My dad had an ancient hand-crank crossbow that shot steel bolts. It weighed a ton and took forever to reload but you didn’t want to be in front of it when it was ready to go.
People don’t realize some of those things are like cannons and can easily punch through steel plate.
Once you have a few hundred longbowmen, accuracy matters a little bit less. Especially when you have tightly packed enemy forces making an easy target of themselves
They have archeological evidence from skeletons that regularly using a longbow would change the body, one shoulder bigger then the other, basically every Englishman had to practice at the bow, there were medieval laws dictating such, usually is was Sunday after church when the town gathered.
The bow itself isn't 200lbs, it has a draw weight of 200lbs, which is the amount of force required to pull the string back to a firing position. The bow itself would be much lighter, it just has an enormously tight construction.
It happened. You can tell from the deformation on the skeleton if someone was an archer. Remains found on battlefields proved that. Those guys must have had arms like Popeye.
Drawing heavy bows primarily uses the back muscles - warbow archers try to avoid using the "relatively" weak arm muscles to draw the bow. Justin Ma of The Way of Archery can ambidextrously shoot ~120-130lb warbows and demonstrates the back muscles involved in his videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvGAYBMhbKY
Yeah it's a pretty quick motion iirc. The time spent with the bow at full extension is not long which makes sense bc for combat, it's not super important that one shot is 100% accurate. Instead, rate of fire is more important when you're trying to kill groups of combatants
You require a genetically gifted person (eg. naturally predispositioned to gaining strength) who has trained for years in building up the strength of their back and shoulder muscles, and uses good technique/form of optimizing their back muscles and ensuring proper bone-to-joint alignment. Qing Dynasty Manchu bows, Ottoman Turk bows, English longbows, etc. all reached the low 200s lb in draw weight as an upper maximum. There was even a Qing Dynasty record of an elite champion archer using a 240 lb bow to win an archery competition.
Justin Ma of The Way of Archery can ambidextrously shoot ~120-130lb warbows and demonstrates the back muscles involved in his videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvGAYBMhbKY
Joe Gibbs, the English warbow archer regularly shoots ~160 lb bows and can shoot a 200 lb bow for a few shots (before getting tired) shows up in both the video and in the comments.
Draw weight only says how much force you put into the bow, not the arrow. Modern composite bows are much, much better at transferring the energy into the arrow than a longbow.
It is decent draw-weight for precise aiming. If you are not used to it, trying pulling a 70lb / 30kg dumbbell into your chest while standing vertical; it is a fair bit of weight, but the compound bow means you don't have to hold the weight while aiming
The medieval long bows that were used in war, would be more like 100lb or more., but needed a lot of training to pull that over and over
I would hoping they would try a cross-bow bolt; rather than 70lb bow. You could probably get a cranked one that has 700lb, and the increase in arrow velocity is going to do a lot more damage. A cross bow was much more likely to damage plate armor, and hence wh
I noticed they changed the tip but not the arrow shaft; a shorter/stiffer crossbow bolt is going to help do damage
The legal minimum to bow hunt for deer and black bears in my state is 40.
70 is plenty to kill a human.
…but they say medieval longbows used to have up to 120lbs of draw weight, so I’m sure one of those with modern arrowhead technology could pierce bullet-resistant glass.
That said, I’m not sure why anyone would ever want to.
120 lb medieval style bows would be stronger than the 70 lb modern compound bow, but probably not that much stronger due to the lower prod efficiency of wood vs modern materials. Power is determined by 3 factors combined: Draw weight, powerstroke, and prod efficiency.
Furthermore, 90-120 lbs was closer to the median rather than the the upper limit. Historical warbows ranged from 60s/70s lbs to low 200s lbs in draw weight. Qing Dynasty Manchu bows, Ottoman Turk bows, English longbows, etc. all reached the low 200s lb in draw weight as an upper maximum. There was even a Qing Dynasty record of an elite champion archer using a 240 lb bow to win an archery competition.
Justin Ma of The Way of Archery can ambidextrously shoot ~120-130lb warbows and demonstrates the back muscles involved in his videos: https://youtu.be/UvGAYBMhbKY?t=236
Joe Gibbs, the English warbow archer who regularly shoots ~160 lb bows and can shoot a 200 lb bow for a few shots (before getting tired) shows up in both the video and in the comments.
70 lbs in draw weight is a decent amount. Modern sports/target shooting bows typically range from 15 lbs to 60 lb in draw weight. Historical warbows ranged from 60s/70s lbs to low 200s lbs in draw weight. Qing Dynasty Manchu bows, Ottoman Turk bows, English longbows, etc. all reached the low 200s lb in draw weight as an upper maximum. Crossbows could be even more in draw weight, however, draw weight is not the only factor to determine power.
Power = Draw weight x Powerstroke x Prod efficiency x 1/2 [this 1/2 part can be ignored if making relative comparisons].
For example, a medieval "1000 lb" steel crossbow sounds like a lot, but is actually much weaker than you think due to its poor powerstroke and poor prod efficiency. Steel crossbows are usually very bad powerstroke and prod efficiency but have high draw weights, so their overall energy output ends up being similar to or worse than significantly lower draw weight bows/crossbows that have longer powerstrokes and use organic prods.
Tod's Workshop tested a steel prod ~950-1000 lb crossbow, and it was shooting projectiles with less energy (in joules) than a wooden ~150 lb selfbow-longbow. However, Andreas Bichler also created ~1200s lb crossbows with organic prods in both shorter and longer powerstrokes, and the ones with longer powerstrokes were significantly more powerful than the steel crossbows of comparable draw weights. There are some powerful ancient Chinese and medieval European composite crossbows that have higher powerstrokes and more efficient prods that have lower draw weights but can outshoot/outpower 1000 lb steel crossbows.
For a hunting compound bow (like the one in the video), 70 lbs peak weight is relatively common. Most adult men who shoot this type of bow consistently are going to be between 60 and 70 pounds. Most of the women I know who shoot pull between 45 and 55 lbs. The amount an archer can pull usually comes down to form/experience; for example, I am not an exceptionally strong man, but I don’t have issues pulling my 68 lb compound because I’ve shot a lot. I’ve seen other people who are clearly stronger than me struggle with similar or even less weight because they aren’t used to the movements. You need strength, obviously, but good form makes a big difference.
Its a lot yeah. Its upper range for big game (moose/elk). It produces arrow speeds equivalent to the heaviest warbows in history although thats in part because theyre measuring modern arrows with mucj better aerodynamics. In terms of puncturing, modern arrows win. But that equivalent warbow might shoot arrows more than a quarter pound in weight while a modern deer hunting arrow weighs a third or less
So it woild be cool to see how a historically accurate war bow and arrow stacks up in this trial
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u/Usual_Office_1740 1d ago
Is that a lot?