European Archery/ Agincourt/crecy/etc

[Timo Nieminen]

Originally Posted by Chris Evans

At one stage of my life I played around with bows and crossbows and even owned a real English long bow. Based on my experiences, my suspicion was that as a weapon of war it was probably more effective against slowly advancing armoured infantry, rather than heavy cavalry. Galloping horses at 20mph (30ft/sec) can close the range of a bow, say 900ft in around 30sec or thereabouts, not giving all that much time to shower them with arrows, but foot soldiers would have allowed for much more time.

This leads to two interesting points: charging attackers are on the receiving end of more energy. A war arrow might be moving at 40-50m/s. A 10m/s charging speed of an attacker can transform an arrow energy of, say, 125J into an effective energy of 180J. That's a lot of extra free energy for the archer.

Second, since they're going to close quickly, save that last arrow for in close, when you'll have more energy, and won't miss. One Japanese writer wrote that the whole point of military archery is putting arrows through armour at 15m.

Soar's "Secrets of the English War Bow" has a chapter on shooting at charging enemies. Reports experimental tests of shooting at a moving armoured target. The target speed does help. And you don't get many shots. One at long range, and one at very short range.

Obstacles and field fortifications will help. Also your own spearmen, to stop attackers and let you shoot at them.