Archery

[Justin Swanton]

Here 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?

[Erpingham]

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.

[aligern]

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

[Justin Swanton]

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.

[Jim Webster]

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

[Erpingham]

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?

[Justin Swanton]

And turbaned British horse archers 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.

[Patrick Waterson]

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.

[Erpingham]

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?

[aligern]

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

[Jim Webster]

And turbaned British horse archers 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

[aligern]

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

[Nick Harbud]

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...   

[Jim Webster]

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...   

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!

[Nick Harbud]

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.