Were longbows as deadly as videogames and shows make them to be ?

[Shadowferal]

Tamerlane (Timur) didn't find Europe much a challenge, crushing the Ottomans. Primary offensive were the horse archers.

[Wyrt]

Crossbows and bows were even stronger (and required the bowman to be extremely strong) than they have been shown as in movies and games but the real issue is that ARMOR has been depicted as close to useless in the same media.

This is very true. So many things show swords just straight slicing through armor and it's ridiculous.

[Nathreim]

Longbows are great against unarmored targets. That’s about it. Plate or chain mail would stop them flat. The really good arrows cost an arm and a leg to buy and so saw minimal usage.

At least that’s what I’ve heard.

I love this guy's videos.

[Kathandira]

Killing said horse is a LOT harder to do. There was a reason they fired mass volleys of arrows. Most would just bounce right off a fully armored knight. Of course a LOT of arrows could get in gaps or eventually punch through the armor. They normally didn't eant to kill the knight anyway. Capturing the knight was much more lucrative.

Indeed. Killing the knight wasn't the goal of arrows. And you are right, Quantity over Quality is the way with a line of archers. And once the enemy gets close enough, it was time to drop the bow, and pull out the pole arms, which is a way better way to either kill more horses, or even dismount the knights.

[Noradin]

This would have to be HIGHLY effective against european armies fitted with heavy armor as they would be very unlikely to get out of the pincer in time. But they decided europe was a backwater and went home instead.

This works in plains defended by cavalry*, but they found that central Europe had stone castels which cannot be tricked into charging into a trap.

(Old Hungary says "hi". The first time the Mongol Hordes came they had wooden fortifications and a big cavalry only their capital had stone walls and resisted. The second time they came there were stone fortifications everywhere and the hordes didn't get anywhere.)

[Afrospinach]

I love this guy's videos.

Awesome videos.

I like the distinction between tree and a person. They were wearing plate/mail/gambesons. It is essentially composite armour, very sophisticated. Also, basic logical deductions - plate was very expensive, mail was expensive and time consuming, etc etc. Longbows were a feat to field in number. Yet all these things coexisted for a very long time and improved all the time. Evidently nothing, even crossbows, triumphed absolutely. Not until gunpowder came along and then? no more plate armour. In some ways that is the real conclusion to be found here.

As invulnerable as full plate may seem to arrows, at some point virtually all arrowheads were "armour piercing" designs. They were also hardened. You harden arrows to shoot at hardened targets, not just fleshy horses as some people are insinuating here. Clearly there was some success in defeating armour just as there was a lot of benefit in wearing it. It is possible the design of the type 16 arrows was not just to be multipurpose effective against soft targets with their peculiar barbs and armour with their bodkin style point but also potentially get lodged in armour. Get an arrow stuck in you under your gambeson/chainmail and that is probably you battle over even if you don't die.

[Al Gorefiend]

I've watched a few Youtube videos where they try to pierce plate mail with long bows. It didn't work or had minimal success. And at range, like with an arrow barrage, arrows would have even less penetration.

I think the power of the long bow has been exaggerated. I bet they penetrate chain mail pretty well, but plate, not so much.

It would still hurt like hell getting hit by one even if it didn’t penetrate into your flesh.

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I've watched a few Youtube videos where they try to pierce plate mail with long bows. It didn't work or had minimal success. And at range, like with an arrow barrage, arrows would have even less penetration.

I think the power of the long bow has been exaggerated. I bet they penetrate chain mail pretty well, but plate, not so much.

It would still hurt like hell getting hit by one even if it didn’t penetrate into your flesh. I’d imagine it would feel like someone smacking you with a hammer.

[alturic]

I'm with the general consensus on this. It would be good against cloth and leather. Chainmail and plate armor however, I'd fail to see how it could penetrate regardless of what the arrowhead was made of.

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It would still hurt like hell getting hit by one even if it didn’t penetrate into your flesh.

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It would still hurt like hell getting hit by one even if it didn’t penetrate into your flesh. I’d imagine it would feel like someone smacking you with a hammer.

What/why would it hurt? In chainmail I could see it hurting (I'd imagine it'd be like a bulletproof vest type of impact), but plate, which it would just ping off? Unless these things are leaving the bows with insane speed, and through the air the speed is maintained, I don't see how it would hurt? I'd imagine it would be like hail hitting off your car, but unlike hail leaving a dent in aluminum (depending on size of course) it would just ping off?

[Hilhen7]

Consider the training and cost of arming an archer, now compare that to a well trained knight....

If your archer could wound a single knights horse he's already pulled his weight. Also there would be plenty targets not in full plate armor on the field which pose a threat to your knights, have tour archers eliminate those threats.

[Al Gorefiend]

I'm with the general consensus on this. It would be good against cloth and leather. Chainmail and plate armor however, I'd fail to see how it could penetrate regardless of what the arrowhead was made of.

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What/why would it hurt? In chainmail I could see it hurting (I'd imagine it'd be like a bulletproof vest type of impact), but plate, which it would just ping off? Unless these things are leaving the bows with insane speed, and through the air the speed is maintained, I don't see how it would hurt? I'd imagine it would be like hail hitting off your car, but unlike hail leaving a dent in aluminum (depending on size of course) it would just ping off?

Well think of it scientifically. When an arrow is flying through the air at high velocity, it’s under a lot of force. If it suddenly hit someone and they were wearing plate armor, the arrow is suddenly going to stop and it’s force will be transferred to the armor plating.

Construction workers wearing hard hats for example. The hat will protect them from something penetrating their skulls, but they’ll be knocked out and suffer injury.

Or a bullet vs. body armor, still leaves a hell of a bruise.

At best, an arrow was probably at its best use when it came to knocking armored cavalry off their horses.

[alturic]

Well think of it scientifically. When an arrow is flying through the air at high velocity, it’s under a lot of force. If it suddenly hit someone and they were wearing plate armor, the arrow is suddenly going to stop and it’s force will be transferred to the armor plating.

Construction workers wearing hard hats for example. The hat will protect them from penetrating their skulls, but they’ll be knocked out and suffer injury.

Or a bullet vs. body armor, still leaves a hell of a bruise.

At best, an arrow was probably at its best use when it came to knocking armored cavalry off their horses.

Yea, but I'm thinking of it as a piece of hail hitting a car and denting it. The first of which, the car is aluminum arrow vs plate... would have to be an extremely close-range arrow to even have a chance at denting a piece of plate armor, I'd imagine? Without a dent (a single inflection point, further dissipated by plate armor not having any flat points), I'd imagine the impact would be dissipated across the armor which would be unlike a bullet vs body armor. I'd even imagine a lot of arrows lost a lot of their force simply from hitting the plate and ultimately being deflected due to the armors curvature.

I have no knowledge of arrows, or plate armor, so I could be totally wrong on all of it, but just thinking about an arrowhead and piece of iron, I'd think the arrowhead would have no chance?

[Afrospinach]

Well think of it scientifically. When an arrow is flying through the air at high velocity, it’s under a lot of force. If it suddenly hit someone and they were wearing plate armor, the arrow is suddenly going to stop and it’s force will be transferred to the armor plating.

Construction workers wearing hard hats for example. The hat will protect them from something penetrating their skulls, but they’ll be knocked out and suffer injury.

Or a bullet vs. body armor, still leaves a hell of a bruise.

At best, an arrow was probably at its best use when it came to knocking armored cavalry off their horses.

I think this is all very unlikely unless you are hitting someone dead on at close range. Arrows broke a lot which really hurts their ability to impart energy to the target.

[Noradin]

I think this is all very unlikely unless you are hitting someone dead on at close range. Arrows broke a lot which really hurts their ability to impart energy to the target.

More like it demonstrates how much energy they do transfer to the target.


Have you ever tried to break a stick by stabbing empty air?
Why do you think that would work with arrows?

Didn't you hear about Newton's laws in school?

Now if they got pulverized you'd have an argument, but still, they are made of wood, so not much of one.

[freezion]

I have a background in HEMA (historical European martial arts). Part of a club that practices Blossfecten, archery, and tactics up to the mid/late renaissance.
The English longbow was deadly particularly when chainmail wasn't revited.

If you have any historical interest besides HEMA, you for sure would know that historically practically all maille was riveted, and there's no to few entries/finds of butted maille in europe. the only finds there have been of butted maille have been in asian countries.

[buddhapunch09]

If you have any historical interest besides HEMA, you for sure would know that historically practically all maille was riveted, and there's no to few entries/finds of butted maille in europe. the only finds there have been of butted maille have been in asian countries.

Oh shit man!!! You know what, you're right!!
Looking back on it now I recall we had a couple of different peices of mail. I do know that I shot at one that was rivited and the other was crap. I remember it was easy to perice it, you could even rip it. You cant do that with revited. I'm pretty sure butted is just used for crafts and such?

Revited mail which I was mistaken, I thought it was invented around 13-14th century was super effective. There was a reason why it was used for so long.
But yeah thanks for the correction!
Cheers!

[Afrospinach]

Didn't you hear about Newton's laws in school?

Yes. Conservation of energy. Those bits of arrow flying off in different directions? that is where your energy is going when they break. If they don't break and the arrow comes to a halt on your armour, that means it all went into the target, but that is generally not what happens to arrows of this classic construction. They were glued together and break all the time. Even modern arrows break on hard targets like trees.

[Jastall]

*shrugs*
Maybe; Armor Drained Medieval Knights' Energy

A new study that put armor-wearing volunteers on treadmills finds that wearing a full suit of armor (which might weigh up to 110 pounds, or 50 kilograms), takes more than twice the energy of walking around unencumbered. Even lugging around a backpack of equal weight is less energy-intensive than wearing armor, the study found, because wearing 17 pounds (8 kg) of steel plates on each leg requires no small amount of extra exertion.

On occasion, armor's weight may have turned the tides of battles, said lead study researcher Graham Askew of the University of Leeds. In 1415, heavily armored French knights advanced across a muddy field toward a lightly armored English force in the Battle of Agincourt.

"By the time they advanced across the field, they would have been exhausted," Askew told LiveScience. "It's possibly one of the reasons why the French lost, despite there being many, many more French soldiers than there were English."

The research also gives a hint into how fit the knights of old must have been. Although modern soldiers lug around equipment as heavy as a knight's armor, Askew said, they expend less energy doing so because their legs are unencumbered.

"It requires a great deal of physical exertion to even perform a medium-speed walk in a suit of armor," Askew said. "I certainly don't think you'd be able to put on a suit of armor and walk around with it without suffering quite badly if you weren't used to it."

People who wore plate armor rarely if ever fought on foot until the very late Middle Ages/Renaissance. It was a knight's equipment and they wouldn't be caught dead fighting anywhere but on horseback. Which of course tells you of how powerful (and expensive) said horses were, that they could lug around a knight and his armor, plus lance, and still be up and running for a charge into blocks of infantry. Agincourt was an exception because of the heavy mud, and the French being too battle-crazed to think of a better plan than zerg rushing the numerically inferior English.

There's a reason medieval armies were so small compared to those in earlier European periods. Fielding the equipment to fight in these wars was crazily expensive for a part of the world that was, for a long time, comparatively underdeveloped when put next to, say, the Islamic world or China.

[Weeps]

There was a guy on Quora that made the case that the longbow was the most devastating weapon of all time when it came to warfare.

Interesting premise but he did make his argument about how it revolutionized so much.

Even goes as far as to say that it out-performed the crossbow because it was easier to load and fire.

Yes, we have planes, drones, etc today but when Bows were created... it changed war so dramatically.

[draynay]

Yes, we have planes, drones, etc today but when Bows were created... it changed war so dramatically.

Bows predate recorded history.

[Wyrt]

There was a guy on Quora that made the case that the longbow was the most devastating weapon of all time when it came to warfare.

Interesting premise but he did make his argument about how it revolutionized so much.

Even goes as far as to say that it out-performed the crossbow because it was easier to load and fire.

Yes, we have planes, drones, etc today but when Bows were created... it changed war so dramatically.

Long bow was better than crossbow, but crossbow was significantly easier to use. Took years of training to use a long bow while you could just hand out crossbows to the peasants and get them going with them in a day or two.