What's with people accusing him of being jealous of Lars Anderssen, or assuming this video has anything to do with him? Look at the upload date on this video. November 21st, 2014. Now look at the upload date on the Lars Anderssen video. January, 2015. That's right, he uploaded this video several months before most of the world knew who Lars Anderssen even was. Get your dates right you dinguses.
@@Former615 his name is Lars, traditional Danish/North German name. And he is very good at the thing he does. It just has nothing to do with hunting, fighting or war. Have you seen Matt here with a sword?
500 years in the future, some jackass is going to rediscover the lost art of doing trick shots with a .22 pistol and present it to the world as a forgotten combat skill.
People are probably thinking of some Legolas-like close-range archery aimed at the opponent's weak spots. Realistically, they should think of the kind of archery you need in order to kill Boromir.
Also almost all of the speed shooting videos are using bows in the 20-35lb draw weight. So well below what you would u´hunt and especially use in war.... add to that the very short draws used, the power is significantly reduced... Circus shooting indeed
@@mweskamppp the thing is I've neither says or shows the draw weight. After 50 years of shooting the bows are very light and he consistently under draws. He's a skillfully trick shooter but it doesn't tell us anything about historic bows or shooting.
That was my complaint too. I used to do archery, and based on the videos I've seen, those speed shooters aren't going to be killing anyone. Especially if they were using heavy war arrows, they'd just be wasting valuable ammunition to dent Sir Easton's plate. Or more likely, fall short and become a tripping hazard.
Oh Matt, I'm so thankful for this video. You can't imagine how many times I've had this discussion. For some reason people thought that mysterious video recorded with a robot voice was some kind of breakthrough in the field of archery and history when it's really just playful handling of a bow. People who don't have extensive experience with archery don't realize that the stored energy is proportional to both the poundage and draw length of the bow. Further, they lack understanding for the need of power. A child's might seem terrifying to the parent of that child but that it will be put to shame if someone shoots a heavier bow or even a compound bow next to child. The arrows actually fly noticeably slower and don't penetrate anything remarkably well.
3:45 Ahh, you are speaking of the good olde times, when in order to offend someone you would need to actually hit them hard enough! Nowadays it's enough to wear a wrong kind of shirt to make many people scream like they are being murdered.
Don't forget that by killing an animal quickly, you are also reducing the suffering it endures. :) That is a very important aspect of hunting in my opinion.
+JodaJK XD Also acids build up, increased levels of adrenaline, etc. Most of these do not taste good. At all. Seriously, hormones just taste disgusting.
Legendary Wave Pool Halal is a blessing of the meat by treating the animals a certain way; not transporting them in small containers for long distances, keeping the animals free ranged, not over feeding them, when killing the animals one is supposed to do it away from the other animals and was any blood there might be from the previously killed animal. And The more controversial aspect, killing the animal by cutting its throat after a prayer.
Completely right. Many war bows exceeded 120 lbs. A that weight what one can't do, is aim carefully. Those bows were mostly used as artillery, in volley, and at distance.
AWZool you know, come to think of it, it probably wouldn't. I just get peeved at all these little drones that come thru and think they know everything because they saw one video.
I always thought it silly that people go on about speed of fire as important. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that few people have ever had to pay for arrows at medieval prices. When you don't have machines doing all the work & nice modern materials, one discovers the arrow is a very expensive piece of equipment & 20 arrows is a lot heavier & bulkier than people realize as well. You don't want to shoot fast. You want to make every one of those damnable things count.
As an Archer with Traditional Bows, I agree with you 100% with old wooden Arrows and against Armoured opponents, also not forgetting the strings on old longbows had to be thick, so not that efficient. One comment in the modern context, leaving out Compounds, many Modern Recurves are much more efficient than Longbows, so dont need to be as heavy a Poundage to kill someone, even at Distance. Some of the Traditional Bows Grozer creates especially. FYI. Some Hungarian Archers only draw to the Chest on Horseback and can draw and shoot pretty fast and they are using Bows in the 50-80lb range, not going to penetrate plate armour, but remember those bows were much more efficient than longbows and History tells us they were lethal from Horseback, my 3rd Bow was a 120lb Longbow, it hit hard, many broken arrows, now shooting lighter Asiatic bows, why? more fun, cheaper to shoot and can use modern Carbon Arrows, both would kill you, accurate effective range about the same, if a theoretical Enemy was wearing armour, the big clunker the better choice, but against light infantry, the Asiatic bow better, less tiring to shoot and can carry more arrows.
It took 9 minutes for him to say that speed shooters may not have full draw to get distance/penetration. Point made. One such speed shooter, Lars Anderson, was learning from ancient books (Persian?) when the common man could not acquire heavy armor. Lars was able to duplicate feats from the ancient texts such as firing three arrows into an enemy as the archer was falling off of his horse. All techniques need to be considered depending on warfare involved.
People keep shooting arrows with various insults and racial slurs written on them; someone said something about 'trying to offend the enemy' - what the hell is going on?
***** True, but you are just risking a heated 100 comment discussion, whereas I expected stupidities like: "In case I didn't kill you, please stick me up the Kyber".
So glad you brought this up. While the speed shooting is awesome you brought up 3 very important flaws: 1) partial draws which dramatically limit speed and power; 2) ridiculously low draw weights; and 3) shooting at targets only 5 meters away. Speed shooting could have situational uses (no need for full draw against an unarmored target at short range), for most medieval combat in Europe, the Levant, or the Eurasian Steppes, these techniques would be a waste of arrows.
I have a question, I heard an archer and historian talking recently that the idea of archers in warfare aiming up in the air at an angle and having them fall down on the charging enemy force (like you see in the movies) didnt happen. He says this because all the drawings show the archers aiming directly at the enemy not aiming up and because the arrows would have not been able to penetrate any sort of armour when just falling to the ground. He also said it would have just wasted arrows and money. They also would have waited until they where roughly 25-50 yards away before firing instead of the 100 or so yards (meters) they show in movies. Whats your take on this?
Why wait? Archers would be raining arrows on the enemies as soon as they could more or less hit.. As enemies got closer they would aim lower to hit them directly. King Henry V sure didn't get hit in the face by archers that catapulted their arrows into the sky at 25 yards.
edi Not to mention if archers are 70% of the army or even 50% lets say 7-9,000 archers vs maybe 500-1000 heavy cavalry thats a lot of arrows being shot in a relatively small area at 25-50 yards
Its so funny - this is the 3rd Andersen rant video I saw now and it seems like no one actually watched Lars' video. He shows the drawing weight of the bow. He shows how he shoots with heavy arrows. He shows how he penetrates armor and ultimately and most importantly he shows how, even though it does not look like it, draws the bow out to a full extend. Half of the drawing comes from the arm on the arrow and the other one is a pull forward from the bow hand. You seem like a nice guy mate and you seem like you know what you are talking about but I really see no point in your video to be honest. P.s.: Just ignore my name.
James Collins There is one with 4 Million views that Lars Andersen himself posted on the 26.11.2012 that shows the techniques. It was re-uploaded 2 weeks ago. Some other videos of him are out since 2011. So please.
Actually, speed shooting is for entertainement purpose, and this in a lot of cultures and since a long time. There is actually no point to go to war speed shooting, as there is no point to go to war with a bbgun. It's ment to impress and entertain, just like acrobatic moves or acrobatic horse riding. Asking speed shooters to arm better their bows is contrary to the purpose, the same as speed shooters saying that speed shooting is for war. And even if they could do it (and they could do it) they would do it with a lighter bow, let's say 30pounds, that doesn't makes things more war-ready. I've seen one of those videos where the speed shooter shown how his arrows penetrated an chainmail. But frankly, you can penetrate a chainmail with a hammer and a chisel and with only one strike : if you put the chainmail on a solid support, as it was shown in the video. A solid support makes the chainmail vulnerable because it let the chainmail take the whole energy of the impact, and so the impact energy will only be transmitted on one or two rings, which will break. Chainmail is put on skin which is soft, and will transmit the energy of the impact on it's other rings around and it will not break, or, chainmail can be weared on matlassed cloth (usualy, that's the way to wear a chainmail) and the energy will be transmitted in the wole surface and be even less dramatic. In conclusion, never forget this : folklore is a huge part of culture and lots of cultures are proud of their archery. From english archery to Manchu archery, you will have a lot of archery demonstration in a lot of culture's folklore. Some are to show the speed (speed shooting is that) and some are to show strenght (check Iranian Zoorkanneh training for instance, where bows are heavily wheighted and only serve as a purpose to show and to train strenght and cannot indeed be used to shoot an arrow as the string, full of wheights, cannot even be strung) Culture is wonderfull and folklore should be shown to the world. But it should be considered as it is or being considered as a lie : it is a show to entertain and impress, not a war practice.
All true, however many ignorant people seem to mistake many "entertaining performances " as legitimate combat prowess these days. So the need sometimes arises to teach/ separate fact from nonsense created by people who don't know what they are talking about. but yes folklore can be quite entertaining at times :)
My gripe, and I'd bet Matt's too, is that these speed-shooters present themselves as historically accurate, long-lost kung-fu superweapons able to shoot through heavily armored knight with a rate of fire of a machinegun. There's nothing wrong with circus-y speed shooting, it's interesting to watch and takes a lot of skill, but saying it's history (TM) is just plain and simple lying - you don't see any circus knife-throwers claiming that their ancestors were slaughtering knights via a blade through the visor, do you? Maybe it seems like a minor thing, but it's a potentially devastating issue, just look at what happened to actual asian martial arts - lots of people making stupid claims, plague of McDojos... Nowadays, most people just don't take them very seriously, and it's quite a chore to find some actual, valid information about them (tai chi is 2000 years old, and I'm the queen of Sheeba).
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True, MartinGreywolf . Although, I would not call that kind of archery "circus". It is traditionnal, entertainement, or sport, or folklore. For some culture, archery is a part of history and something to be proud of. A lot of our occidental sports are basically field defending sports. They are not per se war. A lot of archery driven cultures have basically bow and arrow instead of a ball. It is not circus to make people pay to see oddities. It is a part of a culture, as a sport or as an event, or as an entertaining event. Only a small minority of people are just showing off with their competences and saying that "it was like that in the battlefiled". Their talent is breath taking, but it is not an archery of war. They are wrong and we both know that. But it is not an archery of circus either. It is, like it was before, a way to show talent, to compete or to impress, knowing that it will not be efficient. EDIT : if I may say, the main analogy would be jousting (medieval times) Lances were blunts, armors were thinkened, it's purpose was not going to war, it was to show of. It was not a circus, it was a real deal. But a good horsman was not always able to do win a joust, and a good jousting man was not always able to shine in the battlefield. None of those preternded to be able to do so. And in modern jousting spectacles, the one who is saying that he can, because he is jousting, fight like in the medieval times is a liar. The one that shows his jousting armor and who is saying that it is a war armor is a liar. But of course, it is reasuring to see that a lot of modern jousting men are able to know that they are not, indeed, fighting like in a medieval battlefield. Sorry for the long post.
***** thats only the joust right at the end of the medieval period. the joust and tournement is supposed to be a way to encourage people to CONSTANTLY practice practice practice, the skills of charging with a lance, aka, keeping a good grip, controlling the horse, keeping the lance point opn target, not exposing yor vitals etc etc etc the ancient olympics mostly trained people in martial skills boxing wrestling javelin discus running horseracing "chariot racing running in armour (self explanatory that one is) , all of these encourage that spirit of marial skill,
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Surely you agree that running in line in only one direction facing only one mounted enemy armored and armed like you is just an exercise and will never be anything else than a preparation and a spectacle. In war, you charge with others, facing full army, people on foot, on horse, facing archery, facing pikemen, you have to manoeuvre, obey the general orders, find your way through when hit, defend yourself. The same way for speed archery. You learn a way of shooting that will never help you in war but it is still an exercise and it is still a good spectacle. I think sources about that are clear about that... Any reenacter now that is only doing jousting will not be able to fight in a real war situation back on those days. Any speedarcher will not be able to fight in a real war situation back on those days too.
Range vs effective range is and was the issue. I've heard estimates of range between 350 to 400 yds for medieval longbows. But the penetration of even a war arrow at that range was greatly reduced.
Sure, when you are standind upon hill and with wind in back, It could flew 0,5 mile easily. But on lot of medieval illuminations you can see archers fairly close to enemy, probably for the armor pierce potencial you´we mentioned and disrupting lines.. I´d assume that on average a most of shooting (bows/crossbows and even later arquebuzes)were done under 100meters range.
@@krystofcisar469 if I’m not mistaken, almost all of the art shows them pointing straight ahead at short distances unless they’re shooting up at people on a wall.
@@krystofcisar469 I agree. Turkish archers had shooting ranges and disciplines like far distance shooting, shooting moving targets, shooting a warbow fast enough. To pass the exam for being called an archer as written in one of the few books from medieval archery the turkish archer had to shoot further than 500m and close to 600m with two different arrows. hit moving targets, dont know the details there and shoot with the war bow three arrows at a target in 69m distance under a rope that was positioned over the shooting range. the third arrow had to be shot before the first arrow hit the target, thats three arrows in 1.5 sec. They had certain arrows for the far distance shooting sports, though.
I admire Lars, but I strongly disagree with his grasp on medieval/ancient warfare. Sure, at some point in time, there probably were tribes and tribal wars, where there were two relatively small, mostly unorganised groups of warriors, some of whom would be archers, fighting wildly without being in any formations. There it might be problematic to carry one´s arrows in a quiver, and an archer might actually run around, and might have to take opponents out with quick, although weak shots from up close. But in any later period, basically the only thing an archer in an army would really need - draw power - is the one thing Lars takes a huge dump on. Really, an archer in a large, organised army, would hardly move at all, certainly wouldn´t run and jump over shit, and wouldn´t even have to aim that well for most part - no point in trying to take out that guy in gambeson in the 6th row, 47th from the left, when there are dozens of targets around him. So I don´t think any of what Lars shows was actually particularly important or even very useful in medieval warfare.
The English long bowmen from back in the day were basically used almost like modern day artillery, but not all combat archery was identical. There are many examples of archers on horseback as well such as with the Mongols and these soldiers were basically the flankers and skirmishers of the ancient world. They were the sort of archers that used smaller compact recurve bows of only medium draw weight which they fired in rapid succession against soft targets.
late Roman archers skirmished and were highly mobile but had side quivers. but they also had heavier archers who stood in formation and acted like modern artillery and they had back quivers so it definitely depends on what the archer is intended to do on the battlefield.
You must understand that Lars took his material from Arab and Saracen archery, in those times (not in Europe, you all seem to think Europe is the only place on earth during antiquity) people would have small scale wars with relatively unarmored opponents (or light armor) and this kind of skill, especially on horse back or chariot, would be highly desirable to takeout multiple enemies quickly, or at least take someone out after missing
One point I'd like to weigh in with is that the 'Saracen "fast enough'", at least, assumes the arrows go some 69 meters downrange (AFAIK most hunters are taught on 18 meter ranges). This means that one needs a full draw on a moderately powerful bow. Similarly with the '11 arrows in the air simultaneously' feat, where more range means more time with which to shoot. I will grant that such may not favour war weight bows and certainly favours flight arrows, but it does place a cap on the shortcuts an archer might take.
I've noticed that documentaries praise the Asian composite bow over English longbow in every way in the same way as the Katana is praised of the European longsword. My problem with that is if it were that simple then Europe would have replaced their wooden bows with composites. What I want to know is what are the pros and cons of both types in comparison to each other?
buu678 The composite bow was no more powerful than the English longbow. But the shorter length was necessary for horse archers. The English longbow was only for foot archers, too unwiedly for horseback. A longbow could be made in a day, the composite bows might need a year of gluing, bending, steaming, smoking and curing.
pinz2022 Not in a day, no. Also takes skill and special kinds of woods etc. But not as long as a composite bows, you;re right. Not as expensive either.
buu678 The basic difference has to do with matching the arrows to the bow. Two bows with the same draw weight may have different speeds at which the limbs move. Asian composites were typically designed to move very fast. This is great for a light arrow, and you can get great speed and distance from the bow. Sometimes flight arrows from an Asian composite can fly for 1000 yards. English longbows were thicker and slower with heavier drawweights. They were suited for propelling comparatively heavy 1/4 lb arrows that were great at penetrating armor. Several battles of the 100 years war illustrate this. When you look at how Western knights fared against the Turks or Arabs, you can read accounts of well-armored knights looking like pin cushions from the mass of light arrows sticking in them, but who were unharmed because those arrows couldn't penetrate. Comparing the English Longbow to the central asian composite is like comparing a heavy axe to a rapier. Other advantages were that longbows were easier and faster to make, and the bows were more durable (no need to worry about the glue getting wet and the bow splitting apart as a result)
Horse archers used lighter bows compared to foot archers seeings how men on foot can pull a heavier bow. Horse archers used bows about 40-80+ pounds. Their range and power was their horses also why plains tribes used bows of 30-40 pounds.
Can't help it... have to comment here. First, I've studied horsebow use; which is what most of these short bows are and what the speed shooting is for. They were made for and the techniques designed for rapid arrow deployment while moving, either on a horse or running...but primarily from a horse. A few bows are still in existence from Asian tribes (IE: Mongolia) which have a draw weight of around 130 lbs. One document found actually showed this was the norm. An 80 pound bow would still be a sissy bow, for probably a teenager still gaining strength. The bows in today's archery world are the weight they are because people did not grow up from childhood building strength to shoot bows in order to protect their land AND conquer others. Second, you don't need to always hit someone with the full force of the bow when using the techniques they did. If I'm riding by people and I can quickly put 3 arrows in 3 different people as I pass within 10 yards of them, the arrows don't have to go through them. In fact, a partial draw and faster shot may be better if it puts an arrow with the barbed sharp point still stuck in their lungs or guts. Just like hitting a deer, if the arrow goes straight through its fine, but if it's lodged inside still, each step can tear things apart inside more. Leather and chain maile are not that great against this much power at close range. Though these bows can shoot far, the techniques people are using (Lars Anderson and Lajos Kassai). Would these techniques work well in a European battle field situation, likely not. That's why the long bows with the huge draw weights were implemented; to drop rainfalls of arrows from a long distance and penetrate armour at close distances. This was not for medieval European warfare. it would suck unless you were fast moving, like on a horse. I don't see either of these people saying it was for that type of warfare. Remember, 130 lb draw in a bio-composite reflexed bow with static tips. That's a ridiculously fast and hard hitting arrow; not the sissy weights we normally use now. So, this IS military archery; just not the kind people are trying to make it into. It's like comparing apples to ....waffles. Now, I do agree that Lars touts "lost techniques" when they've been having horsebow contests and people like Lajos Kassai have been speed shooting from horseback for years. He modified it some from old texts and got very good with light bows, but it's hardly a secret lost technique. He just refined it for his LARP.
Speed shooting was very important for the mounted archers of old. The fact that some people half draw nowadays when trying to replicate these ancient techniques is irrelevant.
+Eclipse Archery it is very much relevant, because half drawing considerably increases speed, but in the wrong way. If you impropperly replicate a technique it is utterly pointless.
In the form I'm most familiar with, skirmishing as part of a mixed army in Hellenistic Asia Minor, they had to be able to maneuver to get off a shot while wearing a shield on their bow arm to keep from being shot by someone else, not shoot 10 arrows as they gallop in a straight line. That technique may also have been used in pre-battle forays to put the enemy off balance.
I don't remember where I heard this, but I heard with speed shooting with horseback archery in a military context, it went like this: a tribe of 20-50 horseback archers come in running in your village (rapidly and now short range) and shoot everyone in the village, then either take the village as a new home or take the food, or just kill them all. If their warfare strategy was different, it doesn't make the lighter bows useless, it makes them useful for something different. Also in this context, people aren't wearing armor
Yeah, you're not going to be able to pull that off against a line of armoured soldiers with shields. Horse archery was mainly used to terrorize and to plunder, but it's not nearly as anti-everything else as people make it out to be.
+Lynneiah Armored soldiers, if not protected with their own cavalry, are going to be outflanked by skirmishing forces and break. Armored forces are the anvil, and cavalry the hammer. A lot of warfare was determined by superior cavalry, or which line would break first.
What you said about the lethality of arrows has puzzled me for a long time. I reasoned that an arrowhead that's made to penetrate armor would have a narrow cross section that, once past the armor, would injure the person inside, but not cause the instant kills that Hollywood leads to believe are common. On the other hand, a broad arrowhead is more likely to cause injury, or death by exsanguination; yet, be unlikely to penetrate armor. Given the above two premises, and what you've discussed in your last two videos, how was archery used on the battlefield? If archers rarely achieved penetrative hits, and if it took several penetrative hits to incapacitate or kill an enemy, were archers mainly used to drive the enemy off the battlefield? I reason that while rarely individually lethal, arrow wounds are still painful, and a human hedgehog must be horrific to look at.
you're forgetting that the majority of soldiers on a medieval battlefield we're not heavily armored. and as plate armor became more widely used, so did firearms.
after medical American sources in war against native Amerindians an arrow in the trunk (belly or chest) is lethal at 80%in the few days after injury at best. Hopefully for americans rifles was far more precise and lethal.
Thats one reason why a lot of cultures poisoned their arrows. Cermanic, celtic and slavic tribes for instance. You just need to thicken plant sap of very poisonous plants like yew, aconite (aka wolfs bane), white hellebore, etc. It was even tried to poison firearm bullets but as for nobody managed it due to the high temperature they made contracts not to use poisoned bullets just in case somebody else could manage it.
clubinglex What Matt meant was not really lethality per se but stopping power, when you're fighting in a battle your first priority was to get your opponent to stop fighting back rather than killing him. Arrows might or might not be as lethal as bullets in the end, but their ability to cause your opponent to cease combat immediately was a lot less.
The usual expectation through history is that missile equipped soldiers will use up all their ammunition before killing a single enemy target, on average. But they can still have a highly disruptive effect and can be used in conjunction with infantry or cavalry to break the enemy.
scholagladiatoria - I recently discovered your UA-cam videos. I must say I am very much impressed with your description of mid-evil devices. I have subscribed to your videos. Please keep making your videos. Good stuff.
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I had the same suspicions about Lars Anderson's video (but without any knowledge about archery), especially because it has very small snippets of footage, but I remember one shot (I mean, video shot) where he uses some kind of armor on the target. And that convinced me that he's either a.) right or b.) deliberately cheating or c.) doesn't know what kind of armor people wore. And for me c.) is the most unsettling option (I'm totally okay with fake videos).
NIce clarification.. I saw those vids before and wondered the same thing. It would be nice if you did a vid on how length of the bow, draw length, and draw weight are related to bows and also crossbows.
scholagladiatoria Matt: I love your work and would love to collaborate sometime, though on this particular video I have some points of disagreement to discuss if you would be so kind: 0. First thank you for clarifying about how bow hunting works :) Not everyone gets it. 1. "2:35": Long Range: While raining arrows at long range is practiced by many cultures to some degree or another, it is by no means the only way to employ archers in combat. Archers function at for long range bombardment, medium range pelting, and shorter range sharpshooting, all the way up to extremely short range shooting across melee battle lines. This of course depends on the style of warfare, situation, and the culture and time being discussed but long range bombardment is less common than many other applications of archers, indeed, it is the most expensive and least efficient way to employ archers... and is only available for a short period of time in a battle while the enemy is at a specific distance (which they are no doubt closing). 2. Thick Armor Piercing Arrows & High Draw Bows: Mr. Easton, you are clearly very very well versed in Medieval European martial arts and warfare, in particular of the English of the High Middle Ages (and later where we have all those useful manuals), which in other videos you do declare as your favorite period of study. However, it does seem you are applying things true of this cultural group to others where it does not apply so much as often. You do mention some other cultures as not fitting this mold, and indeed, you are right in Africa, South America, North America, and many other places in the world this does not hold true... indeed you may notice those 3 continents are a good percentage of Earth's landmass and have a good percentage of human cultures on them lol. Joking aside it is worth noting that the Heavy Hand Bow of Britain used from the 1300s to the 1500s is indeed the exception not the rule of archery... as are those horse archer cultures so famous for their expensive and technologically interesting composite bows. Such cultures often have major emphasis on raising children trained with archery so that they might use weapons of such power, but again few cultures make this focused sacrifice. Indeed, when you survey bows across history and geography the most commonly occurring bow is about 50 pounds, with the average being in the upper 60s, brought up by those strong archer cultures. Even in Europe when we are discussing the majority of archers other than the Welsh and English of the above period, most of them are using far weaker bows... certainly further back in history to the Classical period and beyond, You are of course correct that in most cases strong bows do need thick and heavier arrows, lest they bend too much when shot, or flat out break, and lower poundage bows do indeed lack the ability to shoot such heavy arrows well. But fewer cultures than implied ever needed bows to shoot arrows of such thickness. Also those Turkish flight arrows are crap against armor... but they are great at shooting arrows a great distance to rain down on enemies in little to no armor... even those in armor are likely to be demoralized or otherwise frightened, or worse hit in a noncovered area given enough people and arrows. 3. Weight for Combat: 40 to 50 pounds of draw is a sufficient weight for warfare, assuming the majority of your foes are wearing little to no armor, which as fortune has it is typical of most human cultures for the vast majority of human history. The military context for most of history features most of the people with very little armor. (which you have noted in other vids) Interestingly the Heavy Handbow of Britain starts at about 80 pounds (you needed to pull a bow of such weight to receive a proper Longbowmans pay), and from there goes up to 180 to 200 pounds... however, this is again an exception in the world of archery. For most of the world 80 pounds would be considered an extremely powerful bow and would not be expected as it was in that context. Again, great knowledge of Medieval Warfare (even moreso Medieval Britain), but it doesn't apply to most of human warfare. 4. Arrows and Stopping Power Damage etc.: While many arrow heads do have rather modest damage amount, indeed, most arrowheads designed for armor penetration focus on putting all their energy in as small a place as possible and therefore do not result in much damage other than their raw penetration. Broadheads (as you mention) do address that rather well, not only increasing bloodloss but also cutting flesh and tendons with those blood vessels, as well as increasing surface area of all damage including organ damage, this greatly increases the stopping power of an arrow... but then again so does higher draw weight (and more massive arrows) which results in deeper wounds given the same arrow and head... bullets tend to be more deadly due to depth of penetration due to more energy in the bullet than typical in arrows. It is worth noting that Broadhead arrows are more common in warfare than armor piercing types like bodkins, because, again, most soldiers on most battlefields wear little to no armor. The other issue with threat and stopping power everyone and their mother forgets about is poison on the arrow... that increases stopping power and lethality immensely and is another reason lighter bows are often more than sufficient given no armor. Interestingly enough poison also helps against armored foes where a minor wound now becomes a far more serious one. But arrow poison is highly uncommon in your above mentioned area of specialty High Medieval Europe and Britain particularly. If you'd like to know more on that topic it is a specialty of mine... but I fear this has already gone on too long. 5. Speed shooting: Dude here you are totally correct! In most speed shooting vids the bows are stupid weak... like 30 or 35... often not even being pulled with thumb or three finger but pulled from the nock, I seriously doubt many cultures used such techniques. That said many cultures did use speed shooting, I for one practice said art... and I was inspired to do so by that very video on ancient archery being discussed... though I prefer to do it at a fuller draw with a heavier bow. Tl:dr version: Bows don't need to be super heavy with thick arrows as seen in Medieval Britain. About 50 is enough for most people in history after all most soldiers in history wore little to no armor. Also broadheads and poison make arrows way more lethal with greater stopping power, and are used way more often than armor piercing or other low damage stuff. Also bows get used way more at ranges closer than raining death super far away, which is wasteful and expensive anyway. Also I love your stuff and you are totally right about speed shooting at low draws poundages with low draw lengths.
Old post but I do have to disagree with some of your points. When you talk about other cultures and how they represent majority keep in mind that only applies if we talk about number of those cultures or territory they cover maybe. But in terms of relevance, majority of cultures we learn about and cultures who did make impact, they did use armor and archery worked in different way than what "acrobatic " modern archers tell us. That's why those cultures became powerful, and if we are going to use any examples when it comes to archery and fighting, shouldn't that come from countries (and cultures) who were actually good at fighting? Short range archery was foolish from the moment certain civilization started using armor and in some cases even before that. Keep in mind that even less developed cultures usually always used spears and having archers going against spears wouldn't end up well. You can check on some videos to see how little it takes attacker armed with knife to get to victim armed with handgun. It really gives you another perspective on how distance is important and in actual fight, archers would struggle to keep enough distance in order for a fight to be called short range.
In my neck of the woods the International Archery on Horse Back competition used to be held and people from Korea and Mongolia and Taiwan were always the highest winners.
"Speed shooting" seems to be the archery equivalent of dual wielding. Yeah, it's gonna make you look cool and badass, but it's also going to make you useless or dead.
"Dual Wielding" Saw some use in duels or civilian situations where there was only a single other person using weapons that could be easily carried (Rapier and dagger? I think there was some discussion on how the dagger was in some ways better than the buckler at catching thrusts), or of course the classic Shield+Some other one handed weapon
I'm practicing fast shooting with these kind of bows, and I always pull the string to it's limit (something like 30 inches). Maybe I will upload a video about it to my channel as well. However I don't agree that bullets are always more deadly than arrows. It depends on many aspects, like what king of arrows and what kind of bullets you use. Anyway the reason we use guns way more than bows today is mainly the fact it is more accurate, has higher rate of fire and needs realy a short time of training.
Sunshine Ray Well, Torc's comment is under this video so you didn't really had to say that unless he's an idiot, but for now he didn't gave us any reason to think so, so... why do you said it?
While this was the greatest volume of fire achievable, such levels of near superhuman prowess were unsustainable. Over prolonged periods -- i.e. more than eight minutes, ten would render lasting damage to your muscles -- such incessant exertion would put your archer out of action for the day due to horrific fatigue. No one would have had the arrows anyway: one of the most prized items in baggage trains of the Hundred Years War for the English were arrows; special Royal commissions were set up to regulate their production and transport with heavy fines incurred for disruption.
Rifle ammunition is much more effective than arrows. Handgun ammunition just pokes a hole as arrows do. It doesn't have the velocity of rifle ammunition to exhibit other wounding mechanisms beyond simply penetrating and transversing the body and the physical displacement and cutting that entails. Shotguns are the same but with many projectiles hitting at once they cause much more damage than handguns. The wounding potential of an arrow with an appropriate broadhead is greater than that of a typical handgun round (say 9mm Parabellum) with hollow-point ammunition (which causes more wounding than military full metal jacket ammo). But considering that a bow is a primary weapon comparable to a long gun, I suppose it is fair to say firearms are more powerful. A firearm of similar size is definitely more powerful. A large bow may be as powerful as a handgun but a handgun is much more powerful than those little novelty crossbows of similar size. Plus we have repeating firearms. But in the 19th century if you had the time and resources to master a weapon the bow remained on par with firearms. I'd take a bow over any muzzleloader if I was expert in skill. But it had major advantages over 19th century lever-actions and revolvers like quietness and reliability. In the beginning of the 20th century you get semi-automatic and fully-automatic firearms as well as silencers to make the bow generally obsolete. Of course, of you have the ability to become a trick shooter you can be deadly with almost any ranged weapon. Trick shooters with single-action revolvers can outshoot soldiers with modern assault rifles. There exist people who can draw, fire and manually recock six times, then holster their weapon before you hardly notice they've drawn. You just hear what sounds like one gunshot. Even if I was much better armed I wouldn't want to face off against anyone with that level of skill, even with an atatl.
"A large bow may be as powerful as a handgun" bows don't shatter bones with the pull of a finger " you get semi-automatic and fully-automatic firearms as well as silencers to make the bow generally obsolete" no, black powder firearms 4 centuries earlier made them obsolete " But it had major advantages over 19th century lever-actions and revolvers like quietness and reliability" no, it simply didn't, the guns of the period were extremely reliable........ and who cares about sound?
Very valid points but as I learned in Japan, there was not just one type of bow used in combat. Yes, the battlefield bows were enormous, very powerful and could shoot relatively heavy arrows a long way but with an increase in draw weight comes a trade off in accuracy. Heavy powerfull battlefield bows were used in formations where accuracy of the individual archer was secondry to their ability to work as a group to deliver co-ordinated volleys of arrows to a designated target area. It also meant the use of heavy gloves. This is the same for all styles of bow construction regardles of it was an English, Mongol, Korean or Japanese bow. The point is, they were battlefield bows. The samurai kept small lightweight bows for home defence and average Ninja bows were normally short recurves of 35 - 40# which were used for both hunting and fighting Often they carried very short bows of only 12 - 15# when infiltrating enemy strongholds etc. When you are shooting unarmoured / semi armoured opponents from close range you dont need much power but you have to have speed and accuracy. The bows they used from horseback were not as powerful as the battlefield bows. Likewise, the Mongols carried two bows. One was a 35 - 40# bow for use from horse back and the other was a 70 - 90# bow for use from the ground. Its like trying to argue that only a bolt action rifle in 338 lappur magnum is of any use in a military because all engagements take place in mountain terrain and there is no place for firearms such as a Heckler&Koch MP5 in 9mmP or for an asualt rifle in 5.56mm NATO.
Fantastic video and we at Ares Tactical Solutions agree. Look for a video coming out soon from us regarding similar material in regards to stunt shooting vs war time archery in a modern context. Many of the same issues spoken about here. I will say that the issue regarding bullets vs arrows is a bit of a tough one to tackle because we're talking two different sorts of wounds. Typically, the primary cause of death is the permanent wound channel causing blood loss. Comparing a bullet size to an arrow size w/ broadhead shows the arrow leaving a larger wound channel. A through and through shot from an arrow would actually be ideal if hitting center mass and severing the spine for an instant central nervous system stop. Rifles, of course, are different due to the excessive fragmentation and massive temporary wound channel so there is no comparison in that department. Temporary wound channel is only an issue when talking non-elastic organs and vessels. At the end of the day, as if bullets, there is no magic formula other than hitting your mark and driving an arrow into the kill zone whether armored or not
Surely horse archers would have used the techniques Lars displayed quite regularly if they were professional horse archers, especially at close range. I mean we've seen how accurate lars has become after practicing these techniques, I wouldn't put it past professional horse archers of old to be accurate enough to just shoot through gaps in an enemies armour.
I would definitely put it past them. When you're moving amidst an army shooting at targets amidst an army you can't aim for gaps in armour. Think about the people on both sides blocking either you or your target and just the movement of the target meaning the gaps in their armour are constantly moving. In a small ambush or a skirmish maybe, big maybe but in battle flat out no. Also shields.
Robert Rutledge Are you forgetting the parts in Lars' video where he's literally doing things like shooting arrows out of the air. Lars doesn't even have to depend on his skills to survive yet he managed to get to that level. Imagine how rigorously a real archer would have trained in those styles to ensure their survival in the heat of combat. I know if I was a professional horse archer I'd be basically doing nothing but training in my spare time. Lars talks about (and demonstrates) how he has trained to a point where extremely accurate fast shooting has become second nature to him. It's not even a question of whether it's possible, it's more a question of whether real professional horse archers would have trained to the level Lars has. I can quite easily imagine veteran professional horse archers being as good or better than Lars is in these techniques and using those techniques quite often. Quite frankly I think Lars has discovered and demonstrated exactly why horse archers were so feared and effective throughout the ages. Calling his video nothing more than circus tricks just reeks of envy to me, circus tricks my arse, Lars is no clown. If anyone would like to think it's so ineffective I dare you to go to Lars' next demonstration and stand in the way of all his arrows wearing chain mail, let me know how that works out, I doubt you'd be getting back to me any time soon though. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying all horse archers were explicitly trained in these techniques, but being able to do the kind of things Lars can at close range (and as a horse archer being close range to anything probably meant you were in quite a bit of trouble) would be absolutely invaluable. I'd definitely want to be able to do all the things Lars can do if it ever came to that situation. I can't see why any professional horse archer would deem those kind of skills unnecessary.
Chronologger No I'm not forgetting those parts. Yes, he shoots an arrow out of the air. Amazing reaction time but at the point he shoots it it's literally like 1 foot away from him and the incoming arrow is in an otherwise controlled environment and it doesn't try to dodge. Lars' skill is impressive but it doesn't translate into RELIABLY hitting exposed parts of armour in the heat of pitched battle. Then you get all the problems of his bow being very weak and not fulling drawing the arrows which translates into unviably short range and lack of power.
Say what you like about lack of power and whatnot. He demonstrated that he can loose 3 arrows at an armoured moving target in quick succession and all arrows pierced the chain mail and gambeson underneath, so I'm not really buying that argument since the evidence goes against it. Maybe those skills wouldn't translate into being super accurate all the time, but it's clear he could rain down arrows on someone very quickly. The way I'm thinking these techniques were used in practice is as a sort of last resort in an emergency. No, there weren't horse archer formations pulling off sik nasty 360 nodraws all day, but I think in the heat of battle with so many targets moving around, some of them probably getting quite close through circumstances, shooting at an enemy quickly just to make some space between you or to just kill them quickly would have been very valuable. You know how the saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures.
Chronologger About the armour: it wasn't really proper armour and chainmail was almost never the outer layer anyway (normally plate or brigandine at least). And yes, he can hit a moving target. That's not what I was saying, the main problem is things on both sides constantly blocking either your shot or your target. Second big difference is the general confusion and chaos of a battle, you can't just zone in on that one guy (or 3 guys) you want to shoot. Possibly if you were being mobbed by unarmoured peasants it might be viable but otherwise it's better to fire 1 good shot that actually has a chance of putting down an opponent, then drawing your backup weapon.
scholagladiatoria I just wanna say Matt that fast archery was indeed a feature of military training in many Middle Eastern cultures. We do know from the Mamluk furusiyya that a well trained Mamluk was expected to loose three arrows in one and a half second, and the Mamluks inherited this military tradition from the Sassanian Persians. How powerful these arrows were we didn't know, but since these were military archers I imagined they probably at least decent, perhaps effective against lightly armored enemies.
Wait what, three arrows in one and a half second? Dear God, they'd be out of arrows in half a minute! Do you have any sources or something for that, I'd love to read about it, had no idea Mamluks were early machinegunners.
The original quote was from a Mamluk military manual written in 1368, translated into English into a book called "Saracen Archery". You can check it out in your local library if it's available. Aside from that it's widely quoted by many historian of the period in secondary sources, including David Nicolle who wrote most of the Osprey works on the Crusades. The topic is explored in depth in the following books: War and Society in the Eastern Mediterranean: 7th - 15th Centuries, by Yaacob Lev Crusader Warfare: Muslims, Mongols and the struggle against the Crusades, by David Nicolle Mongols and Mamluks: The Mamluk-Ilkhanid War, 1260-1281, by Reuven Amitai Preiss Now I actually don't think the Mamluk was using powerful bows when they were shooting, the tactic is in my opinion used primarily against nomadic horse archers opponents who tended to gallop into short range to shoot and wore little armor, while their horses would be unarmored. David Nicolle postulated that the Mamluk would only began shooting when their opponents were perhaps 75 yards away and closing rapidly on horseback. Against this the machine gun like Mamluk shooting would have been devastating.
***** They weren't expected to shoot an arrow every half second. The 3 arrows in one and a half second thing was a test... you load your hand with two arrows with one already nocked and then shoot the three in that span. Not something you do sustained.
Gehrig RFC This. Compare this training to, say, Mad Minute - you'd only rarely see that one used in actual battle, and i bet this was similar. Also, they probably did draw their bows properly...
Arrows shot from high draw weight bows also need to be thick so they're strong enough to withstand the stress of rapid acceleration. If an arrow is too thin and weak for the bow it's being shot from, it can break and wind up being shot through the archer's hand.
My dad told me that when he was a teenager he went hunting out in a prairie after school. I imagine the bow was probably about 45-50lb draw with modern hunting arrows. He saw a pheasant, took aim, pulled the string to full draw and released the arrow just as his friend jumped up and said, "HEY DAVE!" right in front of him. He shot his friend in the head at fairly close range, I'd say 10-15 yards and the doctors said that if the boy hadn't worn his hat, a rolled up beanie, the arrow would have killed him. A rolled up cloth winter type hat was enough "armor" to stop an arrow from killing someone. So clearly, some guy trick shooting with modern arrows, lower powered bow, without drawing the string back far enough probably wouldn't be effective against someone even in light cloth armor. Maybe if the tips were poisoned and could penetrate enough to deliver that toxin, it could be useful, like they did with the Chinese cho-ko-nu repeater crossbows. Another lesson here is: don't be a fucking dingus and jump in front of someone with a weapon.
Worth pointing out that your average full metal jacketed bullet (which is the most common type in military use) does the same thing as an arrow - make a clean, narrow hole in the body. Not really any more effective. Less, in many cases, because arrows can penetrate more. Things like 'stopping power' are really not a thing for most bullets that can be fired out of man-portable small arms. It's only when you start getting into bullets like .50cals and the like that the force gets to the point where tearing and wounding happens beyond the tissue that's actually in the path of the bullet. Hollowpoints (common in non-military or SF applications) and fragmenting bullets (rare) can do more damage, but really not by much. Think armor piercing arrow vs. broad-headed arrow. We don't really use guns because they do more damage than bows, because for the most part they really don't (common infantry small-arms, anyway). We use guns because they're more compact, their ammo is more compact, they can fire more ammo really quickly and more accurately at longer ranges, and they are easier to train to effectiveness.
I get the impression that the heaviest bows must do more damage than the lightest pistols, but that heavy rifles (say the FN-FAL/SLR 7.62mm) do significantly more damage than the heaviest man-portable bows.
simontmn 7.62x51 is powerful, but it's not quite to the level where it starts to inflict secondary damage, like tissue tearing. It's size, weight, and speed do give it better range, ballistics (resistance to wind), and penetration, but at the end of the day it still just makes a 7.62mm wide hole in a person. An war arrowhead is probably of similar width or wider. Only the big bullets from mounted guns or things like .50cal sniper rifles start to have the sheer kinetic impact to do secondary damage. Shot placement is key. If you don't hit vitals, all you're doing is making them bleed. Works the same as with bows. What makes a gun more dangerous than a bow is that modern firearms can fire projectiles at a higher rate, more accurately, farther, and with less weight and training.
umm... bullets tumble. and they are fast. humans consist of water. water cannot compress. speedy bullet hits human, hydrostatic shock. bullet tumbles inside human, large internal and exit wound.
rahadian panji oki Bullets tumble...sometimes. There aren't any bullets that are purposely DESIGNED to, and we've not figured out how to consistently generate the effect. Some rounds tend to tumble more than others (the 7.62x39 is known for it). As for hydrostatic shock, that effect, while real, is vastly overestimated. Any normal handgun, most assault rifle, and even many main battle rifle rounds (like the 7.62x51) do not have enough kinetic energy to reliably produce damage with this effect. The body is made of mostly water, but it is not CONCENTRATED water that cannot compress. The water is distributed in our tissues and organs. MOST of the tissues and organs in the body are very elastic, and CAN compress greatly without damage. And the weaker rounds simply cause temporary, non-damaging deformation of the surrounding tissue. You can get minor damage from the temporary wound cavity with service battle rifle rounds, especially if the round passes close by one of the more rigid organs in the body, but you have to start getting up to .50 BMG and similar rounds before the kinetic energy transfer is really great enough to start creating consistent tearing of the surrounding tissue due to the hydrostatic effect. The FBI has done significant amounts of testing on this topic. If you can get your hands on any FBI ballistics testing reports, they're good reading. Also check the International Wound Ballistics Association for other good ballistics reports (probably easier to find than the FBI reports).
***** I shot my last deer at 300 yards with a .30-06 (using 165gr. bullets at 2800fps). At about that range its hitting with about as much force as 7.62 NATO 147gr. FMJ at 100 or so yards. I hit in the mid-neck, severing the spinal cord. But there was significant meat damage all the way down the to the collarbone, a good six to ten inches away from the entry and exit wounds. Granted, I was using expanding bullets, but the bullets I use tend to retain a great deal of their weight, and very little of the damage was caused by fragmentation of the bullet itself. Most of it was caused by bone splintering and hydrostatic shock, both of which are going to happen with any kind of bullet packing that much energy. Also, 7.62x39mm doesn't tumble very well; you're thinking of 5.56x45mm NATO 55 gr. M193 round. The Soviets tried to imitate the tumbling of the M193 round and came up with the 5.45x39mm round, but it didn't really work all that well.
Arrows kill by exsanguination -- by blood loss, though they can cause blunt-injury trauma as well. They have little or no shock effect. Also, really good armor will -usually- stop most hits even by quite heavy bows with first-class bodkin points; English longbow armies got their effect by -mass- shooting, so that everyone in the target zone would be hit multiple times -- some killed, some wounded, all bruised and battered. Even so, many men-at-arms always came through the killing ground to engage the English men-at-arms. They just weren't in condition to fight very effectively once they did, being exhausted, hurt and demoralized. By way of contrast, a musket will decisively penetrate any practical armor every time it hits. When you throw in the advantages of ease of use and short training period, it's a superior weapon -in military terms-, even though a longbow has advantages in range, accuracy and rate of fire over most smoothbore weapons.
Another reason that you would want a heavier arrow is for momentum. The higher the momentum of an object the more likely it is to try to keep going forward after an impact. IF YOU JUST WANT TO KNOW MY POINT SKIP TO THE LAST PARAGRAPH. If you had two arrows fired from the same bow they will have the same amount of kinetic energy imparted to both of them. Ke=1/2MV^2 So now I will set one of the arrows at half the weight of the other. The light weight arrow will be little m and its velocity little v. Since the kinetic energies are equal we can say: 1/2mv^2=1/2MV^2 Now I substitute M/2 for little m and solve the equation for little v. v^2= (MV^2)/(M/2)= 2V^2 v= √(2) * V Ok, so this makes sense right? The half weight arrow travels at a faster speed. Faster is better right? But lets look at momentum. P=MV So momentum equals mass times velocity. again little p will be the half weight arrow and big P will be the heavy arrow. Lets see how the equations look. P=MV p=mv = M/2 * √(2) * V therfore p=P*√(2)/2 = P/√(2) (√(2)=~1.41) 1/1.41=~ .709 So from an arrow at half the weight fired from the same bow would only have about 71% of the momentum. That means that it is more likely to stop when it impacts an object. Not to mention the breaking thing you mentioned. Momentum is a concept that is often overlooked compared to kinetic energy, but I would like to do some videos discussing why it is so important to martial arts.
I question your draw weight assumption. The composite bows used by the Mongols required less pull to use (I see estimates from 55-60 lbs) but they were the premier weapon of the most successful military in history. In 1241 a Mongol expeditionary force (est. 20000-40000 strong) dominated a Hungarian heavy Calvary army that was preparing for the crusades (60000 strong). I think it is true that in the style of warfare where stationary archers support heavy Calvary/infantry that heavier bows are needed, but in close-range kinetic warfare, even light bows could have been used effectively. In either case shooting more quickly would provide significant advantage.
You make some very good points. I agree. The way I see it is you want to get the most potential out of your bow both in power and speed. So though you may not be able to throw arrows down range at an alarming rate with good practice you can still be pretty fast.
Pretty spot on. Drawing a 30lb bow all the way back really fast vs a 70+lb bow is two different animals. Most hunting long bows don't exceed 50lbs because accuracy due to the archers paradox suffers at anything greater. Most war bows were 100+lbs draws and their only purpose was flinging a super heavy arrow as far as possible. En masse it was very effective because a 800+gr arrow out of a 100+lb longbow will pretty much blow through any shield or armor every made back then. You were pretty much hoping the shield slowed it enough to limit penetration, or it deflected off if it was a steel shield.
The thickness of the shaft of the war arrows is a function of flex you need for heavier draw bows. It doesn't matter if the arrow breaks on impact as long as the arrowhead has the momentum that the bow imparted on it and it's traveling such that it hits with the point.
Referring to the Lars Anderson vids? XD Mayhaps speed shooters were occasionally mixed into the ranks of archers to increase the number of arrows raining down on the enemy and ruin their morale. Most likely not, but that's the only use for them I can think of.
This is pure speculation on my part but I think speed shooting techniques would have the best use in horse archer skirmishes. You rush into your effective shooting range, release your 5 arrows within 5 horse strides (it's most accurate to shoot when all four hooves are in the air) and quickly get out of the enemies' effective range again.
simontmn So obviously, knights caught on, and that's why they started talking to their horses in german profanities. www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/charlesv142488.html
Akhilleus A pretty good speculation though. I believe one pattern would be, that as the commanders try to position their armies favorably for a pitched battle, you have raiders just creating as much chaos for the enemy as possible to help their side get situated well. When the armies have their camps, raids, with light cavalry sent out to fight back, with all parties avoiding serious conflict in favor of creating havoc.
For all the guys going "but Lars Andersen" think about it like this: Bob Munden (fastest pistol shooter) is an exceptional gunslinger and his skills are very impressive. However, that doesn't translate into capability in modern combat. Munden's skills wouldn't prevent him from being sniped from 2 kilometres away.
For some reason, your comment made me picture a speed shooter getting sniped, only for the disembodied voice of a twelve-year-old to shout from the sky, "FUCKING CAMPER!"
i dont think people get sniped that easily at 2 kilometres. most fights happen at 100-400 meters only. even modernday marksmen would get kills at the 400-500+ meter range. the concept of long range fights was lost when assault rifles replaced submachine guns and infantry rifles, and designated marksman rifles took the role of longer range shooting. you cant even see a human at around 500 meters. getting kills at 2 kilometres is almost a miracle and almost never happen. even the top farthest kill was a miracle. the shooter that time was blessed with a good rifle, good ammo, and a good scope. he got a kill thanks to his sniping skills, and also luck. in normal combat scenarious that would not happen at all. unless of course, if youre in a tank or something. and you snipe people with your main gun and machine guns. you can get kills beyond 4 kilometers, and with guided missiles you can go even at 8-10 kilometers or something.
some arrow heads, like modern hunting heads (triangles on 90º from each other) can have a dire penetration wound and normally doesn't have a exit wound (because flesh and bone resist). The old eastern "frog" arrow head do a cut wound instead piercing, doing a really messy wound.
Well it seems that Lars Andersen released a new video and people are going crazy over it... linking this over in reddit threads so hopefully some folks can get a better idea of the reality of it...
The popularity of Andersen's video basically means that the general public's perception of historical archery is ruined, probably for several years. It is really appalling how they presented trick shooting as historical archery to get more views.
See, I don't doubt that the technique was used in limited engagements, for example, on horseback against unarmored/lightly armored targets... but by no means do I feel that it is at ALL representative of actual military archery from the perspective of most battles which took place while archery was prevalent. And yet now people seem to be convinced that this is the one true way of using a bow, and that... is very sad.
I think the main problem is people watch the Lars Andersen video and take it as fact. Too few people have been exposed to real archery. Most haven't even held a bow in their life. I watched the video and thought he was very talented and entertaining, but some of the outrageous claims people make about him make me facepalm. I also cringe when he says he has discovered the "lost arts" of archery. Would love to see those historical manuscripts.
did not the video by Lars Anderson demonstrate that his arrow could penetrate mail? sure it were probably at close range ~20meters but if you're speedshooting you're probably doing it because you're engaging a a pesant army (who did not have armor, and which most of europe's armies were composed of during the middle ages) at close range.
We don't rly know what armor and how well made it was. I love Lars video, but it feels a little bit strange. I feel like it really penetrated chainmail (which is weird if we remember how much force his arrows had), but I don't feel like it did any damage to the target behind it.
Jack Harsel how much force you say? enough force to split an arrow in half instead of the arrows bouncing off eachother. Seams like they got a fair bit of force behind them. Also he put 10 arrows or so into the air before the first one hit the ground. You'd have to shoot a fair distance to allow you the time to do that, and all arrows were grouped together.
Gert van den Berg sure, but there has to be sufficent force to cause them not to deflect off eachother, certainly a potent arrow at close ranges, was my point. It is still an extreme feat to pull off.
From its appearance alone (pattern on the leather backing), looks like the bow was made by Toth Zoltan, a bowyer and master craftsman whose work I've had great experiences with.
Sigh, looks like speed-shooting cultism is the new thing, along with katana cultism. I'm so glad Lars got 27 million views. Now the loudest opinions will be the ones that are assumed to be correct. :D
Just a point towards the end of the video, the other reason we use guns (or guns took over from bows as the favoured ranged weapon) is that it takes far less time to train someone to use a musket than it does for them to become proficient with a bow.
When it comes to the terminal ballistics of bullets and arrows, they both actually leave neat straight wounds for the most part. Bullets can tumble and thus widen the permanent wound cavity, as well as fragment. But in general both arrows and bullets leave a channel along the path they travelled. The big thing is that when it comes to determining the lethality of bullet wounds, one factor trumps all others and for arrows it would be the same. Namely shot placement. If the bullet or arrow fails to hit a vital organ like the heart or central nervous system, the target can survive their injuries for a very long time, maybe even permanently. Taking this into account, it is the greater accuracy of modern firearms as to why guns are more lethal than arrows. You will find that when it comes to bullets, especially handgun rounds, there are huge debates over which is better or more lethal. Usually debates devolve into one camp claiming that the bigger the bullet the better, because of it's greater wounding potential. And certain arrowheads as you know are much the same in that regard. Leaving absolutely massive wounds in flesh. But it still always comes down to where you actually hit your opponent and how deep the wound goes. The smallest bullet into the heart will kill you while the biggest bullet through the foot will not. (At least not in a timely manner) Just thought I would clear that up. P.S. Terminal Ballistics is a sub-field of study that studies the behaviour of projectiles when it hits it's target. Be it an armoured tank or a soft squishy person.
Terry Jones Crusade documentary(1995) seems to support Lars point of view. Terry points out that crusader infantry could receive as many as 40 arrows from Arab horse archers during a days march with no ill effects. Rapid, accurate fire from light weight bows with light weight arrows.
Something else that gets under my skin is all the people that see thos kinds of videos and say that means that bows are better weapons then crossbows because of the rate of fire. Or the have watched those shows that compare the speed by showing a light longbow against a crossbow that needs a crank. Not the kind you just need a stirrup and no mention of making a repeating crossbow. They will also say a bow will defeat heavy plate but that's another problem. so the see the difference in rate of fire between a light bow against the heaviest crossbow they can find. No because most of these bow fanboys would struggle to hit someone's vitals at 10-20 meters with a properly pounded bow but might stand a chance with a crossbow.
illyounotme You can build self feeding crossbows that seem just as fast or even faster then allot of people with bows. I am not just talking about those little Chinese ones that would struggle to kill a rabbit. there are also the siege ones that will always be faster then an equivalent bow because you would never find anyone that could draw it.
Only seen super weak ones for sale but there are videos on youtube showing home made ones. it is mostly a matter of adding a gravity or spring powered magazine to the top.
NoBSSurvival You are correct that repeating crossbows are very weak historically... also not particularly accurate either. While modern technology might be able to make faster crossbows, such things did not occur in history... at least not the sort that are faster than a fast archer. If you have evidence of such a thing please link I'd love to see it. I for one can shoot 4 arrows out of a bow over 50 pounds in 8 seconds and 7 in about 16 seconds... if you've got a HISTORICAL crossbow thats faster than that please let me know. Also keep in mind a crossbows are less efficient in terms of amount force in the draw transferring to the target due to shorter draw length and lighter bolts.
illyounotme But it is not quiet true, longbow are as weapon better than crossbowes, but the logistic is just so bad :P Longbow need a long time to practice, in fact whole life, and crossbow's were very easy to shot, to lern, etc. Simple fact only in england was posibly to creat large unit of longbowmen, becasue of free pesant who were obligated to pratice.
I did once see a Chinese one that you had to span by pushing it out with your legs while seated which would be the only high powered and high speed repeating crossbow I have seen that is historical other then the ancient Greek repeating siege crossbow.
The difference for bows in hunting versus guns is the shock damage a bullet does. The expansion of the bullet does the damage and distributes the energy over a larger area (a muzzleloader ball does not create the same shock damage). An arrow, properly placed such as in the lungs or arteries, will make the animal bleed out very quickly, relying on blood loss to kill. However, an arrow not placed to cause a quick bleedout will be much less effective. A friend (who does A LOT of hunting) shot a black bear in the head with a bow (obviously killing it because of the brain shot), and it was very messy dressing it because it did not produce the same blood loss that a heart area shot does.
This is like saying a guy who shoots a basketball from 3 point range can't shoot a lay up. The Mongols were famous for speed shooting. Did they kill instantly like on tv. Probably not but the next wave was coming. A skill like speed shooting would be just another tool in your tool box just like long range shooting. Why do you think armies have units made up of different skills. Situation and Terrain dictate. Stop acting like every thing you like is a religion. It was that sort of thinking that caused so many casualties in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Marching out into clear fields in large groups using the tactics developed for swords and shields.
+teejay Trujillo Speed shooting is/were useful in a number of ways, Matt didn't dispute that. What he rightly disputed is the validity of Lars technique can be used in warfare, which consists of: - drawing the bow at most a third of its draw length - shooting light targets from relatively close range - shooting light arrows - from a relatively weak bow (~30lbs) This technique renders his arrows harmless annoyance, which is not really useful in a combat situation.
+teejay Trujillo No it's more like saying just because you can throw 30 balls 5 feet in 30 seconds doesnt mean any will go in the basket. It's pointless. The way most people speedshoot wouldnt even hurt normal civilians much less be a good idea in war. Wow the enemy has unloaded his quiver already, he's so fast. Yeah lucky for us none of his arrows hurt anyone...and now he's dead
+teejay Trujillo how many arrows do you think a quiver realisticly can have in them and you are still able to shoot an hit targets at speed. how big of the % actually hit with enough force to kill through armor. and last if it is so awsome why was it not wide spread in use in war?
No. What I'm saying is that anyone who can shoot that fast and accurate can also slow down to be more precise. My military weapon had either a burst or full auto selection on it. Was it practical for every target? No, but when you needed suppressive fire it was "the ticket". Who knows if archery like that was not used to slow down breachers long enough to get the big pot of hot oil ready? To answer your question, a quiver could hold any where from 10 to 15, but they also had quivers attached to their saddles in the case of the Mongols. Lars appears to be able to hit the target at speed. In a duel, he would only have to be a fraction of a second faster than you with your compound bow. A squad of guys like that who could shoot and get back behind cover would be invaluable. It is a technique that modern soldiers use now and have for decades. They are called individual movement techniques. Some are rolling after you're down, rolling before you get up, not using he same cover repeatedly. Guys that stand in lines get killed no matter how well they shoot. I cannot convince you. Just go to some playground and challenge some guy doing trick shots with a basketball to a game of one on one for money. If you're into hockey, just find a guy who knocks over individual cans with the puck who can skate fast frontwards and backwards.
Thank you !! I noticed the same thing with these half draw shooting tactics. It's impressive and fun to do , i cant do it ill add, but unless those are poison tipped arrows. Half drawing your bow is a waste of the bows power isn't it ?
if they can minimize the loading time more than a normal technique wouldn't that make it better regardless of draw length ? i think its probably best to look at how the mongolian horse people load their arrows.
If you have a 150-200 pound draw-weight bow and you draw it back half way for quick shooting you'll get the equivalent of a 50-70 pound bow. At close range against lightly armored targets this could be very effective. I think it could work great in war provided you have a very powerful bow.
scholagladiatoria Yeah, Lars Andersen is amazing, but even he admits that he's using a weak bow. As you mentioned in other videos, not even a powerful bow at full draw will pierce the best armor, so I agree that quick shooting is highly contextual.
According to historical researches, the average draw-weight of a war-bow (the name given to the very powerful version of the traditional longbow, used by the most trained archers during sieges to defend the castle and reach great distances in order to decimate the enemies army) was around 100-120 pounds. Keep in mind that , a draw weight that high requires an incredible amount of strenght to fully draw the bow. Infact, many archers (you'll never see it in a movie because it's totally uncool) in order to fully draw those bows, used to rely on their legs instead of their arms. (true story, they used to stop the bow body with the legs drawing it with both arms , becoming a sort of human crossbow ) . that said i never found historical testimonies of war bows with 150-200 pound draw weight power. It's an insane amount and will be impossible to use , at least to have a minimum of accuracy while shooting . Anyway i can guarantee that a 50 pound bow will do the job perfectly. i use mine to hunt wild boars and believe me, the wild boar skin is incredibly hard to penetrate. another very important fact is given by the arrows. Modern archers and modern bows (like compound bows) relies on high power amounts (70-80 pounds) and very light arrows. A light arrow generally has less power but it's far more accurate so they kinda resolve it with the bow power , but in the case of a recurve bow, if you use wooden arrows, which are very very heavy arrows, you'll certainly loose some accuracy on long rage shots, but you'll gain critical amount of power even with a 50 pound bow (for instance, my 50 pounds recurve bow has the same power of a 70-80 pounds compound bow used with light arrows . And for instance, you cannot use a compound bow with heavy arrows) some people tend to increase the weight of their arrows by putting on it heavier arrow heads. sorry for my english though :)
Steinwayer Yes, very few war bows in history were as powerful as the English longbow, which is what I had in mind, and averaged between 80-120 pounds draw weight. 200 pounds would be the upper limit drawn by a tall and very strong man. Researchers found that longbows recovered from the Mary Rose had a draw weight ranging from 150-185 pounds. Also remember that armor and distance play a roll and that at half-draw, for speed shooting, you will only get about 1/3 of the power you would at full draw. That's just my estimate, but I doubt it's any more that that. That's a good point about arrow types and weight. If a heavy wooden arrows would do more damage than modern aluminum arrows then I think we need someone to test out how effective speed shooting could be at various ranges with war arrows against different targets and armor types and post the video on youtube.
The problem as I see it is that while you get about 50-70 pounds of force, your work is much less than that of a fullly drawn 50# bow. The reason is that you have less of a length at which the force is acting.
i cant imagine why someone 'thumbs down' this video (and many other videos as a matter of fact). all true, thanks for all the videos, i watch them all, even though it ends up being mostly common sense.
TIL only heavy arrows hurt people at long distances. For Lars's video, he specifically mentions he got his "lost technique" from manuscripts in countries that would need war yewmen.
Arrows are never going to go through plate armour, but every army had armour that would be hard to get past unless you put the full force into the bow. He specifically said that this was to get through things like Mail and Laminar
I found out recently that European archers put the arrow on the other side of the bow to what I always thought. My experience with archery does only go as far as shooting dowels from a bow made of an apple branch and a piece of string when I was a child :) But I always thought you load the bow by taking the arrow with your right hand (assuming right handedness), put it to the right side of the bow and off you go. But now I find out that most places (but not Mongolia according to Wikipedia) you have the arrow to the left of the bow (which I'm guessing is to make your aim more intuitive with the way your arms and the bow work together). But now I wonder how on earth people load quickly. Do you approach the bow from the right, but carefully put the tip between bow and string as you load, or do you put the bow flat, put the arrow on top and then switch your drawing hand over? Or something else?
There's a quote in Maurice's Strategikon (ancient Byzantine military treatise) insisting that archery needs to be fast, accuracy being pointless without quick shooting. That was probably because the usual distance for the final charge was approx. 100-150 m, and charging infantry ran over that distance in seconds (particularly if both sides charged). Archers simply didn't have much time to do their job. (The Byzantines likely used Hunnic-style bows by that time.) There's also the example of the famed Cretan archers, who judging by their style of drawing the bow could not have used heavy draws at all. They were likely outranged by Rhodian and Balearic slingers who used cast lead projectiles.
I love that you have a bow not typical in western Europe during the medieval period. Can you do a video about the impact on the composite bow on western Europe? I know the Templars harnessed it's use from their contact with them in the crusades; Mike Loades postulates that reflexed longbows came into existence from exposure to composite bows. Can you expand a bit? Always, thanks for your videos!
Native Americans would use smaller pony bows with a short draw to get enough arrows in a bison to bring it down. Humans and deer will fall to the same size arrow - huge and heavy is not necessary.
very good argument well put. I stumbled upon this after seeing Laars Anderson speed shooting and thinking "this cannot be true". Glad to see you and other archers putting his claims to rest.
![WITH PROBLEMS...but... Great For Some [Bear Magnum]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/VGk0iR33pvk/mqdefault.jpg)
"You need a relatively thick shaft." - Matt Easton, 2014
+Bernd Berndsen If you're going to penetrate, you need a thick shaft. I will take this wisdom to my grave!
Don't forget the substantial poundage
+Bernd Berndsen Don't forget "squeeze the butt tightly when thrusting".
Haha I'm crying and laughing. :))))))
I still prefer "Bolognese sources" in his dual wielding vid.
Today, all you need to offend somebody over long distances is Twitter.
you need more upvotes :p
What's with people accusing him of being jealous of Lars Anderssen, or assuming this video has anything to do with him? Look at the upload date on this video. November 21st, 2014. Now look at the upload date on the Lars Anderssen video. January, 2015. That's right, he uploaded this video several months before most of the world knew who Lars Anderssen even was. Get your dates right you dinguses.
It is because you can't watch a Lars video without UA-cam showing this video (or Anne M's) as a next in the right hand column.
Laraz would fuck this guy up I'm so mad
@@kenibnanak5554 lol
FBI fbi
Did you just say Matt fucking Easton would lose to anyone
Blasphemy. Get on the pyre.
@@Former615 his name is Lars, traditional Danish/North German name. And he is very good at the thing he does. It just has nothing to do with hunting, fighting or war.
Have you seen Matt here with a sword?
Those hoodie ties are so big
Glad to see I wasn't the only one distracted by them ^^
I didn't notice till I read this haha
500 years in the future, some jackass is going to rediscover the lost art of doing trick shots with a .22 pistol and present it to the world as a forgotten combat skill.
With his head promptly up his ass like he's some sort of legend in firearms despite looking like a massive dolt.
Woooooo
I'm currently training to revive the lost art of speed shitting
How much have you progressed in these years? My record is about 5 shits per second.
The slow-mo footage is beautiful.
KAMLU you are legend
Have you tried lubing with Taco Bell?
People are probably thinking of some Legolas-like close-range archery aimed at the opponent's weak spots. Realistically, they should think of the kind of archery you need in order to kill Boromir.
that's a beautiful bow.
It is!!! Does anyone know where he got it?
+GlavTech cheers I'll check it out!!😉
+GlavTech k thanks!
mine is more beautiful and cheaper
Lazule why would you flex about your bow on a UA-cam comment section?
Also almost all of the speed shooting videos are using bows in the 20-35lb draw weight. So well below what you would u´hunt and especially use in war.... add to that the very short draws used, the power is significantly reduced...
Circus shooting indeed
Well real life archers from medieval times would call our modern static long distance slow shooting a circus show out of touch of every days life.
I think Lars uses bows between 30 and 60 pounds usually. 100 pounds are too heavy for him and he could fire only so many arrows per day.
@@mweskamppp the thing is I've neither says or shows the draw weight. After 50 years of shooting the bows are very light and he consistently under draws. He's a skillfully trick shooter but it doesn't tell us anything about historic bows or shooting.
That was my complaint too. I used to do archery, and based on the videos I've seen, those speed shooters aren't going to be killing anyone. Especially if they were using heavy war arrows, they'd just be wasting valuable ammunition to dent Sir Easton's plate. Or more likely, fall short and become a tripping hazard.
yeah except lars andersen has demonstrated his technique using a 100lb bow so......
@@DevinDTV I know I'm 1 year late but omg I have to see that. Do you have a link?
Oh Matt, I'm so thankful for this video. You can't imagine how many times I've had this discussion. For some reason people thought that mysterious video recorded with a robot voice was some kind of breakthrough in the field of archery and history when it's really just playful handling of a bow.
People who don't have extensive experience with archery don't realize that the stored energy is proportional to both the poundage and draw length of the bow. Further, they lack understanding for the need of power. A child's might seem terrifying to the parent of that child but that it will be put to shame if someone shoots a heavier bow or even a compound bow next to child. The arrows actually fly noticeably slower and don't penetrate anything remarkably well.
...and on this day, no greaves were penetrated by armour, and no adventuring careers were cut short.
Try drawing some of the bows used in speed shooting. They couldn't put a real arrow far enough downfield to miss their own toes.
How about you try it and show us. Do you have a war bow?
3:45 Ahh, you are speaking of the good olde times, when in order to offend someone you would need to actually hit them hard enough! Nowadays it's enough to wear a wrong kind of shirt to make many people scream like they are being murdered.
heresjonny666 Thou shalt check thine bowmanship privilege, vandal!
images.sodahead.com/profiles/0/0/2/4/1/7/1/2/3/getting-very-silly-monty-python-75819138711.jpeg
what?
Loquacious Lobster Lapidary yeah. time for a another war. it's about time for a cleansing
Don't forget that by killing an animal quickly, you are also reducing the suffering it endures. :) That is a very important aspect of hunting in my opinion.
Andrew Bradford Yes. And it tastes better, because scared animals are full of bad tasting chemicals.
+JodaJK XD Also acids build up, increased levels of adrenaline, etc. Most of these do not taste good. At all. Seriously, hormones just taste disgusting.
Humane killing is great! Unless it's halal, in which case apparently its demonically tainted mooselamb food :P
Halal is blessed food, isn't it?
Legendary Wave Pool Halal is a blessing of the meat by treating the animals a certain way; not transporting them in small containers for long distances, keeping the animals free ranged, not over feeding them, when killing the animals one is supposed to do it away from the other animals and was any blood there might be from the previously killed animal. And The more controversial aspect, killing the animal by cutting its throat after a prayer.
Completely right.
Many war bows exceeded 120 lbs. A that weight what one can't do, is aim carefully. Those bows were mostly used as artillery, in volley, and at distance.
You say that now, but just wait until the plates throwing Vikings show up.
You did well not to specifically mention Lars in this video, or it would have maaany more dislikes from his hungry fanboys
+RepresentWV I made this video before anybody had heard of Lars :-) It wasn't actually made about him.
scholagladiatoria Ahh cool, I had a feeling that might've been the case. Still, good points in this video.
+RepresentWV Why would it matter if fanbois disliked the video? Would it do any real harm to Matt?
AWZool you know, come to think of it, it probably wouldn't. I just get peeved at all these little drones that come thru and think they know everything because they saw one video.
+AWZool It wouldnt do any harm to matt. That's what matt is trying to say here. Speed shooting is for the birds! ;)
I always thought it silly that people go on about speed of fire as important. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that few people have ever had to pay for arrows at medieval prices. When you don't have machines doing all the work & nice modern materials, one discovers the arrow is a very expensive piece of equipment & 20 arrows is a lot heavier & bulkier than people realize as well. You don't want to shoot fast. You want to make every one of those damnable things count.
You as a soldier didnt pay for missiles just your bow. Making arrows was a huge business so u wouldnt have to worry about arrow supply
They carried bundles of hundreds of arrows.
As an Archer with Traditional Bows, I agree with you 100% with old wooden Arrows and against Armoured opponents, also not forgetting the strings on old longbows had to be thick, so not that efficient. One comment in the modern context, leaving out Compounds, many Modern Recurves are much more efficient than Longbows, so dont need to be as heavy a Poundage to kill someone, even at Distance. Some of the Traditional Bows Grozer creates especially. FYI. Some Hungarian Archers only draw to the Chest on Horseback and can draw and shoot pretty fast and they are using Bows in the 50-80lb range, not going to penetrate plate armour, but remember those bows were much more efficient than longbows and History tells us they were lethal from Horseback, my 3rd Bow was a 120lb Longbow, it hit hard, many broken arrows, now shooting lighter Asiatic bows, why? more fun, cheaper to shoot and can use modern Carbon Arrows, both would kill you, accurate effective range about the same, if a theoretical Enemy was wearing armour, the big clunker the better choice, but against light infantry, the Asiatic bow better, less tiring to shoot and can carry more arrows.
I hope you'll include medieval crossbows in your future videos on archery.
It took 9 minutes for him to say that speed shooters may not have full draw to get distance/penetration. Point made.
One such speed shooter, Lars Anderson, was learning from ancient books (Persian?) when the common man could
not acquire heavy armor. Lars was able to duplicate feats from the ancient texts such as firing three arrows into an
enemy as the archer was falling off of his horse. All techniques need to be considered depending on warfare involved.
People keep shooting arrows with various insults and racial slurs written on them; someone said something about 'trying to offend the enemy' - what the hell is going on?
Anderson would not only disagree but prove you wrong. He uses the forward force of the bow itself to add extra impact force.
What do you have to write on an arrow to make it offensive?
;-)
"Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!"
"I am proud to be white"... That seems to be a pretty damn offensive thing to say nowadays.
***** True, but you are just risking a heated 100 comment discussion, whereas I expected stupidities like: "In case I didn't kill you, please stick me up the Kyber".
*****
What does this mean?
*****
best
message
EVER
(ive heard of thexai before but it cracks me up every time i see that word)
So glad you brought this up. While the speed shooting is awesome you brought up 3 very important flaws: 1) partial draws which dramatically limit speed and power; 2) ridiculously low draw weights; and 3) shooting at targets only 5 meters away.
Speed shooting could have situational uses (no need for full draw against an unarmored target at short range), for most medieval combat in Europe, the Levant, or the Eurasian Steppes, these techniques would be a waste of arrows.
Great video. As always, entertaining and educational.
I have a question, I heard an archer and historian talking recently that the idea of archers in warfare aiming up in the air at an angle and having them fall down on the charging enemy force (like you see in the movies) didnt happen. He says this because all the drawings show the archers aiming directly at the enemy not aiming up and because the arrows would have not been able to penetrate any sort of armour when just falling to the ground. He also said it would have just wasted arrows and money. They also would have waited until they where roughly 25-50 yards away before firing instead of the 100 or so yards (meters) they show in movies. Whats your take on this?
Why wait? Archers would be raining arrows on the enemies as soon as they could more or less hit.. As enemies got closer they would aim lower to hit them directly. King Henry V sure didn't get hit in the face by archers that catapulted their arrows into the sky at 25 yards.
He said they would wait to shoot from 25-50 yards to help with penetration against the armour.
Boredout454
25 yards is nothing when heavy cavalry comes...
Im not the one who said this bud this was a historian
edi Not to mention if archers are 70% of the army or even 50% lets say 7-9,000 archers vs maybe 500-1000 heavy cavalry thats a lot of arrows being shot in a relatively small area at 25-50 yards
Its so funny - this is the 3rd Andersen rant video I saw now and it seems like no one actually watched Lars' video. He shows the drawing weight of the bow. He shows how he shoots with heavy arrows. He shows how he penetrates armor and ultimately and most importantly he shows how, even though it does not look like it, draws the bow out to a full extend. Half of the drawing comes from the arm on the arrow and the other one is a pull forward from the bow hand. You seem like a nice guy mate and you seem like you know what you are talking about but I really see no point in your video to be honest.
P.s.: Just ignore my name.
Lars Andersson This video is older than Lars' and I had never heard of him when I made it. It is a response to other speed shooting videos.
scholagladiatoria Haha you are kidding right? So 2014 comes before 2011?
Lars Andersson the video was posted 2 weeks ago, not 2011 so Matt made his video before him
James Collins There is one with 4 Million views that Lars Andersen himself posted on the 26.11.2012 that shows the techniques. It was re-uploaded 2 weeks ago. Some other videos of him are out since 2011. So please.
i was mistaken, i apologize, but still Matt is not talking about him anyway so its irrelevant anyway
I wish I had a relatively thick shaft
Actually, speed shooting is for entertainement purpose, and this in a lot of cultures and since a long time. There is actually no point to go to war speed shooting, as there is no point to go to war with a bbgun.
It's ment to impress and entertain, just like acrobatic moves or acrobatic horse riding.
Asking speed shooters to arm better their bows is contrary to the purpose, the same as speed shooters saying that speed shooting is for war.
And even if they could do it (and they could do it) they would do it with a lighter bow, let's say 30pounds, that doesn't makes things more war-ready.
I've seen one of those videos where the speed shooter shown how his arrows penetrated an chainmail. But frankly, you can penetrate a chainmail with a hammer and a chisel and with only one strike : if you put the chainmail on a solid support, as it was shown in the video.
A solid support makes the chainmail vulnerable because it let the chainmail take the whole energy of the impact, and so the impact energy will only be transmitted on one or two rings, which will break.
Chainmail is put on skin which is soft, and will transmit the energy of the impact on it's other rings around and it will not break, or, chainmail can be weared on matlassed cloth (usualy, that's the way to wear a chainmail) and the energy will be transmitted in the wole surface and be even less dramatic.
In conclusion, never forget this : folklore is a huge part of culture and lots of cultures are proud of their archery. From english archery to Manchu archery, you will have a lot of archery demonstration in a lot of culture's folklore.
Some are to show the speed (speed shooting is that) and some are to show strenght (check Iranian Zoorkanneh training for instance, where bows are heavily wheighted and only serve as a purpose to show and to train strenght and cannot indeed be used to shoot an arrow as the string, full of wheights, cannot even be strung)
Culture is wonderfull and folklore should be shown to the world. But it should be considered as it is or being considered as a lie : it is a show to entertain and impress, not a war practice.
All true, however many ignorant people seem to mistake many "entertaining performances " as legitimate combat prowess these days. So the need sometimes arises to teach/ separate fact from nonsense created by people who don't know what they are talking about. but yes folklore can be quite entertaining at times :)
My gripe, and I'd bet Matt's too, is that these speed-shooters present themselves as historically accurate, long-lost kung-fu superweapons able to shoot through heavily armored knight with a rate of fire of a machinegun.
There's nothing wrong with circus-y speed shooting, it's interesting to watch and takes a lot of skill, but saying it's history (TM) is just plain and simple lying - you don't see any circus knife-throwers claiming that their ancestors were slaughtering knights via a blade through the visor, do you?
Maybe it seems like a minor thing, but it's a potentially devastating issue, just look at what happened to actual asian martial arts - lots of people making stupid claims, plague of McDojos... Nowadays, most people just don't take them very seriously, and it's quite a chore to find some actual, valid information about them (tai chi is 2000 years old, and I'm the queen of Sheeba).
True, MartinGreywolf .
Although, I would not call that kind of archery "circus". It is traditionnal, entertainement, or sport, or folklore. For some culture, archery is a part of history and something to be proud of. A lot of our occidental sports are basically field defending sports. They are not per se war.
A lot of archery driven cultures have basically bow and arrow instead of a ball.
It is not circus to make people pay to see oddities. It is a part of a culture, as a sport or as an event, or as an entertaining event.
Only a small minority of people are just showing off with their competences and saying that "it was like that in the battlefiled". Their talent is breath taking, but it is not an archery of war. They are wrong and we both know that.
But it is not an archery of circus either.
It is, like it was before, a way to show talent, to compete or to impress, knowing that it will not be efficient.
EDIT : if I may say, the main analogy would be jousting (medieval times)
Lances were blunts, armors were thinkened, it's purpose was not going to war, it was to show of. It was not a circus, it was a real deal.
But a good horsman was not always able to do win a joust, and a good jousting man was not always able to shine in the battlefield.
None of those preternded to be able to do so. And in modern jousting spectacles, the one who is saying that he can, because he is jousting, fight like in the medieval times is a liar. The one that shows his jousting armor and who is saying that it is a war armor is a liar.
But of course, it is reasuring to see that a lot of modern jousting men are able to know that they are not, indeed, fighting like in a medieval battlefield.
Sorry for the long post.
*****
thats only the joust right at the end of the medieval period. the joust and tournement is supposed to be a way to encourage people to CONSTANTLY practice practice practice, the skills of charging with a lance, aka, keeping a good grip, controlling the horse, keeping the lance point opn target, not exposing yor vitals etc etc etc
the ancient olympics mostly trained people in martial skills
boxing
wrestling
javelin
discus
running
horseracing
"chariot racing
running in armour (self explanatory that one is)
, all of these encourage that spirit of marial skill,
Surely you agree that running in line in only one direction facing only one mounted enemy armored and armed like you is just an exercise and will never be anything else than a preparation and a spectacle.
In war, you charge with others, facing full army, people on foot, on horse, facing archery, facing pikemen, you have to manoeuvre, obey the general orders, find your way through when hit, defend yourself.
The same way for speed archery. You learn a way of shooting that will never help you in war but it is still an exercise and it is still a good spectacle.
I think sources about that are clear about that...
Any reenacter now that is only doing jousting will not be able to fight in a real war situation back on those days. Any speedarcher will not be able to fight in a real war situation back on those days too.
Range vs effective range is and was the issue. I've heard estimates of range between 350 to 400 yds for medieval longbows. But the penetration of even a war arrow at that range was greatly reduced.
Sure, when you are standind upon hill and with wind in back, It could flew 0,5 mile easily. But on lot of medieval illuminations you can see archers fairly close to enemy, probably for the armor pierce potencial you´we mentioned and disrupting lines.. I´d assume that on average a most of shooting (bows/crossbows and even later arquebuzes)were done under 100meters range.
@@krystofcisar469 if I’m not mistaken, almost all of the art shows them pointing straight ahead at short distances unless they’re shooting up at people on a wall.
@@krystofcisar469 I agree. Turkish archers had shooting ranges and disciplines like far distance shooting, shooting moving targets, shooting a warbow fast enough. To pass the exam for being called an archer as written in one of the few books from medieval archery the turkish archer had to shoot further than 500m and close to 600m with two different arrows. hit moving targets, dont know the details there and shoot with the war bow three arrows at a target in 69m distance under a rope that was positioned over the shooting range. the third arrow had to be shot before the first arrow hit the target, thats three arrows in 1.5 sec. They had certain arrows for the far distance shooting sports, though.
I admire Lars, but I strongly disagree with his grasp on medieval/ancient warfare. Sure, at some point in time, there probably were tribes and tribal wars, where there were two relatively small, mostly unorganised groups of warriors, some of whom would be archers, fighting wildly without being in any formations. There it might be problematic to carry one´s arrows in a quiver, and an archer might actually run around, and might have to take opponents out with quick, although weak shots from up close. But in any later period, basically the only thing an archer in an army would really need - draw power - is the one thing Lars takes a huge dump on. Really, an archer in a large, organised army, would hardly move at all, certainly wouldn´t run and jump over shit, and wouldn´t even have to aim that well for most part - no point in trying to take out that guy in gambeson in the 6th row, 47th from the left, when there are dozens of targets around him. So I don´t think any of what Lars shows was actually particularly important or even very useful in medieval warfare.
The English long bowmen from back in the day were basically used almost like modern day artillery, but not all combat archery was identical. There are many examples of archers on horseback as well such as with the Mongols and these soldiers were basically the flankers and skirmishers of the ancient world. They were the sort of archers that used smaller compact recurve bows of only medium draw weight which they fired in rapid succession against soft targets.
late Roman archers skirmished and were highly mobile but had side quivers. but they also had heavier archers who stood in formation and acted like modern artillery and they had back quivers so it definitely depends on what the archer is intended to do on the battlefield.
You must understand that Lars took his material from Arab and Saracen archery, in those times (not in Europe, you all seem to think Europe is the only place on earth during antiquity) people would have small scale wars with relatively unarmored opponents (or light armor) and this kind of skill, especially on horse back or chariot, would be highly desirable to takeout multiple enemies quickly, or at least take someone out after missing
One point I'd like to weigh in with is that the 'Saracen "fast enough'", at least, assumes the arrows go some 69 meters downrange (AFAIK most hunters are taught on 18 meter ranges). This means that one needs a full draw on a moderately powerful bow. Similarly with the '11 arrows in the air simultaneously' feat, where more range means more time with which to shoot. I will grant that such may not favour war weight bows and certainly favours flight arrows, but it does place a cap on the shortcuts an archer might take.
I've noticed that documentaries praise the Asian composite bow over English longbow in every way in the same way as the Katana is praised of the European longsword. My problem with that is if it were that simple then Europe would have replaced their wooden bows with composites. What I want to know is what are the pros and cons of both types in comparison to each other?
buu678 The composite bow was no more powerful than the English longbow. But the shorter length was necessary for horse archers. The English longbow was only for foot archers, too unwiedly for horseback. A longbow could be made in a day, the composite bows might need a year of gluing, bending, steaming, smoking and curing.
pinz2022 Not in a day, no. Also takes skill and special kinds of woods etc. But not as long as a composite bows, you;re right. Not as expensive either.
buu678 The basic difference has to do with matching the arrows to the bow. Two bows with the same draw weight may have different speeds at which the limbs move. Asian composites were typically designed to move very fast. This is great for a light arrow, and you can get great speed and distance from the bow. Sometimes flight arrows from an Asian composite can fly for 1000 yards.
English longbows were thicker and slower with heavier drawweights. They were suited for propelling comparatively heavy 1/4 lb arrows that were great at penetrating armor. Several battles of the 100 years war illustrate this. When you look at how Western knights fared against the Turks or Arabs, you can read accounts of well-armored knights looking like pin cushions from the mass of light arrows sticking in them, but who were unharmed because those arrows couldn't penetrate. Comparing the English Longbow to the central asian composite is like comparing a heavy axe to a rapier.
Other advantages were that longbows were easier and faster to make, and the bows were more durable (no need to worry about the glue getting wet and the bow splitting apart as a result)
buu678 longbows are historically shit except for the english longbow which has a lot to do with the yew tree its made of
john li i seem to remember the long bow is actually made of ash and lost its massive power over use
Horse archers used lighter bows compared to foot archers seeings how men on foot can pull a heavier bow. Horse archers used bows about 40-80+ pounds. Their range and power was their horses also why plains tribes used bows of 30-40 pounds.
Can't help it... have to comment here. First, I've studied horsebow use; which is what most of these short bows are and what the speed shooting is for. They were made for and the techniques designed for rapid arrow deployment while moving, either on a horse or running...but primarily from a horse. A few bows are still in existence from Asian tribes (IE: Mongolia) which have a draw weight of around 130 lbs. One document found actually showed this was the norm. An 80 pound bow would still be a sissy bow, for probably a teenager still gaining strength. The bows in today's archery world are the weight they are because people did not grow up from childhood building strength to shoot bows in order to protect their land AND conquer others.
Second, you don't need to always hit someone with the full force of the bow when using the techniques they did. If I'm riding by people and I can quickly put 3 arrows in 3 different people as I pass within 10 yards of them, the arrows don't have to go through them. In fact, a partial draw and faster shot may be better if it puts an arrow with the barbed sharp point still stuck in their lungs or guts. Just like hitting a deer, if the arrow goes straight through its fine, but if it's lodged inside still, each step can tear things apart inside more. Leather and chain maile are not that great against this much power at close range. Though these bows can shoot far, the techniques people are using (Lars Anderson and Lajos Kassai).
Would these techniques work well in a European battle field situation, likely not. That's why the long bows with the huge draw weights were implemented; to drop rainfalls of arrows from a long distance and penetrate armour at close distances. This was not for medieval European warfare. it would suck unless you were fast moving, like on a horse. I don't see either of these people saying it was for that type of warfare.
Remember, 130 lb draw in a bio-composite reflexed bow with static tips. That's a ridiculously fast and hard hitting arrow; not the sissy weights we normally use now. So, this IS military archery; just not the kind people are trying to make it into. It's like comparing apples to ....waffles.
Now, I do agree that Lars touts "lost techniques" when they've been having horsebow contests and people like Lajos Kassai have been speed shooting from horseback for years. He modified it some from old texts and got very good with light bows, but it's hardly a secret lost technique. He just refined it for his LARP.
Was the pause button floating around the video for anyone else?
Speed shooting was very important for the mounted archers of old. The fact that some people half draw nowadays when trying to replicate these ancient techniques is irrelevant.
+Eclipse Archery it is very much relevant, because half drawing considerably increases speed, but in the wrong way.
If you impropperly replicate a technique it is utterly pointless.
In the form I'm most familiar with, skirmishing as part of a mixed army in Hellenistic Asia Minor, they had to be able to maneuver to get off a shot while wearing a shield on their bow arm to keep from being shot by someone else, not shoot 10 arrows as they gallop in a straight line. That technique may also have been used in pre-battle forays to put the enemy off balance.
Ah, it's nice to watch some of these old videos from time to time =)
I don't remember where I heard this, but I heard with speed shooting with horseback archery in a military context, it went like this:
a tribe of 20-50 horseback archers come in running in your village (rapidly and now short range) and shoot everyone in the village, then either take the village as a new home or take the food, or just kill them all.
If their warfare strategy was different, it doesn't make the lighter bows useless, it makes them useful for something different. Also in this context, people aren't wearing armor
+TheGuardian163 Targets were probably unarmored citizens on short range, so there it works well!
Yeah, you're not going to be able to pull that off against a line of armoured soldiers with shields. Horse archery was mainly used to terrorize and to plunder, but it's not nearly as anti-everything else as people make it out to be.
+Lynneiah Armored soldiers, if not protected with their own cavalry, are going to be outflanked by skirmishing forces and break. Armored forces are the anvil, and cavalry the hammer. A lot of warfare was determined by superior cavalry, or which line would break first.
+Lu Zhang Armored soldiers aren't likely to break to horse archers with toy bows that need to come to javelin range to start volleying
Trampled armored soldiers certainly do. Javelin skirmishers weren't armored either. They just get shot OR trampled by either light archers OR lancers.
Also war arrows are thicker to handle the initial warp the more powerful bow is sending through it. Thinner arrows would snap on launch.
What you said about the lethality of arrows has puzzled me for a long time. I reasoned that an arrowhead that's made to penetrate armor would have a narrow cross section that, once past the armor, would injure the person inside, but not cause the instant kills that Hollywood leads to believe are common. On the other hand, a broad arrowhead is more likely to cause injury, or death by exsanguination; yet, be unlikely to penetrate armor.
Given the above two premises, and what you've discussed in your last two videos, how was archery used on the battlefield? If archers rarely achieved penetrative hits, and if it took several penetrative hits to incapacitate or kill an enemy, were archers mainly used to drive the enemy off the battlefield? I reason that while rarely individually lethal, arrow wounds are still painful, and a human hedgehog must be horrific to look at.
you're forgetting that the majority of soldiers on a medieval battlefield we're not heavily armored. and as plate armor became more widely used, so did firearms.
after medical American sources in war against native Amerindians an arrow in the trunk (belly or chest) is lethal at 80%in the few days after injury at best. Hopefully for americans rifles was far more precise and lethal.
Thats one reason why a lot of cultures poisoned their arrows. Cermanic, celtic and slavic tribes for instance.
You just need to thicken plant sap of very poisonous plants like yew, aconite (aka wolfs bane), white hellebore, etc.
It was even tried to poison firearm bullets but as for nobody managed it due to the high temperature they made contracts not to use poisoned bullets just in case somebody else could manage it.
clubinglex
What Matt meant was not really lethality per se but stopping power, when you're fighting in a battle your first priority was to get your opponent to stop fighting back rather than killing him. Arrows might or might not be as lethal as bullets in the end, but their ability to cause your opponent to cease combat immediately was a lot less.
The usual expectation through history is that missile equipped soldiers will use up all their ammunition before killing a single enemy target, on average. But they can still have a highly disruptive effect and can be used in conjunction with infantry or cavalry to break the enemy.
scholagladiatoria - I recently discovered your UA-cam videos. I must say I am very much impressed with your description of mid-evil devices. I have subscribed to your videos. Please keep making your videos. Good stuff.
I had the same suspicions about Lars Anderson's video (but without any knowledge about archery), especially because it has very small snippets of footage, but I remember one shot (I mean, video shot) where he uses some kind of armor on the target. And that convinced me that he's either a.) right or b.) deliberately cheating or c.) doesn't know what kind of armor people wore. And for me c.) is the most unsettling option (I'm totally okay with fake videos).
NIce clarification.. I saw those vids before and wondered the same thing. It would be nice if you did a vid on how length of the bow, draw length, and draw weight are related to bows and also crossbows.
scholagladiatoria Matt: I love your work and would love to collaborate sometime, though on this particular video I have some points of disagreement to discuss if you would be so kind:
0. First thank you for clarifying about how bow hunting works :) Not everyone gets it.
1. "2:35": Long Range: While raining arrows at long range is practiced by many cultures to some degree or another, it is by no means the only way to employ archers in combat. Archers function at for long range bombardment, medium range pelting, and shorter range sharpshooting, all the way up to extremely short range shooting across melee battle lines. This of course depends on the style of warfare, situation, and the culture and time being discussed but long range bombardment is less common than many other applications of archers, indeed, it is the most expensive and least efficient way to employ archers... and is only available for a short period of time in a battle while the enemy is at a specific distance (which they are no doubt closing).
2. Thick Armor Piercing Arrows & High Draw Bows: Mr. Easton, you are clearly very very well versed in Medieval European martial arts and warfare, in particular of the English of the High Middle Ages (and later where we have all those useful manuals), which in other videos you do declare as your favorite period of study. However, it does seem you are applying things true of this cultural group to others where it does not apply so much as often. You do mention some other cultures as not fitting this mold, and indeed, you are right in Africa, South America, North America, and many other places in the world this does not hold true... indeed you may notice those 3 continents are a good percentage of Earth's landmass and have a good percentage of human cultures on them lol.
Joking aside it is worth noting that the Heavy Hand Bow of Britain used from the 1300s to the 1500s is indeed the exception not the rule of archery... as are those horse archer cultures so famous for their expensive and technologically interesting composite bows. Such cultures often have major emphasis on raising children trained with archery so that they might use weapons of such power, but again few cultures make this focused sacrifice. Indeed, when you survey bows across history and geography the most commonly occurring bow is about 50 pounds, with the average being in the upper 60s, brought up by those strong archer cultures. Even in Europe when we are discussing the majority of archers other than the Welsh and English of the above period, most of them are using far weaker bows... certainly further back in history to the Classical period and beyond,
You are of course correct that in most cases strong bows do need thick and heavier arrows, lest they bend too much when shot, or flat out break, and lower poundage bows do indeed lack the ability to shoot such heavy arrows well. But fewer cultures than implied ever needed bows to shoot arrows of such thickness.
Also those Turkish flight arrows are crap against armor... but they are great at shooting arrows a great distance to rain down on enemies in little to no armor... even those in armor are likely to be demoralized or otherwise frightened, or worse hit in a noncovered area given enough people and arrows.
3. Weight for Combat: 40 to 50 pounds of draw is a sufficient weight for warfare, assuming the majority of your foes are wearing little to no armor, which as fortune has it is typical of most human cultures for the vast majority of human history. The military context for most of history features most of the people with very little armor. (which you have noted in other vids)
Interestingly the Heavy Handbow of Britain starts at about 80 pounds (you needed to pull a bow of such weight to receive a proper Longbowmans pay), and from there goes up to 180 to 200 pounds... however, this is again an exception in the world of archery. For most of the world 80 pounds would be considered an extremely powerful bow and would not be expected as it was in that context. Again, great knowledge of Medieval Warfare (even moreso Medieval Britain), but it doesn't apply to most of human warfare.
4. Arrows and Stopping Power Damage etc.: While many arrow heads do have rather modest damage amount, indeed, most arrowheads designed for armor penetration focus on putting all their energy in as small a place as possible and therefore do not result in much damage other than their raw penetration. Broadheads (as you mention) do address that rather well, not only increasing bloodloss but also cutting flesh and tendons with those blood vessels, as well as increasing surface area of all damage including organ damage, this greatly increases the stopping power of an arrow... but then again so does higher draw weight (and more massive arrows) which results in deeper wounds given the same arrow and head... bullets tend to be more deadly due to depth of penetration due to more energy in the bullet than typical in arrows. It is worth noting that Broadhead arrows are more common in warfare than armor piercing types like bodkins, because, again, most soldiers on most battlefields wear little to no armor.
The other issue with threat and stopping power everyone and their mother forgets about is poison on the arrow... that increases stopping power and lethality immensely and is another reason lighter bows are often more than sufficient given no armor. Interestingly enough poison also helps against armored foes where a minor wound now becomes a far more serious one. But arrow poison is highly uncommon in your above mentioned area of specialty High Medieval Europe and Britain particularly. If you'd like to know more on that topic it is a specialty of mine... but I fear this has already gone on too long.
5. Speed shooting: Dude here you are totally correct! In most speed shooting vids the bows are stupid weak... like 30 or 35... often not even being pulled with thumb or three finger but pulled from the nock, I seriously doubt many cultures used such techniques. That said many cultures did use speed shooting, I for one practice said art... and I was inspired to do so by that very video on ancient archery being discussed... though I prefer to do it at a fuller draw with a heavier bow.
Tl:dr version: Bows don't need to be super heavy with thick arrows as seen in Medieval Britain. About 50 is enough for most people in history after all most soldiers in history wore little to no armor. Also broadheads and poison make arrows way more lethal with greater stopping power, and are used way more often than armor piercing or other low damage stuff. Also bows get used way more at ranges closer than raining death super far away, which is wasteful and expensive anyway. Also I love your stuff and you are totally right about speed shooting at low draws poundages with low draw lengths.
Old post but I do have to disagree with some of your points. When you talk about other cultures and how they represent majority keep in mind that only applies if we talk about number of those cultures or territory they cover maybe. But in terms of relevance, majority of cultures we learn about and cultures who did make impact, they did use armor and archery worked in different way than what "acrobatic " modern archers tell us. That's why those cultures became powerful, and if we are going to use any examples when it comes to archery and fighting, shouldn't that come from countries (and cultures) who were actually good at fighting? Short range archery was foolish from the moment certain civilization started using armor and in some cases even before that. Keep in mind that even less developed cultures usually always used spears and having archers going against spears wouldn't end up well. You can check on some videos to see how little it takes attacker armed with knife to get to victim armed with handgun. It really gives you another perspective on how distance is important and in actual fight, archers would struggle to keep enough distance in order for a fight to be called short range.
In my neck of the woods the International Archery on Horse Back competition used to be held and people from Korea and Mongolia and Taiwan were always the highest winners.
"Speed shooting" seems to be the archery equivalent of dual wielding. Yeah, it's gonna make you look cool and badass, but it's also going to make you useless or dead.
"Dual Wielding" Saw some use in duels or civilian situations where there was only a single other person using weapons that could be easily carried (Rapier and dagger? I think there was some discussion on how the dagger was in some ways better than the buckler at catching thrusts), or of course the classic Shield+Some other one handed weapon
TheEponet perhaps he was referring to dual welding guns?
MALICEM12 Well, that too, but I was really just speaking from a battlefield point of view.
no not you, TheEponet's comment :)
MALICEM12 I know, in retrospect my reply was probably more to him/her than you.
I'm practicing fast shooting with these kind of bows, and I always pull the string to it's limit (something like 30 inches). Maybe I will upload a video about it to my channel as well.
However I don't agree that bullets are always more deadly than arrows. It depends on many aspects, like what king of arrows and what kind of bullets you use. Anyway the reason we use guns way more than bows today is mainly the fact it is more accurate, has higher rate of fire and needs realy a short time of training.
i heard it was 12 shots or 6 well aimed shots per minute for English long bows, is that about right?
It takes 5-10 seconds to arm and shoot a bow, so it seems about right.
Yup, this was average result of an archer during battle.
With the speed shooting method that Matt is talking about you could get off something like 4-5 arrows in 4 seconds but it severely lacks power.
Sunshine Ray Well, Torc's comment is under this video so you didn't really had to say that unless he's an idiot, but for now he didn't gave us any reason to think so, so... why do you said it?
While this was the greatest volume of fire achievable, such levels of near superhuman prowess were unsustainable. Over prolonged periods -- i.e. more than eight minutes, ten would render lasting damage to your muscles -- such incessant exertion would put your archer out of action for the day due to horrific fatigue. No one would have had the arrows anyway: one of the most prized items in baggage trains of the Hundred Years War for the English were arrows; special Royal commissions were set up to regulate their production and transport with heavy fines incurred for disruption.
Rifle ammunition is much more effective than arrows. Handgun ammunition just pokes a hole as arrows do. It doesn't have the velocity of rifle ammunition to exhibit other wounding mechanisms beyond simply penetrating and transversing the body and the physical displacement and cutting that entails. Shotguns are the same but with many projectiles hitting at once they cause much more damage than handguns. The wounding potential of an arrow with an appropriate broadhead is greater than that of a typical handgun round (say 9mm Parabellum) with hollow-point ammunition (which causes more wounding than military full metal jacket ammo). But considering that a bow is a primary weapon comparable to a long gun, I suppose it is fair to say firearms are more powerful. A firearm of similar size is definitely more powerful. A large bow may be as powerful as a handgun but a handgun is much more powerful than those little novelty crossbows of similar size. Plus we have repeating firearms. But in the 19th century if you had the time and resources to master a weapon the bow remained on par with firearms. I'd take a bow over any muzzleloader if I was expert in skill. But it had major advantages over 19th century lever-actions and revolvers like quietness and reliability. In the beginning of the 20th century you get semi-automatic and fully-automatic firearms as well as silencers to make the bow generally obsolete. Of course, of you have the ability to become a trick shooter you can be deadly with almost any ranged weapon. Trick shooters with single-action revolvers can outshoot soldiers with modern assault rifles. There exist people who can draw, fire and manually recock six times, then holster their weapon before you hardly notice they've drawn. You just hear what sounds like one gunshot. Even if I was much better armed I wouldn't want to face off against anyone with that level of skill, even with an atatl.
"A large bow may be as powerful as a handgun"
bows don't shatter bones with the pull of a finger
" you get semi-automatic and fully-automatic firearms as well as silencers to make the bow generally obsolete"
no, black powder firearms 4 centuries earlier made them obsolete
" But it had major advantages over 19th century lever-actions and revolvers like quietness and reliability"
no, it simply didn't, the guns of the period were extremely reliable........ and who cares about sound?
Very valid points but as I learned in Japan, there was not just one type of bow used in combat. Yes, the battlefield bows were enormous, very powerful and could shoot relatively heavy arrows a long way but with an increase in draw weight comes a trade off in accuracy. Heavy powerfull battlefield bows were used in formations where accuracy of the individual archer was secondry to their ability to work as a group to deliver co-ordinated volleys of arrows to a designated target area. It also meant the use of heavy gloves. This is the same for all styles of bow construction regardles of it was an English, Mongol, Korean or Japanese bow. The point is, they were battlefield bows.
The samurai kept small lightweight bows for home defence and average Ninja bows were normally short recurves of 35 - 40# which were used for both hunting and fighting Often they carried very short bows of only 12 - 15# when infiltrating enemy strongholds etc. When you are shooting unarmoured / semi armoured opponents from close range you dont need much power but you have to have speed and accuracy. The bows they used from horseback were not as powerful as the battlefield bows. Likewise, the Mongols carried two bows. One was a 35 - 40# bow for use from horse back and the other was a 70 - 90# bow for use from the ground.
Its like trying to argue that only a bolt action rifle in 338 lappur magnum is of any use in a military because all engagements take place in mountain terrain and there is no place for firearms such as a Heckler&Koch MP5 in 9mmP or for an asualt rifle in 5.56mm NATO.
That's the whole point he's trying to make I think. Unless you use these against lightly armoured people they are completely useless.
I believe Mongols carried two bows....light for a barrage with speed. & a heavy one for where it’s needed. They were kinda successful
THANKyou!
Fantastic video and we at Ares Tactical Solutions agree. Look for a video coming out soon from us regarding similar material in regards to stunt shooting vs war time archery in a modern context. Many of the same issues spoken about here. I will say that the issue regarding bullets vs arrows is a bit of a tough one to tackle because we're talking two different sorts of wounds. Typically, the primary cause of death is the permanent wound channel causing blood loss. Comparing a bullet size to an arrow size w/ broadhead shows the arrow leaving a larger wound channel. A through and through shot from an arrow would actually be ideal if hitting center mass and severing the spine for an instant central nervous system stop. Rifles, of course, are different due to the excessive fragmentation and massive temporary wound channel so there is no comparison in that department. Temporary wound channel is only an issue when talking non-elastic organs and vessels. At the end of the day, as if bullets, there is no magic formula other than hitting your mark and driving an arrow into the kill zone whether armored or not
Surely horse archers would have used the techniques Lars displayed quite regularly if they were professional horse archers, especially at close range. I mean we've seen how accurate lars has become after practicing these techniques, I wouldn't put it past professional horse archers of old to be accurate enough to just shoot through gaps in an enemies armour.
I would definitely put it past them. When you're moving amidst an army shooting at targets amidst an army you can't aim for gaps in armour. Think about the people on both sides blocking either you or your target and just the movement of the target meaning the gaps in their armour are constantly moving. In a small ambush or a skirmish maybe, big maybe but in battle flat out no. Also shields.
Robert Rutledge Are you forgetting the parts in Lars' video where he's literally doing things like shooting arrows out of the air. Lars doesn't even have to depend on his skills to survive yet he managed to get to that level. Imagine how rigorously a real archer would have trained in those styles to ensure their survival in the heat of combat. I know if I was a professional horse archer I'd be basically doing nothing but training in my spare time. Lars talks about (and demonstrates) how he has trained to a point where extremely accurate fast shooting has become second nature to him. It's not even a question of whether it's possible, it's more a question of whether real professional horse archers would have trained to the level Lars has. I can quite easily imagine veteran professional horse archers being as good or better than Lars is in these techniques and using those techniques quite often. Quite frankly I think Lars has discovered and demonstrated exactly why horse archers were so feared and effective throughout the ages. Calling his video nothing more than circus tricks just reeks of envy to me, circus tricks my arse, Lars is no clown. If anyone would like to think it's so ineffective I dare you to go to Lars' next demonstration and stand in the way of all his arrows wearing chain mail, let me know how that works out, I doubt you'd be getting back to me any time soon though.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying all horse archers were explicitly trained in these techniques, but being able to do the kind of things Lars can at close range (and as a horse archer being close range to anything probably meant you were in quite a bit of trouble) would be absolutely invaluable. I'd definitely want to be able to do all the things Lars can do if it ever came to that situation. I can't see why any professional horse archer would deem those kind of skills unnecessary.
Chronologger No I'm not forgetting those parts. Yes, he shoots an arrow out of the air. Amazing reaction time but at the point he shoots it it's literally like 1 foot away from him and the incoming arrow is in an otherwise controlled environment and it doesn't try to dodge. Lars' skill is impressive but it doesn't translate into RELIABLY hitting exposed parts of armour in the heat of pitched battle. Then you get all the problems of his bow being very weak and not fulling drawing the arrows which translates into unviably short range and lack of power.
Say what you like about lack of power and whatnot. He demonstrated that he can loose 3 arrows at an armoured moving target in quick succession and all arrows pierced the chain mail and gambeson underneath, so I'm not really buying that argument since the evidence goes against it. Maybe those skills wouldn't translate into being super accurate all the time, but it's clear he could rain down arrows on someone very quickly. The way I'm thinking these techniques were used in practice is as a sort of last resort in an emergency. No, there weren't horse archer formations pulling off sik nasty 360 nodraws all day, but I think in the heat of battle with so many targets moving around, some of them probably getting quite close through circumstances, shooting at an enemy quickly just to make some space between you or to just kill them quickly would have been very valuable. You know how the saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures.
Chronologger About the armour: it wasn't really proper armour and chainmail was almost never the outer layer anyway (normally plate or brigandine at least). And yes, he can hit a moving target. That's not what I was saying, the main problem is things on both sides constantly blocking either your shot or your target. Second big difference is the general confusion and chaos of a battle, you can't just zone in on that one guy (or 3 guys) you want to shoot. Possibly if you were being mobbed by unarmoured peasants it might be viable but otherwise it's better to fire 1 good shot that actually has a chance of putting down an opponent, then drawing your backup weapon.
Now what bow is that?😮 where did you get it? 😢
scholagladiatoria
I just wanna say Matt that fast archery was indeed a feature of military training in many Middle Eastern cultures. We do know from the Mamluk furusiyya that a well trained Mamluk was expected to loose three arrows in one and a half second, and the Mamluks inherited this military tradition from the Sassanian Persians. How powerful these arrows were we didn't know, but since these were military archers I imagined they probably at least decent, perhaps effective against lightly armored enemies.
Wait what, three arrows in one and a half second? Dear God, they'd be out of arrows in half a minute! Do you have any sources or something for that, I'd love to read about it, had no idea Mamluks were early machinegunners.
The original quote was from a Mamluk military manual written in 1368, translated into English into a book called "Saracen Archery". You can check it out in your local library if it's available. Aside from that it's widely quoted by many historian of the period in secondary sources, including David Nicolle who wrote most of the Osprey works on the Crusades.
The topic is explored in depth in the following books:
War and Society in the Eastern Mediterranean: 7th - 15th Centuries, by Yaacob Lev
Crusader Warfare: Muslims, Mongols and the struggle against the Crusades, by David Nicolle
Mongols and Mamluks: The Mamluk-Ilkhanid War, 1260-1281, by Reuven Amitai Preiss
Now I actually don't think the Mamluk was using powerful bows when they were shooting, the tactic is in my opinion used primarily against nomadic horse archers opponents who tended to gallop into short range to shoot and wore little armor, while their horses would be unarmored. David Nicolle postulated that the Mamluk would only began shooting when their opponents were perhaps 75 yards away and closing rapidly on horseback. Against this the machine gun like Mamluk shooting would have been devastating.
John Huang Outstanding, always good to have more reading, thanks.
***** They weren't expected to shoot an arrow every half second. The 3 arrows in one and a half second thing was a test... you load your hand with two arrows with one already nocked and then shoot the three in that span. Not something you do sustained.
Gehrig RFC
This. Compare this training to, say, Mad Minute - you'd only rarely see that one used in actual battle, and i bet this was similar. Also, they probably did draw their bows properly...
Arrows shot from high draw weight bows also need to be thick so they're strong enough to withstand the stress of rapid acceleration. If an arrow is too thin and weak for the bow it's being shot from, it can break and wind up being shot through the archer's hand.
My dad told me that when he was a teenager he went hunting out in a prairie after school. I imagine the bow was probably about 45-50lb draw with modern hunting arrows. He saw a pheasant, took aim, pulled the string to full draw and released the arrow just as his friend jumped up and said, "HEY DAVE!" right in front of him. He shot his friend in the head at fairly close range, I'd say 10-15 yards and the doctors said that if the boy hadn't worn his hat, a rolled up beanie, the arrow would have killed him. A rolled up cloth winter type hat was enough "armor" to stop an arrow from killing someone. So clearly, some guy trick shooting with modern arrows, lower powered bow, without drawing the string back far enough probably wouldn't be effective against someone even in light cloth armor. Maybe if the tips were poisoned and could penetrate enough to deliver that toxin, it could be useful, like they did with the Chinese cho-ko-nu repeater crossbows.
Another lesson here is: don't be a fucking dingus and jump in front of someone with a weapon.
Channel continues to be awesome.
In your draw length video maybe you could also go into draw weight and crossbows?
Worth pointing out that your average full metal jacketed bullet (which is the most common type in military use) does the same thing as an arrow - make a clean, narrow hole in the body. Not really any more effective. Less, in many cases, because arrows can penetrate more. Things like 'stopping power' are really not a thing for most bullets that can be fired out of man-portable small arms. It's only when you start getting into bullets like .50cals and the like that the force gets to the point where tearing and wounding happens beyond the tissue that's actually in the path of the bullet. Hollowpoints (common in non-military or SF applications) and fragmenting bullets (rare) can do more damage, but really not by much. Think armor piercing arrow vs. broad-headed arrow.
We don't really use guns because they do more damage than bows, because for the most part they really don't (common infantry small-arms, anyway). We use guns because they're more compact, their ammo is more compact, they can fire more ammo really quickly and more accurately at longer ranges, and they are easier to train to effectiveness.
I get the impression that the heaviest bows must do more damage than the lightest pistols, but that heavy rifles (say the FN-FAL/SLR 7.62mm) do significantly more damage than the heaviest man-portable bows.
simontmn 7.62x51 is powerful, but it's not quite to the level where it starts to inflict secondary damage, like tissue tearing. It's size, weight, and speed do give it better range, ballistics (resistance to wind), and penetration, but at the end of the day it still just makes a 7.62mm wide hole in a person. An war arrowhead is probably of similar width or wider. Only the big bullets from mounted guns or things like .50cal sniper rifles start to have the sheer kinetic impact to do secondary damage.
Shot placement is key. If you don't hit vitals, all you're doing is making them bleed. Works the same as with bows. What makes a gun more dangerous than a bow is that modern firearms can fire projectiles at a higher rate, more accurately, farther, and with less weight and training.
umm... bullets tumble. and they are fast. humans consist of water. water cannot compress. speedy bullet hits human, hydrostatic shock. bullet tumbles inside human, large internal and exit wound.
rahadian panji oki Bullets tumble...sometimes. There aren't any bullets that are purposely DESIGNED to, and we've not figured out how to consistently generate the effect. Some rounds tend to tumble more than others (the 7.62x39 is known for it).
As for hydrostatic shock, that effect, while real, is vastly overestimated. Any normal handgun, most assault rifle, and even many main battle rifle rounds (like the 7.62x51) do not have enough kinetic energy to reliably produce damage with this effect.
The body is made of mostly water, but it is not CONCENTRATED water that cannot compress. The water is distributed in our tissues and organs. MOST of the tissues and organs in the body are very elastic, and CAN compress greatly without damage. And the weaker rounds simply cause temporary, non-damaging deformation of the surrounding tissue. You can get minor damage from the temporary wound cavity with service battle rifle rounds, especially if the round passes close by one of the more rigid organs in the body, but you have to start getting up to .50 BMG and similar rounds before the kinetic energy transfer is really great enough to start creating consistent tearing of the surrounding tissue due to the hydrostatic effect. The FBI has done significant amounts of testing on this topic. If you can get your hands on any FBI ballistics testing reports, they're good reading. Also check the International Wound Ballistics Association for other good ballistics reports (probably easier to find than the FBI reports).
*****
I shot my last deer at 300 yards with a .30-06 (using 165gr. bullets at 2800fps). At about that range its hitting with about as much force as 7.62 NATO 147gr. FMJ at 100 or so yards.
I hit in the mid-neck, severing the spinal cord. But there was significant meat damage all the way down the to the collarbone, a good six to ten inches away from the entry and exit wounds. Granted, I was using expanding bullets, but the bullets I use tend to retain a great deal of their weight, and very little of the damage was caused by fragmentation of the bullet itself. Most of it was caused by bone splintering and hydrostatic shock, both of which are going to happen with any kind of bullet packing that much energy.
Also, 7.62x39mm doesn't tumble very well; you're thinking of 5.56x45mm NATO 55 gr. M193 round. The Soviets tried to imitate the tumbling of the M193 round and came up with the 5.45x39mm round, but it didn't really work all that well.
THANK YOU for making a video like t his, I've been asking youtubers to make videos about that for a while.
Arrows kill by exsanguination -- by blood loss, though they can cause blunt-injury trauma as well. They have little or no shock effect. Also, really good armor will -usually- stop most hits even by quite heavy bows with first-class bodkin points; English longbow armies got their effect by -mass- shooting, so that everyone in the target zone would be hit multiple times -- some killed, some wounded, all bruised and battered. Even so, many men-at-arms always came through the killing ground to engage the English men-at-arms. They just weren't in condition to fight very effectively once they did, being exhausted, hurt and demoralized.
By way of contrast, a musket will decisively penetrate any practical armor every time it hits. When you throw in the advantages of ease of use and short training period, it's a superior weapon -in military terms-, even though a longbow has advantages in range, accuracy and rate of fire over most smoothbore weapons.
Another reason that you would want a heavier arrow is for momentum. The higher the momentum of an object the more likely it is to try to keep going forward after an impact.
IF YOU JUST WANT TO KNOW MY POINT SKIP TO THE LAST PARAGRAPH.
If you had two arrows fired from the same bow they will have the same amount of kinetic energy imparted to both of them.
Ke=1/2MV^2
So now I will set one of the arrows at half the weight of the other. The light weight arrow will be little m and its velocity little v. Since the kinetic energies are equal we can say:
1/2mv^2=1/2MV^2
Now I substitute M/2 for little m and solve the equation for little v.
v^2= (MV^2)/(M/2)= 2V^2
v= √(2) * V
Ok, so this makes sense right? The half weight arrow travels at a faster speed. Faster is better right? But lets look at momentum.
P=MV
So momentum equals mass times velocity. again little p will be the half weight arrow and big P will be the heavy arrow. Lets see how the equations look.
P=MV
p=mv = M/2 * √(2) * V
therfore
p=P*√(2)/2 = P/√(2) (√(2)=~1.41)
1/1.41=~ .709
So from an arrow at half the weight fired from the same bow would only have about 71% of the momentum. That means that it is more likely to stop when it impacts an object. Not to mention the breaking thing you mentioned. Momentum is a concept that is often overlooked compared to kinetic energy, but I would like to do some videos discussing why it is so important to martial arts.
I question your draw weight assumption. The composite bows used by the Mongols required less pull to use (I see estimates from 55-60 lbs) but they were the premier weapon of the most successful military in history. In 1241 a Mongol expeditionary force (est. 20000-40000 strong) dominated a Hungarian heavy Calvary army that was preparing for the crusades (60000 strong). I think it is true that in the style of warfare where stationary archers support heavy Calvary/infantry that heavier bows are needed, but in close-range kinetic warfare, even light bows could have been used effectively. In either case shooting more quickly would provide significant advantage.
You make some very good points. I agree. The way I see it is you want to get the most potential out of your bow both in power and speed. So though you may not be able to throw arrows down range at an alarming rate with good practice you can still be pretty fast.
Pretty spot on. Drawing a 30lb bow all the way back really fast vs a 70+lb bow is two different animals. Most hunting long bows don't exceed 50lbs because accuracy due to the archers paradox suffers at anything greater. Most war bows were 100+lbs draws and their only purpose was flinging a super heavy arrow as far as possible. En masse it was very effective because a 800+gr arrow out of a 100+lb longbow will pretty much blow through any shield or armor every made back then.
You were pretty much hoping the shield slowed it enough to limit penetration, or it deflected off if it was a steel shield.
The thickness of the shaft of the war arrows is a function of flex you need for heavier draw bows. It doesn't matter if the arrow breaks on impact as long as the arrowhead has the momentum that the bow imparted on it and it's traveling such that it hits with the point.
Referring to the Lars Anderson vids? XD
Mayhaps speed shooters were occasionally mixed into the ranks of archers to increase the number of arrows raining down on the enemy and ruin their morale. Most likely not, but that's the only use for them I can think of.
This is pure speculation on my part but I think speed shooting techniques would have the best use in horse archer skirmishes. You rush into your effective shooting range, release your 5 arrows within 5 horse strides (it's most accurate to shoot when all four hooves are in the air) and quickly get out of the enemies' effective range again.
MrMrMrMrHoopz Makes sense if the aim is to 'offend' the other guy's horse - horses are sensitive creatures, easily offended. :)
simontmn
So obviously, knights caught on, and that's why they started talking to their horses in german profanities.
www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/charlesv142488.html
Akhilleus A pretty good speculation though. I believe one pattern would be, that as the commanders try to position their armies favorably for a pitched battle, you have raiders just creating as much chaos for the enemy as possible to help their side get situated well. When the armies have their camps, raids, with light cavalry sent out to fight back, with all parties avoiding serious conflict in favor of creating havoc.
What do you think of the LOTR archery by the Dwarves and Elves? The actors look like they are pulling them full back and notching them well.
For all the guys going "but Lars Andersen" think about it like this: Bob Munden (fastest pistol shooter) is an exceptional gunslinger and his skills are very impressive. However, that doesn't translate into capability in modern combat. Munden's skills wouldn't prevent him from being sniped from 2 kilometres away.
For some reason, your comment made me picture a speed shooter getting sniped, only for the disembodied voice of a twelve-year-old to shout from the sky, "FUCKING CAMPER!"
i dont think people get sniped that easily at 2 kilometres. most fights happen at 100-400 meters only. even modernday marksmen would get kills at the 400-500+ meter range. the concept of long range fights was lost when assault rifles replaced submachine guns and infantry rifles, and designated marksman rifles took the role of longer range shooting. you cant even see a human at around 500 meters. getting kills at 2 kilometres is almost a miracle and almost never happen. even the top farthest kill was a miracle. the shooter that time was blessed with a good rifle, good ammo, and a good scope. he got a kill thanks to his sniping skills, and also luck. in normal combat scenarious that would not happen at all. unless of course, if youre in a tank or something. and you snipe people with your main gun and machine guns. you can get kills beyond 4 kilometers, and with guided missiles you can go even at 8-10 kilometers or something.
some arrow heads, like modern hunting heads (triangles on 90º from each other) can have a dire penetration wound and normally doesn't have a exit wound (because flesh and bone resist).
The old eastern "frog" arrow head do a cut wound instead piercing, doing a really messy wound.
Well it seems that Lars Andersen released a new video and people are going crazy over it... linking this over in reddit threads so hopefully some folks can get a better idea of the reality of it...
The popularity of Andersen's video basically means that the general public's perception of historical archery is ruined, probably for several years. It is really appalling how they presented trick shooting as historical archery to get more views.
See, I don't doubt that the technique was used in limited engagements, for example, on horseback against unarmored/lightly armored targets... but by no means do I feel that it is at ALL representative of actual military archery from the perspective of most battles which took place while archery was prevalent.
And yet now people seem to be convinced that this is the one true way of using a bow, and that... is very sad.
I think the main problem is people watch the Lars Andersen video and take it as fact. Too few people have been exposed to real archery. Most haven't even held a bow in their life. I watched the video and thought he was very talented and entertaining, but some of the outrageous claims people make about him make me facepalm. I also cringe when he says he has discovered the "lost arts" of archery. Would love to see those historical manuscripts.
Hey Matt, we make bullets that can go through glass. Smaller bullets travelling very quickly are the best for penetrating glass.
did not the video by Lars Anderson demonstrate that his arrow could penetrate mail? sure it were probably at close range ~20meters but if you're speedshooting you're probably doing it because you're engaging a a pesant army (who did not have armor, and which most of europe's armies were composed of during the middle ages) at close range.
We don't rly know what armor and how well made it was. I love Lars video, but it feels a little bit strange. I feel like it really penetrated chainmail (which is weird if we remember how much force his arrows had), but I don't feel like it did any damage to the target behind it.
Jack Harsel how much force you say? enough force to split an arrow in half instead of the arrows bouncing off eachother. Seams like they got a fair bit of force behind them. Also he put 10 arrows or so into the air before the first one hit the ground. You'd have to shoot a fair distance to allow you the time to do that, and all arrows were grouped together.
behemuth It is also mentioned in some interviews that arrows that was split was light bamboo arrows, while heavier arrows were used by Lars.
Gert van den Berg sure, but there has to be sufficent force to cause them not to deflect off eachother, certainly a potent arrow at close ranges, was my point. It is still an extreme feat to pull off.
Have you ever tried to shoot through mail? It's not that hard--especially if it's of lesser quality. Mail was meant to stop sword strokes, not arrows.
From its appearance alone (pattern on the leather backing), looks like the bow was made by Toth Zoltan, a bowyer and master craftsman whose work I've had great experiences with.
So remember: always wait for your circle crosshair to close completely before releasing R2 (unless your ult is ready)
Matt, could you do a video on comparing bows and slings. I am a sling fan and enjoy slinging, but I might try archery at some point.
Sigh, looks like speed-shooting cultism is the new thing, along with katana cultism.
I'm so glad Lars got 27 million views. Now the loudest opinions will be the ones that are assumed to be correct. :D
Just a point towards the end of the video, the other reason we use guns (or guns took over from bows as the favoured ranged weapon) is that it takes far less time to train someone to use a musket than it does for them to become proficient with a bow.
When it comes to the terminal ballistics of bullets and arrows, they both actually leave neat straight wounds for the most part. Bullets can tumble and thus widen the permanent wound cavity, as well as fragment. But in general both arrows and bullets leave a channel along the path they travelled.
The big thing is that when it comes to determining the lethality of bullet wounds, one factor trumps all others and for arrows it would be the same. Namely shot placement. If the bullet or arrow fails to hit a vital organ like the heart or central nervous system, the target can survive their injuries for a very long time, maybe even permanently.
Taking this into account, it is the greater accuracy of modern firearms as to why guns are more lethal than arrows.
You will find that when it comes to bullets, especially handgun rounds, there are huge debates over which is better or more lethal. Usually debates devolve into one camp claiming that the bigger the bullet the better, because of it's greater wounding potential. And certain arrowheads as you know are much the same in that regard. Leaving absolutely massive wounds in flesh. But it still always comes down to where you actually hit your opponent and how deep the wound goes. The smallest bullet into the heart will kill you while the biggest bullet through the foot will not. (At least not in a timely manner)
Just thought I would clear that up.
P.S. Terminal Ballistics is a sub-field of study that studies the behaviour of projectiles when it hits it's target. Be it an armoured tank or a soft squishy person.
Terry Jones Crusade documentary(1995) seems to support Lars point of view. Terry points out that crusader infantry could receive as many as 40 arrows from Arab horse archers during a days march with no ill effects. Rapid, accurate fire from light weight bows with light weight arrows.
Something else that gets under my skin is all the people that see thos kinds of videos and say that means that bows are better weapons then crossbows because of the rate of fire. Or the have watched those shows that compare the speed by showing a light longbow against a crossbow that needs a crank. Not the kind you just need a stirrup and no mention of making a repeating crossbow. They will also say a bow will defeat heavy plate but that's another problem. so the see the difference in rate of fire between a light bow against the heaviest crossbow they can find. No because most of these bow fanboys would struggle to hit someone's vitals at 10-20 meters with a properly pounded bow but might stand a chance with a crossbow.
illyounotme You can build self feeding crossbows that seem just as fast or even faster then allot of people with bows. I am not just talking about those little Chinese ones that would struggle to kill a rabbit. there are also the siege ones that will always be faster then an equivalent bow because you would never find anyone that could draw it.
Only seen super weak ones for sale but there are videos on youtube showing home made ones. it is mostly a matter of adding a gravity or spring powered magazine to the top.
NoBSSurvival You are correct that repeating crossbows are very weak historically... also not particularly accurate either. While modern technology might be able to make faster crossbows, such things did not occur in history... at least not the sort that are faster than a fast archer. If you have evidence of such a thing please link I'd love to see it. I for one can shoot 4 arrows out of a bow over 50 pounds in 8 seconds and 7 in about 16 seconds... if you've got a HISTORICAL crossbow thats faster than that please let me know.
Also keep in mind a crossbows are less efficient in terms of amount force in the draw transferring to the target due to shorter draw length and lighter bolts.
illyounotme
But it is not quiet true, longbow are as weapon better than crossbowes, but the logistic is just so bad :P
Longbow need a long time to practice, in fact whole life, and crossbow's were very easy to shot, to lern, etc.
Simple fact only in england was posibly to creat large unit of longbowmen, becasue of free pesant who were obligated to pratice.
I did once see a Chinese one that you had to span by pushing it out with your legs while seated which would be the only high powered and high speed repeating crossbow I have seen that is historical other then the ancient Greek repeating siege crossbow.
The difference for bows in hunting versus guns is the shock damage a bullet does. The expansion of the bullet does the damage and distributes the energy over a larger area (a muzzleloader ball does not create the same shock damage). An arrow, properly placed such as in the lungs or arteries, will make the animal bleed out very quickly, relying on blood loss to kill. However, an arrow not placed to cause a quick bleedout will be much less effective. A friend (who does A LOT of hunting) shot a black bear in the head with a bow (obviously killing it because of the brain shot), and it was very messy dressing it because it did not produce the same blood loss that a heart area shot does.
This is like saying a guy who shoots a basketball from 3 point range can't shoot a lay up. The Mongols were famous for speed shooting. Did they kill instantly like on tv. Probably not but the next wave was coming.
A skill like speed shooting would be just another tool in your tool box just like long range shooting. Why do you think armies have units made up of different skills. Situation and Terrain dictate.
Stop acting like every thing you like is a religion. It was that sort of thinking that caused so many casualties in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Marching out into clear fields in large groups using the tactics developed for swords and shields.
+teejay Trujillo Speed shooting is/were useful in a number of ways, Matt didn't dispute that. What he rightly disputed is the validity of Lars technique can be used in warfare, which consists of:
- drawing the bow at most a third of its draw length
- shooting light targets from relatively close range
- shooting light arrows
- from a relatively weak bow (~30lbs)
This technique renders his arrows harmless annoyance, which is not really useful in a combat situation.
+teejay Trujillo No it's more like saying just because you can throw 30 balls 5 feet in 30 seconds doesnt mean any will go in the basket. It's pointless.
The way most people speedshoot wouldnt even hurt normal civilians much less be a good idea in war. Wow the enemy has unloaded his quiver already, he's so fast. Yeah lucky for us none of his arrows hurt anyone...and now he's dead
He's putting them in the basket or didn't you watch his videos.
+teejay Trujillo how many arrows do you think a quiver realisticly can have in them and you are still able to shoot an hit targets at speed. how big of the % actually hit with enough force to kill through armor. and last if it is so awsome why was it not wide spread in use in war?
No. What I'm saying is that anyone who can shoot that fast and accurate can also slow down to be more precise. My military weapon had either a burst or full auto selection on it. Was it practical for every target? No, but when you needed suppressive fire it was "the ticket". Who knows if archery like that was not used to slow down breachers long enough to get the big pot of hot oil ready? To answer your question, a quiver could hold any where from 10 to 15, but they also had quivers attached to their saddles in the case of the Mongols. Lars appears to be able to hit the target at speed. In a duel, he would only have to be a fraction of a second faster than you with your compound bow. A squad of guys like that who could shoot and get back behind cover would be invaluable. It is a technique that modern soldiers use now and have for decades. They are called individual movement techniques. Some are rolling after you're down, rolling before you get up, not using he same cover repeatedly. Guys that stand in lines get killed no matter how well they shoot. I cannot convince you. Just go to some playground and challenge some guy doing trick shots with a basketball to a game of one on one for money. If you're into hockey, just find a guy who knocks over individual cans with the puck who can skate fast frontwards and backwards.
Thank you !! I noticed the same thing with these half draw shooting tactics. It's impressive and fun to do , i cant do it ill add, but unless those are poison tipped arrows. Half drawing your bow is a waste of the bows power isn't it ?
Como siempre, muy interesante...
tengo que aprender a tirar en condiciones
if they can minimize the loading time more than a normal technique wouldn't that make it better regardless of draw length ? i think its probably best to look at how the mongolian horse people load their arrows.
If you have a 150-200 pound draw-weight bow and you draw it back half way for quick shooting you'll get the equivalent of a 50-70 pound bow. At close range against lightly armored targets this could be very effective. I think it could work great in war provided you have a very powerful bow.
Quintapus Yes of course, if the bow is powerful enough.
scholagladiatoria Yeah, Lars Andersen is amazing, but even he admits that he's using a weak bow. As you mentioned in other videos, not even a powerful bow at full draw will pierce the best armor, so I agree that quick shooting is highly contextual.
According to historical researches, the average draw-weight of a war-bow (the name given to the very powerful version of the traditional longbow, used by the most trained archers during sieges to defend the castle and reach great distances in order to decimate the enemies army) was around 100-120 pounds. Keep in mind that , a draw weight that high requires an incredible amount of strenght to fully draw the bow. Infact, many archers (you'll never see it in a movie because it's totally uncool) in order to fully draw those bows, used to rely on their legs instead of their arms. (true story, they used to stop the bow body with the legs drawing it with both arms , becoming a sort of human crossbow ) . that said i never found historical testimonies of war bows with 150-200 pound draw weight power. It's an insane amount and will be impossible to use , at least to have a minimum of accuracy while shooting .
Anyway i can guarantee that a 50 pound bow will do the job perfectly. i use mine to hunt wild boars and believe me, the wild boar skin is incredibly hard to penetrate. another very important fact is given by the arrows. Modern archers and modern bows (like compound bows) relies on high power amounts (70-80 pounds) and very light arrows. A light arrow generally has less power but it's far more accurate so they kinda resolve it with the bow power , but in the case of a recurve bow, if you use wooden arrows, which are very very heavy arrows, you'll certainly loose some accuracy on long rage shots, but you'll gain critical amount of power even with a 50 pound bow (for instance, my 50 pounds recurve bow has the same power of a 70-80 pounds compound bow used with light arrows . And for instance, you cannot use a compound bow with heavy arrows) some people tend to increase the weight of their arrows by putting on it heavier arrow heads.
sorry for my english though :)
Steinwayer Yes, very few war bows in history were as powerful as the English longbow, which is what I had in mind, and averaged between 80-120 pounds draw weight. 200 pounds would be the upper limit drawn by a tall and very strong man. Researchers found that longbows recovered from the Mary Rose had a draw weight ranging from 150-185 pounds. Also remember that armor and distance play a roll and that at half-draw, for speed shooting, you will only get about 1/3 of the power you would at full draw. That's just my estimate, but I doubt it's any more that that.
That's a good point about arrow types and weight. If a heavy wooden arrows would do more damage than modern aluminum arrows then I think we need someone to test out how effective speed shooting could be at various ranges with war arrows against different targets and armor types and post the video on youtube.
The problem as I see it is that while you get about 50-70 pounds of force, your work is much less than that of a fullly drawn 50# bow. The reason is that you have less of a length at which the force is acting.
i cant imagine why someone 'thumbs down' this video (and many other videos as a matter of fact). all true, thanks for all the videos, i watch them all, even though it ends up being mostly common sense.
TIL: The only wars ever fought were on English plains in full plate armour.
TIL only heavy arrows hurt people at long distances. For Lars's video, he specifically mentions he got his "lost technique" from manuscripts in countries that would need war yewmen.
Arrows are never going to go through plate armour, but every army had armour that would be hard to get past unless you put the full force into the bow.
He specifically said that this was to get through things like Mail and Laminar
Well, Lars Andersen is a fraud, 'nuff said.
***** You learn things based on no facts or information? That explains your reply. Bye.
Thomas Hines telling that you only respond to the person that insulted you
An arrow out of a typical modern compound bow (70#) is roughly equivalent to a hot .22LR load in terms of ft.lbs.
I found out recently that European archers put the arrow on the other side of the bow to what I always thought. My experience with archery does only go as far as shooting dowels from a bow made of an apple branch and a piece of string when I was a child :) But I always thought you load the bow by taking the arrow with your right hand (assuming right handedness), put it to the right side of the bow and off you go. But now I find out that most places (but not Mongolia according to Wikipedia) you have the arrow to the left of the bow (which I'm guessing is to make your aim more intuitive with the way your arms and the bow work together). But now I wonder how on earth people load quickly. Do you approach the bow from the right, but carefully put the tip between bow and string as you load, or do you put the bow flat, put the arrow on top and then switch your drawing hand over? Or something else?
There's a quote in Maurice's Strategikon (ancient Byzantine military treatise) insisting that archery needs to be fast, accuracy being pointless without quick shooting.
That was probably because the usual distance for the final charge was approx. 100-150 m, and charging infantry ran over that distance in seconds (particularly if both sides charged). Archers simply didn't have much time to do their job. (The Byzantines likely used Hunnic-style bows by that time.)
There's also the example of the famed Cretan archers, who judging by their style of drawing the bow could not have used heavy draws at all. They were likely outranged by Rhodian and Balearic slingers who used cast lead projectiles.
I love that you have a bow not typical in western Europe during the medieval period. Can you do a video about the impact on the composite bow on western Europe? I know the Templars harnessed it's use from their contact with them in the crusades; Mike Loades postulates that reflexed longbows came into existence from exposure to composite bows. Can you expand a bit? Always, thanks for your videos!
look at the bayer tapestry - recurves were in use then on both sides
I've seen some speed shooting videos of these guys going crazy fast. And they pull back to their mouths. Though the poundage seems to be very low.
Native Americans would use smaller pony bows with a short draw to get enough arrows in a bison to bring it down. Humans and deer will fall to the same size arrow - huge and heavy is not necessary.
I agree! This is a person that has never killed anything.
It is about military archery, which in most of the world had to deal with targets wearing some form of armour, which deer generally don't.
This is fascinating. Please do more about war bows soon!
At last someone who knows what they are talking about. Very nice video. Clean unless someone has stuck the arrow point into the ground.
very good argument well put. I stumbled upon this after seeing Laars Anderson speed shooting and thinking "this cannot be true". Glad to see you and other archers putting his claims to rest.