"Bows: Effective Fire at Long Range" Topic

Writing in Slingshot magazine, Nick Harbud presents the case that "Reconstructors do not believe in effective long range bow fire."

Tests with reconstructed weapons show that archers simply miss more at longer ranges, and that medieval illustrations show no examples of high trajectory fire during pitched battles.

The traditional wargaming view is that massed archery creates an "arrowstorm" which can force a unit to retire or impair the unit's ability to fight.

Do you think our current rulesets make long-range bow fire too effective?

No more so than long range musketry.

No.

How do hundreds of archers, arrayed in reasonably good order, and firing thousands of arrows in the span of just a few minutes, miss?

Seems to me the people doing the analysis may be off base.

Even if they don't kill the enemy (assuming their armor and shields give them some protection), they'd still have to worry about nasty wounds, and the effects of such massive firepower on their morale, especially knowing that as they close the range, the fire only grows progressively deadlier.

How many arrows did the archers carry to make such a firestorm at long range feasible? Would they not husband their arrows until the target came nearer?

Since the archers carried arrows for long range (we know this from the arrow heads) as well as short range flat trajectory armour piercing arrows I would conclude the theory is incorrect.

The only way to get a long way with an arrow is high trajectory – fire flat and it falls under gravity and finds the ground. Especially on uneven battlefields with slopes, and even hills.

Of course arrows are less accurate at longer ranges; that doesn't mean they weren't fired if arrows were plentiful. Did they do their tests with one or two guys, or with a group of hundreds of trained archers firing at lines of targets simulating an enemy host? I think we know the answer to that.

Perhaps medieval artists only wanted to portray the "battle" and not the prep fire? It has been years since I studied medieval art in college, but, IIRC, "accuracy" and "medieval art" don't necessarily go together.

Anyway, no, I don't think most rules make them too effective at long range. I know they were pretty deadly in WAB, so, in that rule set they might be a little too effective.

" It has been years since I studied medieval art in college, but, IIRC, "accuracy" and "medieval art" don't necessarily go together."

I don't think "accuracy" and "art" necessarily go together with any adjective before "art."

Best historical reference….
Henry V---Battle of Agincourt
With the right plan and right terrain, archers saved the day
If historical records are accurate--the French had a 3:1 number advantage but suffered over 10:1 loss rate attributed to the effective use of a longbow.

Anyway, no, I don't think most rules make them too effective.

They probably make them too effective for general application. Where the longbow tactic could be applied to the greatest effect it was devastating, but if the enemy refused to do the stupid thing it was not. It's easy to get carried away with longbow romance and forget that there are really not all that many longbow battles, that the bulk of warfare was conducted by small parties of men-at-arms and – proof of the pudding and all that – England did not win the HYW.
Naturally one could say that England could not match France for manpower…but that does n't really hold water until a point came where French royal authority became more powerful than the authority of English kings in their role as French dukes.

I suppose it depends also on what one means by effective.

Now, an arrow designed for armour piercing just can't be fired out to the full range an archer can achieve – it's too heavy. And clearly then the arrows that can reach that range will not pierce metal armour well. They will cause advancing formations to halt or stagger – men will raise shields – it's a natural reaction, the advance will become ragged. Some men in lighter armour will be injured, some will be killed. And their friends will see that they still have a few hundred yards to go, and can expect things to get worse as they get nearer. Some men will fall away – perhaps the advance will halt completely. Perhaps it will retreat. In either case the archery has been "effective".

Not enough information to decide one way or the other. Would need to see their research methodology and test results.

Recommended viewing

YouTube link

Everyone points to the battles in France, but the longbow was also used to great effect by the English against the Scottish armies of the time. The Scots never learned how to beat it (except Robert the Bruce), which was 1) not to stand around in the open and get shot to pieces or 2) not to rush forward in the open and get shot to pieces. The Scots problem was that in pitched battles, they tended to need open ground to deploy and control their long spear formations. But that just made them big targets for English archers, and far slower AND less armored than French cavalry.

The trick of course is to engage those pesky longbow armies in unfavorable terrain or other situations where they can't use their firepower.

If the longbow was so devastating, why didn't everyone adopt it? There are probably others out there who can explain succinctly why other nations were not able to develop longbow forces comparable to the English.

I know there were people who argued in favor of bringing back the longbow in English/British armies centuries after it had been abandoned. And didn't Jack Churchill shoot a German with a bow during a Commando raid?

I can't speak for other rules systems. But ours has "longbow" starting to effectively hit fully mailed targets at 150 yards. Max range is c. 250 yards but will only affect light or unarmored targets at that range. So, not too effective to be realistic.

Longbows required years of practice to build up the strength to pull the heavier warbow. Casual or hunter use will not develop a body of archers with those draw weights. It required practice with a weapon that was deadly to knights. So in France as elsewhere such practicing with such weapons was forbidden, then overturned to produce a body of peasants with the weapons of the English yeomen, then overturned again because the French nobility said, "what the hell do we think we're doing, arming our peasants this way? Nix to that!" And made it illegal, again. I believe later they changed their minds again, and finally the Franc Archiers were the royal army "regulars" who did indeed shoot warbows, but their numbers were nowhere near the pool of yeomen archers in Merry Olde England….

The arrow storm did exist and a body of men could put down 50,000 arrows into the enemy in a short time.

It was a 'disruptive' weapon.

Longbow archers were trained from boyhood for a lifelong relationship with their bow. The law of the land required this. Skeletons of archers show a substantially over developed (much bigger, heavier and bulky bone) side of the body (on the draw side) because the body evolved as the person matured and as they stepped up to greater draw weights.

As such, the archer was a valuable commodity that was valued and could be paid well – as opposed to any old bod who could span and fire a crossbow (or later – a musket).

The greater draw weights gave greater range.

Just as in rock, scissors, paper, the bow as a weapon had its place. In a dynamic battle situation, it was very vulnerable to close combat and in the wars of the Roses for example, both sides had the bow and so an 'advantage' was not so apparent – also the fickle finger of fate played its part, in one battle (was it Towton), that the wind strongly favoured one side and carried the arrow further, giving them a range advantage and therefore an advantage in battle. Likewise, it seems fair to say that the mud at Agincourt was worth a legion of men and it played its part in the outcome of that battle.

In close combat, the bow gave way to allow the heavy infantry to fight, but then it would appear that the bow could form into small knots and could still give some localised supporting fire through gaps and at flanks etc.

If wargames get bow wrong anywhere, it would be if they give the longbow units a melee capability – to do so totally takes them out of role.

At longer range, clothing of various construction (including armour) is more likely to turn arrows, but the effects on cohesion and command and control (by killing some leaders) will still be apparent.

I think I read it in Anne Curry's book on Agincourt. Her contention was that longbow fire at long ranges provoked that enemy formations bunched up while trying to avoid being shot in the flanks by the archers; that disorganized the advance, which then could be dealt with by the dismounted knights and ment-at-arms. It wasn't the longbow by itself what won battles for the English, but the combination of longbows and heavy infantry what proved decisive.

While art and accuracy may not go well together, the fact that there is NO depiction of a high volley show – when it would make a pretty interesting scene – is quite a strong statement against such usage.

Efficiency might be another one. While a well trained archer can hit a target on shorter ranges, they might be hesitant to shoot arrows beyond that range just for area saturation. Situations where this is usefull will occur, but they are probably rare. Arrows are limited resources, especially within a battle. If you can kill someone on 10, 20 or even 100 metres, why shoot at 250 when any hit is random.

the fact that there is NO depiction of a high volley show – when it would make a pretty interesting scene – is quite a strong statement against such usage.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Arrows are limited resources, especially within a battle.

Apparently not. I asked this question of an archery specialist. If an archer only carried a sheaf of 24 arrows and the rate of shooting was 10 – 12 arrows a minute wouldn't they all use up their arrows in less than 3 minutes? His answer was simply this – young boys were employed to take resupplies of arrows from the baggage carts and rush them forward to the archers, ruuning along behind them dropping a sheaf behind each man.

I was trying to find some figures (values) last night on arrow supply – somewhere I have some numbers on number of archers on a campaign and the number of barrels of arrows procured for them to use. Of course I can't find the book – but it was a lot of arrows – and battlefield resupply must have occured.

young boys were employed to take resupplies of arrows from the baggage carts and rush them forward to the archers, ruuning along behind them dropping a sheaf behind each man.

And I've read a number of accounts of hundreds of arrows being prepared before a campaign and then being part of the force's baggage train. So having enough arrows for a long-range "arrow storm" wasn't a problem.

Jim

Hundreds of THOUSANDS, @ColCampbell, I fixed that for you.

We don't know how the yeomen were resupplied. But we know the baggage train had enough arrows to supply them with far more than a sheaf of 24, or even a double sheaf of 48 stuck in the ground, etc.

Agincourt proves that the yeomen were also infantry. In some sources, they initiate the melee and the MAA follow up. Keegan showed how yeomen would take on tired French MAA, by double-teaming them (they certainly had the numbers to do this): one yeoman would draw the MAA into an attack, then the second yeoman would pound his arm down, knock him over, and a quick insertion of bodkin through visor did the trick. Variations on this old theme were occurring all over the battlefield.

I am sure that shooting very close as part of melee occurred as well.

But one thing is clear vis-ΰ-vis Agincourt: the yeomen ran out of arrows right around the time that the French first battle of MAA made melee contact. That's when the English archers ditched their now useless bows and got "stuck in" with whatever weapons they could grab, including stakes (what a "buck and a half quarter staff" those must have made )….

archerylibrary.com/books has several volumes dating back to the 1500's. In addition to aimed fire at targets the books also mention long distance shooting at clouts which is still done today in competitions.

English / Welsh Archers were generally too valuable to use like an unarmoured levy. at Agincourt they were all fighting for their lives and the knackered French knights fighting on foot, through the thick mud, were virtually upon them – they also formed substantial parts of the front line…., doubtful by choice, but rather there were insufficient armoured infantry to cover the front against that onslaught. (arguably they didn't even have enough manpower to be able to hold prisoners of war – hence the order for their murder).

In most battles, missile troops, having performed their function, would simply give way to the melee troops to hack it out.

Norm, unarmoured levy are largely confined to 18/19tjh century antiquarians and consequently wargame rule-writers, army lists and manufacturers. If I thought about it lingo enough I suppose I would come up with an example of hordes of unarmoured levy troops in a medieval battle, but none spring to mind.

@Ugly: are you saying that "peasant levy" were not on the battlefield? What about the Battle of Northallerton? The bulk of troops were practically unarmored, with the armed men forming the front rank or two only….

The Longbow by Mike Loades (Osprey Publishing) covers most of what has been mentioned so far, in a very accessible way.

This title has been at just 99p as a Kindle (UK) download for a number of weeks now, but I have just checked and it is now at £6.71 GBP though still very nice at that price.

A link for anyone interested
link

Regards numbers and based upon records, it would It worked out around 2 and half sheaves per bow, one can also work out the number of string allowed per bow. That is for a campaign! Allowing the archer would have their own arrows and bow/s.

If one considers the number of rounds issued to soldiers in the 18th century, as well as when they were issued.

Musketry was not effective at its maximum range, so yes closer shooting would be more effective.
Though consider advancing speed, across 300 yards of ground and shooting…. Though in my opinion most rules and ideas focus too much on killing, rather than the psychological effects.

There is a period quote, though I can't find it right now, dam it, stating that in the old days that the battle would be resolved in in 2 or 3 volleys, but now (early mid 14th century) it took 6 or 7.

One last bug! you don't fire pre fire arm projectile weapons, and I now modern usage etc, but we don't talk about plinking muskets on the battle field of with bolt action rifles

An arrow that is shot in an arc is really just coming down with the force of gravity and not the 'power' of the bow itself. Gravity and wind resistance wouldn't create that much penetrating power.

Also, Couldn't one dodge an arrow from great distance?

Battles won by archery are rather rare in the grand scheme of things.

"THE ARROWSTORM – A REINTERPRETATION
Very often, medieval chroniclers used precipitation metaphors to describe the density of arrows from thousands of archers – an arrowstorm. They likened it to hail and snow and rain; they said it blotted out the sun. Leaving aside the fact that a blizzard can be a horizontal event, one must allow a certain amount of poetic licence to those invoking poetic metaphor. In a similar vein Enguerrand de Monstrelet, a chronicler of the battle of Agincourt, wrote ‘the French began to bow their heads so that the arrow fire [sic] would not penetrate the visors of their helmets' (quoted in Curry 2009: 160). This surely suggests the arrows were coming straight at the French! In fact, much of what the chroniclers reported with regard to arrowstorms could have been as true of a mass volley at 50yd as it would have been at 200yd. Even relatively near-range volleys may still be considered to have been hitting at ‘a distance'; the chroniclers, alas, did not specify at what distance.

I consider it likely that shooting in a parabolic arc limited the odds of success. Although it offered depth to the salvo, the exposed target zone of each man was greatly limited by the physical presence of the ranks in front and shields were an effective means of ensuring that where gaps occurred, they were well defended. Certainly there would be casualties, but shooting in an arc did not offer a good percentage chance of success for those husbanding precious resources.

In contrast, shooting with a trajectory nearer to the horizontal would have allowed more targeted and more robust hits, causing great disruption as enemy men and horses fell in the path of those behind. When archers were used to shoot from the flanks, they could bring about significant problems of crowd chaos by targeting those on the edges of the attacking army, forcing a concentration of men towards the centre. Shooting into the centre with arcing volleys would have the opposite effect."

Page 68 of The Longbow by Mike Loades. The book normsmith mentioned.

I'm English (Actually Viking, apparently, so you immigrants can get off my island) so Longbow as superweapon is part of my national creation myth[1]. I have been raised on the idea of longbow as something between medieval Vickers and light sabre.

Given all that I think the idea Bill refers to in the OP is right. Wargames rules over estimate EVERYTHING. History accounts overemphasises everything.

Norm mentions the skeletons of 'professional' archers. i do not deny professional warriors existed. How many could you keep as a standing army though? Im not doubting that the 'arrow storm' existed – I am saying that post 18th century historians over emphasis it: its the big event- it gets medieval 'screen time'. For every hour of 'cop show' there is 10 hours of routine police paperwork which no one knows about.

Look at it this way. Iraq 1 – Bravo 2-0, an 8 man SAS patrol fought off dozens, possibly hundreds of Iraqi soldiers before being overwhelmed. That's because the SAS are professional soldiers, where as the Iraqis were little better than an armed mob. So SAS win? I wonder if you ran the finances if it was a 'equal points fight'. I bet in terms of money the Iraqis cost less, possibly less than the cost of training one 'cow pat'.

[1] National Creation Myth. Those things that define us despite the way we are taught being completely wrong/overhyped. For instance the US has 3 – one of which is 'the pilgrims fled persecution'. This is about as polar opposite as can be, yet defines modern US attitudes.

I see a couple of things wrong with this. A dropping shot is still incoming at no more than 45 degrees at long range. That's enough danger to make anyone keep their head down.

"Precious resources" is an assertion. The eyewitness accounts describe "hail" and sustained shot until out of ammo. Nobody was waiting until the target was within 50 yards. Rather, they shooting began as soon as the enemy was within reach of the farthest shot, and kept up until the enemy was within hand strokes, or the bows were out of missiles….

There are several factors to consider for distant shooting vs close range aimed fire. There are several hundred archers firing at a group of men. Kinetic energy will be less at greater range resulting in less penetration. Accuracy will be less at a greater range. There are a lot of arrows falling on an area. The men in the target group will be fairly close together. Dodging is not an option as you would bump into the people next to you. The effect while not the same, would be like an automatic weapon firing at a group of targets. Not every missile would hit, and not all hits would kill. Some would suffer multiple hits while others would not be hit at all.

Nik's article did not review all the sources and focused on the re-creators and their belief that long range bow fire was not done or was not effective.

Are wargame rules to effective for long range archery fire? The only way to determine that would be to test the effect of a large enough group of archers shooting at a formation of man sized targets at a distance.

I think the statement that ‘the French began to bow their heads so that the arrow fire [sic] would not penetrate the visors of their helmets' does suggest that the arrows were indeed coming in horizontally.

The specific fear of their visors being penetrated would seem to indicate they weren't just ducking their heads to avoid arrows descending on a parabolic trajectory. To me anyway. YMMV. :)

An arrow that is shot in an arc is really just coming down with the force of gravity and not the 'power' of the bow itself. Gravity and wind resistance wouldn't create that much penetrating power.

Wrong. The vertical component is gravitational acceleration, but the horizontal component is still the energy imparted by the force of the bow. If that energy were gone, the arrow would simply fall straight down to the ground, rather than continue in an arc. If you don't believe that, say the same thing about the ballistic arc of a bullet; now do you see how little sense it makes? And, of course, don't pooh-pooh the force of gravity as capable of creating great penetrative force over a very short vertical distance; that's why lawn darts were banned. An arrow coming down is just as dangerous as an arrow going up, if not more so. After all, the one going up is losing velocity (and kinetic energy); the one going down is gaining it.

Also, Couldn't one dodge an arrow from great distance?

As for your latter suggestion, dodging a single arrow might be achievable for a nimble fellow in ninja garb standing in a wide open area. Dodging a hundred arrows raining down around you while shoulder to shoulder in a mass of marching men in heavy armor? Good luck with that.

I see your point on the horizontal force. But it would still lose kinetic energy as it travels. Especially since an arrow would have more wind resistance than a bullet.

By dodge, I also meant deflect with a shield. Although loose formations could truly dodge.

What 20thnaine said

There are plenty examples from the crusades – frankish infantry marching along with up to 8 arrows hanging from their armour, the turks having been forced to long range by the threat of crossbows. So not effective against heavily armoured infantry even if its mostly textile armour.
But the mamelukes seem to have succesfully used a long range arrow storm against the mongols, with horses and unarmoured men as targets. From reading; close order, mounted long range area fire seems to have been a staple and succesful tactic in the middle east for hundreds of years.
Not so much armour around there though, and more horses..

frankish infantry marching along with up to 8 arrows hanging from their armour, the turks having been forced to long range by the threat of crossbows.

But I don't think the Turks used heavy armour piercing arrows?

The crusader infantry were wearing padded aketon/gambeson over their mail. So they were double layered. The Muslim arrows were sticking out, not "hanging", as I recall….

The point being that you have to get to close range for your arrows to penetrate armour, though unarmoured men and horses stay vulnerable.
Gambesons etc would normally be worn under metal armour surely?

Both? In the Levant armor was usually covered to avoid it heating up by being directly exposed to the sun. I wasn't suggesting that mail was worn without padding! "Double layered" means mail and padding. Doubled mail was sometimes worn. It only makes sense that a lighter layer would be doubled too. In other words, I think that for crusading infantry the outward appearance of aketon/gambeson hides mail beneath….

Id never thought of that – always supposed if padding was on top then thats all the armour they were wearing.

Hmmm, food for thought, but Im not convinced

"In the Levant armor was usually covered to avoid it heating up by being directly exposed to the sun."

Yeah so it was always said but apparently surcoats are evidenced in Europe pre Crusades and many of the armoured Moslem troops didn't bother to wear anything over their armour. Nor for that matter did armoured Indian cavalry. I suspect it was a Western fashion and whatever cooling effect was minimal.

Nor do I think those wearing the aketon mostly had mail beneath it. You want the metal away from your flesh not next to it because of impact wounds driving it into you. The soldiers with multiple arrows stuck in their armour had probably been hit at long range

Well, since it is covered up, we'll never know. :)

I already said that padding underneath is a given. Putting another quilted layer on top was surely done, just as doubling mail was surely done. We know for certain that aketon and gambeson were worn doubled. So mail between seems obvious. But by how many or what proportion?…

But it would still lose kinetic energy as it travels. Especially since an arrow would have more wind resistance than a bullet.

Not really. On the upward side of the arc a ballistic object is losing kinetic energy, yes, due to the force of gravity acting to slow it. But once gravity has changed the vector, the arrow is gaining kinetic energy from gravitational acceleration. It has to. That's how physics works! It's not that the arrow is losing any energy, it's just that it's vertical acceleration (input energy) is redirecting it's direction of travel. So when it reaches its target, it's going to impact with considerable force.

As for wind resistance, frankly, at the size of an arrow or a bullet I doubt the result matters all that much to the final velocity of impact.

Okay time for a physics lesson.

All other factors being equal, if a bow applies 100 lbs. of force to an arrow, what is the impact force of the arrow after 10 feet? 20 feet? 300 feet? 4 miles? 4,000,000 miles?

Answer: 100 lbs.

It's INERTIA. Remember that? "An object in motion remains in motion unless a force acts against it?"

"But an arrow falls!"
No, an arrow on Earth falls because the force of gravity is acting upon it to change its momentum (altering inertia). But that force is an accelerating force. It isn't slowing the arrow down or weakening the inertia, it's just changing it, and on the downward path is actually increasing the potential impact force of the arrow, not decreasing it. Gravity is adding inertia to the arrow. Those stories that have an arrow hit the ground with "its energy spent" are BUNK. The arrow hasn't hit the ground because it's run out of steam; it's hit the ground because gravity has altered the trajectory of its travel, and the ground is in the way. That arrow is gonna smack full on into the dirt with a whole heap of force; in fact, if the arrow was fired from a higher elevation, it will hit the ground (or its target) with more force than when it left the bow!
This is basic stuff, folks, and Newton figured it out for us years ago.
The only way gravity lowers the impact force of an arrow (or any ballistic object) is on the way up, and really only at very steep trajectories.

Now, yes, drag is a factor (not wind resistance; that's a misuse of terms). Drag is simply friction, and one can do all sorts of math to calculate the Coefficient of Friction of air at 1bar and its potential effect on an arrow, but at a range of a few hundred yards believe me it ain't gonna matter. That warbow (and gravity) are gonna punch that arrow into you with all the force it ever had, as far as you are concerned (and more if you're downhill).
10 yards, 50 yards, 150 yards, 400 yards, if the force of the bow is enough to punch a bodkin through 1/8" of steel at 1 foot, it's enough to do it at 1200 feet.
It's the INERTIA that does it, and the arrow has lost little to none in its flight.

As for "dodging with a shield," um… no (and that's not what "dodging" means). Hiding behind the shield as the arrow punches into it, well, maybe.
Knocking the arrow aside? Um… again, not likely.
But here's what happens to you;
A trained bowman can fire roughly 1 arrow every 3 seconds, or 20 arrows a minute. So here's your shield effect;
WHAM! . . .WHAM! . . . WHAM! . . .WHAM! . . .WHAM! . . .WHAM! . . . WHAM! . . . WHAM! . . . WHAM!… get the picture?
And that's just one guy. Let's back him up with two more guys, all putting arrows into the same square yard of space, each firing one second after the other, and you get:
WHAM!WHAM!WHAM!WHAM!WHAM!WHAM!WHAM!WHAM!WHAM!WHAM!
Multiply those three guys by a 1,000. That's your arrow storm.
Now, dodge that.

I believe in military terms that's called "suppressive fire."

if the force of the bow is enough to punch a bodkin through 1/8" of steel at 1 foot, it's enough to do it at 1200 feet.

Frankly said, it is hard to believe that the effect of drag is so neglectible. Unlike a bullet or projective an arrow does have feathers and often uses up eneregy by oscillating. Is there any scientific data on the penetration force of arrows?

BTW (to other posters):

But one thing is clear vis-ΰ-vis Agincourt: the yeomen ran out of arrows

How can that happen, when arrows are practially an unlimited resource that are resupplied at need (as some claim here)? A position, that I find VERY hard to believe, as optimal logistics are a situation that rarley manages to make it to the battlefield.

Frankly said, it is hard to believe that the effect of drag is so neglectible. Unlike a bullet or projective an arrow does have feathers and often uses up eneregy by oscillating. Is there any scientific data on the penetration force of arrows?

How much force do you think drag will cause the arrow to lose, especially versus the greater effect of gravity adding force to the arrow? Let's assume it's as high as 10%. That means instead of 100lbs., it's hitting at 90lbs.. You wanna stand in front of that? But I'm betting that the loss would only be for a low trajectory. For a high trajectory descending arrow, there's no force loss at all, I'd be willing to bet. (Ever tried to catch a fly ball with your bare hand? Hurts, doesn't it? That's gravity, adding force to the ball.)

@Puster: Because the original source(s) said so. The yeomen shot until they were empty. There wasn't enough time to resupply before the melee with the first French battle was a fact, literally in their faces. So you are right, "optimal logistics" were not at work at Agincourt or any other battlefield that I can think of. Now, the second phase, after the French had lost, the English had reestablished their (worn) line on the won ground, and the French third battle was looking to show fight: I believe (but can't show) that the yeomen had replenished their arrow supply by then, including gathering up all usable arrows from the battlefield.

@Parzival: Arrows don't weigh the same, which I am sure you know. A "flight" arrow is for distance. A "sheaf" arrow is for armor penetration. The max range of the former is c. 250 yards with a c. 70 lb bow. The latter is c. 150 yards or even less….