[Justin Pasternak]

From the fictional movies "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" and "The Lord of the Rings" their are a few scenes that I've watched were Legalos fires two arrows from his bow at two different targets and the same go's for a scene when Robin Hood (Kevin Costner) fires two arrows from a single bow as well.

My question is it even possible to hold onto and fire several arrows from a single bow and fire them acurately at two different targets? Or is it just something hollywood came up with for the action/adventure movie genre?

[James Barker]

I have a buddy in the SCA who does trick shots with two arrows on a modern bow but they go into the same target with little spread and you split the energy from the bow between the two arrows meaning they hit with less force. Never seen it done of a longbow.

Frankly I see no real purpose in doing this trick shot real medieval archers fired upwards of 10-12 arrows a minute.

[J. Bedell]

In my experience with a fiberglass longbow:

#1 It is very difficult to hold and fire two arrows at once
#2 The two arrows either hit the same target or one flies off in a random direction
#3 If you do manage to get it right then the two arrows hit weakly compared to shooting arrows singly

I agree with James Barker, their is no practical purpose for this trick.

-James

[Glennan Carnie]

You shoot arrows, not fire them. You fire a gun.

[J. Bedell]

[Justin Pasternak]

Wow, this is challenging! I've just tried to shoot two arrows at once and out of 24 tries I was only able to do it once. One of my arrows hit the side of the target and the other veered left and hit a tree.

[Shamsi Modarai]

Ooh...now I want to try my hand at this.

[David Sutton]

In Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, I noticed Robin tears off the fletchings from one side of the arrows with his teeth (or he wets them or something my memory is a little hazy and I've not seen it for a while) before he shoots them. Would this have any effect on the direction of the arrows or the way they travelled through the air?

[J. Bedell]

If he tears off the fletchings it would have a huge impact on the path of the arrow. It would not fly straight at all and may not go in the desired direction. I have tried this many times to see what would happen and I can get close to a target but the flight path is so inconsistent that it is hard to hit a target when your arrow is missing a fletching.

As for wetting it, soaking the fletching may have an impact but I haven't tried that so I'm not sure. Assuming that the fletchings are feathers and not synthetic I think it would be best not to soak the fletchings but I don't know if wetting them would affect the arrow much.

-James

[Gavin Kisebach]

At a recent SCA archery tournament, there was a woman doing this. One phase of the tournament, the speed round, is shot at 20 yds, as many shots as you can get off in 30 seconds.

She always started the round with two arrows, and it was jawdroppingly cool to watch her shoot. She was a stone cold killer. Anyhow, the arrows spread between 8 and 14 inches over 20 yds. She was using a 40lb flatbow with a small shelf. It took her about 4 seconds to set up for this sho, and I never saw her miss.

[Gavin Kisebach]

Did I mention she was wearing a medieval dress while shooting?

[Matthew D]

from shooting my hickory self-bow with the fletching wet, it does tend to make the flight path a bit flatter than normal if I remember correctly from the last time we had rain. As for tearing the fletching as stated before it does make the flight a bit unstable but there are historical examples of arrows with only 2 fletching setup, Cherokee hunting arrows had this type of setup.

[John Cooksey]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

Loosing two arrows at once from the same string is possible but useless.

Yes, useless. Why? Because the bow's limbs can only store so much potential energy at a time, and in loosing two arrows you're splitting that energy between two different projectiles instead of concentrating it in one. If your target has any sort of armor--even reasonably thick clothing or a thick hide--then each arrow would have been only half as likely to cause any significant injury. The same goes for three, four, or five arrows. When you try to loose so many arrows, you might see them hit and then bounce harmlessly off the target.

Modern competition arrows with plastic fletchings may still veer consistently in one direction if their fletching is torn off--that is, if the arrow's shaft is still reasonably straight and the archer sufficiently skilled to be a consistent shot. War or hunting arrows were not always manufactured to such high tolerances and James is quite correct in that their flight path could get a great deal less predictable. This is not always the case, however, since there were very well-made hunting and war arrows in medieval times.

The conclusion? I think loosing multiple arrows from the same bow might be good for display/exhibition shots in fairs and friendly competitions, but a laughable idea in war or hunting situations.

[Glennan Carnie]

I'm with Lafayette on this.

Shooting two arrows at once is the archery equivalent of spinning round ('round-housing'?) whilst fighting with a sword - it looks exciting to a lay audience, but has no practical combat use.

This goes into my 'Things I hate about medieval movies', which also includes (but not limited to):

Swords decorated with crests, scrolls and dragon-heads
Beating the other guy's sword to death in a fight, whilst almost completely ignoring the wielder of said sword
Virtually immobile men-at-arms being winched onto horses
Heroes in leather trousers and jerkins
Everyone below a lord (except the hero!) dressed in rags
English archers shooting in an American hunting style
Handles on warbows


(And... breathe... )

[Gavin Kisebach]

[James Barker]

[Glennan Carnie]

Yeah, yeah, yeah...

I remember why I don't post on forums anymore.

[Sam Shifley]

do a search for a traditional longbow archer named howard hill. very active in the forties and fifties if memory serves. while not debating the relevance of doing these kinds of shots, in one of hill's short films he shoots two arrows at the same target and then shoots two at separate targets about 3-4 feet apart. something he did fairly regularly as an exhibition archer. worth checking out for a quite a variety of other jaw dropping shots. anyway. . .

[Lafayette C Curtis]

Well, let's just make it clear that I'm not bashing either the SCA archer lady or Howard Hill. That double-shot ("Manyshot" in D&D terms) skill may be strictly an exhibition skill, but it's admirable all the same.