Posted: January 26th, 2015 under Background, Life beyond writing.

Tags: Background, Life beyond writing, research, weapons

David Watson, known in the SCA as Master Iolo, is a crossbow maker and experienced archer who has studied archery in warfare a long time, including visits to museums in the US and Europe. Here’s his take on the recently very popular YouTube videos of superfast shooting, including by people who insist that they’ve discovered historical truths unknown to mere sport shooters.

Pursuant to our host, Ms Moon’s request, here’s an edited version of a series of posts I made concerning a popular video clip of a guy from Denmark who does amazing archery tricks, including parkour-style leaps, bouncing off walls while shooting small foam targets, as well as shooting arrows out of the air, splitting arrows, and similar Robin-Hood/Legolas Greenleaf stunts.

Having watched the video several times, I have this to say: Most of these tricks have nothing to do with ancient archery.

Frinstance: The fabulous Dane shoots from the right side of the bow, rather than the left. That lets him position arrows on the string with fewer moves, giving an improved rate of fire. In fact, It’s widely known that many Asian archers, who used a ‘thumb’ release rather than the European three-fingered release, did indeed loose from the right side of the bow.

However, based on my study of period manuscript illustrations it appears most Northern European archers, who used a ‘three-finger’ release, shot from the left side of the bow: not all, but most. Of course it’s possible the illustrators simply made a mistake in depicting which side of the bow was favored, but I doubt all of them would.

Arrows do fall out of quivers if you’re jumping around. It’s possible to alleviate that to some degree with clever design, but it’s a constant problem. Back quivers work fairly well for horse archers, and Hollywood seldom uses anything else, but it appears most European ancient archers used belt quivers. In battle quivers may have been simple cloth bags of two dozens, as delivered by the ammo-boys running back and forth from the supply train.

Asian horse archers used combination arrow and bow-quivers (often works of art in their own right) that could be attached to the belt or the saddle. And yes horse archers commonly held a few arrows in one hand, ready to shoot. For hunting in the forest, it’s like Europeans did the same. Evidence suggests European war archers shooting from a fixed position stuck arrows in the ground, (target archers in Elizabeth I’s day used a little ground-rack called an Ascham, after Roger Aschem, the Queen’s archery instructor.

In fact, drawing arrows from a quiver can result in damaged feathers or heads, or having more arrows come out than you initially wanted. For this reason, crossbow bolts were usually stored in an archer’s belt-quiver point up, so the shooter could select the desired head (pick a quarrel). Crossbow quivers were also enlarged at the bottom to make extra room for the fletching, but I don’t think this is the case for hand-bows.

As for the running/leaping, stuff: in fact everybody shoots better while standing still. Bounding through the forest (of a video-set) while snapping shots from half-draw at foam targets from 5 yards didn’t actually occupy much of a medieval archer’s time. It’s damned impressive, but not very important. Battle archery mostly involved archers in fixed positions, shooting Very Strong bows that would have wrecked the shooters if they tried to loose three shafts a second. (ENM note: my mother had occasion to watch the specialty shooters who used to travel the country for gun manufacturers, showing off what the gun could do in expert hands. She said they demonstrated accurate shooting on the run and other fancy tricks, but told the crowds who came to watch that shooting when still was better, more reliable, more accurate.)

Fast shooting from horseback, necessarily at full draw for best effect, could be useful for skirmishers, or sudden encounter fights involving small numbers of contestants.

Ishi, the last of the California Yana people, who walked out of the woods in the late 19th century taught his anthropologist sponsors a lot about woodland archery. The academics reported the guy was a remarkable snap-shot at close range, but an indifferent marksman at a York round (40-60-80 yards) So for primitive archers, living in close country, the short-range stuff really is important.

As for piercing mail (with an appropriate point) that’s not particularly hard if the mail is butt-linked. If the rings are welded or riveted, it’s a bit harder. Boiled leather, wrought iron, etc. can be rather more difficult, and in fact it turns out slack-quenched Italian steel export armor is nearly arrow-proof.

So these speed-shooting videos are fun, and the Danish guy does Legolas stunts real well, but trick shooting has more to do with fantasy archery than the realities of ancient combat archery.

So what IS possible? I have watched my old archery buddy Leon loose 13 shots from a 60 lb. longbow in 30 seconds and get every one within the blue-line on standard archerytarget at 30 yards. It’s not splitting arrows accuracy, but pretty fast shooting from a bow at the very bottom end of militarily useful. Incidentally, he stuck his arrows in the ground for the speed trial. No quiver.

And finally: An important point that most people haven’t considered about rate of fire for bows or guns–target identification.

I used to participate combat archery in SCA melees, where you’ve got a couple of hundred people slamming away at one another. Using my ultra-light 65 lb. crossbow and heavy padded bolts, I could get off 9 shots in a minute, without bothering to watch the bolts’ flight, just load and shoot at a standing target, judging hits by the sound. I got six hits on the man-sized target at 50 yards. In another test, I shot ¾ in. rabbit-blunts, from a 180 lb. crossbow from a sitting position. I got 9 out of 9 hits on the 50 yard man-target, getting all but one in a 6 inch circle on the figure’s chest at 50 yards. All this in about 2 minutes. That’s probably a pretty authentic test, but please note that the target wasn’t moving AT ALL, I didn’t have to move, and nobody was shooting back.

So yeah, if the Duke of Osterfurstengoggle is standing still yelling orders, and the bowmen get reasonably close, they can put shots right into his open-faced helm, or maybe in his armpit the next time he waves that stupid sword in the air.

In practice on the battlefield, my actual service rate of fire was unlikely to exceed 2 or 3 shots a minute. Why? Because I have to find an available target, and I have to load on the move, and people sometimes shoot back, so there’s a lot happening.

If you have a thousand orcs charging the Deeping Coomb wall, one might get close to maximum rate… though it really does help to aim even then. Random shots tend to glance off random shields, helmets, shoulder plates, etc. So the ability to release x number of shots, whether with a bow or a repeating rifle is often seriously reduced by the availability of workable targets. (ENM note: Experienced soldiers with weapons capable of very fast fire rarely “hose” an area, both to conserve their own ammo and because( other than when you need suppressive fire) it’s more effective to pick a specific target and hit it.)

Medieval archers in field battles shot in volleys of hundreds of arrows at blocks of troops maneuvering on the field, at ranges out to @ 300 yards. It’s likely plenty of their arrows actually missed the target, but that didn’t much matter, so long as enough hit and wounded the enemy. There, massed fire from very strong bows, shooting very heavy arrows makes perfectly good sense. But giving the powerful bows medieval archers used, I doubt they had a service rate over say, 6 shots a minute… with occasionally flurries of 3 or 4 in 20 seconds.

Presumably a fantasy archer like Legolas’ real advantage lies in his superb conditioning and skill at multi-tasking. A 2000 yr. old Elf, after a vast amount of practice, can taking an unerringly accurate shot at this orc, while simultaneously identifying the next three targets… not to mention shield-surfing donwtairs.

So enjoy the marvelous videos of amazing trick archers, but remember they don’t have much to do with military archery and only a little to do with hunting.

DRW, Curmudgeon/crossbow maker.

New World Arbalest