The claims, and the viral video http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way...ign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20150130 --- It would be perfectly normal to think of archery as a sport defined by accuracy. But a Danish man who says he researched archery's historic methods is arguing for speed and agility, as well: Lars Andersen has released a video in which he fires three arrows in 0.6 seconds. In fact, Andersen makes a claim to the title of "the fastest archer alive." The video has attracted more than 23 million views (and the scorn of some critics) since it was posted one week ago. In it, Andersen performs an assortment of amazing shots, hitting moving objects and getting multiple (accurate) shots off as he runs and leaps. --- [video=youtube_share;BEG-ly9tQGk]http://youtu.be/BEG-ly9tQGk[/video] And a criticism http://geekdad.com/2015/01/danish-archer/ --- Andersens quick-shooting technique is obviously effective (if speed is the goal), in that he is able to fire a lot of arrows at a very rapid pace. Its worth noting that the narrator goes to great pains to explain why shooting at close-up distances is so important and denigrates warrior archers only shooting at long distances, (just one of many totally false claims) in order to paper over the fact that the man obviously cant hit anything thats more than about 20 feet away. No doubt there are literally hundreds of failed attempts that were cut out of the carefully-edited video. ---
It is backed by one thing that was said by somebody on the history channel a month or so ago. He said that the records, pictures, even what archaeology they could bring to bear all agreed that most arrows were fired flat, The idea that arrows were aimed up to gain distance seems something of a myth. An archer doing what is shown in the video would be just great in a Robin Hood movie
Yet some of our failures in the field against the indigenous peoples in America were due to the fact they could fire arrows faster than our troops could reload a rifle. An arrow at closer range is about as effective as a .380 round and distance reduces it's effectiveness.
Yes, I've read something along those lines. A Plains indian was said to be able to get off six arrows while the frontiersman was reloading his musket. That speed is close to Lars-Like by my calculations I've also read somewhere that Amerinds used arrows with big knobs in the back since they gripped the arrow rather than the string when loosing it.. This implies that Amerinds didn't have very powerful bows, relying upon using stealth to get very close
Great video, but none of this applies to the long bow. Longbowmen fired at range and were stationary.
Some of the war (long) bows recovered from the sunken "Mary Rose", Henry VIII's warship had a draw-weight of 200lbs or so. That takes training from childhood for massive arm and shoulder girdle power. http://www.longbow-archers.com/heavybows.html
My understanding is that every able-bodied Englishman was required to practice archery at least once a week or be fined in the medieval era. 200lbs is plain incredible though.
200# is a lot. My favorite bow is a Fred Bear Grizzly at 60#. Any more than that and I need to call my orthopod to let him know that I'll be in. Most people can handle more than 60#; 80 and 100 are fairly common at the range. For perspective, the minimum for deer is 45# in this area.
The problem here is that "archery" as a person hunting or by themselves against a small number of attackers is one thing, "archery" as in an arrow storm is completely different. Also there are 2 very different bows used, the Longbow and the Short bow. Both are used very differently, for different reasons. If you are taking a walk through the woods and just want a game killer and protection, you use a short bow. Lighter draw, accurate, and quick to fire again. Range is not important, speed and accuracy is. Like shown in the video. If however you are part of an army, the longbow is your weapon of choice. A draw powerful enough to punch through most armor, with a much greater range to give you more time to pick off charging infantry and cavalry. And when fired en masse, a very devastating weapon. Much like many modern artillery systems, massed longbowmen typically fired in volleys. And their first shot was typically aimed as high as possible to increase the length of time to strike the target. Then a second and third volley fired in lowered angles, in the hopes that they created a "rain-like" effect, with 2 or 3 volleys all arriving at the target at the same time. In volley fire (arrows or muskets), accuracy is not as important as simply putting as many projectiles as possible downrange in as short a time as possible. And at the same time, the enemy was charging as fast as they could, trying to get through this rain of arrows as quickly as they could. Especially since in general archers were not armored (or with nothing more then cloth and a leather chest piece), and would fight with nothing more then a buckler and short sword. It is because of this charge that many archers carried "swine feathers", basically a short pike with the butt of a shovel. They would place these as obstacles in front of their position to slow down charges. And once the enemy hit the swine feathers, it was time to fall back to another position. In fact, it was the swine feather that when musketry came into vogue that morphed into the musket rest. As for the American Indians, they used short bows. Low draw, nor real powerful. And since the use of armor on the battlefield had already vanished, this was more then enough.
200lbs??? There couldn't have been many men who could use such a bow. I know that yeoman longbow archers were indeed trained from a young age, but to handle a 200# would also require what would have been a very expensive diet from early childhood on, and the average person then wasn't very large by modern standards, nor as tall on average. The bows had to have belonged to a very small and very select squad, as the demographics of that era would put that sort of thing at maybe 1 in a 1,000 men to choose from, maybe less.
While there were bows in that weight range, they were not "Longbows" but "Warbows". These were specialty weapons, not used by the common bowman. Think of it as a middle ages sniper rifle, the common longbow was in the range of 80-120 pounds. And because of the way that units would "arrowstorm", only the first volley was made typically at full power and extension. After that they went to a more "rapid fire" action where it was speed in getting off as many arrows as possible that mattered, not getting maximum power out of each flight.
