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Dan Howard
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 Posted: Sun 25 Nov, 2012 3:11 pm Post subject: |
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FWIW I never meant to imply that heavier arrows aren't better at penetrating armour. I meant to suggest that this may not have been their primary purpose in some cases. IMO the reason why the English developed the use of massed warbows was to cast a volley of heavy war-arrows out to a longer range in order to give commanders a far greater selection of tactical options. One of which would have been to increase the chance of penetrating armour at close range, but this is a small part of the tactical repertoire.
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Gary Teuscher
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| Posted: Sun 25 Nov, 2012 10:25 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | IMO the reason why the English developed the use of massed warbows was to cast a volley of heavy war-arrows out to a longer range in order to give commanders a far greater selection of tactical options. One of which would have been to increase the chance of penetrating armour at close range, but this is a small part of the tactical repertoire. |
I really don't get the idea behind the heavy English arrows (By comparison) and the "longbow".
The heavier arrow retains piercing ability better at range due to mass being a constant in the mass-velocity equation, but at range it seems the arrows would not be effective against decent armour, so this is not helpful at this point.
And the velocity at close range before it bleeds off some makes the Turkish arrows more deadly against armour it would seem, unless they will tend to break, bend or shatter a fair amount easier.
Perhaps the longbow was less efficient than the turkish type bows (I do believe this part is true at least), and because of such they were less efficient with lighter arrows when compared to turkish bows, but with heavier arrows the difference in efficiency in the two types of bows was less of a factor.
Anyway, perhaps the bolt vs an arrow made the crossbows more effective against armour. It seems their weight may have been similar, but as they were 1/2 or less the length of a longbow arrow their stoutness help in armour penetration.
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Timo Nieminen
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| Posted: Sun 25 Nov, 2012 11:20 pm Post subject: |
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| Dan Howard wrote: | | FWIW I never meant to imply that heavier arrows aren't better at penetrating armour. I meant to suggest that this may not have been their primary purpose in some cases. IMO the reason why the English developed the use of massed warbows was to cast a volley of heavy war-arrows out to a longer range in order to give commanders a far greater selection of tactical options. One of which would have been to increase the chance of penetrating armour at close range, but this is a small part of the tactical repertoire. |
Heavier arrows will give you less range, lighter arrows will give you more range. This is a different point from using higher draw weight bows. However, at the draw weights that English longbows seem to have reached, there would be little, if any, increased range from the higher draw weights. Given that higher draw weights come with a cost - your archers must be better trained, fitter, better fed, paid more, etc. - some benefit was perceived.
"In addition to being efficient, all pole arms were quite nice to look at." - Cherney Berg, A hideous history of weapons, Collier 1963.
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Kurt Scholz
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| Posted: Mon 26 Nov, 2012 1:24 am Post subject: |
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| Timo Nieminen wrote: | | Kurt Scholz wrote: |
Timo you did not understand the formula (that is still too simplistic).
Velocity does also effect penetration, but you need a lot more energy for this effect because penetration increase via velocity increase has only a square root increase from the additional energy input. That's always been a solution for systems that are not man-powered, while man-powered systems take the linear momentum increase.
In other words, to increase penetration capability three times you either put 9 times more energy into it via the velocity approach or you triple the weight and need only 3 times the energy for the same effect (but carry a lot more munition weight!). |
No. That's quite contrary to both well-established theory and experimental measurements. It is very clear that penetration through metal armour depends on energy, linearly.
For a good single-volume review, see the armour penetration chapter in Atkins, The Science and Engineering of Cutting.
Most of the armour-penetration research focusses on bullets/shells through thick plate, because that's relevant to modern warfare, so the arrow relevant stuff is a little harder to find. Atkins gives a good review, and cites the most relevant primary research literature. The Knight and the Blast Furnace is also good. A lot of the primary research only gives spot measurements for arrows (e.g., P. N. Jones). Arrow-through-armour research is deficient, and there's a lot of room for more. Good luck to anybody who pursues grant money to such ends! But the main points, that energy is the key, and that slender pyramidal penetrators (if they don't bend) are optimum are well-established. |
You keep misunderstanding physics again and again. Energy does have an effect because penetration does require energy, it's movement with friction. It always makes a difference what kind of tool is used to penetrate and thus how energy is stored - in velocity or in mass. Head shape is self-evident and I have no idea why you constantly raise that, while you have zero knowledge what the heads of the warheads we discuss look like.
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R Ashby
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| Posted: Mon 26 Nov, 2012 4:17 am Post subject: |
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thank you all- I've learned heaps (Including why I flunked physics in Uni)
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Gary Teuscher
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| Posted: Mon 26 Nov, 2012 8:05 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Heavier arrows will give you less range, lighter arrows will give you more range. This is a different point from using higher draw weight bows. However, at the draw weights that English longbows seem to have reached, there would be little, if any, increased range from the higher draw weights. Given that higher draw weights come with a cost - your archers must be better trained, fitter, better fed, paid more, etc. - some benefit was perceived. |
There is always the thought it seems that composite horse archer bows mean "light" draw weights, and English Longbows are "heavy" draw weights.
From Karpowicz's article on turkish bow testing:
| Quote: | | The thickness of limbs for the flight bows was close to published measurements.6,7 These bows turned out to be over 100lb draw weight. Other bows, seen by the author in museums, had even thicker limbs.7, 8 It can be estimated Turkish bows in the range 90 to 160lb were common. The masses of tested bows were comparable to masses of old bows.4 |
I know 90-160 is a pretty broad range. But we would be looking somewhere at a 125 pound draw average, with the longbow according to Mary Rose specs being a 150 pound average (other found English lonbows have lighter draw weights, though some of these may possibly be hunting bows. These other found bows are more from the rennaissance era, but for that matter so are the Mary Rose bows).
150 to 125 pounds may seem a big difference - however, due to the efficiency of the bow, some of which is because of the recurve design and a higher % of starting draw weight, the energy imparted to the arrow by a 150 pound longbow and a 125 pound composite recurve are roughly about the same.
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Mon 26 Nov, 2012 11:52 am Post subject: |
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| Timo Nieminen wrote: | | However, at the draw weights that English longbows seem to have reached, there would be little, if any, increased range from the higher draw weights.. |
I want to see test results showing that a war arrow shot from a 100 lb English selfbow has the same range as a similar arrow shot from a 150 lb English selfbow.
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Sean Manning
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| Posted: Mon 26 Nov, 2012 12:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Gary Teuscher wrote: | | Quote: | | IMO the reason why the English developed the use of massed warbows was to cast a volley of heavy war-arrows out to a longer range in order to give commanders a far greater selection of tactical options. One of which would have been to increase the chance of penetrating armour at close range, but this is a small part of the tactical repertoire. |
I really don't get the idea behind the heavy English arrows (By comparison) and the "longbow".
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We don't know how NW European bowyers were thinking, all we can do is observe what they made and guess. My ideas are based on a lot of reading on the physics of archery.
Composite bows are expensive and vulnerable to changes in weather, so the native traditions of the area focused on self bows (the Roman army brought composite bows with it, and we do hear of "Turkish bows" in late medieval England, but we don't know what this phrase referred to). Yew has limited ability to bend compared to horn and sinew, so you need a long bow to get a long draw. That long bow has heavy arms, which limit the speed at which the bow can accelerate. This means that light arrows have a lower velocity than they would on a short composite bow of similar draw weight and draw length. If light arrows will not attain extreme speeds when fired from your bow, you might as well use a heavy arrow to maximize mass and therefore energy. From what I have read on the physics of archery, short composite bows and long self bows lend themselves to focusing on different things.
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Kurt Scholz
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| Posted: Mon 26 Nov, 2012 11:40 pm Post subject: |
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Interesting, Mongol arrows, crossbows, it's all only about the English longbow?
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Tue 27 Nov, 2012 1:12 am Post subject: |
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If someone could demonstrate that an arrow shot from a 100 lb bow has a comparable range to a similar arrow shot from a 150 lb bow then I'd be more inclined to think that armour penetration was the primary intent of these heavier arrows.
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Harri Kyllönen
Location: Finland Joined: 12 Jun 2009
Posts: 42
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| Posted: Tue 27 Nov, 2012 4:51 am Post subject: |
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| Dan Howard wrote: | | If someone could demonstrate that an arrow shot from a 100 lb bow has a comparable range to a similar arrow shot from a 150 lb bow then I'd be more inclined to think that armour penetration was the primary intent of these heavier arrows. |
I think a guy called Saxton Pope did some interesting tests with bows. He tested large number of different bows from different (including several native american tribes, turkish, english...) archery cultures.
If I remember correctly he listed a draw weight and the maximum range he got.
The bows with the strongest draw weight didn't often have the best range. Some pretty powerful ones were surprisingly short ranged compared to "weaker" bows.
If I remember correctly the English longbow he tested had the best range but he himself doubted most of the other bows weren't made for war, long range shooting or had the optimal type of arrow.
I might have a link somewhere at home to the PDF.
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Gary Teuscher
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| Posted: Tue 27 Nov, 2012 6:49 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Composite bows are expensive and vulnerable to changes in weather, so the native traditions of the area focused on self bows (the Roman army brought composite bows with it, and we do hear of "Turkish bows" in late medieval England, but we don't know what this phrase referred to). Yew has limited ability to bend compared to horn and sinew, so you need a long bow to get a long draw. That long bow has heavy arms, which limit the speed at which the bow can accelerate. This means that light arrows have a lower velocity than they would on a short composite bow of similar draw weight and draw length. If light arrows will not attain extreme speeds when fired from your bow, you might as well use a heavy arrow to maximize mass and therefore energy. From what I have read on the physics of archery, short composite bows and long self bows lend themselves to focusing on different things. |
Well, Sean, I agree pretty much with everything you say here. That's my hypothesis as well as to why the "longbow" with heavy arrows. A Composite bow takes a long time and is very expensive to make - so why do this when you do not need a compact bow (i.e. for horse archery)? I think the local traditions took into account both cost, materials readily available, and needs.
Harri Kyllönen wrote:
| Quote: | The bows with the strongest draw weight didn't often have the best range. Some pretty powerful ones were surprisingly short ranged compared to "weaker" bows.
If I remember correctly the English longbow he tested had the best range but he himself doubted most of the other bows weren't made for war, long range shooting or had the optimal type of arrow |
I wonder what bows/arrows were being used. The Turkish bows to my knowledge hold the distance records for pre industrial age archery.
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Harri Kyllönen
Location: Finland Joined: 12 Jun 2009
Posts: 42
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| Posted: Tue 27 Nov, 2012 8:24 am Post subject: |
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| Gary Teuscher wrote: | | I wonder what bows/arrows were being used. The Turkish bows to my knowledge hold the distance records for pre industrial age archery. |
Apparently it was Turkic or Chinese. The bow sounds quite strange too.
"The greatest disappointment was in the Tartar bow which was brought
expressly from Shansi, China, by my brother, Col. B. H. Pope. With this
powerful weapon I expected to shoot a quarter of a mile; but with all
its dreadful strength, its cast was slow and cumbersome. The arrow that
came with it, a miniature javelin thirty-eight inches long, could only
be projected one hundred and ten yards. In making these shots both
hands and feet were used to draw the bow. A special flight arrow
thirty-six inches long was used in the test, but with hardly any
increase of distance gained."
You can more about the tests here:
http://archive.org/stream/huntingwiththebo08084gut/7hbow10.txt
| Quote: |
Weight Distance Shot
Alaskan....................... 80 pounds 180 yards
Apache........................ 28 " 120 "
Blackfoot..................... 45 " 145 "
Cheyenne...................... 65 " 156 "
Cree.......................... 38 " 150 "
Esquimaux..................... 80 " 200 "
Hupa.......................... 40 " 148 "
Luiseno....................... 48 " 125 "
Navajo........................ 45 " 150 "
Mojave........................ 40 " 110 "
Osage......................... 40 " 92 "
Sioux......................... 45 " 165 "
Tomawata...................... 40 " 148 "
Yurok......................... 30 " 140 "
Yukon......................... 60 " 125 "
Yaki.......................... 70 " 210 "
Yana.......................... 48 " 205 "
The list of foreign bows is as follows:
Weight Distance Shot
Paraguay...................... 60 pounds 170 yards
Polynesian.................... 49 " 172 "
Nigrito....................... 56 " 176 "
Andaman Islands................45 " 142 "
Japanese.......................48 " 175 "
Africa.........................54 " 107 "
Tartar.........................98 " 175 "
South American.................50 " 98 "
Igorrote.......................26 " 100 "
Solomon Islands................56 " 148 "
English target bow (imported)..48 " 220 "
English yew flight bow.........65 " 300 "
Old English hunting bow........75 " 250 " |
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Gary Teuscher
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| Posted: Tue 27 Nov, 2012 9:26 am Post subject: |
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Some info on turkish distance with flight arrows:
| Quote: | As all devotees of flight shooting are aware, the distance records established by the Turks centuries ago remain unsurpassed. This, in spite of recent advances in the technology of bow construction.
The maximum flight record set by Turkish archers, shooting in the conventional manner, seems to have been at least 874 yards, and may have exceeded 950 yards. The greatest distance thus far attained by modern flight archers, likewise shooting conventionally, is about 850 yards. Our "free-style" flight record, made in 1959 with a foot-bow, is 937.13 yards. |
http://www.turkishculture.org/lifestyles/turk...ws-554.htm
Pretty well exceeds the distances achieved by the author you mention!
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Harri Kyllönen
Location: Finland Joined: 12 Jun 2009
Posts: 42
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| Posted: Tue 27 Nov, 2012 10:27 am Post subject: |
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| Gary Teuscher wrote: | | Pretty well exceeds the distances achieved by the author you mention! |
I don't think he was trying to break any records with his tests. Just study historical bows before the original primitive archery traditions die out and we have no authentic pieces to test anymore.
Here's what he says:
| Quote: | Since archery is fast disappearing from the land, and the material for
study will soon become extinct, I have undertaken to record the
strength and shooting qualities of a representative number of the
available bows in preservation, together with the power of penetration
of arrows. |
http://archive.org/stream/huntingwiththebo08084gut/7hbow10.txt
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Gary Teuscher
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| Posted: Wed 28 Nov, 2012 7:54 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | I don't think he was trying to break any records with his tests. Just study historical bows before the original primitive archery traditions die out and we have no authentic pieces to test anymore. |
I think there were certainly some major flaws in his studies. The Longbows ranged from a 48-75 pound draw, far below the draw weights of the Mary Rose Bows.
I'm real curious what he used for a "Tartar bow", I'd think they were similar to turkish bows, but I'm not knowledgeable enough of this to really come to an opinion.
But if they were in any way comparable to Turkish bows, the 75 yards achieved by his tartar bow is a far cry from the 974-950 yards achieved by turkish flight bows. I believe these records were from the 14-16th centuries, and are not indicative of the range of a bow with "war arrows", these were specifically designed flight arrows using a sipher.
What also strikes me as odd is this:
| Quote: | A special flight arrow
thirty-six inches long was used in the test, but with hardly any
increase of distance gained." |
It runs contrary to the ideas of most flight arrows - at 36", it would seem to excede the draw lengh of the bow by a fair amount. In addition, flight arrows are generally shorter, not longer, as the added weight of a longer arrow reduces velocity and thereby range.
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Sean Manning
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| Posted: Wed 28 Nov, 2012 8:19 am Post subject: |
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| Gary Teuscher wrote: | | Quote: | | I don't think he was trying to break any records with his tests. Just study historical bows before the original primitive archery traditions die out and we have no authentic pieces to test anymore. |
I think there were certainly some major flaws in his studies. The Longbows ranged from a 48-75 pound draw, far below the draw weights of the Mary Rose Bows.
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All the evidence I have seen for self bows from other times and places than NW Europe circa the 15th century has them with much lighter draws than the Mary Rose bows. Its important not to treat those as "typical long self bows" just because we may have read a lot about them ...
There are a number of good articles with range and draw weight data on different kinds of bows and arrows. I don't have time to copy the citations.
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Gary Teuscher
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| Posted: Wed 28 Nov, 2012 8:42 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | All the evidence I have seen for self bows from other times and places than NW Europe circa the 15th century has them with much lighter draws than the Mary Rose bows. Its important not to treat those as "typical long self bows" just because we may have read a lot about them ... |
Well, the evidence is really scant about bows, so it's hard to draw any true conclusions. I believe the Nydam bows, while long, were a fair amount lighter draw, under 100 lbs, though this is far earlier than the "Longbow"
Other found English "Longbows" are generally a bit shorter than the Mary Rose bows, and range in the 70-90 pound range, though these are renaissance era bows and may well have been hunitng weapons.
The few found Scandavanian bows (though I think the ones I know of were ironically found in Ireland IIRC) are of around 6' in length, and estimated to have 100+ pound draws.
What makes it hard is knowing what bows were truly weapons of war and which were weapons of the hunt. And in the case of many of the found bows in England, these date to a time where gunnpowder weapons were for war and these were likley sporting or hunting weapons.
But the measurements of found turkish bows when reconstructed point to a fairly heavy draw for weapons of war as well. over 100 pounds on average though not of the 150 pound average of the Mary Rose Bows.
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Timo Nieminen
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| Posted: Wed 28 Nov, 2012 10:34 am Post subject: |
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| Dan Howard wrote: | | Timo Nieminen wrote: | | However, at the draw weights that English longbows seem to have reached, there would be little, if any, increased range from the higher draw weights.. |
I want to see test results showing that a war arrow shot from a 100 lb English selfbow has the same range as a similar arrow shot from a 150 lb English selfbow. |
See the range results in Soar, Secrets of the English War Bow.
On pg 24, there's a bunch of ranges achieved with different draw weight bows. There's little change in the ranges groing from 80lbs to 130lbs. The 150lb bows did shoot significantly further (but not even close to twice as far as the 80lb bows). These ranges are, I think, with the same arrows. Fairly light arrows.
Pg 130, ranges with heavier arrows and a 144lb bow, which are similar to the 80-130lb ranges on pg 24.
If you want more range, use light arrows. Flight arrows from a longbow, in modern shooting, have exceeded 380 yards.
If you build flight bows, they're different from war bows. The key is to minimise mass while maximising draw weight. As a result, the wood tends to be strained to close to the elastic limit - the bows have a short life. For a war bow, you don't want it to break. So you sacrifice range in order to get a longer-lived bow - you can either make it wider or longer. Longer is good, because then you can make it a little thicker and still only reach the same strain as a shorter bow. From the lengths of the Mary Rose bows, these are not optimised for range. High draw weight will help for range; good flight bows need to be of high draw weight. But optimising the bow is important to maximise range. Also, when you reach the elastic limit of the wood you make your self bows from, you get very little benefit in range from the high draw weight - at that point, the mass of your bows climbs quickly as draw weight increases.
If you want more energy, use heavy arrows. High draw weight will help And it will help a lot. Since the energies obtained from high draw weight bows are high enough to be useful for piercing armour (100J and more, they should be able to pierce the lighter pieces of armour, even if not an arrow-proof breastplate), I don't think there's any need to look for alternative explanations of why high draw weight bows were used.
"In addition to being efficient, all pole arms were quite nice to look at." - Cherney Berg, A hideous history of weapons, Collier 1963.
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Timo Nieminen
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| Posted: Wed 28 Nov, 2012 10:53 am Post subject: |
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| Gary Teuscher wrote: |
I'm real curious what he used for a "Tartar bow", I'd think they were similar to turkish bows, but I'm not knowledgeable enough of this to really come to an opinion.
But if they were in any way comparable to Turkish bows, the 75 yards achieved by his tartar bow is a far cry from the 974-950 yards achieved by turkish flight bows. I believe these records were from the 14-16th centuries, and are not indicative of the range of a bow with "war arrows", these were specifically designed flight arrows using a sipher.
What also strikes me as odd is this:
| Quote: | A special flight arrow
thirty-six inches long was used in the test, but with hardly any
increase of distance gained." |
It runs contrary to the ideas of most flight arrows - at 36", it would seem to excede the draw lengh of the bow by a fair amount. In addition, flight arrows are generally shorter, not longer, as the added weight of a longer arrow reduces velocity and thereby range. |
The late Tatar bow would be essentially the Tatar version of the Manchu bow (which spread west through and past Mongolia after the Manchu/Qing conquest of China). There's a photo of such a bow on the cover of this edition of Carpini; it's a big bow with big arrows.
It's similar to a Turkish (and Indian, and Korean, and pre-Qing Chinese bow) in terms of construction, but it's much bigger.
175 yards is quite plausible from such a bow. They sacrifice long range for high energy at short range. War arrows would typically be about 125g. 36" isn't an abnormally long arrow (it's probably about the bottom end of the range of arrow lengths; it's about the minimum length Manchu arrow). Lighter arrows were used too, maybe 1/2 the weight of heavy hunting and war arrows. The flight arrow was probably such.
The bow is drawn back with the hand in front of the back shoulder, plus the thumb draw is used, which adds some 3-4" to the draw. If the test didn't involve drawing it back this far, then it underestimates the range of the bow.
"In addition to being efficient, all pole arms were quite nice to look at." - Cherney Berg, A hideous history of weapons, Collier 1963.
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