Shooting wholly together

[Erpingham]

Above all could be heard the sharp twanging of the strings, the hiss and howl of the shafts, mingled with orders and advice from the officers and master bowman :
"Draw your arrow!"
"Nick your arrow!"
"Shoot wholly together!"
Don Featherstone Bowmen of England, p.12


Evocative stuff from the Prologue of Featherstone's book on the longbowman from 1967.  Featherstone wrote a number of historical novels and clearly couldn't resist a bit of a fictional intro to this (though it owes a lot to the works of Conan Doyle).

More importantly, this perhaps sums up a common view of how English archers operated in the Hundred Years War from that time and influence popular descriptions to this day.  The problem is, there is no evidence for such a controlled system.  There are no records of "officers" or "master bowmen" (Featherstone a couple of pages previously has also "file-leaders" and the "senior of the master bowmen".  It's all very neat and 19th century regular army.)

The idea of shooting wholly together does have pedigree in 16th century descriptions and may have had some currency then, but did it mean the sort of co-ordinated volley shooting some imply?  Clifford Rogers would say so, pointing to the use of the French term "a la vollee" in places, and talk of simultaneous shooting in others.  (Perhaps we should note that "une vollee" originally meant  a flight of birds, so flights of arrows in the air together is the image, not a drill master barking orders).

My current thinking is as follows : There are real difficulties in co-ordinating thousands of men to shoot together in any era.   It's easier to break down the army into smaller pieces and have them control their own shooting.   Medieval archers were organised in companies and retinues.  Levy companies were organised in nominal twenties and hundreds (though the commanders of these companies don't seem to be tactical officers) while retinues were probably commanded by men-at-arms, who probably had field respnsibilities.  So, though there were no "master bowmen", there was some level of command that could have at least started and stopped a shoot at a local level and those people could watch to see what other retinues were doing, so some rough synchronisation could occur.  As to volleying, it is noted by archers that there is a natural rhythm to what they do.  If working to a rhythm of an arrow every 8-10 seconds, there would be regular flights of arrows shot without any orders.  They would probably drift out sync over time but very little over the short periods a shoot would cover.

There do remain other difficulties with archer co-ordination.  If an archer is out in a skirmish formation ahead of the army, he is probably in an irregular order and can pick out targets, even if the group is several men deep.  Draw the body together to deliver some concentrated shooting and you have a multi-rank formation in which only the front couple of ranks can judge range and pick targets.  How do the others operate?  Shooting rhythm is pretty straightforward, as is starting and stopping, but sighting and ranging - how did it work?  Was it like a programmed barrage? If you know the starting range and the target type, you can estimate what the range change will be in the time to shoot an arrow.  Though, given archers often went into a battle without any combat training, how they would develop such calculation skills is another mystery.

As always, ideas about how this all worked welcome. 

[Anton]

Start and stop shooting seems fine.  Is a quick start and stop sequence a volley?

For archers who could see their target you might expect aimed shooting, like hunting.  Like hunters such archers might want to choose the moment they released. It won't really be all at the same time.

Archers who could not see their target would need to know when to release or at least be under the command of someone who knew.

Or so it seems to me.

Interesting topic.

[Imperial Dave]

ask a reenactor....

we shot 'blind' on command in volley

[Dave Knight]

I read this as Shooting Holly together.

Bit harsh I thought

[Imperial Dave]

I read this as Shooting Holly together.

Bit harsh I thought

funnily enough so did I......

[Erpingham]

ask a reenactor....

we shot 'blind' on command in volley

Please tell us more.  Were you shooting at a static or moving target?  How was range communicated?  How deep was the formation?  How large a body? 

Overhead shooting, it seems to me, is relatively straightforward against a big static target.  Given, though, that we know that medieval longbowmen aimed at targets in distance shooting (prick or clout shooting or hat/hood shooting - their pretty similar) not blindly to a set distance, accuracy may have been variable.  If the target was moving or closer, it must have been harder. 

Thinking particularly of the flanking position often used, one advantage of enfilade is it deepens the target relative to the shooter.  If we imagine the Agincourt scenario (because everyone does), it is easy to see the flat shooting of the front couple of ranks of archers hitting the formation edge in an aimed manner but the flank archers must have been multiple ranks deep to fit the space available.  Unless the majority of archers weren't shooting, were they taking the advantage of the enfilade to shoot unaimed into the mass at a higher trajectory?

[Imperial Dave]

both....

the biggest 'battle' I was in was the Battle of Tewkesbury. When I used to attend we have approx 2000 combatants so we could field blocks of archers on both sides. We would be charged to fire on the opposing rear units of the enemy or the other archer blocks. Probably more for the spectacle for the watchers rather than a tactical nuance!

Officers would shout nock, draw, loose to get volleys. When we trained we would try for a minimum of 10 shots a minute but on the field it would be a lower rate due mainly to stock of arrows

[RichT]

Something else I came across (which I expect you already know all about) is the Hungarian Nyilzapor (Rain of Arrows) festival. Useful for giving an idea of what an arrowstorm looks like (go to about 1:45).

Not very relevant to this particular topic, though I note they use rotating ranks with each archer shooting as he reaches the front which gives approximately coordinated rolling volleys. Whether this is historical or not, I know not.

[Erpingham]

Not very relevant to this particular topic, though I note they use rotating ranks with each archer shooting as he reaches the front which gives approximately coordinated rolling volleys. Whether this is historical or not, I know not.

It's not clear what the advantage would be for archers, rather than loading muskets, of such a rotation.  It would allow everyone to sequentially take aimed shots and it would allow a continuous stream of arrows, as opposed massed flights every few seconds, if this was felt important.   I don't think, however, it fits with the idea of "shooting wholly together" , the most straightforward meaning of which is everyone in the "unit" - whatever we see that as - shooting at the same time. 

[RichT]

I imagine the advantage in this case is just giving everybody a go, without the Health and Safety concerns of shooting over people's heads. Plus, it shares the arrow usage out more evenly.

I do though have a hard time envisaging mass ranks shooting wholly together (which perhaps Mr Hollin can enlighten me on?). Most archery is not at high elevations - 20 degrees or so is normal even at long ranges. It seems as if the opportunities for at worst friendly fire and at best fouling the bows of men in front (especially with longbows) are legion, unless the formation is very open order, or very shallow, or both.

[nikgaukroger]

I imagine the advantage in this case is just giving everybody a go, without the Health and Safety concerns of shooting over people's heads. Plus, it shares the arrow usage out more evenly.

I do though have a hard time envisaging mass ranks shooting wholly together (which perhaps Mr Hollin can enlighten me on?). Most archery is not at high elevations - 20 degrees or so is normal even at long ranges. It seems as if the opportunities for at worst friendly fire and at best fouling the bows of men in front (especially with longbows) are legion, unless the formation is very open order, or very shallow, or both.

I wonder how much room people think an archer needs. I've found that , say, 3 feet per man is plenty and that is about what a Roman infantryman had (depending on your reading of sources of course, see discussions ad nauseum  ). However, is just a single rank of shooters, I have never shot with multiple ranks.

[Erpingham]

It seems as if the opportunities for at worst friendly fire and at best fouling the bows of men in front (especially with longbows) are legion, unless the formation is very open order, or very shallow, or both.

As Henry Barret remarked

"bowes, a combersome tying weapon in a throng of men ..... to which it requireth such elbow rome, and are so troublesome"

(He is actually talking of mixing bows and pikes in a single body, rather than in a formation of shot)

I'm not aware of anything specific on formation, except for the fact that it was expected to be multiply ranked.  William Neade , in the Double Armed Man, does acknowledge that his bow/pike soldiers archers can't shoot when the pike block forms close order but, from the context, what he is talking about is when the ranks compress, reducing the space between ranks (he talks of closing up the first five ranks but allowing the subsequent ranks to keep shooting).  This would imply that he thought the standard 3ft x 7ft. order could be shot in. 

Another 17th century writer (and military archery supporter) John Bingham in his work on Aelian says

"Ioine that a whole squadron of archers, being embattailed, may shoote at once together: which onely the first ranke of musketiers may doe. And make the case there were a hundred musketters, and a hundred bowe-men eche digested into ten files, eche file conteyning ten men, the bowe men shall bee able to shoote at once a hundred arrowes (all theire arrowes) for ten bullets given by the musketiers, namely those ten of the first ranke discharging alone."

Going back a short way into the 16th century, John Smythe sets out his ideal archery formation as a herse 25 to 35 men wide and 7-8 men deep at most (to avoid confusion, by this stage a herse meant a rectangular formation, sometimes used interchangeably with a double or broad square)

So, deeper formations and overhead shooting seems to have been practiced in the sixteenth century. 

BTW, while looking at Neade's treatise I noticed this in his section on commands embedded in the set of drill positions :

Draw out your Arrow.
Nock your Arrow.
Shoot wholly together.

Sound familiar?    Personally, I'd suggest this comes from developing something that would fit the drill-book minded training regime which really comes in with Dutch drill in the late 1590s rather than earlier practice, though.

[RichT]

So, deeper formations and overhead shooting seems to have been practiced in the sixteenth century.

Yes that does seem to be the case. My question remains, not if or whether, but how. Multiple ranks seem perplexing (I can see that lateral space needn't be a big problem). I can imagine that it would be possible by shooting at quite high elevation, but little useful shooting is at high elevation. So how can ten ranks shoot at a target within, say 100 metres, without a lot of self harm? This is a case where a picture or video may be worth a thousand words.

Draw out your Arrow.
Nock your Arrow.
Shoot wholly together.

This seems to miss a step (draw) unless we envisage (as no doubt we should) the draw-and-shoot of the heavy bow.

Edit to add - OK, given that GIYF I've looked for some pictures:







Though shooting up into the air like that those arrows will fly, what, 200-300 metres? Maybe the answer is just that deep formations could only shoot together at long ranges? Once the enemy got in closer, only the front rank(s) could shoot?

[Imperial Dave]

bow units were drawn up 2 or 3 ranks deep with a decent amount of spacing so that there was room to nock and draw arrows. All ranks shot at the same time and at angles approaching 45 degrees so as to clear our lines. flat shooting is a last resort (and also a H+S nightmare)

we also had runners to collect returned arrows from the opposing bowmen to keep stocks up

[Erpingham]

So, deeper formations and overhead shooting seems to have been practiced in the sixteenth century.

Yes that does seem to be the case. My question remains, not if or whether, but how. Multiple ranks seem perplexing (I can see that lateral space needn't be a big problem). I can imagine that it would be possible by shooting at quite high elevation, but little useful shooting is at high elevation. So how can ten ranks shoot at a target within, say 100 metres, without a lot of self harm? This is a case where a picture or video may be worth a thousand words.

Part of the answer may be that, by the later 16th century, long range shooting was very much a role for archers in a field action.  The old short range function was better performed by firearms, because of their better anti-armour performance and generally greater lethality.  If this is so, we don't really get much description of what massed archers did at close range. 

Looking at Neade again, I noted this

"Thirdly, if the enemy comes on, and that the leaders doe shoot brest high, then are the followers to beare their Bowhand euen with the top of his leaders head, for that is the lowest and shortest distance, that they can shoot, standing in their order, and square body."


This works well enough for Neade, whose archers cease shooting and prepare pikes at 120 yds, but must must have been a problem for John Smythe's herse formation.

Add : Written before seeing Richard's addition.  Although starting from different points, we seem to have converged on a similar understanding.  I would refer back to an early point, though, that a deep target, such as caused by an enfilade, would allow the foremost ranks to put in flat aimed shots while the ranks behind shot more generally into the mass. 

We might also note Neade again

There is neither man nor horse that can be so armed, as to free himselfe from the showers of arrowes, for euery bowman may haue two or three arrowes still flying, and therefore no part of the body is free from the arrow; for in the descending, it must hit either the head, face, armes, body, thighes, legs, or feet, both of the leaders and followers, and so both the middle and the reere of the enemies battell are subiect to the arrowes, as well as the front; (my emphasis).

He is clearly envisaging an area effect arrowstorm here, not the precision version of the flat-trajectory school.