field had armor, really good plate armor (and mail, but plate as well), as the histories have shown, the French ones, that the aristocracy in fact didn't allow the 6000 civilian peasants who signed up to fight to be armed, and wanted it to be a 'noble' fight only, so the lightly armored peasants weren't allowed to march. So, the chivalry of France was pretty much all there, and they would have had very good armor.
Yet all the tests have shown that plate from that exact year, the early 1400s, is easily defeating bodkin point arrows from 100lb war bows at ranges as close as 15 meters. Something has to be amiss, because all the troops on foot were cut to pieces by the English archers at Agincourt. I can understand the argument that the knights on horseback could have had their horses shot out from under them, (The French Marshall had at least 2 horses killed beneath him in the fight), fallen, and then been cut down by men at arms at close range while on their backs winded or stuck in the mud, but that doesn't explain the infantry, a force far greater than the cavalry, and the one that took the most of the slaughter.
Both sides of the histories show the infantry got caught in a narrow approach/space when they charged, that the English line of men at arms and pikemen started to give way, until the archers on both flanks pasted the French infantry, which was bottled up and stuck, being squashed from the men from behind pushing them into the English line. The archers are always credited as saving the day, and since the English line was outnumbered drastically and outclassed in terms of armor/arms as well, it HAD to be the archers that inflicted the damage on the French.
So, wtf happened then? The arrows either penetrate and kill, or they don't. Personally I think we probably have over credited the armor, and under credited the archers/arrows. IE the armor didn't work as well or have as good of steel as has been used in modern tests (not as thick as well), plus the arrows from the past were going faster, and had better penetrating capabilities. Either that or the histories are wrong, and not many of the troops actually HAD plate armor in 1415, as mail and leather (and clothing) are easily defeated by the English arrow, even with today's testing methods.
It's quite an interesting subject. Ink is right, we likely would never have believed that men could pull bows of 185 lbs back then, but they did, in droves. So, we're probably wrong about a lot of details of the weapons and armor at Agincourt. I think everyone will agree that the tiny English force gave the snooty chivalrous lords a pasting though.
No English bow or arrows have survived from 1415, so we have no way of knowing what kind of power they had, but like I said, plate armor recreated to be what we "think" it was in 1415 has stopped bodkin point arrows from 185lb bows at very close range, point plank for the period. Personally I think it was more likely that the armor was made thinner, so to be lighter and more flexible for the soldier on the ground swinging a sword or mace. That would make the most sense, as then arrows would have an easier time getting through, and explain the casualties they caused at Crecy, Agincourt,and other English victories.
Ink, I've seen what 70 can do, which is close to 100, and we were no doubt shooting far slower than English archers who had trained their entire lives could shoot. Imagine the 5000 archers at Crecy or the 3000 at Agincourt. They say they shot between 50 and 100 arrows each in their volleys of fire - imagine three hundred thousand arrows coming down, up to 10 thousand per minute.
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Post by batfink on Feb 9, 2015 6:59:16 GMT -5
Firstly yes the tests are not reliable and it is quite likely that the arrows could penetrate enough to wound even if not kill the knights. Then of course we must consider that once knocked over into the deep, wet mud, a lot of knights were stabbed through the eye with a dirk or had their heads caved in by a pole axe. Standing back up again would not have been easy. Mostly it was the cavalry at Agincourt that the archers destroyed. Felling a horse from 30yrds would have been easy. A lot of the cavalry would have been injured from the fall and/or unable to get their feet in time to avoid the infantry and archers sally with hand arms. Which agrees with your thoughts Gman. Beside that, it was easily possible that the archers were firing bows upwards of 170lbs, very easily possible. Here is an English archer, Joe Gibbs, drawing a 170lb warbow as if it is a toy.. www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-2KLuAH4GYI believe he also holds the record for drawing a warbow @ 200lbs |
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Post by gman on Feb 9, 2015 19:02:32 GMT -5
I think the cavalry was vulnerable right out to 200+, horses don't like poky things getting inside them, I've had horses since I was 5, and I think the chargers of that day were as skittish and vulnerable as the horses of our day.
A lot of the infantry could have just fallen after being squashed so badly, and been killed by the men at arms, as well as archers, all of which had war hammers/clubs, arming swords, or daggers, to fight with as well as their bows. It's an agreed on fact that the archers did engage with hand wielded arms at the end of the battle, so who knows how many infantry went down to arrows. All we know is it was some at least, as the arrow storms were given credit all throughout history as winning the battle, and the rest being a holding action or clean up.
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Post by Triton28 on Feb 10, 2015 14:24:36 GMT -5
If you want a cartoon example of the importance of archers in battle, fire up RomeII and try to kill an army with lots of archers while you have none/very little. I hope your dudes run really fucking fast.  |
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Post by ink on Feb 10, 2015 15:17:22 GMT -5
I think the cavalry was vulnerable right out to 200+, horses don't like poky things getting inside them, I've had horses since I was 5, and I think the chargers of that day were as skittish and vulnerable as the horses of our day. A lot of the infantry could have just fallen after being squashed so badly, and been killed by the men at arms, as well as archers, all of which had war hammers/clubs, arming swords, or daggers, to fight with as well as their bows. It's an agreed on fact that the archers did engage with hand wielded arms at the end of the battle, so who knows how many infantry went down to arrows. All we know is it was some at least, as the arrow storms were given credit all throughout history as winning the battle, and the rest being a holding action or clean up. I think it is fair to say.... more infantry went down to arrows, then hand to hand...(i'm talking in the hayday of the long bow) I think people realized it was much safer to kill from a distance.... same reason technology pushed the gun, I think (I am by no means the expert in all things warfare) but before the Gun became in absolute use, plate armor was all ready on its way out due to the long bow being so effective against it. Batfink I found some real sweet dimensions on the holmguard bow....I have a Elm stave that is cut down to basic shape, I am waiting for it to fully dry to finish it off.... really love the idea of making it out of the same wood the one found was.....gonna take my time and hopefully not screw this one up.....haha |
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Post by gman on Feb 10, 2015 22:43:36 GMT -5
Agree Ink, ranged weapons are always preferable in combat of any kind, if they're available and work. The Longbow certainly did.
Bat - That Joe Gibbs shoots that thing like a boss. It actually makes it very easy to visualize how the English archers in 1415 did it IMO. They were all about his stature in fact, not really tall huge guys for the most part, just very well built, strong (on the right side especially), fit men that were hard as a coffin nail. If he could pull and shoot a nearly 200lb war bow like he's shooting that 175lb one, I believe that the archers at Crecy and Agincourt could as well. They started when they were walking with smaller children's bows, and shot after church every week for at least several hours, of constant, constant arrow shooting. Then some weeks they would shoot even more if there was an archery tournament around nearby. Think of that, shooting that often, from such a young age, nearly every male of military age was a decent archer, and the chosen men taken on campaign, including the noble cavalry archers, would have been absolute experts for certain.
3 to 5 thousand world class experts raining down sharp pointy shit on your head for hours on end. Hah, it makes me laugh to think of the rich noble French. They had decreed that any English archer who surrendered or was captures would have fingers chopped off his hand, so he couldn't draw a bow ever again. Every other English soldier was to be executed, the French unfurled their "no quarter" flag at both battles. Then the French, even today, still wank about the English executing the thousands of prisoners at Agincourt. Well, fuck you, you asked for that shit by rolling out the black flag. At the start of the battle, the English archers waved their fingers at the French cavalry, a 1415 version of the finger - fuck you! - which pissed off the French commander who charged without orders, disrupting and screwing up the French battle plan. After eating a few hundred thousand arrows in that charge, things just got worse and fell apart for French forces.
Also, I have Rome 2, haven't had a chance to play it much, it's on the list of the 12 or so games I have installed in the last year but have barely or even not even tried playing as yet. Medieval 2, from the same series, does a good job with the archers as well.
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Post by batfink on Feb 11, 2015 1:57:43 GMT -5
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnYHorXQRGEhere is another video I made about 3 years ago or so, 85lbs hazel longbow vs steel drum. Yeah, it's not Milanese plate but it's also only half the power of what we are assuming they used. holmgaurd bow will be beautiful Ink
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Post by flench on Feb 13, 2015 18:14:00 GMT -5
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