[Gary Teuscher]

[Gary Teuscher]

I think I overestimated the shaft length going by memory as well

76mm seems to be the average, which is about 29.9 inches.

[Randall Moffett]

Gary,

But keep in mind the draw length is to the closest part of the bow. On a real warbow you will have at least an inch, maybe more for bow thickness, so a 30" draw still has several inches more from what the total shaft length and then complete arrow w/head length, so once again we are getting into dead on for period descriptions.

RPM

[Bartek Strojek]

I would just like to add, that without knowing at least approximate brace height of bow, even accurate draw lenght doesn't tell us all that much, because we don't know how much of that lenght is actually distance on which force is applied.

[Gary Teuscher]

[Glennan Carnie]

The MR bows were braced around 5.5 - 6"

A bow's draw-weight is measured at a standard extension (typically 32" for a war bow) to compensate for the fact no two archers draw the same length.

The draw-weight is measured from brace, not unstrung. That is, the bow is strung to its brace height, then the scales are zeroed.

A well-made high-altitude yew bow will draw about 16lbs per inch for about the first 28 - 30 inches. After that, because of the design of the limbs, the draw-weight drops to about 7lbs per inch. Therefore, bracing the bow an inch higher has much more effect (relatively) than reducing the draw-length by an inch.

The length of an arrow is the distance from the bottom of the nock to the shoulder of the head. Thus, a 30.5" long arrow with a 2" bodkin will be around 32.25" long total (assuming a 1/4" deep nock - about average for a MR arrow)

It is perfectly possible and acceptable to draw the arrow its full length. In fact, any arrow not drawn is effectively 'dead weight' contributing nothing to the shot.

The MR do not show signs of wear since they were (for the most part) new bows in storage chests. Scarring on a bow will be caused by the shaft passing the bow; so you would not be able tell whether the wear was caused by the bodkin. High-altitude yew is very dense and hard (much harder than Pacific yew) and would take a considerable number of arrows to show significant wear.

Below is a photo of me drawing a 33" arrow with a 125lb Italian yew bow at an archery competition in China. You can clearly see the bodkin touching the back of the bow.

[Gary Teuscher]

Ineresting info and nice pics, Glennan!

[Gary Teuscher]

By the way Randall, I am not using the above as a "proof" of sorts that a 30" 140 lb draw means that longbows generally do not pierce armour when factoring in Williams testing.

I DO think longbows arrows pierced mail if reasonably close - I agree with Bane in that the piercing device used for testing armours resistance to arrows probably did not best represent a bows piercing ability - testing heads similar to a needle nose bodkin and type 16 broadhead would have probably produced different results, though not to the extent Bane's testing did.

I DO think however this should be factored in to any statements about Joulles produced by longbows and stored energy.

[Gary Teuscher]

BTW Glennan, as I said nice pic, but one from the arrow side of the bow would have made calculations a bit easier

[Gary Teuscher]

Maybe this simpler way of saying it will make my point more clear.

You cannot have a 32" arrow with a 32" draw. If so, the tip arrow would be even with the back of the bow. It could "span" it in essence, though it would probably break under the strain.

If your tip protrudes about an inch from the front of the bow, and the bow is abut 1" think, you are looking at a max draw of (arrow length - 2") or so.

Now the average length of an MR arrow was 29.9". Using this idea:

[Randall Moffett]

Gary,

I think what you are saying is basically what I am saying. I agree you cannot draw a 33" arrow all the way or it will no longer have the bow to rest upon and swing inward, which would not be good.

RPM

[Glennan Carnie]

[Gary Teuscher]

[Gary Teuscher]

There is a listing of found "longbows" other than those on the Mary Rose:

[Dan Howard]

There isn't much point testing the original artefacts since it tells us nothing about the wood's capability when new. The best you can do is test reconstructions using similar wood and confirm the results with computer modelling, which is what was done with MR bows.

[Gary Teuscher]

That's what I was thinking Dan.

I thought that perhaps the first tests of the Mary Rose bows were done in this way, perhaps these other bows were tested that way as well, though since one of them is broken I guess that would be impossible.

I would think a true testing based on replicating the bows materials would be tough though, or at least would take a while. Was not the practice to age thecut wood a year or two before it could make a suitable bow?

[William P]

one question about crecy, by the time of the battle, what was the main form of body armour,

one book of mine detailing the changes to knights, mostly english knights, from 1200-1600, and on the chapter on knights from 1300-1400, it seems to suggest that breastplates, i.e one or two piece ones were made in germany during the 1340's and froissarts chronicles seems to depict everyone in full harness, with sallets as well.

but i personally was under the impression that the coat of plates,. like the ones found at wisby were the main form of armour in the first half of the 14th century??

[R. Kolick]

After reading some of these statements I’m wondering how many of you have shot a real longbow or composite recurve bow
- first read the book on the Mary Rose it rates the average weight of a war bow at between 110 and 170 lbs for the record they found REAL war bows
-Second the long needle nose bodkin was used for mail not plate shorter heavier bodkins were used.
-third if their only purpose was to disrupted the enemy than the English would never have won once because when facing 3-to-1 odds or worse in France than they would never have won Crecy or Agincourt
-finally if an arrow was merely an annoyance why then where archers tortured slaughtered and castrated if they were just a pain in the ass instead of just killed
Yes an arrow wouldn’t always pierce plate but even if it doesn’t it would knock someone on their ass which if you on a horse in 50-60 lbs of steel armor would very likely Break Your Neck. the archer was just as costly to train as a knight it took ten years to train an archer to use a war bow (see reason one why) it was just easier to equip them. It would not be a kill every time because the point of a bodkin wasn’t very broad but when it hit I would usually pierce plate and wound if not kill.
My only comment is that if you are so sure that a bow can’t shoot through plate than shoot a true weight war bow 110 lbs+ at a 2mm breastplate with a bodkin see what happens but history seems to say that it will pierce through the armor and on the French where lead by idiots your right and if an arrow wouldn’t kill you why would the French cower in their fortresses if it was safe you’ve almost been hit by an arrow (and I have) it scares the crap out of you and that’s because an arrow if it hits you can kill you so it stands to reason that the French weren’t hiding from a little thing such as “disruption” but more likely death.

[Nat Lamb]

[Dan Howard]