"Samurai "longbow"" Topic

Watching a Warriors on History channel. This one was on the Samurai. Archer galloping along and shooting at targets from the horse. The method of using the bow is, like a lot of Samurai warfare, very ritualized. Then came a line of matchlock men firing their reproductions. And then a statement that made me wonder. The host says the matchlock had a killing range of 55 yards, twice that of the longbow. My HUH! meter turned on. The Samurai bow was only effective out to about 25 yards? Is that right? I will admit that in going back an looking at the method of firing the bow it didn't look like it took a lot of strength to bend it. Does anyone know what the draw weight of it is. That was never mentioned. If it only has a range of 25 yards that would explain the reason for a target at about 5 yards. And was it only a horse bow? I don't recall ever seeing unmounted Samurai archers. It would also explain the Samurai ability to chop arrows out of the air as they would be considerably more slow than the western longbow or recurve.

Try this link: link and link

Having shot a yumi back in the days that I was a kendoka, I think I can say that they have a greater range than 25 yards.

And kyudo doesn't have to be done from horseback. Getting a nag into the dojo might be tricky…

You may find this interesting

link

Show me a Teppo that was effective at 55 yards after three rounds. You could just about use a chisel to clean it out…

Keep in mind that there is a noticeable difference between the capabilities of Japanese bows and the ranges at which they were used.

I was and am a bit skeptical about the figures, but have to wonder now just which bow and what time period they were talking about. The Japanese fellow showing the host how to use a long bow is supposed to be THE man in Japan from which one learns the art.

This is from one of the links and is at variance with Bryant, which I haven't read nor am I familiar with his works.

This is the final paragraph of the article on Japanese archery and is under the "Short Bows" section.

<<<<<The effective range of these bows within which they will inflict damage upon the enemy varies considerably. The effective range of the long bow is 60 yards, of the half bow it is 30 yards, and the small bow is effective up to perhaps 12 yards.>>>>>

I can believe that the matchlock would only have a killing range of 50-60 yards, and if the above is correct would be double the range of the half-bow. There was also mention made that the matchlock came to replace the bow because it didn't take much training to use it, the same argument I've heard, and made, about the introduction of firearms in the West. I also argue that Henry's longbowmen at Azincourt would have made hash of an equal number of George III's flintlockmen.

Wow! I have killed a deer with my hunting bow at over 100yds no problem, It dropped in place. It's an 80lb English style long bow, nothing fancy, but I can hit a paper plate at 50yds 9 of 10 times and half the time at 100yds.

In the 7 years War (1592-1598) Korean (re-curved) Bow was believed to out-shoot the "samurai" bow 5:3 in distance.

B.S. meter alert on this one.

The matchlock could could kill thru' armour at almost any range it hit at – you just could not hit what you were aiming at with any reliability over 100 yards for the first shot. The Japanese actually had a fairly sophisticated technique with their matchlocks, including pre-registration of targets – see the night shot in Kagemusha, the technique IS correct.

As for the bow, again a high level of B.S. Throwing in toy bows & novelty items like palanquin bows is very misleading, it is really harking back to the old D&D type compendiums where people just got a list of names & made up stuff.

From various article in the Archery Antiquaries Journal and other serious technical works, an unexceptional archer could disable an armoured target at around 75 yards, again, if he hit. Exceptional archers, of which there were quite a few, could hit at longer range, andtechniques existed, specially in the Middle East & Korea, of harassing a body of troops at very long ranges, say 300+ yards with armour piercing arrows – one of the literate Crusaders was peppered like that & had to take several days out of armour to recover – not seriously injured but a 'combat loss' after the fact.

bsrlee, what account are you referring to in regards to your post? – "one of the literate Crusaders was peppered like that & had to take several days out of armour to recover – not seriously injured but a 'combat loss' after the fact."

Especially the account of armour piercing rounds used over 300 yards.

Chris

Pre-Sengoku Japanese longbow users practiced on stationary and moving targets at ranges out to 66 metres, and this applied to those archers on horse and those on foot. It seems the school of historians who write about 20-metres or less for a mounted archer aiming at his social equal are being pragmatic. That is: get close, to his right where he can't fire back as easily, and then look for gaps in his armor or shoot his horse. A three-foot bamboo shaft is visible in flight. The shaft can be seen to flex as it flies. You can't cut it down, as you are holding your own bow. You can only rely on your armour. Tough cookies.

I do think the yumi probably suffered greatly from lack of penetration over about 50 yards. One possible indication of this is the numerous woodblock prints depicting samurai festooned like porcupines but not critically wounded.