"Vikings and Massed Archery" Topic

Some of the army lists for popular big battle games allow Vikings to have small number of rank and file bowmen units. They are loose order but not skirmishers. What is the evidence for that?

When I challenged this in a discussion forum for a certain rule set I was told that every Viking longship had a bow beneath each thwart. That, to them, was evidence enough to field bow only units. The fact that a bow stored that way in an open ship would have been useless before it's first voyage was over seems to have passed them by.

Personally I have not seen any convincing evidence of massed archery by Viking armies. Some evidence of its use in smaller battles within Scandinavia and in attacking/defending fortifications/fieldworks but not in larger battles.

No expert here, but the only use of bows by Vikings I heard of is to light a ship on fire as part of a funeral ritual.

I suspect more for hunting than anything else. Killing someone from a distance isn't "manly" – no honor for Valhala in that.

Some interesting facts on Viking bows here,

link

Bow armed infantry is certainly possible, whether they were specialist archery units is less likely, IMO.

The main factor in support of archer units is players hate getting shot without being able to shoot back!

+ 1 Extra Crispy
My Saga armies always included a unit of archers for just that reason.

Grelber

"When I challenged this in a discussion forum for a certain rule set I was told that every Viking longship had a bow beneath each thwart."
Various laws (e.g. the Gulating law) from in and after the Viking era – when ships were essentially the same – required one bow per thwart. That doesn't mean that they were necessarily just lying around under each one. The same requirement was made until at least 1273.

Many years ago I was told by an Icelandic scholar that some sagas say bows were used in battle to support the fighters in the front line. Skill with the bow was valued and certainly used ship-ship until the last of the longships.

Shooting between men as opportunity presented targets or from flanks or overhead as the enemy closed – all valid & effective reasons to have bowmen without them having to be massed together.

The sagas describe bows used in battle.

Given that they tree spears and rocks, it seems to make sense that guys in the back would shoot bows too

FWIW, the DBMM list allows the Vikings a small number of archers as psiloi to give rear support to the fighters in the front line. There may be small numbers of archers elsewhere but their effect isn't enough to make a noticeable difference to factors. The list notes say that there were some times when archers were concentrated e.g to support the CinC. The numbers of archers allowed is pretty small.

The Leidang section of the list gives substantially more bows, though still outnumbered considerably by the close fighters. The list notes say that they were concentrated for high volume shooting, though it doesn't give a source.

Well, somebody filled King Edmund full of arrows.