Gregor
Lord of Altera
Well what is a longbow?
Basically it is any bow roughly as tall as the person shooting it. Traditionally they are made from one piece of wood (as opposed to composites of sinew, horn, bone, etc.), but many modern ones are plastic composites. This example is made from hickory & has a draw weight of about 30lbs. That means it takes 30lbs of force to pull the string back to its full extent. The medieval warbow, that I'll be looking at, is the same thing only much bigger and could be up to 150lbs. I'll be focusing on the English and the Hundred Years War period.
Longbows have been in use for over 10,000 years, the one shown here is a reconstruction of a yew longbow found on Otzi, a body preserved in Ice from about 3,300 BC.
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What was a longbow made out of?
Yew is considered the best wood for longbows
Specifically Italian Alpine Yew was the most desired because it grew slowly making it denser. Other woods used included wych elm, ash, plum and hasel, all of which made perfectly good longbows, up to the weight required for medieval archers.
It shows why it makes an ideal bow wood. The darker heartwood goes on the inside (or belly) of the bow and resists compression, the lighter sapwood resists stretching. Combined the woods increase the efficiency and power of the bows.
This is what a Medieval archer may have looked like during the Hundred Years War.
He is armed with a 110lb warbow and you can see how thick it is compared to the bow in the top picture, as well as the two tone colour of the Yew. He is wearing light, simple clothes but you can see his armour and a selection of weapons in the background. A longbow archer, able to use these heavy bows was highly trained, to the point that people said if you want a good archer you need to start with his grandfather. Although English/Welsh archers are the best known many other nations had comparable archers, in particular Burgundy.
How to draw a warbow.
The archer leans forward in an odd-looking stance, this allows his back muscles to take a lot of the strain, rather than trying to draw using only his arms. Given that they can be pulling back what amounts to the weight of a small person, they need to have their whole body working to spread the load. Also note that he is using 3 finger to draw the bow rather than 2 as is normal for lighter bow. With archers training from childhood this had an obvious effect on the body, over-developing certain muscles and meaning an archer can be identified by their skeleton when found by archaeologists.
Medieval archers drew back to the ear, having a fixed point to draw to meant archers could shoot more consistently. The range could be varied by changing the angle of the bow, up to an effective range of around 200m. Most modern warbow users can loose (or shoot) 6 shots a minute for an extended time, it is possible to shoot faster but fatigue sets in and power declines. At the battle of Crecy the English had about 7,000 archer, if each shot 6 arrows a minute for 10 minutes that is 420,000 arrow, pretty terrifying stuff.
This is a heavy war bodkin (arrow head) for plate armour
Note how big, thick and heavy it is, it wasn't designed to have a long range and would be used at almost point blank ranges. This head would have a heavy shaft (hehe head, shaft) probably of oak or ash. The other arrow is a needle point bodkin, more common in the 13th and early 14th century, mainly for piercing mail, where it could push between the links. It wouldn't be suitable for plate (unless it could find a gap in the armour), because the thin point would bend on hitting the plate.
This is 2mm steel, not made to medieval specifications but it still gives a good idea what a heavy war bodkin could do to armour. This makes it look like armour is useless against the warbow, but this was at point blank range, able to hit the armour at the perfect angle against a still target, also this breastplate is less curved than the genuine article. In a battlefield situation the target would be moving making it much more difficult to get a solid hit, the majority would glance off. Even those that pierce the armour probably won't enter the knight, just leaving him with extreme bruising.
Basically it is any bow roughly as tall as the person shooting it. Traditionally they are made from one piece of wood (as opposed to composites of sinew, horn, bone, etc.), but many modern ones are plastic composites. This example is made from hickory & has a draw weight of about 30lbs. That means it takes 30lbs of force to pull the string back to its full extent. The medieval warbow, that I'll be looking at, is the same thing only much bigger and could be up to 150lbs. I'll be focusing on the English and the Hundred Years War period.
Longbows have been in use for over 10,000 years, the one shown here is a reconstruction of a yew longbow found on Otzi, a body preserved in Ice from about 3,300 BC.
What was a longbow made out of?
Yew is considered the best wood for longbows
Specifically Italian Alpine Yew was the most desired because it grew slowly making it denser. Other woods used included wych elm, ash, plum and hasel, all of which made perfectly good longbows, up to the weight required for medieval archers.
It shows why it makes an ideal bow wood. The darker heartwood goes on the inside (or belly) of the bow and resists compression, the lighter sapwood resists stretching. Combined the woods increase the efficiency and power of the bows.
This is what a Medieval archer may have looked like during the Hundred Years War.
He is armed with a 110lb warbow and you can see how thick it is compared to the bow in the top picture, as well as the two tone colour of the Yew. He is wearing light, simple clothes but you can see his armour and a selection of weapons in the background. A longbow archer, able to use these heavy bows was highly trained, to the point that people said if you want a good archer you need to start with his grandfather. Although English/Welsh archers are the best known many other nations had comparable archers, in particular Burgundy.
How to draw a warbow.
The archer leans forward in an odd-looking stance, this allows his back muscles to take a lot of the strain, rather than trying to draw using only his arms. Given that they can be pulling back what amounts to the weight of a small person, they need to have their whole body working to spread the load. Also note that he is using 3 finger to draw the bow rather than 2 as is normal for lighter bow. With archers training from childhood this had an obvious effect on the body, over-developing certain muscles and meaning an archer can be identified by their skeleton when found by archaeologists.
Medieval archers drew back to the ear, having a fixed point to draw to meant archers could shoot more consistently. The range could be varied by changing the angle of the bow, up to an effective range of around 200m. Most modern warbow users can loose (or shoot) 6 shots a minute for an extended time, it is possible to shoot faster but fatigue sets in and power declines. At the battle of Crecy the English had about 7,000 archer, if each shot 6 arrows a minute for 10 minutes that is 420,000 arrow, pretty terrifying stuff.
This is a heavy war bodkin (arrow head) for plate armour
Note how big, thick and heavy it is, it wasn't designed to have a long range and would be used at almost point blank ranges. This head would have a heavy shaft (hehe head, shaft) probably of oak or ash. The other arrow is a needle point bodkin, more common in the 13th and early 14th century, mainly for piercing mail, where it could push between the links. It wouldn't be suitable for plate (unless it could find a gap in the armour), because the thin point would bend on hitting the plate.
This is 2mm steel, not made to medieval specifications but it still gives a good idea what a heavy war bodkin could do to armour. This makes it look like armour is useless against the warbow, but this was at point blank range, able to hit the armour at the perfect angle against a still target, also this breastplate is less curved than the genuine article. In a battlefield situation the target would be moving making it much more difficult to get a solid hit, the majority would glance off. Even those that pierce the armour probably won't enter the knight, just leaving him with extreme bruising.
