[Dan Howard]

[Stephen Hand]

Why is archery such a problematic topic?

Archery didn't stop any of the foot advances at Agincourt or even look like stopping any of them. The attack of the first French battle certainly had to endure over 100,000 arrows as it advanced, probably far more. Therefore we must conclude that either the English couldn't consistently hit man-sized targets OR that their armour was superbly resistant, OR (as my research leads me to believe) a bit of both. If longbowmen could consistently hit individual men and they could consistently pierce plate armour then logically the events of Agincourt could not have happened the way they did. The first French battle could not have struck the English line and thrown it back a spear's length because most of them would have been filled with arrows long before then.

I think that given the characteristics of the longbow and accounts of various battles, we can conclude that armour was a larger factor than accuracy. That is not to say that accuracy with a longbow was anything like some of the fanciful things I've read of men deliberately targeting visor slits at 200 yards. I've seen longbows being shot, at times by pretty serious archers, and they're nowhere near as accurate as crossbows and not even in the same ballpark as even the most primitive guns. But if you put 100,000 shots into a packed mass of men, lots of those shots will hit.

Bishop Ruthven who was at Flodden wrote ten days later that the Scots knights fronting the Schiltron were so well armoured that not one was killed by archery, so certainly armour worked. I find the claims in the face of such eyewitness accounts that armour didn't work, to be too ludicrous to entertain. However, if we compare Flodden with the results of battles like Falkirk, Halidon Hill and Nevilles Cross we can see a very big difference. At these battles the Scots schiltrons were slaughtered by archery. Lots of armour =low casualties from archery, little armour = high casualties from archery. It's that simple. What stopped the schiltrons from rolling over the archers regardless? The fact that the archers were also effective light infantry and most importantly that they were backed by men at arms who could function as extremely solid heavy infantry or as mounted shock troops. At Falkirk the English men at arms attacked the schiltrons with significant loss. However, their presence forced the Scots to stand under the subsequent English arrow storm and when the schiltrons were disorganised they were easy pickings for the cavalry. It is this combined arms that was critical to the English successes. The difference in the amount of armour the Scots and the French had meant the difference between one-sided victories where the men-at-arms acted essentially as a threat, a coup de grace and pursuit (assuming good use of combined arms - obviously this wasn't present at Bannockburn) and hard fought slogging matches between masses of dismounted men-at-arms (the basic model for most Wars of the Roses battles).

At Bannockburn the English used amateurish tactics. Their only sniff of success was when a unit of archers moved around the Scots left flank and shot into a Scots schiltron. These archers were ridden over by the relatively small contingent of Scots knights. Unsupported archers couldn't break charges by heavily armoured men and may not have been able to break charges by lightly armoured men, but unless the commander dropped the ball, the archers were never unsupported.

Anyone familiar with Napoleonic warfare will note that English archers played the role that field artillery played in those wars. The archers softened up and disorganised targets for attack but were pretty helpless against infantry or cavalry. Then, as the English had found earlier, the key to success was combined arms, using each arm to its best advantage and in support of the others. Napoleon loved artillery and loved to mass it against single targets, but never in his wildest dreams did he consider it to able to stand alone on the battlefield. In the same way an army of unsupported archers would have been almost useless.

Cheers
Stephen

[Stephen Scott]

[Greg Coffman]

I would like to observe that there now seem to be two questions here connected to the longbow: how accurate would period archers be and how effective would a hit be to a man-at-arms (this is ignoring the question of how heavy of a pull longbows actually had).

Another observation. Even if I felt very secure in my armour from arrows, if I and my company were shot at in mass, I think we would all turn our attention to the incoming volleys in order to maximize the cover our armour and any shields provided. Take into consideration that everyone on the field would not be armoured equally or completely. It would be very easy to get "pinned" by fire from archers and enganged on the flank by cavalry or infantry. And what happens if a formation expecting to recieve a charge from one direction get's hit by arrow fire from another direction. Does this make sense?

[Jean Thibodeau]

I tend to think of a middle position of viewing skills like this: Just think of kids on skateboards or Cirque du Soleil types, they seem to be able to do stuff that seem close to impossible to the ordinary middle aged person who is out of shape.

So the period archers may have been much more accurate than what might think based on the average but competent archers of today but at the same time not laser guided missile troops that never miss at 200 yards.

Size of target at 250 yards can be bigger than the size of a human silhouette when dealing with an enemy formation and still be effective.

Oh, slingers can also show amazing accuracy at close to medium range ( A look at this site for range an accuracy " real " and possibly period exaggerations ). http://www.slinging.org/

There are a lot of factors as others have mentioned: Accuracy, volume of fire, rate of fire, range, ammunition supply, armour quality and armour coverage, good tactical use / bad tactical use, terrain advantages, supporting troops or field fortification ...... etc.

For instinctive fire I would compare unaimed point firing with a pistol with instinctive archery: Sort of limited to 20 yards max. for the average shooter but if one can see one's impacts walking shots onto targets up to 150 yards away are possible with some use of the sights using Kentucky windage. ( Not strictly instinctive here, but a lot of guesswork as to elevation: I've hit steel silhouette chickens at 100 yards with a CZ75 and steel pig silhouettes at 150 yards with .45 ACP. 1 shot in 3 hitting the target and the other 2 scaring the target at least with a close miss ).

Hit probability for " A " shot might be low but with enough practice still a credible threath.

[Jean Thibodeau]

[Randall Moffett]

I do not think it matters if they can hit a man sized object at 220, 240 or more yards. The sources indicate at that range mass loosing of arrows. 1,000 and more archers would not need to be super accurate.

Stephen,

not to cause a disturbance in the force as I agree in large part with you but from what I have read most of the primary and contemporary sources related to Agincourt and the 100 Years War and there is plenty of evidence of the effectiveness of the Warbow. Not per se completely halting the French at Agincourt dead without melee (which I do not think was its job) but I have not read a single account through start to finish that did not bring up the damage of the longbow on the french from both sides and even outside accounts. There are between one and two attacks which are kept off by the bow in many of the accounts (horsemen). Even after these attacks the archers continue to cause damage to the largest group of french on foot. I imagine with such a force massed togther well armoured the archers effect would of course be lessened but they did continue to do damage on them It was not they were ineffective weapons against them just that the use was limited as all weapons.

I agree completely with you that range and armour have a great deal to do with it. (Without getting into the armour penetration online marathon posts ). The heavy armour of the foot group clearly defended the french nearly completely early on in the batte (range and armour) but the same account seems to indicate this was not holding true once they grew closer and then once they engaged.

I also tend to think that like you said you would never use a force of longbowmen alone. The comparison to artillery is a good one I think as well. Also the bow could be used quite ineffectually like was done often by Charles the Bold in his late campaigns (he often did much better earlier).

Daniel,
Guinegate. I usually think from what limited contemporary sources I have looked at it was more due to bad leadership and bad placement without support. The Longbow needs stong support of it just does not work usually. I think Stephen's explination very apt for this.

William,

I am sure from a good range a mail shirt and jack will hold off an arrow but I would not want to be in any relitively close range armoured so.
At Flodden the group that is said to have been uneffected by the arrows were in the newest german armour of the time and had some type of shield in use perhaps. I can only imagine this being key but other scots there were killed by the longbow who were not so well protected still.

As Mikael said it comes down to tactics to me. Understanding the weakness of the weapon and what to gauge it up against.


Someone (sorry but this is a long post) mentioned if they were so good they would just have armies of archers.... well look at 15th century armies. English is most notable. In the 14th it is a 1:1 or 1:3 ration Men at arms to archer in the 15th 1:21 at times but usually 1:5. Many armies start adding in large numbers of missilemen-crossbows and bows (france and burgundy). In the 14th the french usually was 5:1 till agincourt. after it involves many more archers and they make the whole units of them. Not whole armies as that would be a disaster but still large numbers of them.

RPM

[Mikael Ranelius]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Mikael Ranelius]

[Randall Moffett]

lafayette,

I agree they had no chance of victory charging head on but think it has everything to do with the longbow and its use. Even if the english force is at the max estimate of 9,000 men (total) over the minimun of 5,000 (total) a force of 1200 men at arms armoured atop great war horses is a serious force to deal with. They were likely undermanned but that seems to be part of the blame culture in france after the loss and should not be taken at 100 percent value. Even if less than 1200 MAA it would be a threat that the archers neutralized, which was my point. The fact the french MAA decided not to flank was not sound but still took place.

Mikael,

Not sure how I ended up in your post....

RPM

[Lennon R. Clotild]

What distinguished English longbowmen was not their capacity for melee, it was simply because 1) they should father 2) they could shoot faster 3) they could more accurately. English longbowmen trained from a young age, and it would take many years for an archer to reach battlefield standards for their ranks. Also, it doesn't matter at all in battles whether one archer can hit a mark far off, when you got hundreds and thousands of bowmen shooting volleys, the point was not accuracy but mass barrage against the enemy army, akin to firing a broadside on the 18th century battleships (Similarly, British naval tradition for example, stressed firing rate, with little to no regard to accuracy until the mid 19th century).

Now the reason crossbowmen largely replaced archers in continental European armies is there lacked a tradition for archery as in England and so there lacked a source of well-trained archers. Crossbows on the other hand, while taking much longer to reload, could shoot just as far as most European bows (not including English longbows of course and Asian composite bows), and could penetrate plate and generally hit harder. Plus crossbowmen that operated in 3-man teams as did the Genoese archers could do just as well as longbowmen save when it came to range. But keep in mind that the English longbow (Welsh longbows to be specific) is nearly an elite weapon of sorts, reserved for "special forces" that required large amounts of training (which means money and time).

As for archers against pikemen, there are several ways pikemen can protect themselves. One is obviously armour, which if is plate or even maille, can withstand arrow barrages if there is enough distance. Second, the dense formation of pikes themselves would break up much of the incoming missiles. Third, there were not actually any situations of purely an archer army versus a pikemen army. Both type of troops would be dealing with other things at the same time. And you can be sure an army of foot archers will definitely lose to an army of foot infantry. Archers, unless they have the ability to swiftly withdraw (such as the Mongol and Hunnic horse archers that devastated European armies), and regroup for another attack, simply cannot withstand a body of disciplined troops without additional help.

[James R]

[Steven H]

Archers who trained their 'entire life' are not going to be better than archers with about ten years training. So, modern, hardcore enthusiasts can get to the same level of training.

Look at professional athletes. How many of them seriously improve after going pro. Sure some do, but usually in small increments. While most remain at a fairly constant level of competency after the first ten years of training.

Yes, it takes ten years to get really good. But another ten years has little improvement beyond that.

[Michael Edelson]

[Stephen Hand]

Randall and Greg both mentioned that regardless of the effectiveness of armour, advancing through and arrow storm will be,

a) extremely unpleasant
b) dangerous - armour has gaps and weaknesses
and
c) will disorganise your formation

I completely agree and would add that in periods like the Hundred Years War where men at arms were typically heavily armoured but their horses were not, it brought them off their horses and made them slog long distances in armour, which as someone who's worn armour, I can attest is not a small consideration.

Clearly archery had a deleterious effect on even the heaviest armoured attacking formation. Bringing it back to the thread topic, my point was that the difference between the effect of massed archery on charges by heavily armoured men-at-arms and charges by lightly armoured pikemen was dramatic. Same archers, same target size and shape, very different outcome. So what was the only difference; armour. There were still many, many arrows expended per casualty, but many many less against the lightly armoured Scots than against the heavily armoured French. And when the Scots knights in the best modern armour fronted the schiltron at Flodden, what happened? I find it illustrative to compare Flodden (1513) to Bicocca (1522) where in almost identical situations (at Bicocca French knights fronted the Swiss pike blocks) the result was very different. At Flodden against arrows we are told that not one Scots noble was killed. At Bicocca against bullets we are told that every French nobleman except one (who was wounded) was killed. I'm not a huge fan of guns - they're cumbersome, make too much noise and surround you with smelly smoke, but in the face of comparisons like Flodden and Bicocca I find arguments that bows were more effective to be somewhere on the bizarre side of ludicrous.

And finally, even at Bicocca where arquebuses did tremendous damage to the advancing Swiss and their French employers, the Spanish withdrew their arquebusiers and counterattacked with their own pikemen, rolling over a force that was disorganised and had taken a lot of casualties. Again, combined arms.

Cheers
Stephen

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

Without armor, bows are indeed superior to melee weapons. Just look at the Amerindians of Florida. They used other weapons as well, but were archers first.

I suspect archers would rout unarmored pikemen. Matthew Sutcliffe, for example, considered pikemen rather helpless against archers. And other posts have already details the success the English had against lightly armored Scottish pikemen.

[Jean Thibodeau]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Dan Howard]

To be specific it definitely is NOT the "Welsh longbow". Self bows of this length have been in use on battlefields all over the world for thousands of years. The style of bow used by the English is virtually indistinguishable from Scandinavian examples.