People have probably seen this video on facebook by noe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEG-ly9tQGk&x-yt-ts=1421914688&x-yt-cl=84503534
Jim
actually Jim, no I hadnt so thanks for the link! Utterly brilliant video of what's possible for an archer and puts my own pathetic 'skills' with the bow to shame :(
I could send down about 10 arrows in a minute with reasonable accuracy at 20 paces...um...thats about it :-[
Quote from: Holly on January 24, 2015, 11:44:40 AM
I could send down about 10 arrows in a minute with reasonable accuracy at 20 paces...um...thats about it :-[
Well, he operates at the same sort of range as you :) Perhaps it was his tendency to dress in black but he most reminded me of the sort of tricks ninjas are alleged to have got up to.
Leaving aside the trick shooting, does the video raise any interesting questions about military archery?
I think it might explain why chariots were so feared. If the archers mounted in them had that rate of fire, and given the number of arrows that a chariot could carry (and swing back for a reload) I think those who've compared them to the helicopter gunships of their day could be right 8)
Jim
Yes, I would say the rate of fire and the accuracy achieved by this chap if replicated by several hundred if not thousand archers would put the fear of the gods into all. Just think if this chap can do all this in the modern era what could be achieved with archers who basically practised all their life especially the nomads
It is probably more relevant re: horse archers and as has been pointed out, chariots. Disciplined shooting by large bodies of archers on foot would be a different matter. It certainly pushes the topic of logistics into focus. The image of the arrows tumbling out of the quiver on his back is golden. ;D
Quote from: Holly on January 24, 2015, 01:29:21 PM
Just think if this chap can do all this in the modern era what could be achieved with archers who basically practised all their life especially the nomads
If it were just about doing it all your life, bus drivers would give Lewis hamilton a run for his money. I tend to go for the theory that most people who do things for a living, be they drivers, lawyers or soldiers, are proficient. Only a few go on to be exceptional. So we need to separate this man's exceptional stunts from what he is saying about basic technique. For example, the arrows in the hand, which I thought was just convenience, he feels is the secret to rapid short range shooting. We do see the arrow in the hand technique used through history, but do we have evidence eg from archery manuals to say it was used to give this rapid fire effect? He also believes that short range rapid fire, rather than longer ranged deliberate shooting was the norm. Can this be supported from archery manuals? I've certainly seen opinions to the contrary - that horse archers didn't get in too close until they'd weakened their enemies then they attacked with melee weapons.
Quote from: barry carter on January 24, 2015, 02:13:57 PM
The image of the arrows tumbling out of the quiver on his back is golden. ;D
Except that back quivers were used by some cultures, like Native Americans, who weren't exactly rubbish at hunting or fighting with the bow, so there may be more to it.
Odd his arrows were all "fired" rather than shot, yet didn't end up as piles of ash...
It shows what could be possible certainly, using a small bow at least, in some cases based on historical texts, though not using historical bows (i.e. modern bows may be more resilient than ancient types to such vigorous handling). Being able to shoot a dozen arrows in six seconds isn't much use if your bow or string repeatedly snaps after the third or fourth shot.
Plus nobody was trying to kill him, which has a tendency to reduce both speed and accuracy, judging by casualty rates in more modern wars (I've seen statistics quoted of one hit per 800 musket shots fired for the Napoleonic wars and 1 in 400 estimated for the American Civil War, for instance).
Quote from: Erpingham on January 24, 2015, 02:20:15 PM
Quote from: Holly on January 24, 2015, 01:29:21 PM
Just think if this chap can do all this in the modern era what could be achieved with archers who basically practised all their life especially the nomads
If it were just about doing it all your life, bus drivers would give Lewis hamilton a run for his money.
welllllll.....bus drivers drive buses and normally dont throw them through chicanes at 100mph ;)
but I get your point :)
That was a jaw-dropper for me. Having done archery when young I can confirm this guy is at a level beyond master bowman. I suspect his techniques would have been more relevant to mounted rather than foot archers. The latter were targeting a pretty static opponent and didn't need fancy footwork, but horsemen could expect to shoot their adversaries from all sorts of positions in a fluid situation, especially horse archers vs horse archers - that would have been something to see!
Notice his long-range shooting at 3:15. He's hitting targets at about 80 yards with speed shooting, loosing his third arrow before the first arrow hits the target. That is beyond impressive.
Re: back quivers, the material used and method of construction is no doubt important. A rigid, box style quiver that lacks spacers is presumably a recipe for accidents.
Quote from: barry carter on January 24, 2015, 05:10:45 PM
Re: back quivers, the material used and method of construction is no doubt important. A rigid, box style quiver that lacks spacers is presumably a recipe for accidents.
I agree. The Native American type seem to have been less rigid and have a flap to close. Less good for Errol Flynn style antics but more practical stalking through the woods.
Some thoughts for discussion.
Massed infantry archers such as Achaemenid Persian archers at Marathon and Plataea may have first used aimed, long-range shooting followed by increasingly rapid shooting rates that culminate in extremely rapid fire at near point-blank range as demonstrated in the video. I can't see the Persian archers abandoning the use of their bows simply because the Greeks are at the sparabara wall trying to force their way through. That would be the time for rapid point-blank shooting. From a wargaming point of view, I am now beginning to wonder if we are underestimating the melee power of massed archers.
Although it is outside my period of interest and knowledge, I'm beginning to think that wargame designers may have to reevaluate the effect of chariot archers, especially New Kingdom Egyptians and others. Those that compare chariots to helicopter gunships many closer to the realities of combat in that period than we think.
Quote from: Erpingham on January 24, 2015, 02:20:15 PM
He also believes that short range rapid fire, rather than longer ranged deliberate shooting was the norm. Can this be supported from archery manuals? I've certainly seen opinions to the contrary - that horse archers didn't get in too close until they'd weakened their enemies then they attacked with melee weapons.
Given that the closer one gets the more effective the opponent's shooting also becomes, I would suggest that there were optimum ranges for shooting exchanges, whether by skirmishers, formed troops or horse archers using what I would term 'blizzard shooting' (as per Mr Andersen's method). One also has to consider ammunition supply - a handful of arrows might last only a couple of seconds at close range, and after that the archer himself is just a helpless target unless he can grab some incoming shafts or has a quiver he can extract another handful from.
Also the closer one gets the more attention one has to devote to turning away unless the enemy has actually collapsed.
All of this points to Hunnic tactics as described by Roman sources being optimal: short angular dashes towards the target by small groups which then pull out to let other groups have a go.
Quote from: Chuck the Grey on January 24, 2015, 07:01:50 PM
Some thoughts for discussion.
Massed infantry archers such as Achaemenid Persian archers at Marathon and Plataea may have first used aimed, long-range shooting followed by increasingly rapid shooting rates that culminate in extremely rapid fire at near point-blank range as demonstrated in the video.
Achaemenids, like most Biblical-type armies, seem to have deployed their archers in depth, making them most effective when shooting indirectly
en masse. At point-blank they would be almost useless because only the first couple of ranks could shoot directly, and would be shooting into opponents' shields.
Quote
I can't see the Persian archers abandoning the use of their bows simply because the Greeks are at the sparabara wall trying to force their way through. That would be the time for rapid point-blank shooting.
As indicated above, assuming they actually had arrows left, this would be ineffective against decently-shielded opponents.
Quote
From a wargaming point of view, I am now beginning to wonder if we are underestimating the melee power of massed archers.
Although it is outside my period of interest and knowledge, I'm beginning to think that wargame designers may have to reevaluate the effect of chariot archers, especially New Kingdom Egyptians and others. Those that compare chariots to helicopter gunships many closer to the realities of combat in that period than we think.
Inclined to agree: Amenhotep II's 'speed shooting' of heavy arrows through a number of copper shields tends to be considered a one-off by historians, but although Amenhotep II was physically very strong compared to the norm, nothing would prevent a trained chariot archer from shooting with rapidity and effect each time he went into the attack.
Thanks to Lars Andersen for devoting years to learning the art of shooting and to Jim for posting the video link. Philoctetes eat your heart out. :)
Here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yorHswhzrU&&t=0m31s) is another video showing a Hungarian archer recreating his version of hunnic mounted shooting. Also impressive if not quite as impressive as Lars' performance. How accurate could a mounted archer be when shooting from a moving horse?
Interesting Justin. I'd heard about the Hungarian mounted archery revival so interesting to see.
I spotted this short clip linked through Youtube, which gives a good slo-mo view of his technique
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOpOqgotJZc
The "fistful of arrows" technique once again.
To me it emphasises how carefully planned mounted archery assaults must be. If the archers stand or advance in a long line they can shoot overhead, but the accuracy of such shots will be doubtful, though they would have an effect over sustained shooting. To get close is coing to mean the hippotoxatoi operating in a line and moving across the front of the target rapidly. This will make them a hard target to hit, but it will need pkanning and keeping the attacked frontage free fromothers. If the archers do some form of Cantabrian circle then shooting will be concemtrated, but quite a wide frontage of the opponent would be obscured. In a circle the rapidity of shooting is minimised, however, each man is going to get off maybe two shots when at the point if the circle and then ride quite a distance round it before getting the next shot in. Pkuss with a circular form it is essential that the riders maintain the same pace as otherwise the circle disintegrates. Riding across the front of the enemy a l'Hongroise, has a lot less implications for group drill and practiice. Looking at the Hungarian Kassai style .t delivers a lot of shots, quite rapidly, across an opponent's front and these are close enough and rythmic enough to be aimed.
So, as always, It looks most likely and most practical for the horse archers to be released to manoeuvre and shoot one or perhaps two units at a time, with the rest of the army supporting and being fed in after other units have shot.
Roy
Notice that Kassai needs several movements to shoot one arrow since he holds his arrow on the left side of the bow. Give him Lars' technique and he would shoot twice as fast.
I remember someone writing at some point that horse archers rode along the front of the enemy unit as they fired.
The fist full of arrows technique would work well for this. After this firing run they'd obviously pull back and let another unit fire while they let their horses rest and got another fist full of arrows ready
Jim
As we've had chariots as gunships, how about horse-archers as fighter bombers - they make an angled attack, shooting as they come, flatten out across the frontage still shooting and pull sharply away, shooting as they go? Big question though is how does Roy's small group make this attack without getting in one another's way? Do they form in "line astern" and just follow one another?
And turbaned British horse archers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ6wmLfm3aQ&t=1m19s) doing it at full gallop. Notice that a galloping horse is a very stable shooting platform. The horse's body doesn't go up and down as when it moves at a canter or trot.
Quote from: Erpingham on January 25, 2015, 11:06:10 AM
As we've had chariots as gunships, how about horse-archers as fighter bombers - they make an angled attack, shooting as they come, flatten out across the frontage still shooting and pull sharply away, shooting as they go? Big question though is how does Roy's small group make this attack without getting in one another's way? Do they form in "line astern" and just follow one another?
If they are making an angled attack, line abreast is another possibility - say five to ten men/horses wide, one deep - and because they are coming in at an angle, everyone can shoot left ahead (or right ahead), and once the handful of arrows has been shot the entire group can make a 90-degree or so exit turn, leaving the target open for the next group.
Flattening out while shooting makes the process less efficient in terms of overall arrow delivery on a given frontage: better would seem to be successive 'dive bomber' in-and-out attacks, the sharper the angle (consistent with the ability to shoot) the better. Groups on the way out might have to watch out for other groups coming in, but could vary their pace and/or formation to avoid them while the inbounds kept a steady speed.
The problem for me with "dive bombing" is that the horseman needs a smooth arc. In too steep and you need to rein in the horse at the nearest point to the enemy and turn, which makes you more vulnerable to return shooting. Ideally you want to maintain speed so that you are passing that near point going like a bat out of hell to make a harder target. How important concentration of shooting would be, and how concentrated concentrated needed to be, are other debating points.
Another interesting question is how you portray this on a wargames table. At a higher scale, the unit of interest becomes Roy's big group sitting in reserve and we don't need to portray it at all, just state it as an action (unit A is skirmishing with unit Z). But how to do it if we want something a little more detailed?
The ssystem for which we have good qbuoted authority is that the main jass of the horse archers sits back beyond bow range and a unit is detatched which then rides across the front of the enemy , shooting as it goes.
Shooting when advancing at an angle or straight ahead has the huge disadvantage that the range is constantly changing and that at the end of the run the unit must turn about. Far easier to ride across the front at constant range. If the enemy advances the horse archers just do a half turn and ride away shooting to the rear. They ride back towards the main battle line. pass through it. and the main line then shoots down the advancing enemy with massed overhead fire.
The keypoint made in the Lats video us that effective shooting is short range!
Roy
Quote from: Justin Swanton on January 25, 2015, 11:15:38 AM
And turbaned British horse archers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ6wmLfm3aQ&t=1m19s) doing it at full gallop. Notice that a galloping horse is a very stable shooting platform. The horse's body doesn't go up and down as when it moves at a canter or trot.
be interesting if the guys at the end started carrying arrows in their hand rather than the quiver.
Jim
Kassais findings were that you had to gallo as the point where all was stable enough to shoot was when the horse had all feet off the ground, so you had to shhot to a rythm as the horse progressed.
Roy
Quote from: Holly on January 24, 2015, 03:11:00 PM
welllllll.....bus drivers drive buses and normally dont throw them through chicanes at 100mph ;)
Maybe not on 2:15 from Newport, but plenty of them do around here... :o
Quote from: NickHarbud on January 25, 2015, 03:19:25 PM
Quote from: Holly on January 24, 2015, 03:11:00 PM
welllllll.....bus drivers drive buses and normally dont throw them through chicanes at 100mph ;)
Maybe not on 2:15 from Newport, but plenty of them do around here... :o
I remember on in Spain whose foot on the accelerator peddle seemed to be wired in to the music on the radio. The faster the beat, the faster he drove!
On a more serious note....
Yes, what a wonderful video of a most accomplished archer.
- I wonder what draw weight bow he used? I mean, do we think he could do the same tricks with a 140lb longbow?
- The conclusion that archery would have been at short range (20-80 yards depending upon one's prejudice) is not novel. Mike Loades comes to much the same conclusion in 'Longbow'. Of course it has a fairly radical implication for wargames rules that generally restrict all those not charging to a closest approach somewhere around 40-80 paces. What this means is that wargames should not have distant archery fire as we know it.
- The ease with which he penetrates mail comes as no surprise. There have been many trials demonstrating much the same thing. Indeed, one could consider a mail-clad target as unprotected from a wargames perspective. However, a good quality gambeson would much improve protection. Loades performed trials using mail over a 25-layer linen gambeson. See also Mark Stretton's trials on different armours in 'The Secrets of the English Longbow'.
- The business of loose arrows leaving the quiver was historically solved by using a leather spacer that also protected the flights.
- One also assumes he uses matched sets of modern arrows. As any darts player can tell you, this is the key to accuracy and repeatability. By contrast, one suspects most ancient archers might be firing a job lot of livery arrows from a second rate weapon.
- Finally, one needs to separate the normal from the noteworthy. Whilst this guy is obviously a superb marksman, he will probably be outnumbered by his more mediocre colleagues who have difficulty hitting the proverbial barn door.
It is important to note, as Nick does, that not all archery traditions are the same. If you read Saxton Pope on Indian (as in Amerian) archery, he notes the skills of Ishi the archer are at short range snap shooting - he wasn't as good a target shot as Pope himself. Samurai archery technique, which was practiced mounted and on foot, was much more deliberate than the Hungarian type we've been discussing. European longbow shooting was different again.
As to the range of archery, Nick and I disagree on the normal engagement range for longbows. However, I do think the general principle that a lot of archery occured closer in than we tend to think is probably true. Read archery books and there is a lot of emphasis on how far a bow can shoot (it is quite testable) and this may obscure what normal battlefield effective ranges were.
Quote from: Erpingham on January 25, 2015, 06:21:15 PMHowever, I do think the general principle that a lot of archery occured closer in than we tend to think is probably true. Read archery books and there is a lot of emphasis on how far a bow can shoot (it is quite testable) and this may obscure what normal battlefield effective ranges were.
QuoteEach side had about five or six hundred men, and they set up their shields in lines about a hundred and twenty yards apart ... both sides began shooting arrows at the arranged signal ... After that each side moved their shields closer, but just as they were about to shoot at each other at close range, word was passed from Yoshifumi's side to that of Mitsuru, 'There is no fun in today's battle if each of us makes his war-band engage with arrows. You and I alone should try to test each other's skill...'.
from
Konjaku Monogatari XXV.III; two 10th-century Japanese infantry forces exchanging shots from behind shield-walls. The initial range is about 120 yards; then the intention was clearly to move to closer range, although in this case it didn't happen.
Bad news for those who slam the DB systems for not allowing long enough range archery, I think.
Quote from: Erpingham on January 25, 2015, 06:21:15 PM
As to the range of archery, Nick and I disagree on the normal engagement range for longbows. However, I do think the general principle that a lot of archery occurred closer in than we tend to think is probably true. Read archery books and there is a lot of emphasis on how far a bow can shoot (it is quite testable) and this may obscure what normal battlefield effective ranges were.
This may also depend upon the type of formation shooting. Shallow formations and skirmishers will tend to get in close because it is harder to secure hits at a distance. Deeper formations will be happier with longer-ranged shooting because they can 'beat' an area and whatever the enemy in that area does, he gets hit by some arrows.
The kind of rapid shooting Lars practises is optimised for shorter ranges. That said, I recall that at the Yarmuk 700 Arabs are said to have lost an eye to Armenian archery, which suggests one of two things: Armenian bows being accurate but weak at short ranges, or the shooting being almost at the limit of range but the Arabs having an incurable habit of looking up.
I would not be too worried about Lars' ability to put arrow points into wooden dummies wearing mail. As Nick points out, a good gambeson would do much to enhance protection. One recalls accounts of the Crusades in which mailed Europeans marched on with numerous arrows sticking out of them. The points caught in the mail without penetrating the gambeson.
Incidently, the fistful of arrows (a good title for a film if ever I heard one!) comes up in reference time and time again especially amongst native American Indian archery histories
That is true: in Stephen Ambrose's Crazy Horse and Custer the author recounts various tales and incidents of Sioux being able to discharge six arrows with such rapidity that the last was in the air before the first had hit the ground. However he also notes that Crazy Horse used a Winchester by preference and got off his horse to shoot because "he wanted to make sure he hit what he aimed at".
The 'fistful of arrows' also occurs at Orchomenus (86 BC) when Roman legionaries close with Pontic archers who use 'handfuls of arrows' to strike back - suggesting the Romans managed to close just as the Pontic types were getting ready to shoot another 'clip'.
"... and their archers, being hard pressed by the Romans, so that they had no room to draw their bows, took their arrows by handfuls, struck with them as with swords, at close quarters, and tried to beat back their foes ..." - Plutarch, Life of Sulla 21.3
Excellent ppoint there Patrick.mI had seen this incident as indicating that the archers did not have decent swords, but it makes sense if the archers are caught 'loading' and that Plutarch has just misinterpreted their actions.
Roy
I've split the remainder of the thread into a new topic 'The Hoplite Phalanx (http://soa.org.uk/sm/index.php?topic=1604.0)'. All OK with it?
Quote from: Rob Miles on January 28, 2015, 04:02:47 PM
Quote from: Erpingham on January 28, 2015, 02:15:08 PM
Don't want to be a party pooper but wouldn't it be better to shift what looks like a good old controversy about hoplite warfare into an appropriate thread and keep this one for archery? Could Patrick or someone with the appropriate admin permissions do so?
My humble apologies. My first 48 hours on these forums coincided with me running out of an important medication that stops my heart racing and... well, you can see the result. I'll shut up.
The rest of us can do this even when we're on our medication, don't worry about it ;)
Jim
Quote from: Rob Miles on January 28, 2015, 04:02:47 PM
My humble apologies. My first 48 hours on these forums coincided with me running out of an important medication that stops my heart racing and... well, you can see the result. I'll shut up.
No, don't shut up - I want to read what you are saying. In particular, I know we have some quite interestingly different views on hoplites and take different positions on underarm/overarm, othismos, normal number of ranks, how Spartans placed their age categories within a phalanx, whether the linothorax is a genuine piece of Greek equipment or a modern invention and many more.
Issue as always is how long to let us wander down interesting side roads and when to decisively split into two different threads. My nerve usually goes first :)
Quote from: Justin Swanton on January 28, 2015, 04:19:43 PM
I've split the remainder of the thread into a new topic 'The Hoplite Phalanx (http://soa.org.uk/sm/index.php?topic=1604.0)'. All OK with it?
Nicely done, Justin - and in the process saving the nerve of one of our more distinguished members. ;)
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on January 29, 2015, 12:51:33 PM
Quote from: Justin Swanton on January 28, 2015, 04:19:43 PM
I've split the remainder of the thread into a new topic 'The Hoplite Phalanx (http://soa.org.uk/sm/index.php?topic=1604.0)'. All OK with it?
Nicely done, Justin - and in the process saving the nerve of one of our more distinguished members. ;)
its when they start saying venerable rather than distinguished you want to worry! :)
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on January 26, 2015, 02:05:54 PM
That is true: in Stephen Ambrose's Crazy Horse and Custer the author recounts various tales and incidents of Sioux being able to discharge six arrows with such rapidity that the last was in the air before the first had hit the ground. However he also notes that Crazy Horse used a Winchester by preference and got off his horse to shoot because "he wanted to make sure he hit what he aimed at".
Patrick, out of curiosity do you remember on what page(s) in
Crazy Horse and Custer details about Sioux shooting with such rapidity appears.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on January 26, 2015, 02:05:54 PM
The 'fistful of arrows' also occurs at Orchomenus (86 BC) when Roman legionaries close with Pontic archers who use 'handfuls of arrows' to strike back - suggesting the Romans managed to close just as the Pontic types were getting ready to shoot another 'clip'.
"... and their archers, being hard pressed by the Romans, so that they had no room to draw their bows, took their arrows by handfuls, struck with them as with swords, at close quarters, and tried to beat back their foes ..." - Plutarch, Life of Sulla 21.3
The reference from Plutarch is interesting. I don't remember reading that. I especially found the description about the archers being so close pressed that they were unable to draw their bows.
Quote from: Holly on January 29, 2015, 06:36:18 PM
its when they start saying venerable rather than distinguished you want to worry! :)
If it's good enough for Bede, it's good enough for me :)
Quote from: Chuck the Grey on January 30, 2015, 02:36:45 AM
Patrick, out of curiosity do you remember on what page(s) in Crazy Horse and Custer details about Sioux shooting with such rapidity appears.
Chuck, it is on page 39 (first complete para) and reads as follows:
"
Most Indians became amazingly proficient; Colonel Richard Dodge stated that a Plains Indian could 'grasp five to ten arrows in his left hand, and discharge them so rapidly that the last will be on its flight before the first has touched the ground , and with such force that each would mortally wound a man ...' "
According to his endnote, he gets this from Hassrick, Royal B.,
The Sioux: Life and Customs of a Warrior Society, Norman, Oklahoma 1964.
I misremembered it slightly: it is five to ten arrows, not specifically six.
Thanks Patrick, I'll pull my copy of the book from the bookshelf and take a good look at the description.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on January 30, 2015, 07:54:46 PM
I misremembered it slightly: it is five to ten arrows, not specifically six.
I seem to have the same problem with my memory (reference my posting on the hoplite phalanx thread and Marathon). ;)
Our discussions of New World archery set me off searching for material and I've been looking at some sixteenth century accounts. In particular, references about the effectiveness of armour. It is often quoted that the Spanish rejected mail in favour of fabric armour, so I thought I'd offer these quotes for consideration - both are from the Florida capaign of 1539-40, both eyewitness accounts.
Thus, by a continual exercise, they [The Florida natives] shoot with surprising skill. But since it has become proper to speak of the extraordinary shots of the Indians, I shall relate an instance of them. Moscoso, in one of the first skirmishes with the Apalaches, received, in his right side, the shot of an arrow, which pierced his buff and his coat of mail without killing him, because the shot went aslant. The Spanish officers, astonished that a coat of mail of the value of a hundred and fifty ducats should be pierced by a single shot, wished to prove theirs, in order to know if they could depend upon them. As they were then in the town of Apalache, those who wore coats of mail took a cane basket, strongly woven, and adjusted around it one of the finest coats of mail. They then unbound one of the Indian prisoners, gave him a bow and arrow, and commanded him to fire, at the distance of one hundred and fifty paces, upon this coat of mail. At the same time, the barbarian, having closed his fist, stretched himself, extended and bent his arm to awaken his strength, shot through the coat of mail and basket with so much force that the shot would still easily have pierced a man. Our people, who saw that a coat of mail could not resist an arrow, adjusted two of them to the basket. They gave an arrow to an Indian whom they ordered to shoot, and he pierced both of them. Nevertheless, the arrow remained fixed, as much oil one side as on the other, because it had not been fired with sufficient skill. The barbarian requested that he might be permitted to shoot another, upon condition that if he should not pierce the two coats of mail with as much force as the first, he would forfeit his life. The Spaniards would not grant his request, and afterward they held their coats of mail of no account, which they, in mockery, called Holland cloth. Therefore they made, of thick cloth, doublets four inches thick, which covered the chest and the croup of the horses, and resisted an arrow better than anything else.
Garcilasco de la Vega Florida of the Inca
Those people are so warlike and so quick that they make no account of foot soldiers; for if these go for them, they flee, and when their adversaries turn their backs they are immediately on them. The farthest they flee is the distance of an arrow shot. They are never quiet but always running and crossing from one side to another so that the crossbows or the arquebuses can not be aimed at them; and before a crossbowman can fire a shot, an Indian can shoot three or four arrows, and very seldom does he miss what he shoots at. If the arrow does not find armor, it penetrates as deeply as a crossbow. The bows are very long and the arrows are made of certain reeds like canes, very heavy and so tough that a sharpened cane passes through a shield. Some are pointed with a fish bone, as sharp as an awl, and others with a certain stone like a diamond point. Generally when these strike against armor, they break off at the place where they are fastened on. Those of cane split and enter through the links of mail and are more hurtful.
Gentleman of Elvas A Narrative of the expedition of Hernando de Soto into Florida
A couple of interesting points there (well, more than a couple, but yours truly will select two).
1) The permeability of chain mail to Floridan arrows. This chain mail was presumably of the same variety which had done sterling service over many generations resisting javelins and crossbow bolts alike in Granada and Italy, being shot at by everyone from Moors to Genoese, with nobody experiencing this kind of penetration as standard.
2) The cane arrows: "very heavy and so tough that a sharpened cane passes through a shield ... Those of cane split and enter through the links of mail ...". We tend to despise the Achaemenid levies' reed arrows: perhaps we should not be quite so hasty to do so. It is noticeable that ring mail never seems to have featured in the archery-rich ancient Near East.
This casualty breakdown from the storming of Mavilla from the Gentleman of Elvas might be of interest in judging the actual effectiveness of archery
Of the Christians there died eighteen; of which one was Don Carlos, brother-in-law to the Governor, and a nephew of his, and one John de Gamez, and Men Rodriguez, Portuguese, and John Vasquez de Villanova de Barca Rota, all men of honor, and of much valor; the rest were footmen. Besides those that were slain, there were a hundred and fifty wounded, with seven hundred wounds of their arrows: and it pleased God that of very dangerous wounds they were quickly healed. Moreover there were twelve horses slain, and seventy hurt.
It would appear that, despite comments the ineffectiveness of armour, it did enough to restrict most arrow hits to wounds and the wounds were quite light as they quickly healed. Note the count of wounds v. number of wounded - most men must have received multiple arrow wounds. See also the horse casualties.
Regarding all these wounds during the storming...
...were they all caused by arrows or did it also include hand-to-hand fighting?
Incidentally, I am not surprised that the Spaniards were surprised at how easily arrows could penetrate mail, given that all the civilized' types in Europe had long since switched to gunpowder - the effect of arrows had been forgotten!
Quote from: NickHarbud on February 01, 2015, 03:26:17 PM
Regarding all these wounds during the storming...
...were they all caused by arrows or did it also include hand-to-hand fighting?
There was certainly close combat - it is hard to see how much was hand-to-hand. The Indians main weapon seems to have been the bow, Garcilaso de la Vega saying
The Indians make use of all sorts of arms except the crossbow and the musket. They believe that the bow and arrow give them a particular grace, and for that reason they always carry them to the chase and to the war.Of the dead, at least five died in the prelude to the battle when de Soto was cut off in the town and two more in a rescue action to save a priest and companions who had become trapped in this incident - these could have been hand-to-hand casualties and doubtless some of the wounded also were injured in the close fighting. The Indians did have the habit of shooting the horses if they could (hence one of the other quotes talking about developing cloth horse armour).
Someone on another Forum just alerted me to this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr_1z3GwxQk), a critique of the fast shooting techniques demonstrated in several videos, including the Lars Anderson one, which is worth seeing. It is a bit rambling, but is usefully from a more military usage perspective.
It's also worth looking over the 517 (!) comments the video's had (when I checked it anyway), as some of the discussion makes further interesting points about ancient and medieval bow shooting, not all of which have surfaced in our discussion here so far.
I found some of his other videos also quite interesting. For example the one on the relative strength needed to use war bows, single-handed sword and two-handed long sword. Essentially he reckons the latter was the best weapon for the weedier and less practiced members of one's army. The other two require quite a lot of effort/training to build up the necessary musculature.
Lars is a most impressive archer with much to teach us all.
As I noted in a previous discussion, we bow-hunt deer and elk in Oregon with great success most every year. The minimum legal draw weight for a recurve, long bow, or compound bow is 40 pounds for deer and 50 pounds for elk (it is illegal to hunt with a crossbow). I hunt with a 55 pound compound bow (30" draw, about 280 feet per second) (my son uses a draw weight of 70 pounds yielding about 310 fps) and we will almost never take a hunting shot outside 50 yards although we both can routinely hit an elk sized target at 200 yards and a 12" target easily at 100 yards. The closest I ever came to anything like a combat shot was against a mountain lion that was stalking me once during deer season and I missed a 70 yard shot that was very much "from the hip" to use a rifle analogy.
I have taken infinite grief over the years because I shoot right handed with the arrow nocked to the right of the grip which means that I use a "left handed" bow (with the shelf on the right side). I have no idea why I learnt to shoot this way, perhaps because my father was left handed. So now I can show Lars' video to my nagging hunting buddies with a "I tolt ya' so."
Having said all that, I (like Crazy Horse) prefer hunting with a rifle (although my weapon of choice is a 7mm Remington magnum for deer and sometimes a 338 Weatherby magnum for larger game) and I'll usually only go bow hunting if I do not draw my rifle hunt area of preference. I ALWAYS hunt dangerous game (cougar and bear) with a rifle although some crazies around here use a bow.
Thanks for bringing this to the Society's attention!
Another, much stronger and point-by-point critique of the Lars Anderson video is here (http://www.skeptic.com/insight/pulling-a-fast-one-video-critique-of-a-viral-speed-archery-video/), picking up on some of the unsourced or dubiously-sourced comments and claims he'd made, as well as other matters. The video's just over 15 minutes long but is worth persevering with. There are also items used in this new video to show a) there are numerous other trick/speed shooters out there who are at least as good as Anderson, and b) some of his claims need very specific circumstances to replicate, so aren't nearly the "historical re-discoveries" he was claiming.
And an (apparently) informed commentary on Anna Maltese's 'rebuttal' can be found here (http://robertcourtland.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/a-taste-of-real-archery-debate-of-sorts.html).
Yes, it's all becoming a bit circular, projecting what an individual modern archer can, or thinks they can, do now, onto historical circumstances, where, as so often, we simply haven't the information surviving to make an informed judgement. All very familiar territory for SoA members, I suspect (and judging by many of the debates on this Forum elsewhere)!
I suppose that at least Lars has shown what might have been possible and thus opened up a few more avenues for the interested to explore. His basic thrust seems to have been that what he saw in ancient depictions seems to have had some usable basis in fact; we can ponder whether what they actually did was what he does, but he has done us a service by bringing these matters to light.
At the end of the day we all make up our own minds anyway. :)
On the broad subject of archery and ancient warfare and wargames, Nick Harbud's
Behind the Curve - Archery in Wargames in Slingshot 298 offers some nice insights into how we look at ancient archery. One particular element that fits well with this thread is Nick draws a contrast between the views of the traditionalists, who primarily base their view of archery tactics on what they read in the sources, and the Reconstructors, who base their views on modern experimentation. Now, Nick is creating neater lines than those which actually exist for the sake of argument - probably the leading longbow traditionalist is Robert Hardy, who has always incorporated experimental data into his arguments. However, we do have two major camps, who put more emphasis on one or other of these things, using other evidence to reinforce their primary arguments.
Unlike some of the earlier elements of this thread, Nick doesn't focus on trick shots or re-enactor stuff but focusses around particular work done experimentally, both 19th century musketry tests and modern experimental work on on longbows. In doing so, he critiques how game rules cover archery (possibly a game mechanisms thread) but he also opens up some interesting arguments about how did longbowmen operate and how effective were they. In particular he challenges the accepted wisdom of the traditionalists that longbowmen "bombarded" a "killingzone" (which he refers to as the Arrowstorm theory) and raises instead the idea that longbowmen engaged mainly in flat trajectory shooting at much shorter ranges. In doing so, many of the arguments that usually float around longbows, like how far could they shoot and how quickly, fade into the background and we get to the question about were longbow victories more like later volley musket actions which were about shooting devastatingly at short range.
Nick says a great deal more in his article but I think to begin whether I'll leave two (and a half) queries in the air
- In an area like archery, where we can experiment effectively with reconstructed weapons and carry out scientific effectiveness tests, how should the sources and the evidence of experiment relate?
Have we got longbows completely wrong and what are the implications for our reconstruction of longbow battles, historically and in wargaming?
Quote from: Erpingham on March 14, 2015, 11:27:55 AM
Nick says a great deal more in his article but I think to begin whether I'll leave two (and a half) queries in the air
- In an area like archery, where we can experiment effectively with reconstructed weapons and carry out scientific effectiveness tests, how should the sources and the evidence of experiment relate?
- Have we got longbows completely wrong and what are the implications for our reconstruction of longbow battles, historically and in wargaming?
I think part of Nick's ably presented and argued analysis is let down by some questionable data.
Data item 1: accuracy based on shooting at a canvas sheet. This can measure flattish-trajectory arrivals in the target area, but is of no great help for the assessment of indirect shooting except against targets no more than about 1/4" deep. Given that the average classical (and perhaps mediaeval?) formation would be at least eight men deep, or 24', maybe we should drop this particular data item until someone thinks to try massed archery on a three-dimensional canvas target, say, 5' high, 300' wide and 24' deep or a collection of a few hundred old shop dummies lined up in similar configuration.
Data item 2: first volley at Blenheim, etc. There are problems with these: at Blenheim in Cutts' first assault each of the 800 casualties may have been hit by multiple balls, so although useful as a musket-induced casualty count it may be a poor guide to accuracy. At Rorke's Drift much ammunition was expended keeping down Zulu riflemen on a distant bluff, while the close-range volleys against Zulu assaults would have provided a rather higher casualty-to-rounds-expended ratio than the overall average. (Not sure how good a guide the film Zulu is, but when the Zulus are 'counting guns' it seems that it took about 600 rounds to put down 60 Zulus at a couple of hundred yards' range.) Mr Hughes' book
Firepower seems to have a penchant for over-averaging and not taking account of such details.
Data item 3: shields cannot stop missiles. Probably true if those missiles are longbow arrows at close range. Otherwise not a good rule of thumb given the clear source indications that a lot of other (non-longbow) missiles were stopped by shields. One reservation I do have about parts of the article is the implicit assumption that longbow-related data can be broad-brushed across the entire spectrum of history - would the same conclusions be applicable to, say, Norman shortbow archery and the Anglo-Saxon shield wall at Hastings?
Data item 4: archers at 8' per man frontage.
What??? An archer occupies 2' of frontage - all well and good. He needs another 1-2 yards per side to work his weapon.
Why? What is there about nock, draw, loose, grab another arrow that requires 6' of clearance on either side? It is not as if he is ejecting a shower of hot used cartridge cases or emitting a backblast (or sideblast).
That said, it would be advantageous to concentrate on evaluating the longbow and its effectiveness and use. For this purpose we unfortunately lack a key ingredient - a thousand or so re-enactors trained in the mass-shooting tactics of the period, at least as we understand them to be. Without this we are only going to be experimentally evaluating one side of the argument.
I wondered at the shield issue.
Was one of the issues the fact that shields had shrunk, disappeared or had been replaced by larger, heavier shields.
I'm not sure that Longbowmen ever faced enemy infantry where everyone had a shield as large and substantial as a hoplon or scutum.
The use of pavises may have come in not because shields were useless, but because large shields were no longer carried as a matter of course.
I too was a little surprised at the frontage per man needed to fire a longbow. 6' on either side seems more than a little excessive
Jim
On shields etc. I wouldn't necessarily agree with Nick that the pavise was effective against longbows because it was heavier. I think it was substantial but not necessarily heavier made. It's big strength, to me, was its size. Also on shields, the fact that "ordinary" shields were shot through at short range shouldn't be massively surprising. Read the discussion above on Native American archery - their bows were recorded as shooting through shields too. To see this as a major issue may be assuming that they were supposed to be effective at short range and were failing, as opposed to they were adequate at stopping arrows at what were normal engagement ranges.
On the frontage needed for longbows, other views I've seen suggest you need a minimum frontage of six feet to use one. The close-order archer longbowman is probably a wargames myth.
How in heavens name does one need six feet to use a longbow. Look at the arrow slits in casles, look at the density of longbows in illustrations. Three feet maximum.
Roy
Quote from: aligern on March 14, 2015, 04:35:13 PM
How in heavens name does one need six feet to use a longbow. Look at the arrow slits in casles, look at the density of longbows in illustrations. Three feet maximum.
Roy
It is, I believe, a question of how one knocks an arrow and draws the bow. The bow is held on the left side at an angle (45 degrees?). The bow is 6ft long. That makes the archer at least four feet wide. Shooting from arrowslits was done stood back from them - most arrowslits I've seen are fairly wide inside. However, I recommend asking the archers among us exactly how this all works.
You don't need to hold a bowstaff parallel to the ground to shoot. Keeping it vertical or near vertical at all times is fine. The only conceivable reason one might have for holding the bow in a horizontal position is to nock an arrow, and this part (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEG-ly9tQGk&t=3m15s) of the Lars Andersen video shows you don't need to change the angle of the bow for that.
BTW it is this section of his video that impresses me the most: he is shooting arrows at targets about 100 yards away and knocking them down with the force of his arrows. That means speed shooting with power.
I am 6' tall (exactly). Using a 6' bow to draw for a level shot means the lower end of the bow is 1' off the ground before, and slightly higher during, the draw. It does not need to be anything other than vertical. Any archer of 5' or greater height could similarly use the bow vertically or (if he wanted to keep the end well clear of the ground) at a slight slant well within his 24" or 36" personal frontal lebensraum.
I suspect the idea of holding the bow at a slant may have derived from the inadequate musculature of re-enactors compared to the beefier build of ye olde English yeomen, because holding the bow at a slant makes a 'chest expander' draw much easier.
Thanks Justin and Patrick for the practical experience. Part of the problem we have is realistic depictions of knocking arrows are rare in the pictoral record. The main convention was to show the bow at full draw or having just shot. Ditto, realistic images of medieval troops in combat formation are not exactly common, so an image of a longbow formation is hard to judge. So we tend to draw on modern experience.
I've never been an archer, so I have to form my impressions from the work of others and images of them in action. The angled nock certainly seems to be used quite widely by modern longbow shooters (including Warbow shooters). The usual spacing of a shooting line does appear to be about three feet apart (or more). Shooting in multiple ranks doesn't seem to be practiced (not that I've seen images of) so can't easily judge how modern archers would handle that.
Talking of depth, one issue the short-range volley school do need to explain is why longbowmen drew up in depth if only the first two or three rows could shoot on a flat trajectory. In the sixteenth century, we see John Smith stating the best formation for longbows is no deeper than seven or eight. We also, incidentally see Robert Barret saying that that longbows are "cumbersome tying weapons in a throng of men" because "they requireth such elbow room", which suggests they needed to be in looser order than arqubusiers. It is not implausible that medieval longbowmen drew up in similar formations (deeper perhaps if ranged on a slope).
This passage from the article caught my eye:
Firstly there is the simple argument that hitting any target becomes more difficult when it is further away. In the late 18th and early 19' centuries a number of researchers undertook trials to quantify this effect by having groups of musketeers fire at canvas screens sized to represent bodies of infantry or cavalry. The results of this work is described in B.P. Hughes' book Firepower. The resultant curve is shown above and approximates to an inverse square relationship. Now it is possible to argue that a smoothbore musket is quite different and individually much less accurate than a longbow. However, it is unlikely the shape of the curve for an equivalent group of archers would be very different and, as we shall discuss below, other factors might have a larger effect.
There are several points to note here. First that a musket's hitting power depends on its ball travelling at speed, a speed which drops off the further the non-aerodynamic ball travels through air. So long-range shooting with a musket, say by holding it up a 45 degrees, is ineffective.
Secondly that no two powder charges in a musket's barrel are the same. Each time a musket fires, the powder charge propels the ball at different velocity, which makes all the difference to accuracy at long ranges.
Thirdly, concerning bow accuracy at long ranges. On a battlefield the target is a wide swathe of men all at about the same distance from the shooter, and with a depth of several metres - quite a few metres in the case of cavalry. For a massed volley to hit the target, left-to-right aiming is not important; what matters is that the
range be accurate.
Now someone who does archery will know that increasing the range of an arrow means raising the bow, and that at short ranges raising the bow slightly will make the arrow go a good deal further. But at long ranges raising the bow even substantially changes little the distance the arrow travels. Here are some diagrams to illustrate:
The archer shoots at short range, his bow only slightly raised.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/85628566/shooting%20long%20range/1.png)
The archer raises his bow a little and the range increases dramatically.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/85628566/shooting%20long%20range/2.png)
The archer raises his bow by a substantial margin. There is an increase in range, but not that much.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/85628566/shooting%20long%20range/3.png)
The archer raises his bow by an appreciable margin again. There is hardly any increase in range.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/85628566/shooting%20long%20range/4.png)
Hence, once an archer knows the extreme range of his bow, he can be sure of hitting a target several metres deep at that range, even if he doesn't see the target and doesn't raise his bow to exactly the same angle each time. This accuracy is further enhanced by the fact that the archer has the same position at full draw each time he shoots and so gives each arrow the same force when he looses, unlike the musket. This makes accurate overhead long distance shooting quite feasible.
There is a possible objection to this which in fact is an enhancement of the technique.
The objection runs as follows: no two archers have the same drawing strength and no two bows are the same (or at least weren't until mass production). Hence each longbowman will have a different extreme range. Weaker archers with lighter bows will shoot shorter distances, stronger archers with heavier bows will shoot further.
The response: after practice each archer will know his own extreme range to within a few yards. When a company of archers is formed, the company captain will know which archers can shoot further than others. It would be natural for him to classify his archers according to their range, say Group A who can shoot to 220 yards, Group B to 200 yards, Group C to 180 yards, and so on.
In the course of the battle, the captain judges when an advancing enemy is within the extreme range of Group A and orders them to shoot. A few seconds later he gives the order to Group B, then to Group C. This means that the enemy will be peppered with arrows for, say, 100 metres of their advance, at which point Group A (in the front rank) can switch to direct fire (if they haven't already done so).
This all precludes the possibility that experienced archers could accurately judge the angle they held their bows without seeing the target and drop arrows on a target at any range. Archers who hunt do not use a sight but have a 'feel' for the range and aim instinctively. They know, rather than calculate, at what angle to hold the bow at 50 or 100 yards. Nothing precludes longbowmen from having this same instinctive knowledge, and shooting overhead with accuracy at less than extreme range.
As is the way of things, I've been drawn into rereading Sir John Smythes views on longbows (in Certain Discourses) and, given Nick's bringing in musketry experiments to build an archery model, thought Smythe's views might be of interest. For those unfamiliar with Smythe, his style is of a "grumpy old man" with occassional cynical humour. He is very pro-longbow and tends to play down gunpowder weapons but he had seen both in action. Here he is on the relative casualty causation of archers and firearms :
For this I know (as it is before declared) that Harquebuziers, if they be led by skilfull Conductours, are not to giue anie volees of shot aboue three, or foure scores 〈...〉, nor Mosquettiers any volees of bullets aboue eight, ten or twelue scores, at anie squadrōs of horsemen or foot∣men in motion; and yet that too farre, vnlesse their lea∣ders doo thinck rather to terrifie their Enemies with smoke and noyse, than with anie hurt of the bullets. Whereas Archers reduced into their conuenient formes, being in so great numbers (as aforesaid) doo dimme the light of the sunne, darken the ayre and co∣uer the earth with their volees of arrowes, eight, nine, ten and eleuen scores distant from them; in such sort as no numbers of Mosquettiers, Harquebuziers, or Argolettiers, nor yet squadrons of Launces nor of footemen,* being so ill armed as in these dayes they are, shalbe found able to abide the incredible terrour of the shot of such infinite numbers of arrowes. For there is no doubt but that Archers with their volees of ar∣rowes, will wound, kill, or hurt aboue an hundred men and horses, for euerie one that shalbe slaine or hurt, by the volees of so great numbers of Harquebu∣ziers and Mosquettiers, as are before mentioned.
and (in the before mentioned part) gives his reasons for why archers cause more casualties
[Archers] doo direct their arrowes in the shooting of them out of their Bowes with a great deale more certaintie, being with∣in eight, nine, tenne, or eleuen scores, than anie Har∣quebuziers or Mosquettiers (how good soeuer they bee) can doo in a much neerer distance, by reason that Mosquettiers & Harquebuziers failing in their points and blancke, doo neither kill nor hurt (vnlesse it hap∣pen as the blind man shooting at the Crowe;) besides that, in their points and blancke, through the imper∣fections before declared, they doo verie seldome hit, whereas contrariwise the arrowes doo not onelie wound,* and sometimes kill in their points and blank, but also in their discents & fall; for if in their discents they light not vpon the Enemies faces, yet in their lo∣wer discents they light either vpon their breasts, bel∣lies, codpeeces, thighes, knees or legges, and in their lo∣west discent, and fall euen to the verie nailing of their feete to the ground, which with the terrible comming of the arrowes in the eyes and sight both of horsemen & footmen, causeth in thē a wonderful feare & terror.
Now, we are dealing with an archery advocate in the final years of longbow usage. He is mainly describing his experience, rather than previous practice (although he does make interesting historical asides and quotes the combat experience of people he has met who served in earlier years). However, he is consistent in his view that archers are used in depth (not too much or the ranks shooting from the back can't judge the target properly), the strikes from "descents and fall" of arrows are important and an effective engagement distance is between eight and eleven score paces. He is doubtless a traditionalist in both his own terms and in those of Nick's article :)
Archery training consists of shooting at targets at different ranges, thus the archer learns the angle of his individual bowshot that is necessary to reach a range. The archer captain does not have to parse the men into groups of different ability, only to shout the range and give the order to loose. The arrows will then head for the target. They will be in a band that covers the target. The accuracy of the shoot is dependent upon an experienced captain's judgement of range and timing.
Of course that judgement requires experience of the time equation that involves the rate of advance of the target , wind conditions and the effect of the lag between order,draw and release. One does wonder if Achaemenid Persian archers, who were used to opponents who stood and shot back were so thrown by Greeks who ran at them that they could not adjust the range of a ten deep formation down fast enough to get shots on target. Against charging French cavalry the archer captains would have to adjust range very quickly to track them.
And yes it is perfectly possible to shoot a bow whilst holding it vertical
Roy
Quote from: aligern on March 15, 2015, 02:39:07 PM
And yes it is perfectly possible to shoot a bow whilst holding it vertical
Roy
The actual point was about nocking and drawing. The laying of a bow at an angle to shoot doesn't seem to be a European foot archery thing, though may have been used by horse archers (I don't know).
Area effect archery is always going to be more effective against a static target because of the amount of flight time of the arrow translates into a considerable distance on the ground. It is possible that in the "command fire" model the "master archer" could allow for target speed so that his bombardment landed in the right place but the faster the speed, the less leeway for error.
And I'd be failing in my duty not to point out we have no evidence of the existence of these "master archers" or a system of shouted range commands. In fact, command and control amongst longbowmen is a bit opaque all round.
Quote from: Erpingham on March 15, 2015, 03:02:22 PM
Quote from: aligern on March 15, 2015, 02:39:07 PM
And yes it is perfectly possible to shoot a bow whilst holding it vertical
Roy
The actual point was about nocking and drawing. The laying of a bow at an angle to shoot doesn't seem to be a European foot archery thing, though may have been used by horse archers (I don't know).
Hungarian horse archer reenactors (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOpOqgotJZc) hold the bow at an angle when nocking but straight when shooting.
Sir Thomas Erpingham's "Nestroque!" is the only command that comes to mind - whatever it may mean.
But the English armies do have archer captains...do I recall they are vintenars? in which case they would have atound 20 men. If an army is fielding thousands of archers it must have either a command substructure or standing orders (or customs) that would do VIth edition WRG proud, or both. You can't have the men launching volleys without control because the general must know that he still has shots in his locker. He cannot afford to have the archers shoot off all their arrows at some distant target and then retire.
This is also an issue at the heart of my contentions on how horse archers operate. There the general must expend arrows in a controlled manner to most effect. and not be found to be without missiles at a crucial juncture. Patrick and I were recently looking at the operation of Belisarius' army. in a battle in which his men expend their arrows and then have to withdraw but quite clearly have some arrows left that they cannot shoot effectively because they are compressed together in retreat. That suggests that they retain some shots even though tactically they are out of ammunition.
Roy
Quote from: barry carter on March 15, 2015, 07:54:12 PM
Sir Thomas Erpingham's "Nestroque!" is the only command that comes to mind - whatever it may mean.
Sounds like bad Latin: "And ours!" (correctly spelt 'Nostraque')
Quote from: barry carter on March 15, 2015, 07:54:12 PM
Sir Thomas Erpingham's "Nestroque!" is the only command that comes to mind - whatever it may mean.
Whatever it means, it had nothing to do with shooting. Waurin and Lefevre say it was the signal to attack. What happens after he says it is that the English army advances. They won't start shooting for some time.
Quote from: aligern on March 15, 2015, 09:05:33 PM
But the English armies do have archer captains...do I recall they are vintenars?
Both vintenars and centenars appear in accounts, or so secondary sources lead me to believe. Hence every 20 men, and every 100 men, would have an officer controlling their activities, although shooting could easily involve a higher chain of command.
I would be surprised if some person of eminence were not acting as 'forward observer' for the archers of each wing and perhaps even the whole army.
Cross-period analogies are always a bit risky, but in WW2 British artillery could shoot by section (4 guns), battery (8 guns), regiment (24 guns) or the entire divisional artillery (72 guns). Radio nets and simple codes (e.g. 'Mike target!' for a regimental shoot; 'Uncle target!' for a divisional shoot) could produce a barrage on a desired objective of the strength and concentration required in a comparatively short time (e.g. "Request stonk [map reference]" would bring down a standard concentration). Voice commands for archers need be no more complex, e.g. "Ten score! Nock! Draw! Loose!"
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 15, 2015, 09:18:46 PM
Quote from: aligern on March 15, 2015, 09:05:33 PM
But the English armies do have archer captains...do I recall they are vintenars?
Both vintenars and centenars appear in accounts, or so secondary sources lead me to believe. Hence every 20 men, and every 100 men, would have an officer controlling their activities, although shooting could easily involve a higher chain of command.
Indentured retinues didn't have vintenars - they were an arrayed archer thing. I suspect that command in retinues was held by men holding men-at-arms rank, but whether they were in the same proportion would be hard to demonstrate. There are some who think vintenars were just administrative officers. I would be a bit dubious of this. Incidentally note Smythe's reference to "conductors" as decide the range at which the target was engaged. Conductors are what we'd call company level officers.
Quote
Cross-period analogies are always a bit risky, but in WW2 British artillery could shoot by section (4 guns), battery (8 guns), regiment (24 guns) or the entire divisional artillery (72 guns). Radio nets and simple codes (e.g. 'Mike target!' for a regimental shoot; 'Uncle target!' for a divisional shoot) could produce a barrage on a desired objective of the strength and concentration required in a comparatively short time (e.g. "Request stonk [map reference]" would bring down a standard concentration). Voice commands for archers need be no more complex, e.g. "Ten score! Nock! Draw! Loose!"
Channeling the great artillery officer A.H. Burne are we? :) Forgive me if I think this may be taking analogy too far.
Once again its the same old problem - either nobody before c.1550 bothered to write the important (to us) details down or some thoughtless individuals "recycled" the paperwork.
As a researcher on the subject of medieval and early post med. food I struggle constantly with this. We have surviving recipes, but virtually no evidence that anyone ever cooked them, let alone ate them!
The best we can do is research all the information we can obtain, study it as rigorously as is humanly possible and then............ ::) speculate.
At least some of the mid sixteenth century English drill manuals help give us an insight into how things may have developed over time and thus help our blundering in the historical gloom.
Quote from: Justin Swanton on March 15, 2015, 09:12:23 PM
Quote from: barry carter on March 15, 2015, 07:54:12 PM
Sir Thomas Erpingham's "Nestroque!" is the only command that comes to mind - whatever it may mean.
Sounds like bad Latin: "And ours!" (correctly spelt 'Nostraque')
Interesting but what would it mean? The alternative transliteration is "Nescieque", if that is any better. It is being heard by a Burgundian and spoken by a man from Norfolk if that helps.
I'm just wondering in the point I think Jim made, that the French never sent a formation where everyone had a large shield against longbow men.
They did send in formations where the front was protected by pavaisiers though.
Doesn't that support the idea that archery was based on short range flat shooting?
Also, the big longbow victories of crecy and Agincourt, they were both against unarmoured horses, and the terrain also being a factor.
That possibly suggested a short term tactical change to enable longer range plunging archery while the mud / pots etc delayed the charge?
Quote from: Erpingham on March 15, 2015, 09:53:53 PM
Channeling the great artillery officer A.H. Burne are we? :)
You never know ...
QuoteForgive me if I think this may be taking analogy too far.
In any sort of detail, yes, granted, it is. In terms of very general principles, e.g,. Smyth's 'conductor' calling the shots, and the possibility of calling some or all of the available arrow-power and bringing it down where one wants it with quick and easy commands, it may have an echo.
Quote from: Mark G on March 16, 2015, 10:19:44 AM
I'm just wondering in the point I think Jim made, that the French never sent a formation where everyone had a large shield against longbow men.
They did send in formations where the front was protected by pavaisiers though.
Doesn't that support the idea that archery was based on short range flat shooting?
Not really: armies throughout history (well, on and off throughout history) have used gerrhons and other pavise equivalents, but mainly during sieges, and one of the features of a siege is that you are usually receiving the opponent's offerings from above. So if pavises are popular, the odds are that the army concerned expects to be besieging a lot of castles. Taking pavises into the field to mitigate the effects of an arrowstorm is an added bonus - one that made an occasional appearance in the Wars of the Roses, with the added refinement at one battle of the pavises being "
as full of threepenny nails as they might stand," so that when the shooters - which I believe were longbowmen in this instance - were attacked in melee, "
they would cast them down, and none might come at them but that he mischief himself," the details of which are left to the reader's imagination. However this innovation was not attended by success and never really caught on. I also get the impression that pavises started dropping out of armies as battles - with direct-shooting crossbowmen on both sides - became more frequent in the French-Italian Wars following 1495.
Quote
Also, the big longbow victories of crecy and Agincourt, they were both against unarmoured horses, and the terrain also being a factor.
That possibly suggested a short term tactical change to enable longer range plunging archery while the mud / pots etc delayed the charge?
Only two small French contingents at Agincourt were mounted, the vast majority being on foot. At Crecy, the Genoese crossbowmen took the initial brunt of the longbow volleys before they could return effective shooting with their crossbows, which suggests they were being hit bu a considerable volume of missiles at a range to which they were not accustomed (wet strings would not have helped, either). Then the French chivalry rode in, apparently also managing to get in each other's way, and the sheeting shafts made havoc in their ranks too (the change to post-1350s plate had not occurred in 1346). One gets the impression that intense plunging archery was the norm.
Shooting off the enemy missile does seem to be the first order of business. I'm nit sure we can extrapolate that to assume long range fire against melee troops though.
Mark, I am pretty sure that the cavalry charges at Agincourt were made by men onnarmoured horses and they got through.nHorses will have been armoured at Crecy, but with mail and leather and felt, not plate.
Efen thogh the front rank of horse may be atmoured the back ranks will not have been and pkunging fire will have disrupted and disordered them. This is what Cumans do to the Achaean Frankish knights just after 1204. The top guys on their armoured horses are OK, but the lesser folk on unarmoured mounts are driven to distraction by dropping shots. You would not have to have much momentum to go deep enough into a horse to upset it.
Roy
Hi guys,
Glad everyone liked the article. Whilst the above discussion is fascinating, it also treads a well worn path of arguement. I would really like to inject a breath of fresh air by suggesting we try out a few games using our favourite rule sets, but with modifications to the archery. I mean, it is a fairly simple matter in WRG 6th/7th to simply not play the Preparatory Shooting rules. With DBx, one could also try a game or two without Distant Shooting, although I suspect one might need to look at some of the Superior/Inferior classifications as well as the melee supporting ranks for some types. Of course, if that sounds too radical, one could simply try tinkering with the ranges.
Try it and see what difference it makes - better/worse, more/less reasonable, no great effect on outcome....
I would try this myself, but opponents are a bit thin on the ground around here.
Quote from: NickHarbud on March 17, 2015, 04:57:33 PM
I would try this myself, but opponents are a bit thin on the ground around here.
I know what you mean ...
WRG 6th does not distinguish between preparatory and support shooting: it is all much of a muchness under 'Shooting', the only real distinction (apart from counting only half the figures for indirect/long range shooting) being that if a target moves like greased lightning or ends up in contact there is a -2 modifier (in 7th this evolves into the 'Skirmishing' modifier for preparatory shooting). Hence the implementation of reconstructionist doctrine in WRG 6th would effectively abolish any range above short (80 paces for most bows, etc.).
This would make my sling-equipped Incas the deadliest army of them all. This is probably anyway true under 7th Edition (one day we might put that to the test ;) ) but 6th Edition raises the ugly head of the slinger and implicitly asks how the reconstructionists would deal with his shooting ranges and capabilities.
One of the early Slingshots has an article which states that Balearic slingers carried three slings and three sets of ammunition: one for long range (with small stones), one for medium range (with metal bullets) and one for close range, with fist-sized rocks. Unfortunately the author does not cite a source for this.
Eliminating ranges above 80 paces or cutting out preparatory shooting, at least for archers, will have little effect on the big crunchy melee armies but will be deadly to archery-based armies, e.g. Hundred Years War English, who will accordingly just stock up on knights, billmen, handgunners, pikemen etc. instead of the now-useless archers. Oriental armies, lacking their customary ranged capabilities, will be devastated, both psychologically and on the tabletop. Crusaders everywhere will rejoice, knowing they are forever immune from harassment by archers while on the march. Javelinmen can come into their own, winning Najera (aka Navarette) hands down. Suddenly, warfare becomes very different. And perhaps points values also ...
Seriously, how would the reconstructionist school of thought treat these particular points, namely the effective range(s) of slingers and the impact of archery at a distance before formations moved into direct trajectory shooting range, particularly at battles such as Najera?
Patrick raises an important point
At the moment we tend to have rules which we feel produce a historical result.
If we change the rules and this produces a massive slew of ahistorical results then the changes need careful looking at.
I'm not saying that our current rules model archery correctly, but any changes might actually produce 'worse' historical results.
Jim
I would favour something along the lines that medium to long range missiles would potentially introduce disorder into the target, but also potentially provoke them into a charge on shooter.
Id also want to see target priority for missile at med to lo g range being to aim at other shooters, ad I'm pretty convinced that the tactics show Shooting off' as the first order of business for missile troops.
And id save killing for close range, or even just subsume it into combat effectiveness - depending on the movement distances allowed.
Quote from: Jim Webster on March 18, 2015, 10:18:41 AM
I'm not saying that our current rules model archery correctly, but any changes might actually produce 'worse' historical results.
Jim
To be fair to Nick, I think that is behind his suggestion to carry out tests.
My worry in removing long range shooting effects and seeing what happens is what is being tested? Is it the historicity of the short-range model or the flexibility of the players to adapt?
Who knows? I t might make the games faster, not just from missing out a chunk of factor calculation cum dice rolling, but by eliminating the oft-witnessed phenomonem of skirmishing indecisively with one's opponent until the last turn when everything charges in.
Of course, if you are one of these touchy-feely skirmishing wargamers, you will probably think this makes things worse, but there you go... ???
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 18, 2015, 09:57:00 AM
Eliminating ranges above 80 paces or cutting out preparatory shooting, at least for archers, will have little effect on the big crunchy melee armies but will be deadly to archery-based armies, e.g. Hundred Years War English, who will accordingly just stock up on knights, billmen, handgunners, pikemen etc. instead of the now-useless archers.
Yes, one really needs to look at what made good archers really good. Certainly for later HYW English longbowmen there are at least two hypotheses, neither of which involves a longbow.
- It was not the bow, but the stakes (and occasionally the mud). Compare Agincourt or Verneuill with Patay or Formigny. (Incidentally, a similar line of reasoning says that cavalry were not rendered useless by machineguns, but by barbed wire.)
- One could deploy them as men-at-arms in a hand-to-hand melee role. They were not as good, but they were much cheaper and one could generally get hold of a lot more of them. (The side with the big battalions generally wins, etc.)
Some of this might be extended to other good archer types, eg Achaemenids, Vikings, etc. I mean, if one is going to take the axe to a key point in the rules, one should really not be too bothered with preconceived ideas on troop classification.
If the archers were so useless then why did the French imitate them, why did the Burgundians hire them, why did the Italians hire Hawkwood ? If what they wanted was cheap men at arms then hire varlets instead.
If the archers were so ineffective then why did English kings keep legislating for the provision of bows and for the training of archers? Was it just to keep them off the streets?
Roy
Quote from: Mark G on March 18, 2015, 11:21:44 AM
I would favour something along the lines that medium to long range missiles would potentially introduce disorder into the target, but also potentially provoke them into a charge on shooter.
Id also want to see target priority for missile at med to lo g range being to aim at other shooters, ad I'm pretty convinced that the tactics show Shooting off' as the first order of business for missile troops.
And id save killing for close range, or even just subsume it into combat effectiveness - depending on the movement distances allowed.
I know some of my fellow wargamers can be quite bloodthirsty, but can we get away from the 'killing' please? I mean, no matter how good a body of archers are, they are not going to 'kill' an unengaged enemy body. If they start causing significant casualties (that is, more than 1 or 2, and enough that the target considers it is 'losing'), then the target will either withdraw or charge.
If the former, it suffers a morale penalty. (Hard for the general to convince everyone of his competence when they are all walking backwards.)
If the latter then the effect of shooting on chargers normally finds a place in most rules and is factored into the melee result.
One could make one's archery rules as simple as this; the archers advance and anyone in the way either charges or withdraws. Alternatively you could use some dice (or the Optio equivalent.)
Quote from: aligern on March 18, 2015, 03:09:38 PM
If the archers were so ineffective then why did English kings keep legislating for the provision of bows and for the training of archers? Was it just to keep them off the streets?
Dunno. Why did the English yeomanry stop training to use the bow when there was such an obvious demand for men with such a skill?
Quote from: NickHarbud on March 18, 2015, 03:13:25 PMOne could make one's archery rules as simple as this; the archers advance and anyone in the way either charges or withdraws. Alternatively you could use some dice (or the Optio equivalent.)
I was going to shut up and just follow the discussion until you mentioned Optio (I can hardly resist an invitation like this, can I?)
Optio has three ways of inflicting badness on a unit: by terrain disorder, which disrupts the unit's fighting formation but leaves its morale intact; by loss of morale, a direct result of having lost a charge or melee fight; and by shooting, which involves both loss of order and morale.
Shooting ranges are determined using the grid. Here are the short (stronger blue) and extreme (fainter blue) ranges of a longbow. Each square is about 50x50 yards. In this example a command group of 3 archer bases behind stakes faces off against a command group of 3 French knight bases.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/85628566/shooting/shoot1.jpg)
Each turn has three phases followed by melee. A missile base can shoot once per phase. When shooting a missile base inflicts
fatigue hits on its opponent. At short range a longbow base inflicts 3 fatigue hits on a French cavalry base. To indicate this a fatigue marker - a square with 4 different coloured sides - is placed on the base. For the first fatigue hit, the green side is positioned facing forwards of the target base. For the second, the marker is turned so the yellow side faces forwards. The orange side indicates the third fatigue hit and the red the fourth. Here the cavalry get markers with orange sides frontwards (3 hits).
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/85628566/shooting/shoot2.jpg)
In the next phase they get 3 more hits, passing through red to green and yellow. When a base gets a fourth hit it becomes disordered, indicated by pushing the figure base back on the underbase.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/85628566/shooting/shoot3.jpg)
In the following phase the cavalry get 3 more hits, going through orange and red to green. They have received a fourth hit again. In this case they are already disordered and so receive instead a
combat hit. 2 combats or half as many combat hits as the number of bases in a command group immediately inflict a
morale hit. The morale marker is moved down one interval on the base with the morale scale.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/85628566/shooting/shoot4.jpg)
Doing the maths, the French cavalry will lose all their morale in about 7 turns and rout. That's quite a long time. But more to the point, if they charge the longbowmen, they will receive minus modifiers for being disordered and for running into stakes. In a charge knights score 4 combat hits against longbowmen who give 2 back. With 2 minus modifiers that becomes 2 vs 2 and the charge is drawn. In melee the knights inflict 3 for 2, which becomes 1 for 2 and they lose melee, suffering morale loss. So arrow fire will not kill or even rout them, but it will make them ineffective by the time they hit the English lines.
The English yeomen continue on with archery until the end of the sicteenth century. However, it is in decline from say 1530 onwards. The reasons for this decline are much debated, but seem to be from two directions:
1) the men got. to like archery practice less and less as prosperity increased. Socially peopke had better things to do with their time, economic activity, reading the Bible, being proto Victorian Dads etc. Its also true that after the WotR there are less wars in and around England so who wants to practice when you are not going to go to France and Tudor England is in a state of good public order with milutarism pisitively discouraged.
2) The king wanted arquebusiers. This may have been as much fashion and needing to look like a Renaissance prince rather than some medieval backwoodsmen. Tvwas post 1500 and thus the pike and shot period and zhenry knew it. In times of national emergency the bowmen were called out, but the professional captains generally preferred arquebusiers because that was what they were used to. I wonder too if improved armour designed to resist bullets may not have made the bow less effective ?
The archers had, after all, been dominant fir 200 years up till their obsolescence.
Whatever the cause bows appear less and less on the battlefield. I really do jot buy the short range idea. That's because a bowshot is an impirtant military distance. When you got closer than that thins started yo happen. At Towton one side moves back a little to get out of range and let the others waste their artows. That would not have much point if arrows were ineffective at long range.
Roy
I have to agree with roy on this, clearly longbow.en were something special, if probably also overrated in most rules.
But equally, it was a damn hard thing to master, and that training and dilligence (and pay) would move them well up the professional soldier scale.
Equally I think, bog standard longbowmen were not much cop as anything, and I think we miss a huge amount if we view the weapon as the important thing, and ignore the professionalism.
Ditto pretty much every other weapon combination you care to name, I would add
Quote from: NickHarbud on March 18, 2015, 03:03:13 PM
- It was not the bow, but the stakes (and occasionally the mud). Compare Agincourt or Verneuill with Patay or Formigny. (Incidentally, a similar line of reasoning says that cavalry were not rendered useless by machineguns, but by barbed wire.)
A slightly odd set of comparisons but the general principle is fair - archers in an open field which provided good going for cavalry were unlikely to stop them. Archers behind stakes or pits or ditches or with some terrain advantage (like a hedge or standing in a marsh) have a pretty good chance.
Quote
- One could deploy them as men-at-arms in a hand-to-hand melee role. They were not as good, but they were much cheaper and one could generally get hold of a lot more of them. (The side with the big battalions generally wins, etc.)
If they were just cheap men at arms, why give them bows and insist they trained with them? Give the bill hook or a pointy stick. Bit lost as to what you're reaching for here.
Quote from: NickHarbud on March 18, 2015, 03:17:47 PM
Quote from: aligern on March 18, 2015, 03:09:38 PM
If the archers were so ineffective then why did English kings keep legislating for the provision of bows and for the training of archers? Was it just to keep them off the streets?
Dunno. Why did the English yeomanry stop training to use the bow when there was such an obvious demand for men with such a skill?
Possibly because in 1596 Elizabeth I abolished it as a weapon for the army.
Roy's points about longbow archery becoming less effective against improved armour, and handguns being preferred for their effect, seem valid to me, as Japan saw a very similar pattern of progressive substitution after muskets were introduced c.AD 1540.
And simiarly we see Japanese arquebusiers operating behind fences when dealing with cavalry.
The factors that have been raised in English longbow superiority in its golden years are:
1) its a big bow offering more velocity and or weight in the arrow. Arrow weight might well be important, especially when shooting at long range at a 45% angle and depending upon gravity for acceleration.
2) Mass shooting. There seems no doubt that the ability to put say 10,000 arrows above a target at the same moment has a considerable effect on the opponents' morale as well as causing casualties. We should not latch on to numbers as being essential too readily as the longbow's first impressions were made when it was in relatively small numbers and they were hired in smallish groups by Italians and Burgundians.
3) Defences. Once there are large numbers of archers they improve their position with pits, stakes, hedges in order to prevent an opponent getting melee troops to them in good order. As much as anything the field defences may have worked by holding the attacker in front of the archers at close range.
4) Training and professionalism. English training regimes look as though they are more rigorous than those of other lands. they would have produced archers that could input more power to the shot, shoot faster and for longer.
5) arrow and bow technology. I don't think that earlier bow cultures all had the range of heads, for example , that the English developed.
6) Command and control. Its difficult to believe that massed archery can be effective without some effective system of controlling the shoot.
7) Combination of the archers and men at arms. This has to be well done for the archers exist to degrade and disorder ( I think Mark says this) the enemy melee troops,these still need to be dealt with hand to hand.
Add all these incremental advances together and you have a very powerful weapons system and I stress system. The weakness of wargames rules is that they often just concentrate on the archers shooting down opponents. Doubtless they can do this against unarmoured opponents such as Scots spearmen, but against armoured opponents the effects should be to reduce them to the point where the English men at arms have a significant advantage.
Roy
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 18, 2015, 09:57:00 AM
...instead of the now-useless archers.
This needs to be challenged. Bows without longe range are hardly useless or to be compared with a troop type armed with the generic 'other weapons'. For example:
- Under WRG 7th for each casualty per fgure (CPF) in support shooting the archers knock between 25% and 30% off their target's melee effect
- I believe that under WRG 6th each 1/2 CPF has a similar effect.
- Under DBM (v2.0) Bow have a better AP against mounted than many other infantry for the same number of ranks. They are the only infantry who can destroy Light Horse and the English variety are the only infantry who can quick-kill Knights in good going.
This seems slightly better than useless. However, more interesting to me is the
perception that archers can only be effective on the wargames table if they can emulate an artillery bombardment at 240 paces. Try it out, see what happens.
Quote from: NickHarbud on March 19, 2015, 02:44:26 PM
This seems slightly better than useless. However, more interesting to me is the perception that archers can only be effective on the wargames table if they can emulate an artillery bombardment at 240 paces. Try it out, see what happens.
I suspect that the scepticism depends a lot on whether you edge toward the simulation end of the spectrum rather than the game end. Why change the rules if you don't think the old theory represents reality better than the new one?
From a game mechanism point of view, if the rules are designed to recreate , say, the effect on cavalry by archers by allowing them to engage from 240 paces (albeit at reduced effect) and you simply reduce that to 80 paces, I would suggest what will happen is archery will become less effective and the game balance will change. Whether this is a good thing or not would probably depend on whether archery was over effective to start with. Players will respond to the change variously to maximise the opportunities of their archers to get hits at short range (regardless of historical precedent) and probably load up their archers with optional extra armour, weapons, equipment and morale upgrades if allowed in army lists to make them more robust in melee. In other words, if you want to test the short-range school argument, it mat take more radical rewriting than dropping long range shooting options but not making other adjustments.
Furthermore, the sling, which under WRG 6th and 7th has only one range (short; 120 paces) will outshoot every other weapon except for artillery, which itself is comparatively rare. Slingers already do well against archers (because of the shield ;)) but being able to outrange them completely would make WRG 6th and 7th into a slingers' paradise.
Bring it on, says the owner of an Inca army. :)
Quote from: Erpingham on March 19, 2015, 05:16:54 PM
Quote from: NickHarbud on March 19, 2015, 02:44:26 PM
This seems slightly better than useless. However, more interesting to me is the perception that archers can only be effective on the wargames table if they can emulate an artillery bombardment at 240 paces. Try it out, see what happens.
From a game mechanism point of view, if the rules are designed to recreate, say, the effect on cavalry by archers by allowing them to engage from 240 paces (albeit at reduced effect) and you simply reduce that to 80 paces, I would suggest what will happen is archery will become less effective and the game balance will change. Whether this is a good thing or not would probably depend on whether archery was over effective to start with.
It is already quite hard to make significant things happen with archery in WRG rules; defeating an opponent purely by shooting is rare under 6th and impossible under 7th.
Quote
Players will respond to the change variously to maximise the opportunities of their archers to get hits at short range (regardless of historical precedent) and probably load up their archers with optional extra armour, weapons, equipment and morale upgrades if allowed in army lists to make them more robust in melee. In other words, if you want to test the short-range school argument, it may take more radical rewriting than dropping long range shooting options but not making other adjustments.
It may even require readjusting short-range/point-blank archery to new levels of lethality.
We need to consider carefully the battlefield function and effect of massed archers. What exactly was it? Where and how did it fit into an army's tactical repertoire?
Quote from: aligern on March 18, 2015, 06:23:50 PM
The English yeomen continue on with archery until the end of the sicteenth century. However, it is in decline from say 1530 onwards. The reasons for this decline are much debated, but seem to be from two directions:
I'd also add to that list, that a ruler wants to maintain a monopoly over legitimate violence. So its not a great idea to train the peasantry in an effective weapon - the long bow - that said peasants can make in their back yard. They might use it on you. Far better to give less trained peasantry a weopon you can take back - a crossbow or gun - after they have done the dieing for you.
Also, while it might look like this is economically unsound because guns are expensive and the peasantry practicing on the weekend looks cheap, as campaigns lengthen and manufacturing improves, it might make economoic sense to invest in a higher ratio of weapons to training?
The following site
http://www.archerylibrary.com/
has a number of texts on archery
in particular the 1515 book in chapter IX has the following
"For good archers the range should be three hundred paces. Nevertheless I have formerly seen shooting at four hundred paces, but it must be admitted that the archers were first-class ones (bons exquiz archiers)."
The 1801 book mentions clout shooting starting at a range of 11 score yards (Chapter X section 6) and finishing at a range of 9 score yards.
The Arab archery text seems to indicate a maximum of 150 yards for aimed fire, but recommends 45 bow lengths.
Gunmen are much cheaper than good bowmen, you cam train them to be competent in a week. It takes years for bowmen, and they expect to be paid accordingly
Things are always a bit more complex. Might I suggest that there is a considerable difference between the effects of long range dropping shots on unarmoured men and horses versus well armoured men. A mass shoot of say 10,000 arrows is going to cause a body of say 1000 horse ( unarmoured) real grief, whereas against a body of 1000 dismounted men at arms the effect would be much less.
We know, from both reconstructions and textual evidence that ranges over 300 yards were obtainable. There were targets at over 300 yds on archery fields, so some at least practiced at those ranges. One of the problems Nick's article did show though is wargamers become obsessed with things like longest range, rather than normal battlefield ranges. We know English longbowmen could lob long shots into the enemy ranks at range - this was a deliberate tactic and is even recommended in sixteenth century manuals (they called it gadding the enemy) in order to disrupt and annoy the enemy into attacks. I think Nick's idea is that this is a bit trivial in effect, so lets drop it. Lets concentrate on what they did that really made an impact. This is where he and the traditionalists part company. At what point did effective shooting begin? If you believe what he refers to as reconstructors, its a flat trajectory in the 50 -100yds area. Traditionalists will vary. I'd say 150-200 but someone following say Robert Hardy would probably be 250-300 yds. There are lots of other differences about what is going on, but in terms of wargaming effect (rather than modelling actual behaviour), this range thing is the critical one. Is there a cumulative degradation as the enemy advances on the longbowmen or is it like reaching a certain distance and running into a wall of arrows?
While we can debate the effectiveness of distant shooting the only way to determine its effectiveness is to test it. In order to do so about 100 plywood man sized targets would need to be made and arranged in a formation 8 to 10 deep each occupying a 3 foot by 3 foot square. There are also devices that can measure the impact to determine the penetrating ability.
The 1801 book also states that the angle of fire should be 45 degrees in the section on stance.
Quote from: Erpingham on March 20, 2015, 07:59:13 AM
There are lots of other differences about what is going on, but in terms of wargaming effect (rather than modelling actual behaviour), this range thing is the critical one. Is there a cumulative degradation as the enemy advances on the longbowmen or is it like reaching a certain distance and running into a wall of arrows?
A. H. Burne's description of the opening volley at Crecy suggests both:
"
Everything was ready, nothing had been overlooked and, although at extreme range the archers could reach the bottom of the valley with their shafts, orders were, it seems, issued that their fire [sic] was to be witheld till the Genoese were in decisive range. The Genoese slowly crossed the valley and started to ascend the gentle slope to the hostile position. As they advanced occasional shafts were discharged, as was the custom with these crossbowmen, but they all fell short. Not till they were within 150 yards of the motionless line in front of them did their enemy respond. Then a sharp word of command rang out and instantly the heavens were, it appeared black with the swarm of arrows discharged from the trusty English longbows. The result of this discharge, striking the closely-knit lines of the Genoese, was devastating."
If this description is closely source-based (Burne used Jean le Bel and Geoffrey le Baker), it suggests immediate effect, a 'wall of arrows'. Conversely, at Blanche Taque where the English longbowmen were crossing a ford no more than eleven men wide, they outshot a force of perhaps 3,000 crossbowmen (or at least 3,000 foot including crossbowmen) who were ready and waiting for them. The longbowmen were not initially in a position to deliver effective shooting (despite the longbow being held to outrange the crossbow) until much of the way across the ford, so they accepted their losses up to that point and then shot in a manner which quickly degraded their opponents, reducing them to an ineffectiveness which allowed the longbowmen to defile to the edges of the ford and let through some files of cavalry, which drove through - with archery support - to defeat French knights defending the riverbank.
The course of this action implies a significant amount of overhead shooting by the English archers - but only once they had enough men in range to make it worthwhile.
So degradation or immediate deconstruction seems to depend upon the intensity of shooting rather than the type.
And do look at Bill's Archery Library site for gems such as this one (http://www.archerylibrary.com/books/hargrove/docs/anecdotes24.html):
QuoteAs to the diftance to which an arrow can be fhot from a long bow, with the beft elevation of forty-five degrees, that muft neceffarily depend much both upon the ftrength and flight of the Archer; but in general the diftance was reckoned from eleven to twelve fcore yards[47].
According to NEAD, an Archer might fhoot fix arrows in the time of charging and difcharging one mufquet.
Arrows are reckoned by fheaves; a fheaf confifting of twenty-four arrows[48]. They were carried in a quiver, called alfo an arrow-cafe, which ferved for the magazine. Arrows for immediate ufe were carried in the girdle. In ancient times phials of quicklime, or other combuftible matter for burning houfes or fhips was fixed on the heads of arrows, and fhot from long-bows. Arrows with wild-fire, and arrows for fire-works, are mentioned among the ftores at Newhaven and Berwick, 1ft of EDWARD VI.
To protect our Archers from the attacks of the enemy's horfe, they carried long ftakes pointed at both ends: Thefe they planted in the earth, floping before them. In the firft of EDWARD VI. three hundred and thirty of thefe ftakes were in the ftores of the town of Berwick ; there were alfo at the fame time eight bundles of Archers' ftakes in Pontefract Caftle.
And
QuoteTHE following defcription of an Archer and his accoutrements is given in a MS. written in the time of QUEEN ELIZABETH.
" Captains and officers fhould be fkilful of that moft noble weapon; and to fee that their fol-diers, according to their draught and ftrength,
have good bows, well nocked, well ftringed, everie ftring whippe in their nocke, and in the myddes rubbed with wax,—brafer and
fhutting glove,—fome fpare ftrynges trymed as aforefaid; every man one fheaf of arrows, with a cafe of leather, defenfible againft the
rayne, and in the fame fower and twentie ar-rows; whereof eight of them fhould be lighter than the refidue, to gall or aftoyne the enemy
with the hail-fhot of light arrows, before they fhall come within the danger of their harquebufs fhot. Let every man have a brigandine or a
little cote of plate, a fkull or hufkin, a maule of lead, of five feet in length, and a pike, and the fame hanging by his girdle, with a
hook and a dagger; being thus furnifhed, teach them by mutters to march, fhoote, and retire, keeping their faces upon the enemy's. Sumtime
put them into great numbers, as to battell ap-parteyneth, and there ufe them often times practifed till they be perfect ; for thofe men in
battell ne fkirmifh cannot be fpared. None other weapon maye compare with the fame [of this] noble weapon."
Following a description of prizes contended for by the Royal Company of Archers in Scotland, we have:
QuoteAll thefe prizes are fhot for at what is termed rovers; the marks being placed at the diftance of one hundred and eighty-five yards.
Befides thefe there is another prize annually contended for at butt, or point-blank diftance, called the Goofe. The ancient manner of fhooting for this prize was,—a living goofe being built in a turf-butt, with his head only expofed to view; the Archer who firft hit the goofe's head was entitled to the goofe as his reward. But this cuftom, on account of its barbarity, has been long ago laid afide; and in place of the goofe's head, a mark of about an inch diameter, is affixed upon each butt; and the Archer who firft hits this mark is captain of the butt-fhooters for a year.
Also:
QuoteROGER ASCHAM, who wrote a treatife on this art in the year 1544, mentions the bracer or leathern guard worn by Archers upon the left arm, to prevent it from being cut by the ftring of the bow. But he recommends fhooting without any bracer, as its ufe may be fuperfeded by giving the bow a greater bend ; that is about nine inches. The fhooting glove was like the bracer, the fame as at prefent. The bow-ftring was made either of filk or hemp.
The bow he recommends to be made out of the bole of a eugh tree, and its ftrength fuch that the Archer could with moderate exertion draw an arrow to the head. The arrow was made of oak or birch, and was of different fizes, according to the different purpofes it was intended for; its length generally from twenty-feven to thirty-two inches ; the longeft were ufed in war.
He recommends a goofe's feather for the fhaft, as better than any other. The head of the arrow differed very much from the modern ones. Thofe ufed in fhooting at the marks fomewhat refembling a pine apple, fmooth at top, but furrowed longitudinally.
For war they ufed fharp heads without any barb
.
The arrow was always drawn to the ear when they fhot at fhort marks. At long marks or rovers, it was then neceffary on account of the elevation, to be drawn to the breaft.
The Archers did not fhut either eye when they took aim ; nor did they look at the arrow, but at the mark only.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 20, 2015, 12:38:18 PM
A. H. Burne's description of the opening volley at Crecy suggests both:
"Everything was ready, nothing had been overlooked and, although at extreme range the archers could reach the bottom of the valley with their shafts, orders were, it seems, issued that their fire [sic] was to be witheld till the Genoese were in decisive range. The Genoese slowly crossed the valley and started to ascend the gentle slope to the hostile position. As they advanced occasional shafts were discharged, as was the custom with these crossbowmen, but they all fell short. Not till they were within 150 yards of the motionless line in front of them did their enemy respond. Then a sharp word of command rang out and instantly the heavens were, it appeared black with the swarm of arrows discharged from the trusty English longbows. The result of this discharge, striking the closely-knit lines of the Genoese, was devastating."
If this description is closely source-based (Burne used Jean le Bel and Geoffrey le Baker),
My recollection is it is broadly similar (being at work I can't check) but IIRC 150 yds is Burne's estimate. However, note the fact that "these crossbowmen" discharge shafts at long range (damned foreigners didn't know any better) but our stout yeomen responding to "sharp word of command" do for them with their "trusty" longbows. In fact, the crossbowmen seem to be operating under command, taking ranging shots then advancing closer co-ordinated by shouts. The big difference between them is the English have been standing around and have plenty of time to judge ranges whereas the Genoese are having to improvise an attack off the march. They clearly weren't prepared for the arrowstorm which descended upon them, however.
Additional edit : I've now been through my sources on this. Burne is actually primarily using Froissart here. Neither le Baker or le Bel are as extensive. The general view is of quite a short contest but perhaps less abrupt than Froissart - a few volleys were exchanged and the crossbowmen gave way. On range, le Baker is the only one other than Froissart to comment when he says the crossbowmens arrows couldn't reach the English (though he does then speak of a hail of crossbowbow bolts, so clearly they were shooting). Generally the view is that the crossbowmen were in range. Burne's 150 yds seems to be his own guess - I couldn't find it in the half dozen sources I have access to. Villani makes the point the English were shooting three shots to the Genoese one and the weight of shot turns up in several independent traditions.
|
Quote from: NickHarbud on March 18, 2015, 03:13:25 PM
One could make one's archery rules as simple as this; the archers advance and anyone in the way either charges or withdraws. Alternatively you could use some dice (or the Optio equivalent.)
Not archery, but the War of the Spanish Succession set "Twilight of the Sun King" makes it's musketry rule simply this: units subject to musket fire must test morale.
Quote from: Erpingham on March 18, 2015, 06:38:08 PM
A slightly odd set of comparisons but the general principle is fair - archers in an open field which provided good going for cavalry were unlikely to stop them. Archers behind stakes or pits or ditches or with some terrain advantage (like a hedge or standing in a marsh) have a pretty good chance.
This is something I feel many rules get wrong. In DBMM, frex, English longbowmen rarely if ever bring, much less plant, their stakes, being justifiably confident in their ability to repel all and any mounted by archery alone.
Quote from: Andreas Johansson on March 22, 2015, 07:16:26 PM
Quote from: Erpingham on March 18, 2015, 06:38:08 PM
A slightly odd set of comparisons but the general principle is fair - archers in an open field which provided good going for cavalry were unlikely to stop them. Archers behind stakes or pits or ditches or with some terrain advantage (like a hedge or standing in a marsh) have a pretty good chance.
This is something I feel many rules get wrong. In DBMM, frex, English longbowmen rarely if ever bring, much less plant, their stakes, being justifiably confident in their ability to repel all and any mounted by archery alone.
Since archers stakes only appear in the Agincourt campaign.. a good historical result. ::)
Mind you, are we missing a point here? Pretty well ANY infantry can stop cavalry if they're behind a hedge or carefully emplaced stakes.
The only advantage archers have is that they can do damage to the cavalry milling about on the other side of the stakes at less risk to themselves than can spearmen.
Jim
Quote from: Jim Webster on March 23, 2015, 08:17:59 AM
Mind you, are we missing a point here? Pretty well ANY infantry can stop cavalry if they're behind a hedge or carefully emplaced stakes.
The only advantage archers have is that they can do damage to the cavalry milling about on the other side of the stakes at less risk to themselves than can spearmen.
Jim
I think the point was that archers shouldn't be able to stop well motivated cavalry in good going by shooting alone. I wouldn't make it an absolute but I'd make that the default in rule writing. Andreas has opined that this is not the case in DBMM. Doubtless we can be informed about WRG 6th, 7th, Optio and many others to see which match this. In particular we might consider Nick's suggestion - does removing long-range shooting make a difference to the result?
One feature of longbow archery that occurs in a number of battles, notably Halidon Hill (1333) and Agincourt (1415; behold - an anniversary!) is the way attacking infantry is funnelled away from the archers towards the men-at-arms.
This tends to be explained as going for the men with the big ransoms, but if the oriflamme is up or the attackers are Scots, ransoms are not a consideration. It would seem that volleys of longbow arrows had a slowing and disorganising effect on attackers ahead of them, which may have encouraged following ranks to tack on to the parts of the assault which were going forward without let or hindrance, namely those opposite the men-at-arms.
The effect is thus that longbow archery can slow and divert an infantry assault - although in the two examples quoted the ground was not particularly favourable for the attackers. A cavalry assault delivered with sufficient sloth should also encounter the same phenomenon, the more so as horses tend to be more vulnerable to missiles than armoured men and a downed horse is more of an impediment than a downed man.
Putting alternate contingents of men-at-arms and archers in line meant that attackers always had the course of least resistance open to them, namely going for the men-at-arms. A line purely of archers would have slowed attackers but would probably not have diverted them so successfully.
Quote from: Erpingham on March 23, 2015, 10:47:41 AM
I think the point was that archers shouldn't be able to stop well motivated cavalry in good going by shooting alone. I wouldn't make it an absolute but I'd make that the default in rule writing. Andreas has opined that this is not the case in DBMM. Doubtless we can be informed about WRG 6th, 7th, Optio and many others to see which match this. In particular we might consider Nick's suggestion - does removing long-range shooting make a difference to the result?
WRG 6th has a single list for English armies of the Hundred Years' War period, divided into Early (1310-1350), Middle (1350-1400) and Late (1400-1455) periods. Archers only have stakes in the last period (post-1400).
The French are represented by the Mediaeval French (1330-1445) and French Ordonnance (1445-1494) lists, with the Mediaeval French list being further subdivided into Early (1330-1400), Middle (1400-1418) and Late (1418-1445). Knights throughout this period have the SHK classification, which essentially represents post-1350s plate; shields start to be discarded c.1400.
We thus have four potential match-ups: Early English vs Early French (1339-1350), Middle English vs Early French (1350-1400), Late English vs Late French and Late English vs Ordonnance French.
In each case, the standard arrangement would involve 18 figures of SHK (or 9 SHK ahead of 9 HC serjeants; same thing for shooting purposes under these rules) approaching 24 figures of LMI or LHI with LB.
Assuming contingents deploy 480 paces apart, events would march as follows: the French knights advance by 80-pace moves (same as light infantry) and after 3 moves come to 240 paces away from the English line, which is within the 280 pace long range of longbows. These shoot at half effect at long range, so 12 figures count, dropping (assuming random factors are equal) 16 of France's chivalry in the dust (or mud, or grass). Next move brings the attackers to 160 paces distant, and another round of shooting has the same effect. 32 knights out of 360 is not affecting French morale or effectiveness except for a -1 on reaction tests, which at this juncture does nothing, and removal of one figure (representing 20 men lost).
Next move, the French are at 80 paces and the archers are shooting at full effect. 31 French go down, which means a -3 on reaction tests, one of which is coming up for being shot at three turns in succession. Another figure has also bitten whatever is on offer at ground level. Hence the sixth move begins with the French testing reaction: they anyway want to charge, and have been shot at, so they roll once for the two tests and add in all relevant modifiers. Assuming an average 3d6 roll (11), the relevant modifiers are: advancing (+1), three half-casualties per figure from shooting last period (-3) and doubtless a general in line of command within 150 paces (+1) and flanks and rear all secure (+1). They charge without becoming impetuous, taking shots as they come in - which proves crucial, dropping another 15 knights and inflicting a -2 on the upcoming melee factor, which causes them to lose the melee hands down: lance vs HI or MI = 4; charging +1; 2 half-casualties per figure from shooting this move -2; final factor 3 for 9 figures - their opponents have 4 for 2-handed weapon against SHK; final factor 4 for 12 figures.
Assuming the French random factor is +1 (they are 'B' class) and the English random factor is 0, 9 figures at 4 do 18 casualties; 12 figures at 4 do 24 casualties and the French lose the melee. Without the last round of shooting as they close they would win the melee (28 vs 24).
In the WRG 6th system, what decides the issue is the close-range shooting, specifically in the final move as the knights charge. However this is decisive only because of the attrition taken on the way in from shooting at longer ranges, which reduces the number of figures attacking so that they take a -2 rather than -1 penalty to their melee factor.
So ... well-motivated cavalry in good going cannot be stopped by shooting alone in WRG 6th, but by shooting and carrying a big stick. :) Note that in the Late period, English archers switch from the maul to the falchion and buckler, and this makes stakes imperative for stopping knights. Not saying this is how and why things went as they did historically, but this is how it goes under WRG 6th.
I expect this is old news (haven't read the whole of the thread) but a thought on range and accuracy is that lateral (left-right) accuracy is of little concern and that the main cause of missing when shooting at a body of men would be shooting over or under (too short or too long). At point blank range or below (ie the range at which an arrow shot horizontally would still hit the target) aiming is easy - just shoot level and aim in roughly the right direction. Beyond this range it becomes necessary to a) estimate the range correctly and b) apply the correct elevation (which in the days before sights were used would be some rule of thmb like aligning knuckles or a mark on the bow). Any error in either of these steps will make the arrow fall short or go long and of course the higher the elevation the less the chance of an incorrectly judged arrow hitting the target anyway (in that a slightly long shot at low elevation is still likely to hit as it drops below head height). A body of men eight deep might present a horizontal target of only eight yards (by two yards vertically). At long range with high elevation, dropping an arrow onto an eight yard deep target would be exceedingly difficult. When shooting en masse I expect an experienced captain could call out the estimated range, but even so there would be a lot of variation in range accuracy of arrows shot (and needless to say, the better trained the archers, the smaller the variation would be). This is why the accuracy curve drops off dramatically as it gets beyond about 50 yards (and also one reason why more powerful bows are more effective - the more powerful the bow the longer its point blank range and the further it can shoot at low elevation). High elevation shots are also largely falling under gravity and will have little penetrative power. This is the same general principle as applies to long range fire in later eras too of course - muskets too are most effective when all you need to do is 'level your piece' and fire, and the greatest cause of musketry inaccuracy was shooting over the target, rather than lateral (left-right) misses.
So far as wargames go I've no opinion on whether current rules are 'right' or not. Depending on level of abstraction range is already irrelevant in some rules (DBx, Lost Battles). This is surely a case where design for effect is better than design for cause - if the ranges in existing low abstraction rules are changed then the effectiveness of archers will be altered unless loads of other parts of the rules are also rejigged, so if the overall effectiveness of archers in the given rules seems right, then leave ranges alone. Don't know if it does though. One problem with archery (or any missile/skirmishing combat) is that it is largely attritional, and current rules don't do attritional effects well in general (because of the avoidance of bookkeeping). Another way to represent long range fire is to give low quality troops a much greater reduction in effectiveness at long range than high quality troops (or depending on how you like to do things, make max range dependent on troop quality not weapon type).
We've had a look at extreme range shooting here and in the Adjusting Archery rules (http://soa.org.uk/sm/index.php?topic=1674.msg18850#new) thread. Check post #67 in this thread on extreme range. Paradoxically, extreme range is more likely to be accurate than mid-distance shooting. Contemporary Clout shooter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clout_archery)s, who hit targets at 180m, would have no difficulty hitting an 8-yard-deep target at that range. Mediaeval longbowmen would be better.
Quote from: Andreas Johansson on March 22, 2015, 07:16:26 PM
This is something I feel many rules get wrong. In DBMM, frex, English longbowmen rarely if ever bring, much less plant, their stakes, being justifiably confident in their ability to repel all and any mounted by archery alone.
In DBM (I am not sure if this is the same for DBMM) Bw(S) are assumed to include stakes or pottes to their front. In one of those curious stretchings of wargames timescale, emplacing the stakes or digging the pottes has no effect on their speed of manoeuvre. Not only that, but the Bw(S) still get any bonuses for being behind a fortification, defending a river bank, etc, in addition to their inherent bonus of being behind their stakes or pottes. :o
I shouldn't be blowing this horn again, but heck it's relevant. In Optio stakes are separate entities from archers. An archer can move two squares per movement phase. If however he moves more than one square he becomes disordered and it's not that easy to remove disorder. Planting stakes takes one square of movement. Pulling up stakes also takes a square of movement. So archers who wish to advance but keep their stakes handy against any nearby cavalry, and who do not wish to become disordered, need to uproot the stakes in one phase without advancing, then advance one square per phase after that without replanting them, then replant them in another phase without moving. Whilst they are advancing with their stakes over their shoulders they are of course vulnerable to cavalry charges. So rapid redeployment with stakes on the field of battle is not a good option for archers unless the enemy are clearly losing.
Quote from: RichT on March 23, 2015, 01:39:46 PM
I expect this is old news (haven't read the whole of the thread) but a thought on range and accuracy is that lateral (left-right) accuracy is of little concern and that the main cause of missing when shooting at a body of men would be shooting over or under (too short or too long). At point blank range or below (ie the range at which an arrow shot horizontally would still hit the target) aiming is easy - just shoot level and aim in roughly the right direction. Beyond this range it becomes necessary to a) estimate the range correctly and b) apply the correct elevation (which in the days before sights were used would be some rule of thmb like aligning knuckles or a mark on the bow). Any error in either of these steps will make the arrow fall short or go long and of course the higher the elevation the less the chance of an incorrectly judged arrow hitting the target anyway (in that a slightly long shot at low elevation is still likely to hit as it drops below head height). A body of men eight deep might present a horizontal target of only eight yards (by two yards vertically). At long range with high elevation, dropping an arrow onto an eight yard deep target would be exceedingly difficult. When shooting en masse I expect an experienced captain could call out the estimated range, but even so there would be a lot of variation in range accuracy of arrows shot (and needless to say, the better trained the archers, the smaller the variation would be). This is why the accuracy curve drops off dramatically as it gets beyond about 50 yards (and also one reason why more powerful bows are more effective - the more powerful the bow the longer its point blank range and the further it can shoot at low elevation). High elevation shots are also largely falling under gravity and will have little penetrative power. This is the same general principle as applies to long range fire in later eras too of course - muskets too are most effective when all you need to do is 'level your piece' and fire, and the greatest cause of musketry inaccuracy was shooting over the target, rather than lateral (left-right) misses.
So far as wargames go I've no opinion on whether current rules are 'right' or not. Depending on level of abstraction range is already irrelevant in some rules (DBx, Lost Battles). This is surely a case where design for effect is better than design for cause - if the ranges in existing low abstraction rules are changed then the effectiveness of archers will be altered unless loads of other parts of the rules are also rejigged, so if the overall effectiveness of archers in the given rules seems right, then leave ranges alone. Don't know if it does though. One problem with archery (or any missile/skirmishing combat) is that it is largely attritional, and current rules don't do attritional effects well in general (because of the avoidance of bookkeeping). Another way to represent long range fire is to give low quality troops a much greater reduction in effectiveness at long range than high quality troops (or depending on how you like to do things, make max range dependent on troop quality not weapon type).
Cranking the ballistics maths, one gets the following ranges and maximum heights for different elevations with initial velocity, arrow weight, etc, being kept constant.
Elevation (Deg) | Range (m) | Max Height (m) |
3 | 40 | 0.55 |
5 | 60 | 1.5 |
9 | 100 | 4.5 |
14 | 150 | 10 |
17 | 170 | 14 |
22 | 203 | 23 |
45 | 270 | 75 |
60 | 218 | 110 |
65 | 190 | 120 |
70 | 165 | 130 |
Regarding the margin by which the archers might shoot over their target:
At 22 degrees, the arrow is 1m off the deck at 200m and grounds at 203m
At 25 degrees, the arrow is 9.5m off the deck at 200m and grounds at 218m
At 63 degrees, the arrow is 8.6m off the deck at 200m and grounds at 204m
At 60 degrees, the arrow is 37m off the deck at 200m and grounds at 218m
As noted in other threads (and in the article) the higher angle shots achieve the same range but tend to take twice as long to get there. This leads to further problems including judging the movement of the target. the attached sketches give some idea of what can happen.
One thing that Nick's tables and diagrams bring out is the difficulty of hitting a moving target at a distance. Longbowmen didn't practice on moving targets, or in large groups, so this was probably a skill which separated the veterans from the novices.
Someone told me the practice butts were 50 m .
If true, that has a relevance too
Quote from: Erpingham on March 23, 2015, 06:33:38 PM
One thing that Nick's tables and diagrams bring out is the difficulty of hitting a moving target at a distance. Longbowmen didn't practice on moving targets, or in large groups, so this was probably a skill which separated the veterans from the novices.
But one which seems to have nevertheless been picked up surprisingly quickly and well. Perhaps it depended more on the judgement of those calling the shots.
I am a bit wary of making too much of a small difference in elevation producing a large spread on landing. The whole point of practising massed shooting together is to get a feel for the matter and incidentally find out if anyone is landing their shots long or short - and correcting it. Practised archers shoot with the cerebellum, not the cerebrum: getting the right range is second nature to them. (Actually they shoot with the bow, but you know what I mean ... ;) )
Quote from: Mark G on March 23, 2015, 08:01:54 PM
Someone told me the practice butts were 50 m .
If true, that has a relevance too
It means people want to avoid walking more than 100m to collect their arrows and return. ;)
Actually, modern infantrymen in many armies are trained to shoot (directly) at two ranges: 50m and 200m. Indirect shooting is left to the artillery. Back in the 14th-15th centuries AD, the archers mainly shot indirectly and the artillery directly. Methods change ...
Doesn't really answer my question, pat.
If this thread is all about long range drop shot accuracy, you need to practice that.
The slingshot article suggested actually the effective range was much closer, at a level shot, and hence my question,at what range was the famous practicing done?
I think the modern ranges are based on doctrine, at 50 yards you were shooting to kill, at 200 yards all but the best shots are shooting to keep heads down.
Roy
Quote from: Mark G on March 24, 2015, 07:41:10 AM
Doesn't really answer my question, pat.
If this thread is all about long range drop shot accuracy, you need to practice that.
The slingshot article suggested actually the effective range was much closer, at a level shot, and hence my question,at what range was the famous practicing done?
Mark shooting (shooting at a vertical post) was practiced at a variety of distances. The Finsbury marks varied between 130 - 345 yds. http://www.bowyers.com/bowyery_finsburyMarks.php
I've not been able to find anything on the range at the butts, which may have varied considerably.
Additional edit : I found this from an English heritage report http://www.eng-h.gov.uk/mpp/mcd/sub/butts3.htm
It implies butts were usually about 100m apart, perhaps shooting at one, then turning back to shoot at the other. But Mark's 50m could be done if archers congregated in the middle and shot in both directions (nobody then shooting towards others).
Quote from: NickHarbud on March 23, 2015, 03:55:03 PM
In DBM (I am not sure if this is the same for DBMM) Bw(S) are assumed to include stakes or pottes to their front.
It changed: in DBMM stakes or their functional equivalent are additional pieces that have to be paid for and which it takes time to emplace. But the intrinsic toughness of Bw (S) is such that players rarely if ever feel the need for them.
It is interesting that practice is mandatory, but the range seems to be voluntary, then.
Quote from: Mark G on March 24, 2015, 12:31:10 PM
It is interesting that practice is mandatory, but the range seems to be voluntary, then.
Largely, yes. However, the laws mention the need to exercise at the butts and pricks (posts), as well as mentioning rovers (where targets are chosen from the spot you finish at). So a range of exercises (and ranges) was envisaged.
There is a well known law (33 Henry VIII 1542) that says adults can't shoot at targets with a prick shaft (a distance shooting arrow) under 11 score yards, except at rovers. So, in the mid sixteenth century heavy arrows had to be practiced with up to 220yds at least but, contrary to what you sometimes read, this wasn't the minimum practice distance .
There's something we have to note here
The English kept fielding archers, and made a big effort to get them, so you'd assume that they were considered worth the effort. It wasn't as if they were an easily acquired troop type, cheap and ubiquitous.
So the people on the ground assumed they were worth the effort.
Our rules really ought to keep this in mind
Jim
It occurs to me that a major difference between the French and English practices in the HYW is that English troops were largely paid for on fixed term contracts or indentures for months or years, whereas the French, until the reforms of 1439, relied upon feudal obligation or freelance companies of écorcheurs who lived on appâtis (protection money).
Now most of the time a longbowman would not be required to use his longbow in a battle. He would be doing other things that would nevertheless require someone with a military bearing and certain level of physical fitness. When you are paying real money for your soldiery, you can pick someone who is physically fit rather than some broken-down peasant who simply fancies a change from the plough. One good way of judging fitness is to ask the applicant to shoot a few clothyards from a longbow.
Starting them young helps. See here (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-32046302) for India's two-year old archer. :)
Didn't the Scots deploy at 250 yds at Duplin moor, to stay out of lb range initially
(not that it helped)
I haven't been able to find a source for a stop at 250yds, but I've only got a couple of the original sources available. Most reconstructions don't mention a distance but some sort of halt can be surmised by the fact that the Scottish commanders held a council of war before their attack, which ended badly.
As did the attack ...
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 27, 2015, 10:59:06 AM
As did the attack ...
Indeed. The two events seem intimately connected.
I have only just spotted this thread, which is so long as to make it difficult to follow. The mixture of individual experience, historical and technical analysis, and attempts to link them to wargames rules make it even more confusing! But, FWIW my contribution is that archery falls into many different categories, horse and foot, ancient and modern (i.e. Longbow), galling or killing, impact on morale and order, etc. In the period which I know best, I consider that English archery wounded at long range, especially unarmoured men and horses, causing disruption, and even 'flight to the front'. Armoured men and horses were much less at risk, though. We know that the French were using pavises by 1364, in order to get close quarters (successfully). The introduction of horse armour, especially steel, made a horseman near to invulnerable, though. Hence the choosing of Knights for the cavalry charge at Agincourt and delaying until the Lombards arrived at Verneuil (1424). The stakes invented by Henry V were meant to offset this threat. Did longbow arrows go through armour? Yes, but we must be very careful to consider when and how. I suggest, only at very close range as in the melee at Agincourt. The primary effect of archery, in any period was to disorder and reduce morale, I believe. Shooting too fast could prove a real disadvantage, as the arrow supplies could run out. A good commander prepared against this, of course.
My fault for tacking a new discussion onto an old thread - difficult choice to know whether to keep everything together on a topic or create multiple shorter threads. Apologies.
Anyway, glad to have Mr Bennet in the house (as those young hip-hopsters say).
Invented stakes?
I rather thought they came via the ottomans.
Quote from: Mark G on March 27, 2015, 11:00:45 PM
Invented stakes?
I rather thought they came via the ottomans.
It is a plausible speculation that the idea for archer's stakes reached the English via stories of the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396. However, the Gesta account implies they were improvised on the march to Agincourt, so the supposed chain of events would be that the army commanders had heard of stakes before they left England but only after they Henry had finished at Harfleur and decided to march to Calais would the need to use them have been implemented.
Quote from: Bohemond on March 27, 2015, 06:07:17 PM
FWIW my contribution is that archery falls into many different categories, horse and foot, ancient and modern (i.e. Longbow), galling or killing, impact on morale and order, etc. In the period which I know best, I consider that English archery wounded at long range, especially unarmoured men and horses, causing disruption, and even 'flight to the front'. Armoured men and horses were much less at risk, though. We know that the French were using pavises by 1364, in order to get close quarters (successfully). The introduction of horse armour, especially steel, made a horseman near to invulnerable, though. Hence the choosing of Knights for the cavalry charge at Agincourt and delaying until the Lombards arrived at Verneuil (1424). The stakes invented by Henry V were meant to offset this threat. Did longbow arrows go through armour? Yes, but we must be very careful to consider when and how. I suggest, only at very close range as in the melee at Agincourt.
This makes good sense to me, at any rate.
Quote
The primary effect of archery, in any period was to disorder and reduce morale, I believe.
The Biblical period was one in which archery seems to have vied with chariotry for the top combat arm slot: my own impression of the general tenor of this period is that archery was intended to produce casualties and chariotry was intended to disorder and break morale. The numbers given in the period sources suggest large and hence deep armies, and deep archer formations could pack considerable punch, literally darkening the sky with their arrows.
Merneptah in his battle against the Tehenu (Libyans) and Temehu has his archers work over the enemy for a long period - apparently six hours - before moving into decide the battle.
"
Meanwhile the bowmen of His Majesty spent six hours destroying them ..." (Great Karnak Inscription (http://www.academia.edu/323264/The_Great_Karnak_Inscription_of_Merneptah_Grand_Strategy_in_the_13th_Century_B.C), line 33)
"
Meanwhile, when the wretched chief of Rebu (Libya) was in haste to flee to his land
a number of people from the enemy [...] blows of the daggers (snn.w, sidearms).
Now the chariot warriors, who were upon His Majesty's spans, placed themselves behind them
[in order to] fell with the arrows which were brought to kill [...] every [...]" -
idem lines 37-39
This gives (me at least) the impression of an enemy broken by sustained archery and then pursued by chariotry. Archery appears to be considered as the premier combat arm in most cultures and situations during this period: the Amarna letters have many exhortations to "send archers!" without mention of other troops types (except when Pharaoh writes to a foreign king to remind him that Egypt's chariots are lvery numerous').
With the development of armour and shields which were arrow-resistant at most ranges, and melee systems that overwhelmed anything that had come before, the classical era broke this mould. Archers persisted, but as a subsidiary combat arm, and despite the noteworthy impact of several mounted archer cultures did not regain their cutting-edge position until the English and to a lesser extent the Burgundians and finally the French popularised the longbow in the late Middle Ages. During the interim, archery was indeed principally employed to create disorder and reduce morale - and on occasion to sting opponents into ill-considered attacks which would be dealt with by one's combined combat arms.