"Recurve composite horse-bow vs longbow?" Topic

"Mike, everyone of your suppositions start with "probably" or "maybe" or "possibly" "

That's because, like any good historian, I try not to assert anything as a certainty unless it can be proved from corroborating sources.

"You take my "average" numbers, as meaning "no"."

I don't think I have ever said there were no archers who used the lighter bows. If I have then I apologise.

"I think you are being argumentative."

Since you refuse to answer challenges about your sources and also fail to answer other questions (e.g. "What did the non-archers say above that is silly?"), I would say the same could be said about you.

"As I said, I have shot 175 pound bows."

What type of bow was that? A reproduction longbow?

"What I would not do is march across half of europe, then shoot 12 rounds a minute for 4 solid minutes with a 175."

No, I guess you wouldn't. But then you are presumably not a man like Mark Stretton or Simon Stanley, who are IMHO more similar to an Emglish yeoman archer than you or I could ever be.

"The MR bows at 100, fine, but 130 bows doesn't prove that 5000 at agincourt were 100, or the 150,000 archers in england all used 100."

No, it doesn't. What it does STRONGLY SUGGEST however, is that, given the distribution of draw weights of the MR bows, the MAJORITY of bows in use at Agincourt could well have been in excess of 100lbs.

"You claim you never promoted 300 or 400, but in a previous thread you linked to a table showing 350-400 yard shots with modern bows as proof of your point."

The data was derived from shooting a 150lb bow with arrows of various weights (Note it was not I that did the shooting, the data is recorded in an academic text).
A 1.9oz arrow achieved ranges of 344 to 360yds
A 2.0oz arrow achieved ranges of 317 to 329yds
A 3.0oz arrow achieved ranges of 251 to 260yds
A 3.3oz arrow achieved ranges of 250 to 272yds

The 300yd plus ranges were achieved with flight arrows. Not only that but there is no statement about accuracy in the data only range. As wargamers we are (or should be) interested in the EFFECTIVE range, not the maximum range. I think the figures above give fair credence to the view that the effective range of a warbow was about 250yds.

"Now you assert a 250 engagement range."

As indeed I did as far back as 11th July (in the Effective Archery Debate thread)

"That set of volleys are maximum range."

Not maximum range, effective battle range, throughout the longbow period.

"And we both agree this is 225-250(yours or mine). And all I am saying is that this is a 75pound bow, or a 100 average,"

So, this is the effective battle range of bows of 75 to 100lb draw weight. Fine, I'm happy with that.

"but only if boyers then are inferior to modern boyers."

Please explain why they should be inferior? The modern bows (such as the one used in the experiment to which I refer above) demonstrate comparable ranges to the presumed historical ones.

And, as the man said, the word is "bowyer".

Given the fact they you have asserted elsewhere that the 5,000 archers at Agincourt were the best then I'm sure as a recruiting captain I would have chosen the big guys who could pull 100lbs plus even with a weakened body.

The only trouble with this hypothesis is related to what else I said about the "one in ten". If Ascham was lamenting the condition of archers in his day, compared with bygone days, then the archers aboard Hal VIII's fleet would have been even harder to come up with. But we are only asking the king's yeomen to be a few hundred, not many thousands. To gather out the "one in ten" from all over England sufficient to come up with well over 5,000 archers seems like a stretch to me.

"The MR bow staves are interesting and I will repeat something: in ship to ship fighting, missiles are supreme, boarding actions are much secondary, ergo the longest possible range would be the premium quality."

How do you balance this statement against the accounts of Sluys where the battle was decided by boarding actions?

Simply the difference between 1340 and 1540. 200 years of firearm development had put the longbow into an "extinction" position. Any bows used by 1540 were for specialist reasons that firearms could not match: and foremost would be range to achieve saturation. At Sluys fleets were still lashing their ships together to create huge fighting platforms; more like taking land fighting methods to sea. Missiles were of little importance since they could not alone achieve victory. By 1540 ships could be entirely overcome by missile fire.

"I am inclined to agree with other bowyers that the weights of these bows probably ranged from around 80 pounds up to around 180 pounds, with the majority probably falling into the 100-to-120-pound range."

Now, where does it say that ONLY the two bows recovered in the 19th century are 80lb bows?

I have not heard of a single example tested from the raised MR that wasn't well in excess of 100 lbs. And we have the only two bows recovered in the 1800's as c. 80 lbs. I think that is what your quote is referring to; the possibility that there may be other 80 lb bows, but so far there are no others besides those two. The quote does say "probably, probably", a most over-used word in these discussions.

Interesting debate.
One minor detail--leather lasted well in the conditions in which the MR lay for centuries. None of the bows were found with leather handles,strengthening strips etc.,although leather bracers and spacers were found.

"If Ascham was lamenting the condition of archers in his day, compared with bygone days, then the archers aboard Hal VIII's fleet would have been even harder to come up with."

Interesting then that the majority of MR bows are 100lb plus!

"But we are only asking the king's yeomen to be a few hundred"

Still don't know where you get this idea of the "king's yeomen" from. Please cite a reference. Also, as has been explained before the MR was not the flagship of the fleet.

"To gather out the "one in ten" from all over England sufficient to come up with well over 5,000 archers seems like a stretch to me."

Oh, come now! Rocky doesn't seem to have a problem with it:
"The 5000 at agincourt were the select 5000 out of a population of some 150,000 or so yeoman archers."

Doug,
I think you are somewhat overestimating the power of missile fire in the 1540s.
The Antony Roll of 1546 gave the MR crew as:
soldiers 185
mariners 200
gunners 30 (presumably those i/c the larger guns)
There were 250 bows carried and 50 handguns,but also 150 morris pikes and 150 bills as well as 40 darts for the (fighting)tops.They seem to have been expecting hand to hand fighting.
Not sure what,if anything,this adds to the debate though!

Still don't know where you get this idea of the "king's yeomen" from. Please cite a reference. Also, as has been explained before the MR was not the flagship of the fleet.

link

Earlier king's guards were mercenary and retainer archers, and earlier still, crossbowmen.

I am sure Hal VIII had enough archers of the best quality to crew two warships.

Oh, come now! Rocky doesn't seem to have a problem with it:
"The 5000 at agincourt were the select 5000 out of a population of some 150,000 or so yeoman archers."

We have select and elite here: the hypothetical "one in ten" is the elite part. How could the king get ONLY those dudes into his army? And even if he did, would they pull a stronger bow in battle than the main mass of select archers?

Either Rocky is mistaken in his long-held conclusion, that archers routinely pulled 70 to 80 lbs in battle, ergo equal quality bows with today's; or he was mistaken in assuming equal quality with today in bow making techniques, and archers pulled stronger but less efficient bows than he had assumed. If the latter, then our "Bow 3" table (the one that makes Agincourt work) is 100 lb longbows, and select archers could pull bows that strong without effort. If Rocky's first conclusions are right (archers pulled 70 to 80 lbs, and bows then were c. as good as today): then how would it follow that captains knew where the elites were and recruited only them in their thousands? If that were the case, then the bow table in our rules would be "Bow 4", and we would be back to slaughtering the French at Agincourt too easily. So "Bow 3" it is, either good bows at 70 lbs or unimpressive quality bows at 100 lbs.

(this question of quality can be solved with more study of the MR bows, comparing them to replicas of various quality; obviously, a study not embarked upon so far as I know)

Doug,
I think you are somewhat overestimating the power of missile fire in the 1540s.

I wasn't referring to bows and firearms, but mainly cannon (thus the almost-extinction by that time of archery). In 1340, other than ramming and fire there was no way to sink a ship other than to board and sink her the hard way. In 1540 a ship could be utterly destroyed by missile fire (cannon) alone. Longbows would be useful because cannon had such short effective range, the same as firearms. Archers, as we have pointed out at length on other threads, are accurate shots individually where musketeers cannot be because of the limitation that their weapons impose. A bow and arrow is far more accurate inherently than any early firearm was. And the best marksmen can put all their arrows on the deck of a ship at 100 yards and even further. A volley at extreme range would still produce havoc on a crowded deck. And fire arrows, I should think, would be that much worse a distraction: the further out a ship's crew could inflict such damage, the better.

link

Oh yes, the Yeomen of the Guard or Yeoman Archers. Thanks, I had forgotten they dated back as far as 1485. This web site provides a lot more detail on the unit:
yeomenoftheguard.com

In particular, it states:
"The principal result of the revised statutes and ordinances [of 1526] was that the Guard was reduced from 600 to 200,"

Also, there is no indication that they ever served aboard the fleet.

"I am sure Hal VIII had enough archers of the best quality to crew two warships."

The fleet in 1545 consisted of a few more than two:
"The English fleet that met them consisted of around 80 ships, gathered in Portsmouth, with more expected from the west Country."
link

"We have select and elite here: the hypothetical "one in ten" is the elite part. How could the king get ONLY those dudes into his army? And even if he did, would they pull a stronger bow in battle than the main mass of select archers?"

Er … you said this yourself:
"The captain puts out that he's taking 20 archers and 5 men at arms to France in the king's new army. He gets a mob of volunteers. Depending on how experienced and competent the captain is, he knows a great archer from a mediocre one, and he contracts with the best of those who "apply for the job." Hal V automatically gets the best of the lot, no worries."

Presumably given the choice between a great archer (with a 150lb bow) and a mediocre archer (with a 70lb bow) he would take the great archer.

"Either Rocky is mistaken in his long-held conclusion, that archers routinely pulled 70 to 80 lbs in battle, ergo equal quality bows with today's; or he was mistaken in assuming equal quality with today in bow making techniques, and archers pulled stronger but less efficient bows than he had assumed."

Hm … perhaps you'd better argue the toss with Rocky then. I notice the use of the word "assumed". I was under the mistaken impression that Rocky's tests were conclusive?

"If the latter, then our "Bow 3" table (the one that makes Agincourt work)"

OK, we are back to this fallacious argument again. You do not seem to understand that YOU CANNOT PROVE HISTORY by playing a game. Your "Bow 3" table makes Agincourt work (at least your interpretation of Agincourt, see the lengthy discussion on the other thread). That does not and cannot prove that the bow used in the battle was either a 70lb efficient bow or a 100lb less efficient one. "Oh, but we derived our bow tables from Rocky's physics and test shot analysis", you say. Yes, BUT HOW? Unless you can conclusively demonstrate that your bow tables ACCURATELY represent the effectiveness en masse of the weapons used at Agincourt, you are guessing as much as anybody else.

"In 1540 a ship could be utterly destroyed by missile fire (cannon) alone."

So if true then, even more true in the age of fighting sail – when MANY actions were resolved by boarding. That's what the marines were used for.

Hi

Connard asks me:"Why are Snorbens' suppositions less valid than yours?" Mike read sources and came to a conclusion about the bows and the battle. I read the same sources, a few more that he didn't. Some of them are purely physics and math. Then did mechanical analysis of known bows and used a bit of computer time to graph their energy curves. THEN went out with bows and arrows and replica armor and tested against the computer results.

Which to me means I have done a few more steps to reach a conclusions.

Consider the extra problem that the thread starts with a question about comparing the relative merits of the different bow types. In order for me to have any trust in the graphing of other bows that I cannot test, I had to test against the real world.

Did the same, oddly, with a range of other weapons.

Which is why I trust my assumptions. Some of this feels to me like an inquisition where I am expected to recant while mubling under my breath, "but I saw…".

My "guesses" are based on physics, don't a bit of math and verifying the sources with field work. Versus reading Oman or Curry or whomever and guessing. Some guesses are more equal than others.

Connard, the "source" look to other threads where we discuss the deployment of agincourt.

Mike, if you just listed the scattershot questions, you have left me with endless things I might address. Thus, my not answering your challenges falls into the catagory of "there are so many and so little time". I see a lot of them as rhetorical.

For instance, you ask "what kind of bow at 175"… irrlevent to the point. Discussing drawweight is draweight, the type of bow wouldn't address anything meaningful to the discussion. I wasted a lot of time in a previous thread explaining bow construction and physics which I failed at. As in above, I keep getting asked for sources about simple things like sinew! Long boring thread, the original questioner is long gone, and the rest seem to be interested in heat and not light.

The short version for some of you is that all is unknowable, and anything I may have done to answer the unknowable is fruitless. THEREFORE there is no answer, roll a die.

I took a mechanical approach to answering the questions. It isn't very useful to say "well I didn't do any of that, but I know it is impossible."

R

"My "guesses" are based on physics, don't a bit of math and verifying the sources with field work. Versus reading Oman or Curry or whomever and guessing. Some guesses are more equal than others."

I don't have a problem with your "guesses". I do have a problem with you and Doug insisting that you can "prove" history from your guesses (by way of a GAME).

As to your field work, I think GRPitts made a telling comment:
"There is no substitute for personal experience. One does however, always have the problem convincing others that one's personal experience is credible, and not an idle boast.
I started shooting bows at the age of six, … so I really understand a person's point on personal experience with a bow.
.. the absolute defining ingredient for determining the quality and effectiveness of any weapon is the user, not the weapon."

"Mike, if you just listed the scattershot questions, you have left me with endless things I might address. Thus, my not answering your challenges falls into the catagory of "there are so many and so little time". I see a lot of them as rhetorical."

Well, if you are not prepared to back up your assertions with citations from sources that is up to you. Such unsupported assertions are indeed rhetorical.

You are implying that is too much effort to back up your bold assertion: "Notice how above, the non archers say things that any archer knows is silly." (near the beginning of this thread) with any explanation as to WHAT you think is silly and WHY. Surely not to much to ask?

You said earlier:
"Like Romaine, I have realzied that spending the time during my coffee break to pull out books and quote sources always leads to "my sources or watching TV(TV!!!) trumps your sources or actual hands on making"."

Which again demonstrates that you have no understanding of the process of historical analysis.

"For instance, you ask "what kind of bow at 175"… irrelevant to the point."

Not irrelevant at all. You said:"I have shot 175 pound bows." I asked in reply:
"What type of bow was that? A reproduction longbow?"
Surely you KNOW what type of bow you were using – or was it just bluster to give the impression that you know what you are talking about? Clearly a 175lb longbow is a very different proposition compared to a 175lb compound! If the 175lb bow(s) you have shot were longbows then that puts you in the same class as Stretton and Stanley …

Hal V automatically gets the best of the lot, no worries."

Presumably given the choice between a great archer (with a 150lb bow) and a mediocre archer (with a 70lb bow) he would take the great archer.

No argument. But, out of all the archers responding as volunteers, you would have a few hubristic "varlet quality" archers, a large proportion of the select kind, and far fewer ("elite") "one in tens". There's no conceivable way, imho, that any HYW muster could keep only the "one in ten" Brewster Beefcakes and wind up with 7,000 of them! Or even 5,000. The only way that could occur is if the call to arms somehow managed to point out those supreme archers and request only them to apply for service. Since any archer could pull a "fancy" bow for showing off, the capacity to distinguish, between the truly greatest strength archers and those of more "mortal" strength, would not exist. For a given muster, "the best of the lot" would include ALL of the supreme archers available, and the rest (the bulk "80%") would be "average" warbow-using archers.

Hm … perhaps you'd better argue the toss with Rocky then. I notice the use of the word "assumed". I was under the mistaken impression that Rocky's tests were conclusive?

The mathematical bit, yes, seems to be pretty conclusive; maths are self-proving. And the premise was (still is?) that 70 lbs now was as efficient as 70 lbs then: i.e. as he has said, that back then the bows made for war were equal to what we make now using the same materials and techniques. The maths won't alter anything; but assuming (now?) that bowyers back then provided a product that was on average inferior to today's longbows is not according to Rocky's original assumptions from doing the maths, building and field testing.

"But, out of all the archers responding as volunteers, you would have a few hubristic "varlet quality" archers, a large proportion of the select kind, and far fewer ("elite") "one in tens"."

Presumably, 10% of the archers responding to the call would be the "one in tens".

"There's no conceivable way, imho, that any HYW muster could keep only the "one in ten" Brewster Beefcakes and wind up with 7,000 of them!

It all depends on how many respond to the call. If your captain who is recruiting 20 archers, gets 100 to choose from then he should end up with half of his 20 men as "one in tens". OTOH if 200 applied, then ALL of his men could be "one in tens".

Incidentally, I find it amusing that you use the term "Brewster Beefcakes" to describe them. Who or what is (was) Brewster Beefcakes?

"Since any archer could pull a "fancy" bow for showing off, the capacity to distinguish, between the truly greatest strength archers and those of more "mortal" strength, would not exist."

I fancy that the archer's reputation amongst his peers would easily identify those who were just "showing off" as you put it.

This is of course, all surmise. We have no evidence to support it either way.

"The mathematical bit, yes, seems to be pretty conclusive; maths are self-proving."

Only if the underlying assumptions are correct and the correct equations are applied. Even then, I don't think any mathematician would subscribe to the view that "maths are self proving". See:
link

Rocky,

I for one would be very interested to see your compiled data on this:

"Connard asks me:"Why are Snorbens' suppositions less valid than yours?" Mike read sources and came to a conclusion about the bows and the battle. I read the same sources, a few more that he didn't. Some of them are purely physics and math. Then did mechanical analysis of known bows and used a bit of computer time to graph their energy curves. THEN went out with bows and arrows and replica armor and tested against the computer results.

Which to me means I have done a few more steps to reach a conclusions".

Such data would be very good source material.

- Greg

And THAT'S why I prefer fantasy over "historical" :D

Hi

Mike, the stave was fibreglass. It is irrelevent to the discussion in that the issue was "draweight" which is a measure. The discussion here was my doubting that some of these heavy draweights are not practical for the discussion of what happened at agincourt.

Actually, I also have a crossbow of similar weight that is supposed to use either a prod or the stirrup, but I am strong enough to just reach and cock it one handed.

The issue is not if it is possible to draw at that weight, the issue is doing it during a battle and hitting stuff. Something you refer to.

GRP, i wrote several articles back in the 80s for Sorcerer'sApprentice on the subject, including penetration stuff.

anyway, notice how the problem is that a bow newbie asks a simple comparison question. The answer is also simple, the smaller the bow, the less energy is lost moving it around, therefore a 40" comp bow is more efficient than a 72-80" long bow at the same drawweight.

and this devolves into an irrelevent set of arguments. When I was graphing from known bows, I found I could group them into 5 levels. In essence, a 70#, 48" turkish composite bow has about the same performance as a 100# longbow. A 70# drawweight lakota short "buffalo bow" is similar in performance to a 50# longbow, or a 35# modern fibreglass sport bow.

All of these, similar enough to each other's performance that within any reasonable approach to game scale, that is.

Now, as "proving". Mike, I think we can agree on this point. The first point is "curve fitting" the rules to known fights to make the results plausable. I have seen to many sets of rules that were fine, except that you could not actually recreate the battle.

A favorite example is the older WRG 4th through 6th system. In this case, Phil came up with an elegant solution to resolving combat, and getting clubs away from home rules for the national tournaments. UNFORTUNATELY, the mounting system made it impossible to re-play, say, Hastings on a model of the historical terrain.

What I was trying to do is make the rules capable of playing the historical battle and, if you made the same decisions, get the historical results. At this point, Doug and I feel that you can then get a better idea of battles that one doesn't have the information on.

Perfect, no. But the idea doug is trying to reflect is that being able to get history where is it is well known, gaming lesser known battles might find an insight because of the repeatabilty of the rules.

No one is doing the SCA thing. A digression, I had the SCA show up at Gen Con west about 20 years ago stride through the convention yelling "give up your dice and experience reality"! Having been in blood fights without rules, I know the difference.

But SCA CAN lead to an insight about the "why" part of some armor and weapons. And I think a proper set of wargaming rules CAN lead to an insight about combat.

Did sims for the USAF, and had pilots later tell me that the sim saved their tush later when the missiles were real.

So, ya, I fall into THAT group.

R

"The discussion here was my doubting that some of these heavy draweights are not practical for the discussion of what happened at agincourt."

Yes, but you have still not offered any sound evidence as to why you think the heavy draw weight bows are not practical for what happened at Agincourt. When pressed, all you and Doug say is "our rules don't work with the heavy bows for Agincourt". Do you still not see the disconnect here? Just because your rules appear to show that 100lb plus bows do not work at Agincourt that does not constitute any proof. Particularly as you have never described, even in outline, how you get from your tests of replica bows and replica armour to a set of wargame bow effectiveness tables. Historical analysis just doesn't work like that.

"And I think a proper set of wargaming rules CAN lead to an insight about combat."

Yes, but not in the way you are trying to prove.

"Did sims for the USAF, and had pilots later tell me that the sim saved their tush later when the missiles were real."

There is a world of difference between a simulation of air combat and a "simulation" of medieval warfare. I would have thought with your experience you would have been only too well aware of that.

huh? Wargaming rules give insight into what happened in actual battles?

Um…..not to put too fine a point on it…but … B U L L ****

think about it a minute- wargaming rules are supopsed to be derived from what actually happened….so the very best they can give is an accurate reproduction….ie a copy.

they can never never NEVER provide any insight into the original because they do not contain as much information as the original, so cannot possibly provide any new insight.

If you think the rules are doing a great job of the reproduction then that's fine….but don't confuse that with reality!!

Oh and jsut to toss more petrol on the fire…….Agincourt happened as it did because of Geography and nothign to do with the strength of longbows. French infantry were able to contact English archers on many other occasions without bother…and break them too.

What was unique at Agincourt was the muddy ridge down which the French came (there was about a 2-3 metre drop ffrom the French to the English positions along the top of the ridge). Trying to avoid the sides of the ridge the French crowded into the centre. simple, natural behaviour which AFAIK no wargames rules simulate.

See link

Rocky,

Are you saying you don't have this data anymore?

"GRP, i wrote several articles back in the 80s for Sorcerer'sApprentice on the subject, including penetration stuff".

If not, that's a shame.

- Greg

huh? Wargaming rules give insight into what happened in actual battles?

No, well-crafted simulations that work can do that.

Agincourt happened as it did because of Geography and nothign to do with the strength of longbows. French infantry were able to contact English archers on many other occasions without bother…and break them too.

Okay. "Many" needs to be substantiated. I can think of a couple, and it wasn't so much French infantry breaking longbow formations as a combination of factors: Formigny is the most famous example, and it wasn't a French infantry attack, but rather artillery galling the English, which "broke" the English formations; they voluntrily emerged to attempt to take the cannon away; then other French forces came on the field in their rear, end of battle.

Verneuil is mounted troops breaking through the longbow, but then failing to follow up by killing them and driving them off. I can't think of any other examples offhand, where attacking French infantry broke English longbow. I await your examples….

What was unique at Agincourt was the muddy ridge down which the French came…

It was no ridge, but a slightly higher cental area in a much wider field. Both armies made full use of the width of the field, not just the center. Battlefield Detectives is not a good source, imho. Explain for me, for instance, just how the right and left portions of the French first battalion managed to "crowd" uphill while fighting this supposed sloping off to either flank.

(I will be gone for c. a week, but look forward to more fun on this thread when I return.)

On Agincourt:

This photo [from the rue Henry V] is looking up hill towards the English position and shows the tree line bounding the left of their line.

The battlefield looks much the same today as it did to Henry V, although Barker says the tree lines have moved.. This photo is from Henry's perspective, looking down a slight decline to the French.

From link

Google Maps.. The villages of Agincourt and Tramecourt still exist

link

No, well-crafted simulations that work can do that.

That wasn't what RR was saying

What I was trying to do is make the rules capable of playing the historical battle and, if you made the same decisions, get the historical results. At this point, Doug and I feel that you can then get a better idea of battles that one doesn't have the information on.

Perfect, no. But the idea doug is trying to reflect is that being able to get history where is it is well known, gaming lesser known battles might find an insight because of the repeatabilty of the rules.

Nothing about a 'well-crafted simulation' there, rather he seems to be implying that the historical outcome has been made to fit the rules…or possibly vice-versa, RR's prose style is hardly a model of clarity.

FWIW the English kept on winning and the French kept on losing because the French were a bit slow to realise that charging uphill into an arrow storm was Not A Good Idea – even if chivalry demanded it. Late in the wars the French modified their 'tactics' slightly, and started winning.

Google maps. The villages of Agincourt and Tramecourt still exist

link

Hi

GR. I have a lot of graphs in a notebook somwhere. What I observed when I did the work and got published THEN was a big yawn. In fact ONLY Phil Barker and a SF writer gave any positive feedback on the work 25 years ago.

It is there, it is "pre" desktop publishing.

Mike: connard has the gist of it. I think you are so locked into being an adversary that you have forgotten we are all friends here. MY IDEA is that everyone knows stuff and we share what we know.

Method. Premise one:The arrow doesn't know the name of the archer or the bow. Premise two:if you have data on a given bow and arrow, range usually, you can plot the energy curve for that bow for any arrow weight, and plot the energy at any point in its range. Premise three, Testing demonstrates the limits of penetration at range. Premise four: knowing what it takes to penetrate the armor, one can then "do the sums" for any other bow with that type arrow.

Thus, I ran the numbers on dozens of bows, and projected the performance of those bows within known limits to other draw weights.

If your capped arrow is expected to have a chance of penetration at 230 or so yards, the necessary energy is known. And that necessary energy would be from a longbow with a draweight of ca 70-75#, or a turkish composite bow of ca 50-55. Which is the table we use because it matches what you and I (Mike and Rocky) agree is the maximum effective range for the indicated battle.

And that same set of curves when compared to, say, Omans description and maps on the Hundred Years Wars suggest that the longbows in those fights are of lighter draw weight.

So, what doug and I are saying is the reverse of what you seem to think. Looking at the same sources WE agree on the engagement range at agincourt. And looking at the energy curves versus possible penetration of 1mm of armor…that would be a 70-75# bow.

Looking at the problem of logistics, they have wagons of reloads, and no one suggests some system for labeling the sheeves for different draw weights, I concluded that there is a uniformity. Mike, as an archer you know the problem of spine matching.

Connard, we are in agreement in this respect. Neither Mike, nor Doug nor myself insist on the longbow as some sort of superweapon that only has to show up to "win". I agree that the real issue is the massed fire, essentially turning a mass of archers into an analog of a napoleonic "shrapnel" round is the "trick".

And the problem is that some want "armor is arrow proof" or "longbow as superweapon weilded by supermen". Neither is true. On need only agree, for instance, that a musket ball will penetrate armor, but that the "trick" is needing massive volleys with thousands of balls to do a relatively small number of kills. The same is true for the longbow, the turkish composite bow, the american indian short bow, the aztec atl-atl and so on.

As for the rules fitting the situation. As I said, worked for the Dupuy research group which predicated its work in WW2 on the same premise. The same arguments were made against it "in the day". And as we speak, we STILL use the approach, and it does work.

All of which means that a lot of people get passionate, even angry, but that is based on not actually assuming we are all friends and no one is making the extreme statements we are arguing.

R

"Premise two:if you have data on a given bow and arrow, range usually, you can plot the energy curve for that bow for any arrow weight, and plot the energy at any point in its range."

Forgive my ignorance of bow physics, but surely the range and thus the energy curve will vary depending on the angle of release (as in clout shooting)?
If so, I presume you plotted the energy curve for each bow/arrow combination at a variety of ranges?

"If your capped arrow is expected to have a chance of penetration at 230 or so yards, the necessary energy is known. And that necessary energy would be from a longbow with a draw weight of ca 70-75#, or a turkish composite bow of ca 50-55. Which is the table we use because it matches what you and I (Mike and Rocky) agree is the maximum effective range for the indicated battle."

OK, now we are getting somewhere. However, I think you are making an AWFUL lot of assumptions. For example you say "chance of penetration". Assuming you mean that an arrow will not always penetrate, then what probability of penetration did you assume?

What level of accuracy did you assume at each range band (i.e. probability of hitting a man-sized target)?
What weights of arrow did you use?
What thickness of armour did you assume (I presume from your other remarks that this is 1mm), but of course the effective thickness of armour will vary depending on the exact spot hit and the angle of impact.
What quality of armour did you assume?
What assumptions did you make about temperature and humidity (which I would think could affect the dynamics of arrow flight)?

All of which IMHO adds up to the conclusion that although you may well have calculated the theoretical performance of different bows and arrows (and incidentally, I would love to see your data tables!), this in no way shows the actual effectiveness of x archers shooting at y armoured men-at-arms under battle conditions.

Thanks for the informed discussion so far. This is getting really interesting!

Rocky,

"GR. I have a lot of graphs in a notebook somwhere. What I observed when I did the work and got published THEN was a big yawn. In fact ONLY Phil Barker and a SF writer gave any positive feedback on the work 25 years ago".

As I did statistical analysis for a living, I am sure I would find it interesting.

:-)

- Greg

P.S. That's a hint.

It was no ridge, but a slightly higher cental area in a much wider field.

Er…..what is a ridge??!! :/

In fact the whole battlefield is a ridge – the gound slopes down from the centre as much as 17 metres just south of Agincourt, and 5 metres on the Tramecourt side – the contour heights are visible in the map at link.

Both armies made full use of the width of the field, not just the center. Battlefield Detectives is not a good source, imho. Explain for me, for instance, just how the right and left portions of the French first battalion managed to "crowd" uphill while fighting this supposed sloping off to either flank.

they do it _BY_ fighting this actual sloping off to either flank – that's what it means when they try to avoid the sloping flanks – they crowd into the centre.

It's a perfectly natural reaction – the top of hte ridge is flatter than the slopes, so the people on the edge of the slopes try to walk on the flatter bit as best they can, and those on the top try to avoid any sloping bits that may intrude into their path.

the total result of a few hundred people doing this is crowdign into the centre.

What did you think I as talking about?

BTW note that while the page title may be "Battlefield Detectives" and the work was done for the programme of that name, the company is "Crowd Dynamics Ltd." – they do things like model crowd behaviour, as might be guessed, including for the Haj pilgrimage, and have modeled various crowd disasters – see link

You want a simulation that gives insight? Well this is it…..and yet you don't like it so you dismiss it out of hand?

Hmm…..

Hi

Mike actually you are confusing a point. You are correct that lanuch angle affects actual range, but the essence of that is drop due to gravity. and I am stuck not knowing where to begin based on what you already know. I don't want to start with HOW gravity works…grin.

The essense of doing this type of math is to isoalte the vairables and do a dimensionles apporach then retrofit it to the real world. For instance. it is possible to calculate the coefficient of drag of an object. This is a dimensionless number which essentially says that objectively, the shape has a drag component that changes in predictable ways based on, in the real world, airflow, size and so on. A coefficient of drag(C/D) works of the idea that a flat plate has a C/D of one. For instance, I assume you have a modern auto. A modern auto usually has a c/d of .28 or so. What this means is that if your car had a flat board outline exactly like the shape of your car with no "streamlining"(to use the old word) that board might be 10 square feet and have a predictable value in poundals or whatever at any given speed of airflow(the car doesn't know if it is moving and the air is still or the car is still and the air is moving). Getting complex? well the .28 value means that your auto has the same drag as a flat plate of 2.8 square feet despite being 10.

Now, we add in concepts of induced drag, flow drag, sectional density and on and ….it gets more complex.

Where was I? Sorry. In the real world the trajectory has a limit, but the point is that the energy all through the curve is doable but not related to how you launched the arrow. For instance, Lets say that I shoot for range with a flight arrow and it goes 250 yards. At 100 yards, wether the arrow is fired at 45degrees, or 20 degrees at a closer target the energy available for the arrow is the same.

Referring to the dimensionless concept above.

Targets. First, the target is just a form of drag! It doesn't really matter if you are penetrating flesh, air, wind, metal. The arrow works by cutting into the target rather than KE punching and burning through the target as a bullet does. which means that in one case, the target isn't the issue. The same arrow head with 35 pounds of energy might cut into 3 inches of flesh and zero metal depending on the available energy and its drag value!

Armor, what I did was the usual approach the military uses. I looked as possible targets and quality of armor. One approach is to start with just a "flat plate" approach". A man standing bolt upright as a target. Just like modern analysis of, say tank armor, one can give a value to each bit, eyehole versus central spine(chain mail acts like a "shot box" in armor parlence). Assume that despite "aiming" where the arrow hits is random, one can assign a penetration value to every part of the body, and then look at the energy available and decide if there is a possibilty of penetration.

Central spine, given slope, pretty much zero. Toss in various army studies on what sort of hits produce a caaualty who, alive, will likely remove himself from the fight. Or, as I describe it from my gang fight days, the sort of wound where someone sits down and feels sorry for himself.

I admit that I shamelessly stole data from current studies on the way to evaluate a target.

Hits: well, I think I mentioned this part before; I was using these hits on target to cross the MOA of the archer, archers in mass and target area and realized that the generated ellipse looked like nothing so much as the 18th century shrapnel patterns.

more modern known data, hits on target crossed with how much of the target is actually vulnerable and treated it as a stistical event.

Whew.

Translated that into a set of tables with die rolls on 2d6.

Now, lets say, it isn't true, but lets assume for this discussion that temp and humitity(temp affects air density, thus at my altitude, air is 10% thinner than where you live) and humitity affect the flight. Lets assume that the actual flat plate drag efffect is 5%(way too big with average temps during summer in the period versus the test numbers corrected for a standard 72 degrees. Are these quibbles big enough to show up in the chart. Remember, we are talking about a C/D of .10 or so, then the 5% of the .1 is? Too small to show up meaninfully! Grin. The difference between the altitude THERE and where I live is .01, a C/D of .11 versus .10. Given the other aspects of the discussion, not big enough to show up in YOUR game scale.

Which brings me back to first principles. I know where my tables came from, and at least part of what I am talking about GR seems to get. I didn't do it prove anyone wrong or do anything but satisfy myself that I was understanding the problems.

Which leads to the testing. The math above suggested where a given arrow head design might penetrate various targets. To check my sums, I went to a field set up targets and shot. 1mm was picked for the above simply because most people have plain steel in their houses of 1mm or 1/16th inch or simialr and thus have a visual. I built armor, for the fun(doug was selling shields last year and the year before). I built armor and shields and weapons(a much bigger problem was the roman martiobarbuli because there IS no data, thus my approaching Phil who dug one up) and wrecked them.

To check my sums.

So, back to a previous post. I could be wrong, but not by much.

GR… i did similar stuff for the USAF on aircraft, and for fun on "pre-modern" aircraft. I get told by the people I work with that my graphs suck. Unreadable! What I do is extract the given line from the background noise of all the others. I tend to plot hundreds of examples on the same graph looking for groupings and patterns.

When we were doing the rules, my fear was that I would have to come up with some complex system to make each bow unique. Discovered that within any reasonable margin of error(game scale) I could cover every bow in 5 tables. Whew.

My game design prejudice, is that if you need more than A sheet of paper to play the game, your game is too complex!

So, our system was designed so that you read the rules (most of which are "dicky rules" our local player who in the day was the most creative with finding things like '7league boots' for his swiss). But after reading, you should only need "the kill sheet" to play the entire game including movement.

So, the easiest way to see the stuff is to just get the rules. Read where I describe how the 5 tables cover the bows they cover and why!

Another place I agree with mike, it is too easy for us to be lost in the details that don't matter like button placement, or wether a given bow is one meter more effective than another.

R

Hi

Oh, and one more point…love the subject and I do go on and on. I had actually used the earlier work about crowd dynamics as part of the "time/motion" analysis I was trying to derive from the sources.

My objection the Battlefield Detectives version was the assumption that all crowds are equal! Grew up in career military familes. And had seen the work done on how drilled troops act as part of their own dynamic that isn't actually like untrained crowds. Drilled troops, and that is required for the advancing in formation described repeately though the HYW, is under stress people revert to training. Thus soldiers out of uniform still react to boundry/space training under mob stres situations. This is why in a modern riot, riot cops in the fight are spaced differently than the protesters.

Rocky

Rocky:

"GR… i did similar stuff for the USAF on aircraft, and for fun on "pre-modern" aircraft. I get told by the people I work with that my graphs suck. Unreadable! What I do is extract the given line from the background noise of all the others. I tend to plot hundreds of examples on the same graph looking for groupings and patterns".

Perhaps you should try SAS or Excel, or both?

;-)

- Greg

That's all fascinating stuff, Rocky, thanks for explaining in such detail. However, I'm afraid you haven't really answered all my questions:

What probability of penetration did you assume?
What level of accuracy did you assume at each range band (i.e. probability of hitting a man-sized target)?
What weights of arrow did you use?
What quality of armour did you assume?

You used (as I thought) 1mm armour, but of course the effective thickness of armour will vary depending on the exact spot hit and the angle of impact.
What assumptions did you make about the varying thickness, type or even absence of armour on a specific part of the target?
What angle of impact did you aim for / achieve?

OK, I'm happy that the effects of temperature and humidity are negligible in this context.

Someone's been using Wiki and not quite grasping the concept….

"Someone's been using Wiki and not quite grasping the concept…."

Eh?

link

I hate a response being a link. At least qualify one's reference to it. :-)

Rocky, Mike has some valid points, and to be perfectly honest and as unbiased as I can be, you have failed to produce any empirical data that supports your point of view.

I am not saying that what you say is incorrect, only that "the proof is in the pudding".

Pk = ph*pp*pl, where pk= probability of a kill. ph = probability of a hit. pp= probability of penetration provided one hits, and pl = probability of inflicting lethal damage if one penetrates. (Source = R. Ogorkiewicz)

If one were to assume that 10 percent of arrows fired actually hit their targets (a very high percentage IMHO, with 3 percent being more realistic) then if all other factors were 90 percent, the probability of a kill is some eight percent. If one uses my speculation of 3 percent being hits (I believe this figure was used in the book "Firepower"), then we are looking at 2 percent kills.

Now, if ph = .03, and pp = .50, and pl = .50, pk = only 1 percent. That's one in a hundred arrows fired actually producing lethal damage. If you play a figure scale of 1 casting equals 100 actual men then it takes 10,000 men shooting to give 100% chance of inflicting 100 casualties, or one casting figure.

5,000 men would have a 50% chance to inflict one casualty. 2,500 men would have a 25% chance to inflict a casualty, and a unit that represents 1,000 actial men has about a 20% chance to inflict a casualty, range not being a consideration.

At Carrhae, the Parthians had 10,000 horse archers. In a complete day's battle in the open, the Romans suffered some 4,000 casualties, mostly just wounded. So if we say they actually fought for some 8 hours, and if all the Parthian horse archers were involved, the rate of casualties to actual arrows fired is very, very small.

Just what the rate is, we can only surmise as we do not know how many arrows were fired. If only 100,000 arrows were fired; meaning ten arrows per man, we arrive at a 4% rate of casualties, most of whom were wounded and not killed.

Personally, I feel that some 50 arrows per man fired is a more realistic figure and with 10,000 horse archers, this is some 500,000 arrows fired!

If we take 4,000 divided by 500,000 we arrive at only one percent of the arrows that were fired taking a man out of action.

IMHO, this percentage is "spot on".

OK, I'll go away now and let you guys continue what is a very good thread. Please do not back off from one another, but as an onlooker, I would really like to see some substantiating data and facts that support your positions.

So far, IMHO, all I have seen so far are opinions, and little to no facts supporting the rather broad "statements of fact" that are being made.

- Greg

Hi

As Sage shows, complex math…or a simple verbal explanatin. One of the things I deal with all the time is the fact that the math doesn't make sense to people who don't do math. THUS, I try to use real world terms and discussions. If I had merely said "C/D" and the forumla, Mike would have no idea what I am talking about.

A practical real world point is this, and I have mentioned it before, an arrow lanuched at 45degrees, optimum, would perform a perfect arc in a vacuum and impact at 45degrees. But the drag on the arrow means that the impact angle is usually 56 degrees. Sectional density is another factor that plays into this and, go wiki, I assume there is a section on this….and so on.

Mikes variables:(I have referred to all of this in the past)

"What probability of penetration did you assume?(penetration happens with a hit with enough energy under 35degrees impact angle." Looking at the target, how much of the area for a random hit is under 1.5mm and with less than a 35degree angle.

What level of accuracy did you assume at each range ban(i.e. probability of hitting a man-sized target)? I assumed an MOA of 30. The problem is that the target is a mass of men, not a man. Greg refers to "Firepower"…one of my favorite popular sources. But this leads to a long discussion on "company front" and the concepts of firing into a column. Hughes referrs to a situation that applies to ancients in that all ancients formations are columns for targeting purposes by later standards.

"What weights of arrow did you use?" I addressed this earlier. I assumed bodkins within their range and flight arrows at longer.

"What quality of armour did you assume?" plain steel, with 10% chance of better.

Greg…. I mentioned above, I assumed the probaility of hits as above. Worsens with range.

Similarly, I didn't assume lethality. Rather, I used more modern approaches about what sort of hit remove the man from the fight. Death isn't the only issue. Casualties are dead. Throw in the time/motion crowd movements as referred to above, some will merely have someone fall on them.

At agincourt, each archer started with a sheef of 24 arrows, with wagons of reloads in reserve. Firing 6 rounds a minute, the sheef is gone in four(including the initial volleys where they advanced beyond the stakes to harass the french into attacking). Reloads were in the supplies in the rear and shuttled up.

Carrahae is a different problem. Steppes tribes usually started with ca 128 arrows consisiting of different quivers with a mix of flight, armor and broadhead plus a few speciality arrows such as signally. A steppes warrior might have as many as 10 remounts in the rear, and after firing his arrows would withdraw to their remounts and return. The problem I have with Carrahae is that I haven't good numbers on the number of remounts, if any. I am guessing from the long harassment phase of the fight that they were periodically withdrawing to rearm. Anyway, toss in the idea that they will commonly have 40 broadheads for the unarmored targets, 40 armor piercing for the armored, and 40 flight for long range harassing before they withdraw, your numbers change.

So, the agreement is that the actual hits/death is even smaller than your speculation, but combat deaths aren't the major event removing men from the battle. Except in the movies.

Rocky

""What probability of penetration did you assume?(penetration happens with a hit with enough energy under 35degrees impact angle." Looking at the target, how much of the area for a random hit is under 1.5mm and with less than a 35degree angle.

What level of accuracy did you assume at each range ban(i.e. probability of hitting a man-sized target)? I assumed an MOA of 30. The problem is that the target is a mass of men, not a man. Greg refers to "Firepower"…one of my favorite popular sources. But this leads to a long discussion on "company front" and the concepts of firing into a column. Hughes referrs to a situation that applies to ancients in that all ancients formations are columns for targeting purposes by later standards."

I am assuming you know what a probability is. Neither of your answers give probabilities in answer to the question. A probability is usually expressed as eithner a fraction or a percentage.

(Incidentally, I am not familiar with "MOA", what does it stand for?)

"plain steel, with 10% chance of better."

What evidence can you offer to support your view that "plain steel" was typical of the armour worn at the time?

However, I think I have made my point. You have made assumptions about the probability of penetration, the probability of hitting the target, the thickness of the armour, the type and weight of arrows used etc. etc.

None of these assumptions can be proved (that is why we are forced to make assumptions) and the cumulative error thus introduced IMHO renders your calculations meaningless.

As Greg points out:
"Pk = ph*pp*pl, where pk= probability of a kill. ph = probability of a hit. pp= probability of penetration provided one hits, and pl = probability of inflicting lethal damage if one penetrates. (Source = R. Ogorkiewicz)"

You have in fact made assumptions about all of these factors.

if horse bows were so hot- how come crusader crossbows could hold them off and in turn the crossbow was beaten by the longbow.

Aso when gunpower got to places the where cavalry had a history of archery- such as the Ottomans, Balkens and Mamluks, they seemed to have sifted over to muskets and pistols pretty quickly.

I believe one of the reasons that the longbow and composite bow was replaced by the musket had not so much to do with how long it took to train archers, but how difficult it would have been for them to maintain the conditioning to be effective…

My understanding is that the Mongols, English longbow archer, etc. looked almost deformed from the size of their right shoulders that were developed in order to allow them to maintain a heavy rate of fire with a 70lb weapon…while other weapons missile weapons required training to fire properly, the musket does not require the type of physical strength that the longer range heavier "draw weight" bows required…

An archer firing 60 arrows to full effect will "lift" approximately 4200 lbs in a period that is some cases could be less than 15 minutes with one arm taking on a disproportionate share of that weight…try doing 60 reps with a 70 lb barbell…

Rocky,

PL, or the probability of inflicting lethal damage can be substituted with a percent variable one wishes to define. If the probability of killing the target was 10%, and you want "kills" to represent lethality then PL= 10 percent. If you wish to define PL as "taking the man out of action" and that percent was 90 percent, then PL = 90 percent.

Hitting the target, or 'PH', is the most important factor (if you can't hit, the rest is moot), and PH certainly decreases with range. Range becomes more difficult to determine the farther the target is away. This is why we see in history that sometimes defenders of a position would "mark the field" of battle at known ranges. It is much easier to shoot at and hit a target at a known distance rather than looking at it, and making a proper decision of range based on one's "depth perception".

In order to determine 'hit percentage' one must have a sample of hits and misses at each range in question that will and will not qualify as "PL", however you choose to define it.

I am very curious to know what your sample population consisted of and how you bracketed your results.

All the best guys! Great discussion!

- Greg

Hi

Mike. People ask a question. I answer. You challenge with "you cannot prove"…

Look. I am not writing a book for the TMP on the subject, but outlining my apporach. It is the way I do things. I start by trying to understand the detail variables and THEN decide which ones aren't important enough to affect the results. An example from the field of archers, is that there was a writer who insisted that painting a shaft RED reduced the drag based on the smooth surface of that color of lacquerer versus varnish or whatever.

Like some of the concepts mentioned above, it the variables don't show up in any meaninful fashion in reality.

But in essence, I stated how I approached the problem.

Hit probability. Someone else referred to Hughes(I think), "Firepower". And I responded that I used the sources mentioned in that book about cannister on column to derive those percentages. I didn't state the actual percentages because you passed on the refrence, i assumed you were familiar with the work.

Bet greg is. Which if so, and you read the sources "Firepower" mentions, you have the answer including "bracketing".

But not the essence of where, inside these studies that the details end up suggesting which margins don't matter.

Yup, make assumptions..but THEN tested them. Thus, anything I say is closer than just doing nothing.

More education for Mike. I was assuming you know this, but appearantly not. One can tediously look the problem of accuracy without undersanding the principle involved. A LASER has a dispersion rate, but no margin of error. Thus, it goes where it is pointed, but if you shoot at the moon, the beam dispersion when it reaches the moon might be several meters across meaning the energy is too disbursed. Depending, one can calculate exactly how big that circle is.

With a missile weapon one can define the precision of the weapon. With a gun, one clamps it in a vice, and shoot. On a long string of shots, a given weapon will randomly put all the rounds somewhere in a cone with the aimpoint as the centerline.

Actually, mike, your gesses are meaningless. Mine are actually based on physics and math and testing same. I might be wrong, but I will be closer than just a WAG.

Starbuck: you are, in essence, correct. My first university schooling was anthropology/archeology and the fact is that the bones tell tales. And archers do have stress growth in response to their tools. All of us do. As a side issue, the olympics you know, everyone in the pentathalon is shooting a pistol that will easily put every round inside a cone about an inch wide at the target. The target is so big that none of the competitors should miss. If they weren't in the middle of an event that involved running and jumping and riding, all of them would be perfect. One korean just got disqualified for using a drug that would artificially calm him down! But the act of shooting the bow degrades the steadiness of the shooter. This is the basic point I made elsewhere about my ability to do a 175# drawweight. I just could not do so for 6 rounds a minute for 4 minutes to empty a quiver and hit anything smaller than the state of Kansas at the end!

Luton…your simple question actually has a complex answer that, again might be books in length. Not everyone can pump out shots on a heavy draw weight bow. Overwhelmingly the bows of history have a draweight of ca 30# and are ment for small game. The LEGEND of the longbowmen of england in the Hundred Years War of being "the best men in england" is kinda true. Only the biggest and best are outthere shooting 96 shots on even a 70# bow in a few minutes after marching across england.

However, women and children can fire a gun or crossbow of as much power as "Hulk Hogan".

Just as there are bows of various drawweight and efficiency, so there are crossbows of various weight and efficiency. Like bows, most crossbows are intended for small game, not war. English sources even refer to crossbows that are designed to launch a pebble for stunning birds! Suffice it to say that the crossbow used by the French and english in the 15th century wasn't quite as good as the italian mercenary crossbow used in the crusades. In the italian instance, their crossbows used efficient composite bow staves made by the same turks they were shooting at…..but heavier.

And that is the problem that isn't obvious. Crossbows were limited by the stave which needed an expert builder. A smoothbore musket can be made by every villiage smith.

R

Rocky:

"Bet greg is. Which if so, and you read the sources "Firepower" mentions, you have the answer including "bracketing".

Not so Rocky. My knowledge of ballistics goes much deeper than that. How was I to make that call that your analysis was based on a source you never brought up until I mentioned it? Go figure.

"Actually, mike, your gesses are meaningless. Mine are actually based on physics and math and testing same. I might be wrong, but I will be closer than just a WAG".

Rocky, all I see so far is a "SWAG" (Simple Wild Ass Guess" (for those not familiar with the terminology), and absolutely nothing to support your claims. I am not saying yuo are wrong, just that you have shown nothing to substantiate your claims.

I am going to drop out of this now as once again, all we are being given are personal opinions. No facts; no data. Unless you gentlemen are prepared to back up your claims with data and statistics that can be looked at and examined, this is an exercise in futility.

All the best!

- Greg

"Mike. People ask a question. I answer. You challenge with "you cannot prove"…"

Yes, because every time you make a statement and are challenged to come up with a reference that supports it, you don't …

"Yup, make assumptions..but THEN tested them. Thus, anything I say is closer than just doing nothing."

Er… no. You did not test the assumptions outlined above. You tested the archery ballistics but not the assumptions.

"More education for Mike. I was assuming you know this, but appearantly not. One can tediously look the problem of accuracy without undersanding the principle involved. A LASER has a dispersion rate, but no margin of error. Thus, it goes where it is pointed, but if you shoot at the moon, the beam dispersion when it reaches the moon might be several meters across meaning the energy is too disbursed. Depending, one can calculate exactly how big that circle is."

Yeah, I know all that, thank you, I do know a reasonable amount about physics. However, I fail to see the connection with what we were discussing. You have still not stated what you assumed to be the probability of a hit (i.e accuracy)

"With a missile weapon one can define the precision of the weapon. With a gun, one clamps it in a vice, and shoot. On a long string of shots, a given weapon will randomly put all the rounds somewhere in a cone with the aimpoint as the centerline."

Now you are just repeating yourself. Laser, gun, same principle.

"Actually, mike, your guesses are meaningless. Mine are actually based on physics and math and testing same."

No more than yours (see above)!

"I might be wrong, but I will be closer than just a WAG."

Whatever a WAG is. BTW, what's MOA mean?

Hi

GR…I stated that I used prior studies by the military on predicting hit probabilities on a column, not that I derived them myself.

I am not sure what YOU want. I expressed numbers as results and got told there was no way to know. I explained the procedure on deriving the information, and got the complaint that I didn't produce "proof". What sort of proof do you want? From your stated background, i thought it would be obvious to YOU>

I find it curious that I am accused of WAG afer explaining both a research and TEST procedure.

to both of you. My "Wild A$$ Guess" would be Mikes approach of reading a few sources and then calling it as he claimes in a previous response, a kill effect at 250 yards. My "Wild A$$ Guess" is in one area. That of the average draw weight of the bows, which seems to be the thing that upsets you most.

To repeat. Like all gamers and historians, the question comes up on how effective bows in general, and longbows in particular are. And why they stopped being used IF they were the super weapon described in some sources.

As a life long archer, I knew some claims were silly.

Starting with Klopsteg and Negler et al on the physics of bow and arrow, the idea is that bow efficiency differes from bow to bow and design to design. First problem was to define a "significant number".

A digression. If you have a ruler marked in inches, you cannot precisely measure closer than an inch. You can estimate to a half inch with some reliability and cannot assuredly measure something precise like .385 inches. The question then becomes "what is the significant number". If one is measureing a 200 yard event with a bow, some imprecision doesn't matter. Just as I mention above about the C/D between different arrows(or profile area drag, a different number) doesn't affect the concept enough to be a "significant number". Did a lot of math analysis, and testing to get there.

Working off of physics, The arrow needs to match the bow based on a concept called spine. Spine affects accuracy. Now, once the arrow is in the air, it will follow a known arc based on imput energy. THUS, once you have ONE fact, given bow, given arrow, you can calculate any bow of that design with any arrow of known design.

With me so far.

Once the arrow arrives, at each point of the arc, one can calculate the energy available, and the penetration of that arrow.

Which answers how we get to the basic question that started this thread about the relative merits and why.

Similarly, the there are already existing procedures for, as mentioned in sources LIKE "Firepower", thought I started with Dupuy's "Numbers, Predictions and war", calculating the prospect of hits on a column if you know how many rounds are fired into the column.

Similarly, there are tools out there for defining the size of the target area (in this case the area taken by a man, and the area of the exposed vulnerable areas available, with no armor all the body, with perfect plate, ca 12%).

This is all stuff that you should alredy know and deal with.

My real question was this: were the numbers for penetration at range from the energy allowed appropriate. Which involved shooting arrows at armored targets.

Similarly, testing the range/energy/efficiency graphs against other bow/arrow combinations. Testing the numbers in the real world.

I think that Mike calling all this "worthless" and Greg insisting I made a "SIMPLE Wild A$$ Guess" is supremely wrong.

So, I know where my opinions on the subject came from. And now you do.

Mike implies that he so understands the subject that he KNOWS that the significant numbers limits are so cuumulative in nature that the numbers are worthless. So, simply, tell me how "off" I am. My 250yard(your WAG) is off by 10yds, 20, 40, 200?

MOA…"Minute of Angle". See the descriptions above, which you claim to understand, on lasers and cone of effect.

Rocky

Rocky,

It is one thing to state a hypothesis based on assumptions. It is quite another to give credible results based on statistical analysis of actual tests.

You have given your thought process but nothing else. An evaluation based on intuitive insight is a known an accepted evaluation procedure in analysis circles, but the data that leads one to make the judgement must accompany it. Without the data, all you have is a "SWAG", and that is exactly what you have provided.

At that point, it is one's "professional opinion" and nothing else.

Once again, I am not disputing what you say but only asking for qualification of the statements, and none have been forthcoming. Show me some test populations, and the condidtions and variables used tests. Define your variables. What were the conditions of the test? Winter, summer, clear or rain? What bow or bows were used? At what ranges was each fired, and what were the results? How many arrows were fired at each range and against what target that equaled "taking a guy out of action"? What was the weight of the arrow; what type of point was used on the arrow? Was all shooting done from flat ground at a target on flat ground or was one on higher ground?

These are just some of the variables on which you base your assumptions that I don't see explained in your arguement.

Without this type of substantiating data, all you have is a SWAG, and you will be hard pressed to convince anyone otherwise. It is simply your opinion. You said your analysis was published. I would like to see a copy.

My father was an aeronautical engineer. He was on the design team for the USA lunar landing project back in the 60's. One thing he always told me was, "It looks great on paper; now will it fly"? You can build any model you want on paper, but until actual field tests are performed and results tallied, you just don't know if your assumptions are correct. Before that, it's a SWAG, however educated that guess might be.

All the best.

- Greg

"I am not sure what YOU want."

How about actually answering questions you have been asked instead of endlessly repeating how accurate your results were because you tested them in the real world?

Specifically:
What did the non-archers say above that is silly?
What probabilities did you assume for:
probability of a hit
probability of penetration provided one hits
probability of inflicting lethal damage if one penetrates.
average angle of impact

"My "Wild A$$ Guess" would be Mikes approach of reading a few sources and then calling it as he claimes in a previous response, a kill effect at 250 yards."

A figure that you agree with!!

"My "Wild A$$ Guess" is in one area. That of the average draw weight of the bows, which seems to be the thing that upsets you most."

Well, at least you now admit it IS a guess and not something you have "proved scientifically.

"As a life long archer, I knew some claims were silly."

And you STILL haven't said what claims they were that you consider "silly".

"My real question was this: were the numbers for penetration at range from the energy allowed appropriate. Which involved shooting arrows at armored targets."

IIRC, you have assumed that the quality of armour is equivalent to 1mm of modern plain steel.

"I think that Mike calling all this "worthless" and Greg insisting I made a "SIMPLE Wild A$$ Guess" is supremely wrong. "

You think it is wrong? Why? Please supply evidence to support your position.

"So, simply, tell me how "off" I am. My 250yard(your WAG) is off by 10yds, 20, 40, 200? "

I am not disputing the range. As I've said before, I agree with your figure of 250 yds.

Here's a bit of education for you. If "Pk = ph*pp*pl, where pk= probability of a kill. ph = probability of a hit. pp= probability of penetration provided one hits, and pl = probability of inflicting lethal damage if one penetrates." (Quoting Greg again) then errors in each of the factors are multiplied out. Thus a small error in each one will end up with a big error in the total probability. But perhaps you already knew that …

Mike,

You are quite correct, and I am not siding with anyone, I just want THE SUBSTANTIATING TEST DATA!

Show the data or concede you don't have it and are just giving a SWAG.

If I want SWAG'S, I'll go up and down my street.

- Greg

[quoteif horse bows were so hot- how come crusader crossbows could hold them off and in turn the crossbow was beaten by the longbow.

Because horsearchers do not like being shot back at and they are outranged by infantry crossbows, which are alse invariably "heavy" enough to penetrate any armour they have.

Horse archers have an abysmally short effective range simply due to lack of accuracy. Stationary horse archers such as Sassanids (maybe) and Mamlukes (certainly) shot to about 80 yards AFAIK. Galloping "light" horse archers weer accurate to maybe half that -40 yards – modern galloping horse archers shoot at 10 or 15 yards if I read ATARN correctly.

Their ideal tactic is to hold off 100+ yards from the enemy and small groups gallop in, shoot a few arrows at short range and then gallop away to rest with hte bulk of their "unit".

but at 100, or even 200 yards they are within infantry archery range, and that's not good for them.

Crossbows were destroyed by longbows exactly once AFAIK – when hte crossbows were ill-used by their ignorant commanders (ie ignorant of how to use them properly) after a long march (18 miles?) and without being allowed to use their pavisses.

It's like saying that infantry squares in the Napoleonic era were useless because the British broke one at whatever battle it was, and the Russians also broek a couple somewhere….

Well, there's a term I am not familiar with: "AFAIK"?

If memory serves me correctly, the crossbow armed men did not fair too well at Crecy for one. That's the one that comes to my mind off hand. I'd have to think about it and do some more reading to brush up, but I have to think there are others that escape me at the moment.

Then, on the other hand, how many examples do we have where crossbow armed men "destroyed" the longbow men?

:-)

- Greg

Hi

Greg..you want me to publish the data? I have the numbers, which are the ones I stated, this thread is smaller than Mike's source material, and I ain't gonna spend hours scanning in graphs and typing long dissertations.

notice how in another thread I did do a couple hundred words on how bow design affects performance. And I am guessing you ignored it. Should I repeat?

The results are the issue. Mike got results, I got results. Mine resulted from a work.

One of the silly comments, mike, is one that greg demands above "what kind of bow for the test". Basic, once the arrow has left the bow, the TYPE of bow doesn't matter. The initial velocity of the arrow is the issue.

Your dad being aeronatutical engineer, assuming he works in the real world and not, as implied, in space, you always correct any result for a standard condition when stating a value.

Given your background, I cannot come up with a reason why you ask the obvious.

Your questions go on and on, and even when answered you ignore them. You asked and it was answered how I arrived at probability of hit and probability of penetration at least twice.

Greg's dad asking how it flies, misses the point. You do the math, And testing is to suggest plausability of the results.

1mm plain steel. A digression. Once had a congress critter familiar with WW2 stories who asked me, seriously, that as one B17 tail gunner who was blown out fell five miles into a haystack and survived, if it might be useful to TRAIN for that. Wanted to know the probabilities.

There are already tools in place for calculating hits on a target for decending missiles. I mentioned this above. Known information. How much of the target area are acual people, also doable. How much of the target is vulnerable, also doable. Not sure why you don't understand the concepts. Because some of you out there believe that all armor is perfect, I did a simple aspect. I simply decided to treat all the spine and thicker than 1mm as impenetrable except where the energy in the armor piercing point had enough to cleanly penetrate.

All of this is clear and simple.

And irrelevent! I understand that your skepticism. The thing is supplying 300pages of results is also not practical. I am certain that, for instance, when Greg talked to his dad, he didn't demand the library. This is a forum of casual conversation.

Mike described how he got to his posiion, and I described how I got to mine. The readers can chose which seems better, or, more likely ignore us all.

R

Hi

And again on Crossbows.

Simple. Crossbows historically come in different designs and configurations. These vary from 30-50 pound draw weight small game devices, through usual crossbows for most of a simple inefficient wood stave of 150# or so draw weight, all the way up to steel staved, essentially small siege weapon, crossbows that require serious equipment to cock.

All the "stratego" concepts above about "bow beats crossbow, crossbow beats bow" ignore the concept. Which style crossbow. In the Hundred years wars, the only crossbows I have seen are two types. The 150# simple wood crossbow which is massively inefficient and shorter ranged than a 70 to 100# draw longbow, and massive craniquin cocked steel bows on walls. Two different animals. In the med, the italians had longbows, composite turkish type bows and crossbows that also had composite staves. The latter crossbow will outrange even a composite short bow. Simply, similar efficiencies, but a bow drawn by hand is lighter in draw weight than one useing stirrup and back or stirrup and goats prod.

So, the "trick" is recognizing WHICH crossbow.

It would be like, today, saying that you read where a Honda outran a Dodge, therefore all Hondas are faster. Then someone chimes in with the Dodge that outran the honda.

One honda is a 68 vintage honda with a 600cc motor, one is a modern turboed, nos, 2litre civic, one Dodge is a 57 with a straight stick and the other is a HEMI.

Now, I actually haven't street raced these four cars against each other, but I think I know which were involved in which races.

R

One of the silly comments, mike, is one that greg demands above "what kind of bow for the test". Basic, once the arrow has left the bow, the TYPE of bow doesn't matter. The initial velocity of the arrow is the issue.

Er, so the bow isn't important?

Two different animals. In the med, the italians had longbows, composite turkish type bows and crossbows that also had composite staves. The latter crossbow will outrange even a composite short bow. Simply, similar efficiencies, but a bow drawn by hand is lighter in draw weight than one useing stirrup and back or stirrup and goats prod.

Er, so the bow is important?

So, the "trick" is recognizing WHICH crossbow.

I'm going for a lie down