Friggin' tradition, amirite? Watch the full episode here: • Firing Arrows Like a M... Merch, magic, and more only at www.scamstuff.com #prank #stunt #educational
Size does matter. There are no more English Longbowmen. Men trained their entire life for shooting the English longbow. But battlefield reports are pretty clear: The English Longbow out-distanced everything. Alas, they ceased to exist after the gun.
@@JaysSavvytrue, however, I know not of a battle where these two types of bows would have collided, sadly. Secondly, both bows had widely different usages, regardless of the possible distance, there is little need to shoot from 200m away if you are skirmishing on horseback.
@@tatumergo3931 In the Western europe maybe in the east its often different! Wouldnt hade mounted crossbow men not the same Problem in western europe ? But they where relativ common in Western europe!
not to mention that composite bows are always more fragile and sensitive to moisture which is main factor why composite bows never become a thing in most of Europe.
In fact, making a one piece bow from a stave is far more complecated than making a modern wooden bow... You need to follow the lines of the wood. If you cut one of the back of the bow, it will explode at the first shot. On laminated bows,you just need to put layers together with the outer fiber layers that keep every thing together.
@@GreasyBeasty Pretty much, longbow effectiveness came from proto-standardization and they were much easier they were to produce n standardized than composite bows. Also worth noting that Flight archery is a specific type of shooting, that became specialized during the later Ottoman Empire; so it’s a silly to imply those sorts of long shots were standard when the bows were contemporary with longbows. If you looks at Flight Archery records from the Ottoman Empire in the ~18th century, they are not too far off the distances recorded during the height of the longbow period.
@@erencanayhan8514 You've described characteristic properties. I asked about purpose. There's a reason composite recurves were not widely used in the European theatre of war. It's called plate armour and mass formations.
@@mememachine6763 longbow doesnt help on that either. At least if they used a more accurate bow they would be able to aim at weakspots. Only reason europe didnt use it was because the culture of bow making wasnt as developed in europe as it was in central asia
Actually it was note just for tradition. The turkish/mongolian bow is made of several layers held together by glue. Works great on a dry environnement, but when you get in Europe, the humidity disolves the glue parking the compound bow less durable.
@@LayCritic I'm not sure if they used it for Bows, but back then they had glue made by boiling the gelatine out of Bones and Skin. During my education to become a Carpenter we made some in School, it takes forever, stinks like hell but the finished glue is surprisingly strong.
English style longbows do not shoot faster, further, or more accurately but they can shoot much heavier arrows. For target shooting this does not matter. But if you were say fighting against 5,000 fully armored knights at the battle of Agincourt, that extra mass matters a lot.
@@ReasonAboveEverything Well, i'm from Poland. We have more humid climate, than middle east. And still from like XV/XVI century, horsebows were most popular type of bows here. It's not like you drop a little drop of water, and bow is broken. Ottoman's were saying, that the wet bow is "sic". They just leave it somewhere to dry, and after 2-3 days the bow was "cured". If a bow is wrapped into birch bark, as long as you don't drop it into water, it's gonna be good. Edit: I'm sorry i didn't catch that. Yeah fair point, you cannot make a spear from a horse bow haha.
The composite bows used by the Turks, Scythians, Huns, Magyars and Mongols became shorter out of necessity to shoot arrows on horse back. During battle Turkish archers on horse back were able to shoot arrows in all directions, even backwards while retreating. This would be very difficult to do with an English longbow. A short wooden bow will not withstand so much bending and will break hence it is a composite bow to provide flexibility and also strength. English bows shot heavier arrows a shorter distance with greater penetration power as advantage whereas the Turkish bows shot lighter arrows farther with distance as advantage.
The Turkish bow were designed to be used on the back of a horse to create mounted archery units. Such a simple invention resulted in concuring almost half of the known world back then by Ghengis and many others. Ghengis was Mongolian, but note that these two nations were living in the same region together and using exactly the same war strategies, army units and weapons. Also, Karakorum and its surrounding had been the capital of Uygur, Gokturk, Mongolian and many other empires as these nations considered themselves together sharing the same destiny and history.
Both bows are actually pretty good overall and are mostly a result of climate. The British Isles are wet and used to be pretty forested, so lots of wood is available for bow construction and the less parts means the less moisture getting into the bow and hurting accuracy and range. In Mogolia and the Eurasian Steppe, you have a dry climate with little wood, but lots of potential for grazing animals. Making compact bows with more parts derived from animals becomes the norm, and without a worry for moisture hurting accuracy and power. A Welsh Longbowman and a Mongol Horse Archer were the best of the best when it came to archery in their regions because they played to their strengths and environment with their equipment!
eh, idk if its climate so much as cost and likely opponents. longbowman is more likely going to be fighting someone in heavy chainmail. and what you want there is firing heavier arrows with more inertia. And it just so happens that a long piece of yew is pretty good bang for your buck in that regards. Think during the time and place crossbows where pretty commonly composite.
@@midshipman8654most peasants in an army back in the day didn’t have chainmail, now if we are talking about the French army it’s different offcourse. But what he was saying about climate is correct, the humidity in the air in England/ Europe is much higher than on the steppes resulting in the disintergrating of the glue they used for the compound bows
@@huibbagchus8819 yah, but during the high medieval, the main body was still heavy cavalry noblemen or gentry or ocassionally heavy foot nobleman with peasants largely being support instead of being part of the main engagement. lighter troop becoming part of the main body in general is only a later medieval development. at least for open feild battles. and the fact that longbows where used in less humid areas all around europe like france. The english were just particularly known for their use.
@@midshipman8654the period the English longbowman dominated the armies of many nations were made up of professional companies of retainers paid by their lords and armoured by them Of course most were not wearing top quality Milanese steel armour but wrought iron suits were very common
Comparing apples to oranges. The two bows were built for entirely different combat rolls. The turkish bow needed to be small and fast for horse back archers and holds a distance record because its arrows weigh much less than that of traditional english long bow arrows. English long bows were fighting against hard armor so they needed the inertia gained from the heavy arrows. The turkish were fighting unarmored combatants.
thank you, it is sad to see "experts" like the one in this short immediately disregard all professionalism to fellate whichever national identity they hold
I agree that they were designed for completly different roles but turks (or other mounted nomads) fighting unarmored combatants? ;-; Sure, if you`re in the steppe not every tribe is that well equipped, but how did they conquer china, the middle east, byzantium or eastern europe then? All areas with well armored armies, I mean they themselves had quite good armor (if they had the money that is)
If someone says a weapon was simply used for "tradition" when it comes to a weapon used in war, I am always sceptical. Like... sure the katana was used for traditional purposes... but it was also not a weapon of war. Find me ANY weapon that was used in warfare that was not the perfect solution for the times. A pitchfork? The cheapest, most available spear for farmers. A pummel? Great against heavily armored units. A nun-chuck? Well that guy had obviously just broken his favourite stick and only had a rope and a few minutes to fix it before combat. USE STICK!
Katanas were called "killing swords" by Westerners in 1800s Japan based on how quickly a trained Samurai could cut a man down with one. I'm aware that all swords are "killing swords" but the katana isn't well known and respected simply because of anime. A true kendo master was something to fear and admire. However, on the other hand, a spear was a far superior weapon to any sword. Deadly fast, long reaching, and precise. A master practitioner of the spear was once set against Musashi Miyamoto by a diamyo of the time. The spearman struck three times, Miyamoto parried the strikes. The match then ended with both men backing off without a word spoken. When the diamyo asked why, the spearman claimed that Miyamoto was a master swordsman to have avoided all three strikes without injury.
The katana was used kind of as a personal defense weapon in addition to tradition. A Samurai can't always be armed to the teeth. The shortness and two-handedness of the saber makes me think it was meant to emulate the use of other weapons available to the Samurai. Try carrying a spear around as a means of self defense, maybe not the best option.
You could backset a selfbow and get the same thing. Recurve allows for more speed per poundage but a heavy selfbow with backset would do the same thing
@@LS-VR Why make a longbow when you can achieve the same poundage with a shorter recurve? Why make a shorter recurve when you can make a longer thicker bow to do the same thing? Both seem fine. (not referring to a self bow as a longbow)
@@KanadMondal because countries had different bow styles. but different bow woods would hold different speeds. that’s why most laminated bows are faster because they use a variety of materials glued together
@@LukeVilent for the range competitions you are right but you should consider this. Mean warfare distance for composite bow user armies was 400 meters and for long bow user it was 100-200 meters. In distance competitions long bow users send their arrows up to 400 meters composite bow users able to reach 1 kilo meters
Quick Google says that's cap. Longest shot ever was with a crossbow. Longest hand drawn shot was with a flight bow, a bow specifically made to shoot far
He's comparing archaic hand drawn bows. And you bring in a crossbow, just because it has the word 'bow' in it doesn't make it the same weapon. Just like a compound bow and a recurve bow are different. A flight bow was made and designed with modern mechanics, specifically designed to beat length records. He's comparing old war bows and their limits. The google fact checkers are so ridiculous dude. Go read a book. You sound stupid.
The recurve is more compact than a longbow, and a lot more powerful than a shortbow, but an English longbow fires heavy, thick arrows, over a meter in length, 2-3cm thick, with heavy metal arrowheads. When fighting armored opponents, i dont think it's just tradition... a good warbow would actually break some thinner arrows if you tried to shoot them.
Tell that to the Longbowmen and Retinue ones who cant kill a single feudal knight of battles that Ive been through. Goddam English, theyre the weakest. Their range is amazing yet totally useless if they cant kill mid to late tier soldiers. I get that they had to nerf them from having the longest range of all ranged units, but with zero to little damage, totally not worth it. Even the Sherwood archers, their unique and supposedly strongest archers are nerfed down to half a platoon. Could kill but their numbers suck so much.
Sorry guys, Ive been playing Medieval Total War 2, revisiting an amazing childhood game of mine. Then this video showed up. Was talking about the longbowmen of the English, the game did them dirty.
It's not only tradition that made single piece wooden bows more common in europe, composite bows, like most eastern bows, were a lot more prone to fall apart in the humidity of central europe.
I don't think sound makes any difference. For an assassin I would pick crossbow. About weight I think smaller size is more important. But this is my preference
@@luggy9256 I think good quality armor can make you basically invincible, but for the discussion the mounted bow seems to have worked just fine against european armor :l
@@juliusnorr3041 good armour still has weak spots at the joints, and the horsebow worked well against European armour before Europe really used plate, it was mostly mail armour during the Mongol or Hun invasions.
@@luggy9256 have you tested good quality tempered armor of the late medieval period against said traditional long warbow and thick war arrows? No archers are gonna be standing there and waiting for the enemy cavalry to get close to be shooting their arrows. Archers were mostly for harassing the enemy compared to doing actual damage to the enemy especially if their heavily armored knights. Don't use the excuse about French knights getting beaten. The English beat the French due to the fact the French were on a horrible field. Which was muddy and uneven due to the heavy rain and mud. Which allowed maneuvers to be very complicated if anything went wrong. Along side armor slowing them down when they got dismounted and be slipping into the horrible mud.
@@koreancowboy42 I have not tested that myself no, but someone on UA-cam has tested it beautifully. Usually arrows are only a real threat to your joints where there is no plates, the thinner plates on the sides and rear, and of course to your horse. But from the testing you wouldn’t want to be the knight being shot at, even with only 1 archer…
The long now has more power, but a lot of folks misunderstand what power means in terms of combat usefulness. Power can either be used for penetrative utility, or range. Both has falloffs, but long bows will be better against armored targets than the Turkish composite bows, they're also a lot easier to manufacture, meaning you can field more of them. The downside of the longbow is it's weight, size and that its not just more powerful by default, it requires physical strength of the archers to utilise that power, meaning longbow archers need to be strong, and they can fire less arrows, as each fired volley takes a heavy toll.
One thing should be mentioned: That tiny recurve bow is designed against lamellar armor, which is typically wood or leather straps but can sometimes be metal in later periods. The longbow is built to fire heavier, thicker, better piercing arrows to defeat Europe's better chainmail, and later plate. Though Europe did also have lamellar, by the time longbows really started to make a difference, lamellar was mostly dropped in favor of chainmail, and plate armors with gambesons hidden below.
To be fair tho, design wise both types could be made with draw weight capable of piercing mail. And the thing with plate armor is, that its pretty much very very pierce resistant. While you can pierce the thinner walled arm pieces, you wont really get through a good piece of chest armor unless the arrow heads were heat treated (which there isnt a lot of evidence of, if they did it or not). I can suggest tod's workshop's video "armor vs arrows 2". There they try out a warbow against french style plate mail.
Another thing is that the English started making their longbows with recurves in them right at the end of the Middle Ages, and then they REALLY stepped up their penetrating power and distance.
@@judahschultz tho they prolly just did it towards the end, due to the fact of making recurves into your bow just takes a lot of extra time and effort with a theoretical risk of ruining an otherwise perfectly good bow, just cus you wanted slightly more leverage on the string. Also, it's just easier to thicken the bow and be like "yeah, why bother, this gets it done too"
Small archer bows can be EXTREMELY powerful, there are small traditional bows like these with more than 90 pounds of draw weight used by Mongolians. Given the increased efficiency, it's equivalent to a 120 pounds longbow, wich is already well into the warbow range. Heavy arrows are required for these. Also, some european crossbows from the early 14th century were made from composite, just like these, and their draw weight would go beyond 600 pounds too.
Saw the whole ep already. Really good. Respect to the archer. The two interviewers not so much. They shot a bow without an arrow by themselves. The bowman was pissed at that.
No wonder. Dry firing a bow can cause damage. And even a tiny crack can get dangerous under tension, depending on construction and material that can cause a pretty explosive break
The 2 interviewers also interviewed a guy showing the Turkish bows, in a Turkish traditional outfit. And then named their video "firing arrows like a mongolian warrior". Sure, Mongolians used the same type of bows and archery style. But it's really strange and even disrespectful (like you're saying it's not Turkish at all, even though this is the traditional bow that Turks have used for millenia from central Asia to the west) to have a title about Mongolian warriors while interviewing a guy demonstrating Turkish archery.
so part of why big bows like that were common in the past was sturdiness and simplicity. part of the reason the mongols didnt go to far south is the humidity caused their bows to warp and the glue to unbind.
The longbow was used because it was incredibly quick/easy and cheap to make in comparison to the recurve bow. It obviously vould only be used on foot but your normal mass of peasant archers were never going to be on one. Almost any type of bow can reach the 100+ pounds that a real warbow could get to
But also, the English had peasant levies that trained in the bow. It was relatively cheap and easy to make wherever Yew was grown and ideal for someone on foot. England did not have large mounted armies, like the middle east and Asia. So the long bow was suitable. Plus, some of the bows had 160lb draws which punches through armour pretty well. Plate armour was not common on the steppes.
"The world record is set with one of these" is such a disingenuous statement that he should almost be called a liar. The bow used to set the world recurve record wasn't a traditional Asian horse bow. It was a modern recurve, designed and constructed using modern methods and materials.
True that, but flight archery has separate classes for different bows, I believe he was talking about the complex composite class, modern bows have their own class
@@attilaseyfullah8522that sounds very much like "the great leader set the record. Trust me bro, its true cuz i wrote it down" akin to the bs attributed to the Kim's in north korea.
the perks to the English longbow mainly consist of being relatively easy to mass produce and you can get very high draw weights fairly easily and while you can get super heavy asiatic bows they are much more complicated to make and take a very long time to make and being so small makes it hard to get the extreme draw weights that the English longbow has, 9f course English longbow aren't super efficient with transferring energy whereas the shorter asiatic bows transfer that energy extremely well
I disagree. Longbows are generally at the sweet spot of energy transfer while these short bows are going to have a very short power stroke. See a similar thing why crossbows have HUGE draw weights but don't actually overpower bows (particularly longbows).
@kinvoiach3014 except they became popular in modern-day archery because they were in common use throughout Europe it's not so much tradition as it is just common knowledge.
Traditional short bows are bound with hide glue wich is sensitive to humidity and will dissolve under the rain. Basically unusable in england, Scotland, and parts of France
@@josephwindle7177so it became prominent because of logistics and then kept in the modern day because of how common it used to be, like a tradition of sorts.
Also, it's not just about shape. Mounted archery shortbows are compounds made of wood/bamboo, sinew and horn, it's my understanding that the las two materials are way stiffer than traditional wood bows (while still being elastic) which adds a lot more pounds (the unit of power bows are measured at) per unit of length than just wood
Having a recurved, composite bow does indeed make it possible to have a smaller bow with a higher draw weight. This also makes it more practical to use for horse archery. However, this is also more expensive to make than, say, a regular bow made out of just wood.
You also tended to have longbows in countries with lots and lots of mature forestry. Shortbows could be made with much smaller lengths of wood, supplemented at times with other materials, adding complexity.
The distance record goes to the composite bow because their arrows are designed differently, specifically for distance and accuracy. Heavy draw weight longbow arrows (specifically English style) are much heavier and made for momentum and killing ability.
The reason why the longbow wins in parts of Europe is because it's the one that survived the environment. Though I'm sure modern glues and resins would make up the difference today.
was craftable with less skill could attach a speartip too it used heavier arrows, for heavier european targets. could get those heavier arrows, further. for foot archers, longbow is king.
@@o0xTHEcoPlayerx0o heavier European targets? What are they shooting down, tigers? I'm pretty sure if you're shooting on the guy you're still shooting a guy
Both are products of their environment. Modern resins are the main reason compact bows have a bit of an edge. Not falling apart from humidity is an advantage that cannot be overstated
@@noahjohnson935 which actually also relates to why Turks and Mongols didn't conquer or even properly invade southeastern Asia: their main weapon and tactic suddenly became ineffective due to weather/local climate.
Not trying to offend anyone but to keep it short and simple Long bow Cleap easy to maintain Can work in any climate Has more versatile arrows Has a better power ratio when using bodkin Composite recurve bows Short portable and versatile Limited effect in humid conditions Unmatched other than crossbows in short range highly varied performance in longer ranges This was what i found basically it was cheaper to equip an entire army with longbows or simple bows than with recurve bows. Or even cheaper to use crossbows.
It’s like how people cling to manual transmissions over automatics. They feel like they have more control and power, but it’s really just more of a headache.
Isn’t the English longbow going to be more powerful and take heavier targets down better? Definitely doesn’t seem like something you would use in mounted archery though.
Depends on what you mean by "take heavier targets down better" because opposed to common misconception no bow nor crossbow was especially good against hard armor like brigandine, lamellar, and especially not plate. When met with hardened steel plates arrows and crossbows no matter of what poundage almost universally bounce off. The higher the poundage the more likely you are to dent it but you are almost certainly not going through unless you've already hit the same spot numerous times (or more likely get lucky and one wedges itself between the gaps in the armor, but this becomes less and less likely as time goes on as heavier armor advanced to the point where the only real gaps where the eye slits by the late Medieval to early Renaissance). Though a higher poundage bow would make punching through more standard armors far more easy. Things like chainmail (which is always worn over padded armor as well) or just various padded armors which were far more common across most places in the Medieval era.
@@ThatGuyOrby then do you think people love the English longbow so much because of another reason? Has it been romanticized a lot like how the Japanese katana wasn’t actually used that often or wasn’t even the most used sword in a fight? Because I’ve seen so many different people talk about how powerful the English longbow is and how you have to have had years of training with it on top of being insanely strong just to wield it, and it’s still outperformed by this type of hun/mongol mounted bow?
@@theusernameicoodfind I'm not quite certain why people love the thing so much, even as a huge medieval buff myself. I like it, and it was very practical and easy to make, especially easy to make in higher poundage which was convenient for arming an entire army faster and cheaper. I guess it's strangely romanticized reputation probably has something to do with how well the English were known to be particularly skillful and potent archers during the Medieval period and people probably just extrapolate that if they were good at something they were probably the best at doing it and probably had the best things for doing it. That's my guess anyway. By all metrics it's just a pretty good bow but nowhere near as good as some people portray it as. Though to be fair, the man in the video was a bit misleading. As of right now that particular style of recurve bow does not hold any range records at all. A type of recurve does but not that kind. And comparing a recurve in this style to a longbow is a bit of an apples to oranges comparison anyway as longbows fire much larger and heavy arrows out of necessity of the length of their draw. It's only natural that a smaller lighter arrow will fly further and the reason these arrows can be so much lighter is because the draw isn't as long so they can be made shorter and the arrows themselves are not quite as thick as would be standard on a longbow. Two different weapons, two different purposes. While comparing them can be interesting it's best not to decide on "winners" because they prevailed in their roles, times, and locations because they were well suited to it. Also irrelevant but interesting side note, while people often cite that recurves are easier to shoot accurately I actually very much so disagree. When I was younger I used to go to a summer camp fairly often and my favorite activity there was archery. I took it in all three of the optional activity slots I could. They had us fire standard longbows (appropriately sized for kids), recurves, and more finally modern compound bows. I was best with the compound bow (no surprises there), second best with the longbow, and absolutely horrific with the recurve.
@@Tekurin here I will share. Composit bows didn't hold up well in England since the glue would come undone in the climate. Long bows were used because a single piece of wood doesn't fall apart. Next the long bow was used to send massive arrows through thick armor. The French considered their use a war crime as it violated the chivolric codes. Composite bows fired a much smaller arrow since the primary forces they were used on were lightly armored. Both are great bows but there is a reason for their use in these different geographies other than "tradition".
I imagine firing from a horse would be more difficult with a longer bow. I believe it's one reason hunters prefer short compound bows as a human sized bow is hard to maneuver in the forest.
"distance record is set with one of these" is blatant misinformation, you cant lump recurve bows and compound bows together just because they aren't longbows, this is assuming he is talking about modern recurves and not the never reproduced physically impossible numbers the turkish sultans recorded.
It's also misinformation in the sense that he fails to mention that the arrow matters just as much as the bow for distance. Longbows were made to throw much heavier arrows than recurve bows. Lighter arrows will go farther.
It's not really that are more reliable. It's as you say, longbows are easier to make but also faster to make as well as cheaper. Meaning you can equip an an army faster and at less of a cost. Europeans did have recurve type bows even back in medieval periods. Recurve bows are more manual intensive to make. So it was only the wealthy and people who knew how to make them who had access to them
@Dian Slabbert They are much more reliable in the humid rainy climate of western Europe. Composite bows were made with hide glue which is softens when wet and can cause the bows to fail. An English longbow with a linen, flax, or horsehair bowstring and sealed with beeswax can be used all day in the rain.
Why were simple longbows used in western europe? Simple : -cost -humidity Horn composite bows like the small horse archer ones are bound together with hide glue, wich is sensitive to humidity. It's pretty much useless in england, Scotland, and lots of northern parts of France. Longbows are also easier to produce, and will work very well when on foot. Short bows are more efficient and more compact, but it's a whole other process to make them.
@@Madi_Ernar so what? The technology of composite bows was already there since antiquity. Wooden bows backed with tendons and ligaments for exemple, but in the east, it was bows of horn, wood and ligaments. They did exist, and have existed for a huge amount of time. Even today, horn bows are extremely efficient, way more than a plain rounded wood bow
when i was a kid, i usually find a kinda bend tree branch and use a 25lb threaded fishing line on it, works! Doesnt go far but was fun shooting leaf bags, the arrow is bendy little tree branch with no feather lol still remember it like it was yesterday
@@cammi9948 Right because Bodkin arrows worked 100% of the time. If even an arrow from a European heavy longbow yields questionable results against armour, imagine how difficult it would be for an even smaller one.
Crossbows aren't exactly superior. Higher power, but very slow to fire. The big thing is that it's not too expensive to produce and cuts training costs down drastically. You need a lot of training to effectively shoot a bow and even more to do so in formation. You need far less for a crossbow. Thus you can get larger armies in times of need in a far shorter time with less cost and have more people focus more on economic resources so long as you can afford the crossbow. Similarly the main reason longbow would be used is they're extremely cheap and simple to produce, and very durable. The recurve is much harder to produce and more susceptible to weather changes altering the wood. They both have about the same power depending on the wood and the thickness and such and such. The recurve is smaller making it useable on a horseback and vastly easier to carry.
Yeah they are super simple guns. Thats why they are better point and shoot. You just train on accuracy. Anyone can do that. Bows take many other factors but are also fun and satisfying when you get the hang of it.
Crossbows are simple, but slow to load, and tend to be complicated to make (more complicated than a Matchlock, for example). Best on the defensive, or when needing to train an army with little experience but a lot of resources.
That reload time is dreadful in open battle. The are great siege weapons, great urban warfare weapons, and us italians loved them back in the day, but let's not pretend they can outmatch a proper trained longbowman. They are simply much easier to use.
This is wrong. Range and power are almost the same thing when it comes to bow and arrow. What you gain in mass from having a longer arrow for the long bow, you loose in draw distance. If you have the same draw Weight on both a long bow and a short bow, the short bow will apply all of that force to the smaller arrow over a shorter distance, which means higher acceleration value. The bigger arrow has higher mass in its momentum calculation, but that larger mass being accelerated over a longer elastic pull means lower speed at the point it leaves the bow. Both will impact their target with a similar amount of force at the same distance, but with a significantly different flight profile
@@Shocktrue1 You threw in a lot of gibberish to sound smart but at the end of the day the English longbow was used to great effect against armour because their heavy bows could launch heavy bodkin projectiles that decimated armoured knights by shearing chainmail and dismounting knights that weren't killed outright with the force of the arrows. Horse archers may have had a range advantage but their lighter arrows wouldn't have worked so well against the heavier armour favoured by the Frankish peoples of Western Europe as they were against the lighter armour used in the east, who were greater skirmishers and more maneuverable cavalrymen but didn't have the heavy armour of Western Europe. The longbow also worked much better in more humid environments where the recurve bow's laminated layers tended to break down as they were designed as a steppe weapon for dry plain environments.
@@callumcochrane7759Yes and no. Longbows couldn't penetrate plate armor, that much is known. Chainmail, yes. And recurve bows were used with great effectiveness against armor in Carrhae. Granted, not the same armor as medieval armor, but still quite a feat. That being said, anyone who says a 100-120 gram war arrow from a warbow hits the same as a 20-25 gram training arrow shot from a recurve horsebow is full of sh_t. Heavy draw weight longbows are legitimately terrifying.
@@Shocktrue1 that true if you dont take in account the properties of each type of bow. Longbows are intrisically made to shoot heavier arrows while recurves have their maximum output at lower charges.
@@horvathbenedek3596 well longbows won’t often pierce plate armour, but if you watch Todd’s workshops arrows vs armour series there is always chances it can happen, correct angles, weaker steel, thinner parts. And well if there is 2000 archers firing dozens of arrows, any small chance will happen to some poor bastard…
those composite hornbows took insane amounts of skill and work and time to make, and it was only necessary to have a smaller bow if you were shooting from horseback and western europeans/welsh and english weren't doing that
Turkish composite bows were lot more complicated to make and probably would have more preoblems with prolonged periods of very humid weather, since they were glued together.
Simplicity of construction and not having to worry about the bow coming apart because of humidity and dampness would be strong arguments for self bows.
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IS MORE CHEAPER THE LONG BOW, NOT TRADITION. PRODUCTION SPEED AND LOW COST
Size does matter.
There are no more English Longbowmen. Men trained their entire life for shooting the English longbow.
But battlefield reports are pretty clear: The English Longbow out-distanced everything.
Alas, they ceased to exist after the gun.
Totally Loose Man. I love it
@@JaysSavvytrue, however, I know not of a battle where these two types of bows would have collided, sadly.
Secondly, both bows had widely different usages, regardless of the possible distance, there is little need to shoot from 200m away if you are skirmishing on horseback.
Cannot click on the link sir.
"What's different in Mounted archery from traditional archery".
I wish he said, "In mounted archery, you're on a horse.".
Hahahaha
That's exactly what I was thinking 😂
@@tatumergo3931 In the Western europe maybe in the east its often different!
Wouldnt hade mounted crossbow men not the same Problem in western europe ? But they where relativ common in Western europe!
Or scythian archery
We talk about the bow&arrow matter, bruh. Not about the position&condition of the archer😅
Also, back in the day it would've been cheaper and simpler to make a long bow. You wouldn't have to worry about bending wood or some other material
not to mention that composite bows are always more fragile and sensitive to moisture which is main factor why composite bows never become a thing in most of Europe.
@@ReasonAboveEverything also why Mongolia could never take over Indochina that amount other reasons.
Plus they used sinew and bone which is metal af
In fact, making a one piece bow from a stave is far more complecated than making a modern wooden bow...
You need to follow the lines of the wood. If you cut one of the back of the bow, it will explode at the first shot.
On laminated bows,you just need to put layers together with the outer fiber layers that keep every thing together.
@@GreasyBeasty Pretty much, longbow effectiveness came from proto-standardization and they were much easier they were to produce n standardized than composite bows.
Also worth noting that Flight archery is a specific type of shooting, that became specialized during the later Ottoman Empire; so it’s a silly to imply those sorts of long shots were standard when the bows were contemporary with longbows. If you looks at Flight Archery records from the Ottoman Empire in the ~18th century, they are not too far off the distances recorded during the height of the longbow period.
"Size doesn't matter baby" that's what I said but she didn't agree
'My bow may be smaller but it's got a great personality!"😁
Try using the wrong hole.
Honestly a skill issue. Use your fingers more and really stretch that bow out before firing
😂😂😂😂
U just don't know how to use your bow because that's all it matters.
I'm sure a 200+lb draw weight yew-longbow was not kept around purely for tradition.
If 200+Ib doesnt serve any purpose then yes, it is kept around purely for tradition.
@@erencanayhan8514And what purpose did it not fulfill?
@@mememachine6763 shoting faster, quicker, more accurately, being easier to carry around etc... than a composite recurved bow
@@erencanayhan8514 You've described characteristic properties. I asked about purpose. There's a reason composite recurves were not widely used in the European theatre of war. It's called plate armour and mass formations.
@@mememachine6763 longbow doesnt help on that either. At least if they used a more accurate bow they would be able to aim at weakspots. Only reason europe didnt use it was because the culture of bow making wasnt as developed in europe as it was in central asia
Actually it was note just for tradition. The turkish/mongolian bow is made of several layers held together by glue. Works great on a dry environnement, but when you get in Europe, the humidity disolves the glue parking the compound bow less durable.
It’s also much harder to make which is probably the actual reason
Glued in Medieval times? don't think so
@@LayCritic I'm not sure if they used it for Bows, but back then they had glue made by boiling the gelatine out of Bones and Skin.
During my education to become a Carpenter we made some in School, it takes forever, stinks like hell but the finished glue is surprisingly strong.
@@LayCritic glues have being used since Egyptian wth u on about?
@@LayCriticBro glue is literally pre-historic.
English style longbows do not shoot faster, further, or more accurately but they can shoot much heavier arrows. For target shooting this does not matter. But if you were say fighting against 5,000 fully armored knights at the battle of Agincourt, that extra mass matters a lot.
We have Manchu bows for that
@@corndogenunapalmera1445 hah, but I can attach a spear head on my long bow and it doesn't care about getting wet.
@@ReasonAboveEverything Well, i'm from Poland. We have more humid climate, than middle east. And still from like XV/XVI century, horsebows were most popular type of bows here. It's not like you drop a little drop of water, and bow is broken. Ottoman's were saying, that the wet bow is "sic". They just leave it somewhere to dry, and after 2-3 days the bow was "cured". If a bow is wrapped into birch bark, as long as you don't drop it into water, it's gonna be good.
Edit: I'm sorry i didn't catch that. Yeah fair point, you cannot make a spear from a horse bow haha.
@@corndogenunapalmera1445 what are manchu bows?
@@vincentmackinnon3601 google it
The composite bows used by the Turks, Scythians, Huns, Magyars and Mongols became shorter out of necessity to shoot arrows on horse back. During battle Turkish archers on horse back were able to shoot arrows in all directions, even backwards while retreating. This would be very difficult to do with an English longbow. A short wooden bow will not withstand so much bending and will break hence it is a composite bow to provide flexibility and also strength. English bows shot heavier arrows a shorter distance with greater penetration power as advantage whereas the Turkish bows shot lighter arrows farther with distance as advantage.
The Turkish bow were designed to be used on the back of a horse to create mounted archery units. Such a simple invention resulted in concuring almost half of the known world back then by Ghengis and many others. Ghengis was Mongolian, but note that these two nations were living in the same region together and using exactly the same war strategies, army units and weapons. Also, Karakorum and its surrounding had been the capital of Uygur, Gokturk, Mongolian and many other empires as these nations considered themselves together sharing the same destiny and history.
Kardeşim Moğollar neredeyse Osmanlı ile çağdaş. Bu ok ve yaylar Moğollardan çok daha önce eski Türklerde orta Asya'da da kullanılıyordu.
Tengri make us alliance.
Turkish People are a mixed breed of Arabs and Mongolians,the Turkish bow is actually a Mongolian bow,typical turkey culture stealing .
Chingiskhan was a Turkic Kiyat Borteshino. Mongol was just political name of all these tribes
Both bows are actually pretty good overall and are mostly a result of climate.
The British Isles are wet and used to be pretty forested, so lots of wood is available for bow construction and the less parts means the less moisture getting into the bow and hurting accuracy and range.
In Mogolia and the Eurasian Steppe, you have a dry climate with little wood, but lots of potential for grazing animals. Making compact bows with more parts derived from animals becomes the norm, and without a worry for moisture hurting accuracy and power.
A Welsh Longbowman and a Mongol Horse Archer were the best of the best when it came to archery in their regions because they played to their strengths and environment with their equipment!
eh, idk if its climate so much as cost and likely opponents. longbowman is more likely going to be fighting someone in heavy chainmail. and what you want there is firing heavier arrows with more inertia. And it just so happens that a long piece of yew is pretty good bang for your buck in that regards. Think during the time and place crossbows where pretty commonly composite.
@@midshipman8654most peasants in an army back in the day didn’t have chainmail, now if we are talking about the French army it’s different offcourse. But what he was saying about climate is correct, the humidity in the air in England/ Europe is much higher than on the steppes resulting in the disintergrating of the glue they used for the compound bows
@@huibbagchus8819 yah, but during the high medieval, the main body was still heavy cavalry noblemen or gentry or ocassionally heavy foot nobleman with peasants largely being support instead of being part of the main engagement. lighter troop becoming part of the main body in general is only a later medieval development. at least for open feild battles.
and the fact that longbows where used in less humid areas all around europe like france. The english were just particularly known for their use.
🤦♂️🤦♂️
@@midshipman8654the period the English longbowman dominated the armies of many nations were made up of professional companies of retainers paid by their lords and armoured by them
Of course most were not wearing top quality Milanese steel armour but wrought iron suits were very common
Comparing apples to oranges. The two bows were built for entirely different combat rolls. The turkish bow needed to be small and fast for horse back archers and holds a distance record because its arrows weigh much less than that of traditional english long bow arrows. English long bows were fighting against hard armor so they needed the inertia gained from the heavy arrows. The turkish were fighting unarmored combatants.
thank you, it is sad to see "experts" like the one in this short immediately disregard all professionalism to fellate whichever national identity they hold
Yup. The people touting that range record typically forget to mention that it was performed with an exceptionally light arrow.
Roles, not rolls.
I agree that they were designed for completly different roles but turks (or other mounted nomads) fighting unarmored combatants? ;-;
Sure, if you`re in the steppe not every tribe is that well equipped, but how did they conquer china, the middle east, byzantium or eastern europe then? All areas with well armored armies, I mean they themselves had quite good armor (if they had the money that is)
Nah, most of the Turks' enemies were wearing what they were, chainmail.
In Laymans term "If you lack size, make sure it bends" 😏
If someone says a weapon was simply used for "tradition" when it comes to a weapon used in war, I am always sceptical.
Like... sure the katana was used for traditional purposes... but it was also not a weapon of war.
Find me ANY weapon that was used in warfare that was not the perfect solution for the times.
A pitchfork? The cheapest, most available spear for farmers.
A pummel? Great against heavily armored units.
A nun-chuck? Well that guy had obviously just broken his favourite stick and only had a rope and a few minutes to fix it before combat. USE STICK!
Katanas were called "killing swords" by Westerners in 1800s Japan based on how quickly a trained Samurai could cut a man down with one. I'm aware that all swords are "killing swords" but the katana isn't well known and respected simply because of anime. A true kendo master was something to fear and admire.
However, on the other hand, a spear was a far superior weapon to any sword. Deadly fast, long reaching, and precise. A master practitioner of the spear was once set against Musashi Miyamoto by a diamyo of the time. The spearman struck three times, Miyamoto parried the strikes. The match then ended with both men backing off without a word spoken. When the diamyo asked why, the spearman claimed that Miyamoto was a master swordsman to have avoided all three strikes without injury.
The katana was used kind of as a personal defense weapon in addition to tradition. A Samurai can't always be armed to the teeth. The shortness and two-handedness of the saber makes me think it was meant to emulate the use of other weapons available to the Samurai. Try carrying a spear around as a means of self defense, maybe not the best option.
You could backset a selfbow and get the same thing. Recurve allows for more speed per poundage but a heavy selfbow with backset would do the same thing
@@LS-VR Why make a longbow when you can achieve the same poundage with a shorter recurve? Why make a shorter recurve when you can make a longer thicker bow to do the same thing?
Both seem fine. (not referring to a self bow as a longbow)
@@KanadMondal because countries had different bow styles. but different bow woods would hold different speeds. that’s why most laminated bows are faster because they use a variety of materials glued together
Samurai: “Imma just do them both, looooong bow from horseback”
Samurai mounted archers were danger close. That’s why their mounted archers drop favor
lol true! I'm Turkish btw.
@@Salchooqwhere did you get that info
Japanese wanted to be "specul"
Yumi bows are awesome
Distance record is set with one of those bows, sounds like the end pieces should be called siyah laters.
Normally, I hate puns, but I actually laughed out loud on that one.
I see what you did there 😂
its the distance holder for mounted archery.
not the furthest an arrow has been flung xD
Well, AFAIK those were the bows designed specifically for the competition, with special, extra fragile arrows that broke at any impact.
@@LukeVilent for the range competitions you are right but you should consider this. Mean warfare distance for composite bow user armies was 400 meters and for long bow user it was 100-200 meters. In distance competitions long bow users send their arrows up to 400 meters composite bow users able to reach 1 kilo meters
Quick Google says that's cap. Longest shot ever was with a crossbow. Longest hand drawn shot was with a flight bow, a bow specifically made to shoot far
I knew it. He doesn't mention cross bowmen and pikes were how Europe defeated the Mongols.
He's comparing archaic hand drawn bows. And you bring in a crossbow, just because it has the word 'bow' in it doesn't make it the same weapon. Just like a compound bow and a recurve bow are different. A flight bow was made and designed with modern mechanics, specifically designed to beat length records. He's comparing old war bows and their limits. The google fact checkers are so ridiculous dude. Go read a book. You sound stupid.
Yes. But in 1988 with A MODERN CROSSBOW.
crossbow is much different weapon, its like comparind a pistol to AR-15
Are you fr?
He talks like a 20 year old Gru
The recurve is more compact than a longbow, and a lot more powerful than a shortbow, but an English longbow fires heavy, thick arrows, over a meter in length, 2-3cm thick, with heavy metal arrowheads. When fighting armored opponents, i dont think it's just tradition... a good warbow would actually break some thinner arrows if you tried to shoot them.
Tell that to the Longbowmen and Retinue ones who cant kill a single feudal knight of battles that Ive been through. Goddam English, theyre the weakest. Their range is amazing yet totally useless if they cant kill mid to late tier soldiers.
I get that they had to nerf them from having the longest range of all ranged units, but with zero to little damage, totally not worth it. Even the Sherwood archers, their unique and supposedly strongest archers are nerfed down to half a platoon.
Could kill but their numbers suck so much.
@@codyjensenleague what in the larp
@@codyjensenleague what
@@codyjensenleague Life is not a video game or whatever this is.
Sorry guys, Ive been playing Medieval Total War 2, revisiting an amazing childhood game of mine. Then this video showed up.
Was talking about the longbowmen of the English, the game did them dirty.
It's not only tradition that made single piece wooden bows more common in europe, composite bows, like most eastern bows, were a lot more prone to fall apart in the humidity of central europe.
Central Europe's humid? You learn something new everyday 😂
Japan Has even longer bows
@@senseishu937 Relative to Turkey or Central Asia, they are indeed humid.
@@senseishu937 England definitely is
and curved composit bows are more expansive to made !
According to a ten-second internet search I did, some more advantages of the Longbow are that they are quieter and lighter.
Not necessarily so, but in the middle of an open pitch battle that really makes no difference.
@@tatumergo3931 true, but for a sneak attack at night… either way let’s both take it with a grain of salt lol
I don't think sound makes any difference. For an assassin I would pick crossbow.
About weight I think smaller size is more important. But this is my preference
@@tatumergo3931well lighter does. One of the biggest things about military kits is balancing utility with weight
@@Sip_Dhit. Not from my experience, there's a reason why they call infantrymen grunts.
Fun fact: Turkish and mongolian bows can litterally pierce samurai armour
Another reason to use the longbow over the recurve bow is because traditional longbows are easier to make and more durable.
Also they last better in poor weather (except the strings) and the arrow is much heavier so more effective against the heavier armour used in Europe
@@luggy9256 I think good quality armor can make you basically invincible, but for the discussion the mounted bow seems to have worked just fine against european armor :l
@@juliusnorr3041 good armour still has weak spots at the joints, and the horsebow worked well against European armour before Europe really used plate, it was mostly mail armour during the Mongol or Hun invasions.
@@luggy9256 have you tested good quality tempered armor of the late medieval period against said traditional long warbow and thick war arrows?
No archers are gonna be standing there and waiting for the enemy cavalry to get close to be shooting their arrows.
Archers were mostly for harassing the enemy compared to doing actual damage to the enemy especially if their heavily armored knights.
Don't use the excuse about French knights getting beaten.
The English beat the French due to the fact the French were on a horrible field.
Which was muddy and uneven due to the heavy rain and mud. Which allowed maneuvers to be very complicated if anything went wrong. Along side armor slowing them down when they got dismounted and be slipping into the horrible mud.
@@koreancowboy42 I have not tested that myself no, but someone on UA-cam has tested it beautifully. Usually arrows are only a real threat to your joints where there is no plates, the thinner plates on the sides and rear, and of course to your horse.
But from the testing you wouldn’t want to be the knight being shot at, even with only 1 archer…
The long now has more power, but a lot of folks misunderstand what power means in terms of combat usefulness.
Power can either be used for penetrative utility, or range.
Both has falloffs, but long bows will be better against armored targets than the Turkish composite bows, they're also a lot easier to manufacture, meaning you can field more of them.
The downside of the longbow is it's weight, size and that its not just more powerful by default, it requires physical strength of the archers to utilise that power, meaning longbow archers need to be strong, and they can fire less arrows, as each fired volley takes a heavy toll.
Longbows are more stable and easier to aim, you also can move your fingers on the string to adjust to distance.
One thing should be mentioned: That tiny recurve bow is designed against lamellar armor, which is typically wood or leather straps but can sometimes be metal in later periods. The longbow is built to fire heavier, thicker, better piercing arrows to defeat Europe's better chainmail, and later plate. Though Europe did also have lamellar, by the time longbows really started to make a difference, lamellar was mostly dropped in favor of chainmail, and plate armors with gambesons hidden below.
To be fair tho, design wise both types could be made with draw weight capable of piercing mail. And the thing with plate armor is, that its pretty much very very pierce resistant. While you can pierce the thinner walled arm pieces, you wont really get through a good piece of chest armor unless the arrow heads were heat treated (which there isnt a lot of evidence of, if they did it or not).
I can suggest tod's workshop's video "armor vs arrows 2". There they try out a warbow against french style plate mail.
Another thing is that the English started making their longbows with recurves in them right at the end of the Middle Ages, and then they REALLY stepped up their penetrating power and distance.
@@judahschultz tho they prolly just did it towards the end, due to the fact of making recurves into your bow just takes a lot of extra time and effort with a theoretical risk of ruining an otherwise perfectly good bow, just cus you wanted slightly more leverage on the string.
Also, it's just easier to thicken the bow and be like "yeah, why bother, this gets it done too"
@@judahschultz Which was a result of late medieval armor getting heavier in the armor vs. weapons race
Small archer bows can be EXTREMELY powerful, there are small traditional bows like these with more than 90 pounds of draw weight used by Mongolians. Given the increased efficiency, it's equivalent to a 120 pounds longbow, wich is already well into the warbow range. Heavy arrows are required for these. Also, some european crossbows from the early 14th century were made from composite, just like these, and their draw weight would go beyond 600 pounds too.
So you say we should make one of these bows in the seize of a longbow?
Good Idea!
Let's do it!
composite longbows do exist
Manchu bows
then you get something like the bow of odysseus
@@Sea-qv4sd ding ding ding! a knower
@@Leo.23232 Composite recurve longbows, even!
Saw the whole ep already. Really good. Respect to the archer. The two interviewers not so much. They shot a bow without an arrow by themselves. The bowman was pissed at that.
No wonder. Dry firing a bow can cause damage. And even a tiny crack can get dangerous under tension, depending on construction and material that can cause a pretty explosive break
A compound bow would fall apart from a shot like that. Not shooting without arrow should be the no. 1 thing to tell when talking about bows.
The 2 interviewers also interviewed a guy showing the Turkish bows, in a Turkish traditional outfit. And then named their video "firing arrows like a mongolian warrior". Sure, Mongolians used the same type of bows and archery style. But it's really strange and even disrespectful (like you're saying it's not Turkish at all, even though this is the traditional bow that Turks have used for millenia from central Asia to the west) to have a title about Mongolian warriors while interviewing a guy demonstrating Turkish archery.
so part of why big bows like that were common in the past was sturdiness and simplicity. part of the reason the mongols didnt go to far south is the humidity caused their bows to warp and the glue to unbind.
The longbow was used because it was incredibly quick/easy and cheap to make in comparison to the recurve bow. It obviously vould only be used on foot but your normal mass of peasant archers were never going to be on one.
Almost any type of bow can reach the 100+ pounds that a real warbow could get to
100 pounds? those are rookie numbers.
A horse for starters.
Indian traditional bows are quite similar to that Turkish one
Long bow is the mosin nagant of medieval weapons
The draw on a longbow is a lot smoother than on a recurve, too.
Weather. Traditional compound bows tend to come apart in wet climates.
Which is most of Europe especially in the seasons people traditionally fought their battles.
China's climate is very wet, they just didn't know how to make them
But also, the English had peasant levies that trained in the bow. It was relatively cheap and easy to make wherever Yew was grown and ideal for someone on foot. England did not have large mounted armies, like the middle east and Asia. So the long bow was suitable. Plus, some of the bows had 160lb draws which punches through armour pretty well. Plate armour was not common on the steppes.
Cope. No composite bow wielsing culture dropped using them when they invaded northern areas.
where the fuck do you get this shit, southeast asian use these bows without problem.
"hun shot"
Because its a composite bow... thats why its so powerful. With material and the form, its just a physically masterpiece.
"The world record is set with one of these" is such a disingenuous statement that he should almost be called a liar.
The bow used to set the world recurve record wasn't a traditional Asian horse bow. It was a modern recurve, designed and constructed using modern methods and materials.
True that, but flight archery has separate classes for different bows, I believe he was talking about the complex composite class, modern bows have their own class
Sultan Murad IV set the record. Anything after that is not near him.
@@attilaseyfullah8522that sounds very much like "the great leader set the record. Trust me bro, its true cuz i wrote it down" akin to the bs attributed to the Kim's in north korea.
@@balinthehater8205 pretty sure he was just joking.
@@balinthehater8205not to mention the arrow was an extremely light arrow compared to what you'd be firing with an English longbow.
the perks to the English longbow mainly consist of being relatively easy to mass produce and you can get very high draw weights fairly easily and while you can get super heavy asiatic bows they are much more complicated to make and take a very long time to make and being so small makes it hard to get the extreme draw weights that the English longbow has, 9f course English longbow aren't super efficient with transferring energy whereas the shorter asiatic bows transfer that energy extremely well
I disagree. Longbows are generally at the sweet spot of energy transfer while these short bows are going to have a very short power stroke. See a similar thing why crossbows have HUGE draw weights but don't actually overpower bows (particularly longbows).
Bro is saying Europe didn't have composite bows lol
I found it very difficult to shoot a bow when I was mounted, but easier on a horseback
Way easier to make a longbow
Not tradtion logistics is why the long bow was more used in Europe.
I think he meant it's traditional for modern enthusiast archers, who origin from that list of countries/Europe in general
@kinvoiach3014 except they became popular in modern-day archery because they were in common use throughout Europe it's not so much tradition as it is just common knowledge.
Traditional short bows are bound with hide glue wich is sensitive to humidity and will dissolve under the rain. Basically unusable in england, Scotland, and parts of France
@@josephwindle7177so it became prominent because of logistics and then kept in the modern day because of how common it used to be, like a tradition of sorts.
Bro your outfit looks perfect!!! you made your self actual Kemankesh with that great costume. And Zihkir in your Tumb finger.
Humidity also was a factor. Horsebows and recurve bows have laminated layers. Works in a humid area not so well in Great Britain
Also, it's not just about shape. Mounted archery shortbows are compounds made of wood/bamboo, sinew and horn, it's my understanding that the las two materials are way stiffer than traditional wood bows (while still being elastic) which adds a lot more pounds (the unit of power bows are measured at) per unit of length than just wood
Also weight of the projectile, the mounted arrows were generally smaller in diameter.
Longbows made for better accurate long distance shots. Composite bows shot very long distances but worked mostly as volley fire for those distances.
Self bows are pretty much a necessity in a humid environment, composite bows tend to delaminate.
Distance record was broken by compound bow actually...
More than a mile...
No, it was actually broken by a sniper rifle
Horse bows are small.
Japanese yumi
Would like to see a comparison of horseback archery between Mongolian and Comanche archers. IMO, Comanche archers would win hands down.
Having a recurved, composite bow does indeed make it possible to have a smaller bow with a higher draw weight. This also makes it more practical to use for horse archery. However, this is also more expensive to make than, say, a regular bow made out of just wood.
I've always loved a Turkish bow.
How to say you are Turkish without saying that
@@EsfandiarNokhodakiHis account doesnt look turkish
@@EsfandiarNokhodakiyou mad
You also tended to have longbows in countries with lots and lots of mature forestry. Shortbows could be made with much smaller lengths of wood, supplemented at times with other materials, adding complexity.
It doesn't matter if the bow is long or shot, It all depends who can bullseye the longer arrows .
The distance record goes to the composite bow because their arrows are designed differently, specifically for distance and accuracy. Heavy draw weight longbow arrows (specifically English style) are much heavier and made for momentum and killing ability.
The reason why the longbow wins in parts of Europe is because it's the one that survived the environment. Though I'm sure modern glues and resins would make up the difference today.
was craftable with less skill
could attach a speartip too it
used heavier arrows, for heavier european targets.
could get those heavier arrows, further.
for foot archers, longbow is king.
@@o0xTHEcoPlayerx0o heavier European targets? What are they shooting down, tigers? I'm pretty sure if you're shooting on the guy you're still shooting a guy
Both are products of their environment. Modern resins are the main reason compact bows have a bit of an edge. Not falling apart from humidity is an advantage that cannot be overstated
@@noahjohnson935 which actually also relates to why Turks and Mongols didn't conquer or even properly invade southeastern Asia: their main weapon and tactic suddenly became ineffective due to weather/local climate.
Mongols conquered China and India. Composite bows were covered with leather. I don't think they are affected much by humidity.
Not trying to offend anyone but to keep it short and simple
Long bow
Cleap easy to maintain
Can work in any climate
Has more versatile arrows
Has a better power ratio when using bodkin
Composite recurve bows
Short portable and versatile
Limited effect in humid conditions
Unmatched other than crossbows in short range highly varied performance in longer ranges
This was what i found basically it was cheaper to equip an entire army with longbows or simple bows than with recurve bows. Or even cheaper to use crossbows.
It’s like how people cling to manual transmissions over automatics. They feel like they have more control and power, but it’s really just more of a headache.
Mounted archery is Archery on a horse = traditional Archery on a galloping horse
Isn’t the English longbow going to be more powerful and take heavier targets down better? Definitely doesn’t seem like something you would use in mounted archery though.
It's going to be able to throw heavier arrows a lot easier than a recurve of similar poundage.
Depends on what you mean by "take heavier targets down better" because opposed to common misconception no bow nor crossbow was especially good against hard armor like brigandine, lamellar, and especially not plate. When met with hardened steel plates arrows and crossbows no matter of what poundage almost universally bounce off. The higher the poundage the more likely you are to dent it but you are almost certainly not going through unless you've already hit the same spot numerous times (or more likely get lucky and one wedges itself between the gaps in the armor, but this becomes less and less likely as time goes on as heavier armor advanced to the point where the only real gaps where the eye slits by the late Medieval to early Renaissance). Though a higher poundage bow would make punching through more standard armors far more easy. Things like chainmail (which is always worn over padded armor as well) or just various padded armors which were far more common across most places in the Medieval era.
@@ThatGuyOrby good writeup
@@ThatGuyOrby then do you think people love the English longbow so much because of another reason? Has it been romanticized a lot like how the Japanese katana wasn’t actually used that often or wasn’t even the most used sword in a fight?
Because I’ve seen so many different people talk about how powerful the English longbow is and how you have to have had years of training with it on top of being insanely strong just to wield it, and it’s still outperformed by this type of hun/mongol mounted bow?
@@theusernameicoodfind I'm not quite certain why people love the thing so much, even as a huge medieval buff myself. I like it, and it was very practical and easy to make, especially easy to make in higher poundage which was convenient for arming an entire army faster and cheaper. I guess it's strangely romanticized reputation probably has something to do with how well the English were known to be particularly skillful and potent archers during the Medieval period and people probably just extrapolate that if they were good at something they were probably the best at doing it and probably had the best things for doing it. That's my guess anyway. By all metrics it's just a pretty good bow but nowhere near as good as some people portray it as.
Though to be fair, the man in the video was a bit misleading. As of right now that particular style of recurve bow does not hold any range records at all. A type of recurve does but not that kind. And comparing a recurve in this style to a longbow is a bit of an apples to oranges comparison anyway as longbows fire much larger and heavy arrows out of necessity of the length of their draw. It's only natural that a smaller lighter arrow will fly further and the reason these arrows can be so much lighter is because the draw isn't as long so they can be made shorter and the arrows themselves are not quite as thick as would be standard on a longbow.
Two different weapons, two different purposes. While comparing them can be interesting it's best not to decide on "winners" because they prevailed in their roles, times, and locations because they were well suited to it.
Also irrelevant but interesting side note, while people often cite that recurves are easier to shoot accurately I actually very much so disagree. When I was younger I used to go to a summer camp fairly often and my favorite activity there was archery. I took it in all three of the optional activity slots I could. They had us fire standard longbows (appropriately sized for kids), recurves, and more finally modern compound bows. I was best with the compound bow (no surprises there), second best with the longbow, and absolutely horrific with the recurve.
Funny guy. Doesn't know much about bows but very funny
Lol. Ok nathan. Seems like you know everything
@@Tekurin more than some. Less than others.
@@nathanrosman-bakehouse359 sure
@@Tekurin here I will share. Composit bows didn't hold up well in England since the glue would come undone in the climate. Long bows were used because a single piece of wood doesn't fall apart. Next the long bow was used to send massive arrows through thick armor. The French considered their use a war crime as it violated the chivolric codes. Composite bows fired a much smaller arrow since the primary forces they were used on were lightly armored. Both are great bows but there is a reason for their use in these different geographies other than "tradition".
Dubious claim, a long bow can shoot a heavier arrow thus having more power where it matters
As a matter of fact. Longbow was created mostly because it's a very complicated tech to make a short one.
I imagine firing from a horse would be more difficult with a longer bow. I believe it's one reason hunters prefer short compound bows as a human sized bow is hard to maneuver in the forest.
Didnt effect the samuri and there 10ft long bow, i think it was more just different war tactics due to terrain,
"distance record is set with one of these" is blatant misinformation, you cant lump recurve bows and compound bows together just because they aren't longbows, this is assuming he is talking about modern recurves and not the never reproduced physically impossible numbers the turkish sultans recorded.
jealous 🤣🤣
It's also misinformation in the sense that he fails to mention that the arrow matters just as much as the bow for distance. Longbows were made to throw much heavier arrows than recurve bows. Lighter arrows will go farther.
"What's different about Monted archery than your traditional archery"
Archery is on the ground. Mounted archery is on a horse.
There !
Its a recurved bow making it more powerful. Its pulled the opposite direction than the traditional way.
Longbows are easier to make and more reliable than shorter, recurve bows of similar poundages.
It's not really that are more reliable. It's as you say, longbows are easier to make but also faster to make as well as cheaper.
Meaning you can equip an an army faster and at less of a cost.
Europeans did have recurve type bows even back in medieval periods. Recurve bows are more manual intensive to make. So it was only the wealthy and people who knew how to make them who had access to them
@Dian Slabbert They are much more reliable in the humid rainy climate of western Europe. Composite bows were made with hide glue which is softens when wet and can cause the bows to fail. An English longbow with a linen, flax, or horsehair bowstring and sealed with beeswax can be used all day in the rain.
The smaller bow is intelligently designed.
And shoots smaller arrows.
No Wonder Why Ottomons Crushed Us For A Long Time😂
We came to know the difference between mounted and traditional archery. But we now know about the difference between bows.
Why were simple longbows used in western europe? Simple :
-cost
-humidity
Horn composite bows like the small horse archer ones are bound together with hide glue, wich is sensitive to humidity. It's pretty much useless in england, Scotland, and lots of northern parts of France.
Longbows are also easier to produce, and will work very well when on foot.
Short bows are more efficient and more compact, but it's a whole other process to make them.
no, they didn't know how to make composite bows
@@Madi_Ernar of course they did, there were composite crossbow prods in europe before they managed to make them in steel
@@jeanladoire4141 crossbows are not bows.
@@Madi_Ernar so what? The technology of composite bows was already there since antiquity. Wooden bows backed with tendons and ligaments for exemple, but in the east, it was bows of horn, wood and ligaments. They did exist, and have existed for a huge amount of time. Even today, horn bows are extremely efficient, way more than a plain rounded wood bow
@@jeanladoire4141 so, the Europeans couldn't replicate mongolians bows.
Let's just ignore the arrow the Turkish bow shoots. That is why the Turkish bow AND arrow has the distance record.
An illiteral making excuses is all I see here.
Before clicking on this video, i truly believe the guy with a funny hat had an accent.
when i was a kid, i usually find a kinda bend tree branch and use a 25lb threaded fishing line on it, works! Doesnt go far but was fun shooting leaf bags, the arrow is bendy little tree branch with no feather lol still remember it like it was yesterday
"Tradition". Try launching a heavier arrow with a small curved bow.
Try using a longbow on a horse…
@@cammi9948you’re proving that the guy in the video is a nudnik
@@cammi9948Try using the arrows of a small recurve bow against an armoured knight on a horse
@@yourlocalfurrylandsknechtowo bro has not heard of anti armor arrows
@@cammi9948 Right because Bodkin arrows worked 100% of the time. If even an arrow from a European heavy longbow yields questionable results against armour, imagine how difficult it would be for an even smaller one.
longer bow is more accurate as mistakes are compounded on short spanned bow.
It all boils down to how much potential energy an archery can store provided the material of the string and frame is the same.
selfbows are mainly easier to make and more durable than composite recurve bows
Composite recurve bows are superior on horseback in dry climates. Longbows are superior on foot in wet climates.
Crossbows are superior to both 😂
Crossbows aren't exactly superior. Higher power, but very slow to fire. The big thing is that it's not too expensive to produce and cuts training costs down drastically. You need a lot of training to effectively shoot a bow and even more to do so in formation. You need far less for a crossbow. Thus you can get larger armies in times of need in a far shorter time with less cost and have more people focus more on economic resources so long as you can afford the crossbow.
Similarly the main reason longbow would be used is they're extremely cheap and simple to produce, and very durable. The recurve is much harder to produce and more susceptible to weather changes altering the wood. They both have about the same power depending on the wood and the thickness and such and such. The recurve is smaller making it useable on a horseback and vastly easier to carry.
Yeah they are super simple guns. Thats why they are better point and shoot. You just train on accuracy. Anyone can do that. Bows take many other factors but are also fun and satisfying when you get the hang of it.
Crossbows are simple, but slow to load, and tend to be complicated to make (more complicated than a Matchlock, for example). Best on the defensive, or when needing to train an army with little experience but a lot of resources.
Compound bow kicks all y’all’s asses.
That reload time is dreadful in open battle. The are great siege weapons, great urban warfare weapons, and us italians loved them back in the day, but let's not pretend they can outmatch a proper trained longbowman. They are simply much easier to use.
A Longbow shoot a much heavier arrow! So more force in impact.
and the longbow is easy and cheap to make,
Its all about the draw. Long bows are easy to draw, short bows are hard to draw but got enough punch even drawn halfway
With the long bow it's more than tradition, long bows are a LOT easier to produce. Mass production baby!
Turkiyem 🇹🇷🇹🇷🇹🇷🇹🇷🇹🇷🇹🇷🇹🇷🇹🇷
The English long bow might not have the best range, but it does have the best power. A 200 pound war bow can Pierce steel.
This is wrong. Range and power are almost the same thing when it comes to bow and arrow. What you gain in mass from having a longer arrow for the long bow, you loose in draw distance. If you have the same draw Weight on both a long bow and a short bow, the short bow will apply all of that force to the smaller arrow over a shorter distance, which means higher acceleration value. The bigger arrow has higher mass in its momentum calculation, but that larger mass being accelerated over a longer elastic pull means lower speed at the point it leaves the bow. Both will impact their target with a similar amount of force at the same distance, but with a significantly different flight profile
@@Shocktrue1 You threw in a lot of gibberish to sound smart but at the end of the day the English longbow was used to great effect against armour because their heavy bows could launch heavy bodkin projectiles that decimated armoured knights by shearing chainmail and dismounting knights that weren't killed outright with the force of the arrows. Horse archers may have had a range advantage but their lighter arrows wouldn't have worked so well against the heavier armour favoured by the Frankish peoples of Western Europe as they were against the lighter armour used in the east, who were greater skirmishers and more maneuverable cavalrymen but didn't have the heavy armour of Western Europe.
The longbow also worked much better in more humid environments where the recurve bow's laminated layers tended to break down as they were designed as a steppe weapon for dry plain environments.
@@callumcochrane7759Yes and no.
Longbows couldn't penetrate plate armor, that much is known. Chainmail, yes.
And recurve bows were used with great effectiveness against armor in Carrhae. Granted, not the same armor as medieval armor, but still quite a feat.
That being said, anyone who says a 100-120 gram war arrow from a warbow hits the same as a 20-25 gram training arrow shot from a recurve horsebow is full of sh_t. Heavy draw weight longbows are legitimately terrifying.
@@Shocktrue1 that true if you dont take in account the properties of each type of bow.
Longbows are intrisically made to shoot heavier arrows while recurves have their maximum output at lower charges.
@@horvathbenedek3596 well longbows won’t often pierce plate armour, but if you watch Todd’s workshops arrows vs armour series there is always chances it can happen, correct angles, weaker steel, thinner parts. And well if there is 2000 archers firing dozens of arrows, any small chance will happen to some poor bastard…
Longbows require consent practice. Archers were artillery of their day.
Siyah means black in Turkish but I don't see a connection maybe someone else knows?
Size doesn't matter, BABY! Words to live by
The knights who got fucked in europe but not in the middle east said size matters.
those composite hornbows took insane amounts of skill and work and time to make, and it was only necessary to have a smaller bow if you were shooting from horseback and western europeans/welsh and english weren't doing that
Everyone else: Small bows for horseback?
Samurai: Hold my Yumi
This guy is either a lier or doesn't know as much about bows as he would like you to believe.
He just probably knows more about short bows than long bows. Those two have different applications and requirements.
Turkish composite bows were lot more complicated to make and probably would have more preoblems with prolonged periods of very humid weather, since they were glued together.
Recurve bows used to be made as composite bows that contained glue. That type of bow whould get broke under the wet conditions of atlantic weather
Longbows are simpler to build. Just one length of yew.
i always knew that composite bows and turkish bows were superior, but it’s nice to know the actual physics to why they were better
Little bit of a based side on the Mongolian bow XD
There are now longer bows with the shape of a mounted bow.
Turkish bows look like Mongolian bows.. maybe Genghis khan period?
Simplicity of construction and not having to worry about the bow coming apart because of humidity and dampness would be strong arguments for self bows.