[Dan Howard]

Here is a list of different factors leading to the success of the English warbow in battle. IMO the main point of using heavy warbows was to cast a heavy war arrow as far as possible - to shoot as many arrows as possible as far as possible as quickly as possible. This enabled a host of tactical possibilities to be available to the English commander. Note that being able to kill people though their plate armour is not in the list. Most of the accounts that people dredge up to support their armour-piercing claims fall into either point 2 or 3 and are not evidence of arrows killing through plate at all.

1. One reason for the widespread deployment of the warbow was to counter the English deficiency in cavalry. The warbow forced English opponents to dismount and advance on foot. Many English victories with this weapon were caused by their opponent attempting to charge their horses through a hail of arrows. It was the horse that was vulnerable to the arrow, not the well-armoured rider.

2. The whole point of any battle is to take out enemy soldiers. This does not mean that they have to be killed. An arrow through the foot will incapacitate a soldier just as surely as an arrow through the heart. The vast majority of arrow casualties were caused by non-fatal injuries as it has always been since the bow was first used in battle thousands of years ago.

3. There are plenty of soldiers in any army who are not covered head to foot in solid plate, but even the best armour has gaps that can be exploited. If you are hit with enough arrows then eventually one is going to find a place where the body is not so well protected.

4. The natural tendancy of fighters to flinch and move away from arrows on both flanks will cause them to bunch up in the middle, rendering them unable to fight effectively.

5. By using volleyed arrows to create a "beaten ground" a commander could use archers to direct an advancing enemy into a prearranged position. As noted above, the impact of heavy arrows even on solid plate will cause the wearer to flnch away from the attack.

6. Arrows have a demoralising effect on the enemy. Most battles are won by causing the enemy to rout, not through attrition

7. English archers were experienced fighters and hard men, serving multiple roles in an English army. They did not drop out of the battle when they ran out of arrows. They drew hand weapons and waded into the melee with the rest of the infantry. Their versatility was a key aspect of their effectiveness.

8. Ever since the bow was first used in battle, its principal role was to disrupt an enemy formation so that other units such as cavalry and infantry could exploit gaps in the line. Combined arms and disciplined troops were the key to English success, not a magical superweapon.

[Chad Arnow]

Did you mean this to be a reply to the active arrows vs. armour thread?

[Dan Howard]

I mean it to be a neat summary so that whenever this subject comes up people don't have to endlessly repeat the same things. Yes it is a reply to the claim that the English won battles because their arrows could punch through armour. I'll edit the above to make that point clearer.

[Kel Rekuta]

Well done Dan! This thread should be a sticky.

[William P]

and if there are even ore lightly aroured troops, ones having only maile padded jacks or simply not havng ful faced helmets..
then they will be felled very easily by the heavier arrows just faling out of the sky.

[Dan Howard]

Even mail offers excellent protection against arrows. Not as much as plate obviously but a lot more than many assume. I thought I addressed that in the Mail Unchained article. Some types of mail provide better protection than others but it is perfectly possible to make arrow-proof mail. However, it would be a lot heavier than an equivalent item made from plate, which is one of the reasons why mail was superseded by plate. I agree that lighter armour is more easily compromised by a heavy war arrow, but usually only at shorter ranges. Steeled arrowheads would help a lot in those situations.

[Robert Rytel]

[Elling Polden]

In addition to the points above:

The major change in english tactics that allowed them to postpone defeat for a century was not the use of longbows, which had been around for hundreds of years allread, but the use of dismounted elite warriors.

This in turn enabled the defence of a single location, a strong defensive line for the longbowmen to deploy behind, and might even in.
Thus, the english archers, floating behind/ between men at arms, could support these with point blank fire.

A medieval army is not a formation of regiments consisting of a single troop type standing in neat, enligtenment style squares. Rather, they are organic battlegroups with a hodgepodge of differnet weapons.

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

[Dan Howard]

[Elling Polden]

In a sense, the english do exactly the same to the french that the scots did to them a few years earlier:
Focus on infantry to compensate for lower numbers of heavy cavalry.

Where the scots boosted their ranks with pikemen, the english did so with longbowmen. This makes sense if your base asuption is that professional heavy toops will beat light troops hands down: Bring light troops that will not be part of the melee.

However, archers can not hold ground on their own. Thus, they need either to be protected amongst the heavy infantry or deployed against a passive foe.

When fighting the scots, the english longbowmen present at Banocburn had little impact, as the english cavalry was fighting on their own way ahead of the rest of the army.
At Falkirk, the scottish infantry where pinned in place, and the archers chewed them up at close range, protected by their own knights and spearmen.

The french, for their part, rode or walked into english defensive positions, effectively pining themselves down against the men at arms.

In the earlyer middle ages, where shieldwalls where the norm for infantry warfare, archers do not seem to have been very important. But against the shieldless scots or dismounted gendarmes, they could have greater effect.

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

[Ken Speed]

Elling Polden wrote, “The major change in english tactics that allowed them to postpone defeat for a century was not the use of longbows, which had been around for hundreds of years allread, but the use of dismounted elite warriors.

This in turn enabled the defence of a single location, a strong defensive line for the longbowmen to deploy behind, and might even in. Thus, the english archers, floating behind/ between men at arms, could support these with point blank fire.

A medieval army is not a formation of regiments consisting of a single troop type standing in neat, enligtenment style squares. Rather, they are organic battlegroups with a hodgepodge of differnet weapons.”


OK, everybody please excuse me for quoting Elling’s whole post but I think its necessary.

Elling, please don’t think I’m assailing your comments but it’s hard to just read your assertions and say, “OK, if he says so it must be right.” You may very well BE right but please give us some examples to buttress your assertions.

Specifically:

What elite dismounted warriors? When? Where?


Floating English archers with point blank supporting fire? What? I’m really not trying to be sarcastic, I know you don’t literally mean “floating” although the image does come to mind. Probably others more informed than am I know exactly what you mean but I confess I don’t and I’d really like to know.

Sort of the same thing with the “organic battlegroups with a hodge podge of different weapons” It isn’t that I don’t believe that you know what you’re talking about but I don’t know what you’re talking about and would really appreciate some examples and clarification.

[Dan Howard]

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

Dismounted men-at-arms made up the core of the English army during the Hundred Years' War. They fought in full armor, armed with spears, axes, swords, and daggers. As far as floating archers go, maybe levitation was the real English superweapon of the period!

[Dan Howard]

I think Elling means that the archers would have moved amongst and around the core of elite infantry supporting them however they could. They wouldn't have remained in a fixed formation once the melee had started.

[William P]

[Dan Howard]

On p.18 of The Great Warbow Hardy reckons that warbows of 143-165 lbs shooting arrows weighing 3.5-4.0 oz. can fly up to 240 yards and lose 15-30% of their initial velocity at the point of impact.

[Elling Polden]

[Kel Rekuta]