Longbows

[Sandgroper]

You're not telling me anything new. It doesn't matter if it is a 10lb bow or a 110lb bow it is all down to technique.
I have shot longbows, flatbows, recurves, compounds, horsebows ( still learning the Mongolian draw), bows for target shooting, hunting and re-enactment. I have even crossed over to the dark side to shoot crossbows.

Are you shooting a warbow? That is, a tradional english longbow of between 100-150 lb draw weight?
If you are, will you post pictures, because I would be very interested in seeing the bow and the arrows it shoots? The heaviest longbow have seen is an 80 lb bow and the thickness of the stave was amazing. :G

Thank you in advance.

[Dougan]

Ah.... that sort of frog and there was me wondering why anyone would hunt small amphibians with a bow and arrow

:lol: - that had me wondering too...

[meles meles]

Yes, ooman, I shoot a real yew warbow. It's weakening now, down to about 110 lbs from 125, having had almost 270 shots. A full power, ie 180 - 200 lb bow such as our forebears used at Agincourt would only make 40 or so shots before it broke. There are to my knowledge two men alive today who can draw a 200 lb bow, and a handful who can manage 180 lbs. I aspire to a 140 lb bow but its doubtful I'll ever get there, I took up the sport far too late.

[Sandgroper]

Yes, ooman, I shoot a real yew warbow. It's weakening now, down to about 110 lbs from 125, having had almost 270 shots. A full power, ie 180 - 200 lb bow such as our forebears used at Agincourt would only make 40 or so shots before it broke. There are to my knowledge two men alive today who can draw a 200 lb bow, and a handful who can manage 180 lbs. I aspire to a 140 lb bow but its doubtful I'll ever get there, I took up the sport far too late.

Check your string, if it's a flax string it will go before the bow will. If a bow was going to break after 40 or so shots either the string has broken or there was something wrong with the bow. I can imagine the language at Agincourt would have been as deadly as the arrows if bows where breaking after 40 or shots!

I haven't heard of any references to 200lb longbows, most references indicate longbows being in the region of 125-150lb. The heaviest I have heard of are the set of 180lb bows recovered from the Mary Rose.

This will make the basis of an interesting conversation at the club on Thursday. One of the Archers that runs the club has been shooting for about 60 years - it there's something he doesn't know, then it's not worth knowing.

I'd still like pictures of you bow and of war arrows.

Do you know of this competition? 7/8 July 2012 http://www.longbow-archers.com/LeafletM ... ootENG.pdf Looks right up your alley.

For practitioners of the longbow the Mary Rose Trust has lent its name to a series of trials that replicate what was expected of the Medieval longbow archer. These trials will be held on a yearly basis by the Fraternity of Saint George.

The International Mary Rose Warbow Trophy will be the benchmark all-round test of the longbowman's skill;

power; precision; trajectory; range; speed; distance. It will be shot with longbows ranging from 70 to 170 lbs draw-weight. It will demand arrows of up to 1200 grain to be shot over 220 yards and it will test whether the new generation of Warbows can hit 22 inches at 220 yards.

[meles meles]

I'll take some pictures of my war bow and pointy sticks next time I'm home.

I believe most medieval war bows were between 150 and 180 lbs draw weight, only very occasionally were 200 lb bows used. By the late 1300s there was very little yew around that could make such bows, though drawing them was not as great a challenge for the archers of the day as it is for we lesser men. They began serious archery practice at 7 years old, and their lives were very physical: no labour saving devices back then ! Archers' skeletons are easily identifiable by their very prominent shoulder blades and musculo-tendon attachment points.

There are lots of references to bows breaking in the old records, the very high draw weight bows (150+ lb) were operating right on their limits - especially as good mountain yew became scarce and bowyers had to resort to weaker lowland yew. For the campaign of 1415, Henry V purchased enough bows to equip his archers with 6 each, and at Agincourt, the final battle of that campaign, many archers used two or even three bows.

[Scotsgun]

I'd love one

[whoowhoop]

"The bow was made in England:
Of true wood, of yew wood,
The wood of English bows;
So men who are free
Love the old yew tree
And the land where the yew tree grows.

What of the cord?
The cord was made in England:
A rough cord, a tough cord,
A cord that bowmen love;
So we'll drain our jacks
To the English flax
And the land where the hemp was wove.

What of the shaft?
The shaft was cut in England:
A long shaft, a strong shaft,
Barbed and trim and true;
So we'll drink all together
To the gray goose feather
And the land where the gray goose flew.

What of the men?
The men were bred in England:
The bowman--the yeoman--
The lads of dale and fell
Here's to you--and to you;
To the hearts that are true
And the land where the true hearts dwell."

The White Company? or Sir Nigel?

Robert Hardy, the thesp, wrote an exceedingly good book on the Longbow, which has a good mention of the Welsh short bow as well. I think it is still in print.
I have a friend who got very keen on bowhunting and bare bows and that sort of stuff, andwent and hunted pig in Thailand with one. I have a video somewhere,Tembo! by Disney I beleive, which is a safari story written around an American bow hunter of the 50's who takes both lion and elephant with the bow on camera, as well as other game.

[Sandgroper]

This is why I find it difficult to believe that the bows would break after 40 or so arrows (for ease we'll call it 48 arrows or two "sheaves" the standard amount an Archer carried).

The bows took about 1-2 years to season and then another 1-2 years to make the bow. That time plus the actual cost of the bow, to me means that sort of wastage must have been very costly and prohibative.

Cost is again a factor when you look at the amount of practice a longbowman had to do. After every practice he'd need a new bow and I doubt a practice sesson would have been just 48 arrows. To get the maximum benefit from the practice they would have had to been using bows of equal or greater draw weight than the ones used during war.

At Crecy there was about 7000 archers who fired off about 500 000 arrows over the 8 hours that the battle is said to have taken. Meaning that each Archer would have to have had at least an extra bow stave or two ready (that would include having the bow warmed up).

At Agincourt, the records point to the English being short of arrows and men, not bows. If bow breakage was such a problem, I cannot see how the longbow became the premier weapon of war it was.

I've had a bowstring go on me twice and I've seen a bow break - it was poorly looked after. Neither experiance was fun and certainly wouldn't want a bow to go on me at full draw.

Granted a longbow may not give way like this recurve did, but what you're suggesting is the same as a Soldier needing a new rifle every couple of magazines! :G

I think we'll have to agree to disagree. :cheers:

[froggy]

Salut Sandgroper ,

Is there really any need to bring in those bl**dy dammed awfull C and the A words in the debate
Ah well ...at least the English lost the the war I guess ... party2

[dromia]

The French retaliated with the CAP.