How to shoot the English Longbow

[Major Nikon]

[sharp_stick]

1. Wow that guy can shoot

Does that bow have an arrow rest or is he just freehanding the thing?

[ChazInAz]

7. Freehanding.

That's the classic English Yew bow. Six feet long, hundred pound maximum pull. In my humble opinion, the ultimate bow.

[truthhurthshuh]

10. sorry . . .

Sorry bud but you are wrong. The ultimate bow was the one used by the Mongols. This bow was only good for long range attacks.

[happyslug]

20. Both bows were good, both had advantages.

Last edited Tue Feb 9, 2016, 02:39 AM - Edit history (1)

The Long bow has to be made out of certain woods, most woods do NOT have the give to be good bow wood. Wood from the Yew Tree is considered the best wood for bows.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxus_baccata

The Yew tree only grows from Europe to Western Iran. Yew Trees exists in Scandinavia but not east of the Baltic states. Through different species of Yew exists in North America and is also considered a top wood for bows:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxus_brevifolia

They are other species of Yew, but no history of their use as bows (and most are endangered species so no one is cutting them down for use in a bow):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yew

The Osage tree is number two (and some people considered is Superior to Yew), but grows only in the Ozarks (the was the wood used by the Comanches well into the 1800s). Lemonwood, out of Cuba and Central America, is considered a top bow wood, Hickory and locusts are considered second string, but still good bow woods. Hickory grows only in North America and in Asia from China south.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maclura_pomifera

Locust is an North American Wood only, Honey and Black Locust. Both were exported elsewhere for it was found to be the best natural fence post known and planted all over the world for that purpose:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_locust

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinia_pseudoacacia

More on Hickory:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hickory

Ash grows in Europe, but like Locust considered a secondary bow wood:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraxinus_excelsior

America has FOUR Ash Species:

White Ash:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraxinus_americana

Green Ash:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraxinus_pennsylvanica

Black Ash:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraxinus_nigra

Blue Ash

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraxinus_quadrangulata

All are endangered by the Ash Bore weaver:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_ash_borer

Bamboo, combined with another wood in some sort of Composite bow, is considered with Yew, Osage and Lemonwood, a top wood for Bows. Bamboo is found in China and south (bamboo is considered a better arrow wood then the other woods mentioned above, cedar is considered the best wood for arrows but again North America and Europe, please note Bamboo is only good as a core that another wood is build around to make the bow).

Lemonwood is another top Bow wood, Several trees world wide are called Lemonwood, the one that is good for bow making is in Cuba and Central America:

http://www.wood-database.com/lumber-identification/hardwoods/lemonwood/

As you can see the Steppes of Russia is outside the above areas and thus on the Steppes the Mongolian Composite bow came into wide use. Most composite bows used one of the woods above as a base, but those woods cost so much to obtain the makers of composite bows worked around those woods if they had to, thus some composite bows had none of the above wood in them.

You saw a similar development on the Great Plains. When the Dakota (Sioux) adopted the horse, they abandoned the woodlands and ended up embracing a horn type composite bow themselves. Among Native people of North America, they and the Inuits were the only know users of the true Composite bow:

https://www.archerylibrary.com/books/mason/north-american-bows-arrows-and-quivers/docs/the-bow-04.html

Please note the same book points out the California Natives used a Composite WOODED bow, i.e no use of horn, just different woods wrapped in sinew.

More on Sinew:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendon

Bows made of the above woods could match the power of any composite bow. Other woods were inferior. Bows after 1800 made by white men tended to use these inferior woods. Furthermore as archery return as a sport in the 1800s, accuracy was made more important then power, so most bows made since 1900 for non native populations tended to be restricted to 50 pounds NOT the 100 plus power of actual bows used in the middles Ages or by natives in the 1800s. This difference in use is why some people to this day say the composite bows are stronger, when bows made from the above woods could be made as strong as any composite bow.

Please note the main restriction on using a bow is pulling the bow. If you can not pull it, it is useless. Thus bows were designed around what a man could pull or what a woman could pull (Women appear to have been the main archers among the ancient Sarmatians, a people who lived in the present day Ukraine).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarmatians

It is believed that the Sarmatians became the Alans in the first Century AD and during the 400s moved westward and help defeat of Attila the Hun in 451 AD, and then settled in France. Other Alans remained in the Ukraine till Genghis Khan and then moved the the Caucasus and became the modern Ossetians:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alans

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Ossetia

One claim for the Mongolian Composite bow was it easier to use on horseback then long bows, but the heart of the English Army that invaded France and ended up winning Agincourt were horse Archers (Most archers were foot archers, but the elite were horse archers who shot arrows while on horseback while the horse was moving). Thus it is possible to use long bows on horseback.

Another advantage claimed for the Mongolian Composite bow was the use of Mongolian release, which hooked onto the string with one's thumb, protected by a ring, and thumb released (This is called the Mongolian draw). The Long bow wa generally used with the three finger hold (This is called the Mediterranean draw) This seems to be more of how archers are taught then one better then the other. The main claim for the Mongolian release is it permits faster shooting, but at the cost of less accuracy. If used for accuracy, the Mongolian Release matches the three finger release.

One of the problems with archers is they must practice consistently. Thus you have to leave peasants have them all of the time, unlike armor and swords, and later firearms, which could be kept in an armory and only handed out when needed. Most countries did NOT trust their peasants with such weapons and thus did not leave them do archery. These countries tended to hire mercenaries as archers and what bow was being used by what army varied on where they could recruit from.

The Romans liked Mesopotamian Archers, through Archers from Crete were used to kill one of the Gracchi (Name given to the efforts of the Gracchus brothers to do land reform in the Second Century BC). By the second century Rome was recruiting from the Steppes and sent Mongolian Archers to Britain. This was a main source for Roman Archers till about 800 AD when they switched to Scandinavians archers with long bows. It is from these same Scandinavians the Vikings came from and where the "English low bow" came from.

Tiberius Gracchus was beaten to death by the Senators themselves:

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Tiberius_Gracchus*.html

Caius Gracchus being killed After Cretan Archers had killed many of his followers:

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Caius_Gracchus*.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gracchi

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Appian/Civil_Wars/1*.html#18

Long bows were used in Battles in Scotland till the early 1700s (I have NOT been able to confirm that usage) and were archers showed up, the Scots tended to win. The last battle in Scotland, in 1745, is noted for no bow men participating. The reason for that was the Scotland highlands was be converted from small farms and Cattle, to large estates and sheep. As the population of the highlands declined, what support existed for archery declined.

The last use of Long-bowman in England was in October 1642:

The last recorded use of bows in an English battle seems to have been a skirmish at Bridgnorth, in October 1642, during the Civil War. Long bowmen remained a feature of the Royalist Army, but were not used by the Round-heads. By the 19th Century skilled longbow men had all but vanished. The Duke of Wellington even asked for a corps of longbows to provide a force producing more rapid fire than guns could. It would have been particularly devastating against the then unarmoured targets in his Napoleonic campaigns, but he was told that no such skilled men existed in England any more.

http://www.azincourt2015.info/1aaaaaaaaaa.html

As to Wellington's request for bowman, Wellington had served in India and the bow appears to have been still in use in India in the late 1700s. The key was maintaining training of young men in archery, something England had given up on during the English Civil War of the 1640s.



Bridgnorth, in October 1642, during the Civil War. Long bowmen remained a feature of the Royalist Army

Just a comment that the English Low bow, made out of Yew, Native American and Chinese bows made out of hickory, and the Comanche bow made out of Osage could match any Mongolian Composite Bow. These bows replaced each other as the source for bowmen changed over time. The biggest change was the re-adoption of archery after the US Civil War. Some Englishmen kept up the tradition of archery from the 1600s to the 1800s, but the big push came from ex Confederate Soldiers after the Civil War who by law in the late 1860s could NOT own firearm but wanted to hunt.

When these men finally were permitted to own firearms, they retain their bows and started to work on them. Since they main target was the American White Tail, the 100 pound bows of yesteryear did not appear to them. Thus the 50 pound bow was popular and when compared to the last made Mongolian Composite Bow, were noted for being weaker. This reputation remains to this day, even through when their found King Henry VIII's sunk ship with bows still in the ship, when those bows were examined it was estimated they were over 100 pounds in pull (no actual tests were made, the bows had been in the water to long, but when bows were built to match those found, the pull was over 100 pounds).

Henry VIII's Ship, the Mary Rose:

http://www.archers-review.com/magazine-articles/june-2010-longbows-of-the-mary-rose/

http://www.theenglishwarbowsociety.com/warbow_EN.html

Modern composite bows can match the long bow and Mongolian Composite bows. Most are fiberglass with a magnesium raiser, something no one prior to WWII could make a bow out of, but like the most long bows made since the US Civil War, made to pull 50 pounds or less. That is a pull one can do without having to hit the butts almost daily.

The Mongolian Composite Bow has its reputation from the last days of its use when Catherine the Great of Russia decided slave raids from central Asia was no longer going to be tolerated, but the locals objected to this change of lifestyles. Like bows used by Native Americans, they were effective and valued for what they could do and thus retained the reputation as the longbows reputation went down hill as people in western Europe and America returned to the bow, but for hunting and recreation only. Mongolian Composite Bows were known to be made as late as the 1880s, maybe later, the report from the 1880s was that among the tribes of Central Asia only two bow makers were left.

My point is the Long Bow of the Middle Ages could match the Mongolian Composite Bows, for both were designed for actual combat roles, and in such roles a 100 pound draw was the best you could get out of an archer. The choice of bow depended on were you lived and could obtain material for the bow.

One last comment. The main weakness of the Mongolian Composite Bow is the glue that held it together. In wet weather the bow would cease to work. In such wet weather the long bow could still be used, thus China and South used Hickory bows not Composite bows, to many wet days.

If the rain was to heavy, even Long Bows would be out of Commission, for the string they used was NOT water proof, but could be used kept in a dry pocket and thus usable in all but the heaviest of rains.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longbow

Except with Yew, the Flat Bow is considered superior to the Long Bow (Yew, is best made into round long bows do to its nature):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatbow

https://www.archerylibrary.com/books/flatbow/docs/flatbow01.html

The Osage and its advantages as a wood to make bows out of (it is a rare tree today, its fruit is large and uneatable by any animal known to exist in North America (Squirrels will break them open and eat the seeds but NOT the whole fruit). This has lead to speculation that it evolved to be eaten by Mastodons, Mammoths and Giant Sloths, all dying off about 10,000 years ago. The tree survived by reducing its range and when Squirrels breaks up the fruit, reproducing that way instead of being spread as Mastodons, Mammoths and Giant Sloths migrated and spread the seeds after digesting the seed pod.

https://www.americanforests.org/magazine/article/trees-that-miss-the-mammoths/

Composite Bows:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_bow

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yumi

The Japanese Yumi is made with a bamboo core and a wood backing (The type of wood is unstated, but it appears to be Hickory).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hickory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxus_baccata

https://www.archerylibrary.com/books/morse/ancient-and-modern-methods-of-arrow-release/

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. The Battle of Agincourt, October 25, 1415.

Outnumbered 10-1, Henry V's English army defeated the French with longbows.

[Blue_Tires]

3. Well there was a bit more to the order of battle than that

but yes, the Welsh Longbows played a huge part...

[bjobotts]

19. The battle of Hastings in 1090 was decided by LB

[hobbit709]

4. Ask the French at Crecy.

[malthaussen]

5. Ben Franklin argued that the colonist should use longbows...

... instead of muskets. The rate of fire was much higher, and accuracy was much better. But to shoot a longbow well requires a lot of practice (and some speculate it caused physical deformity by over-using certain muscles). When the Plague wiped out a third of all Europeans, the English lost a lot of trained longbowmen, and that is thought to have contributed to the final outcome of the Hundred Years War. Crossbows are easier to shoot (RoF is much worse, though), and firearms even easier. Rifling makes it no contest, but bows still have the virtue of being silent. (Special forces, however, prefer modern crossbows for stealthy attacks)

-- Mal

[Odin2005]

26. Special forces use crossbows???

[happyslug]

29. Reports of Special Forces using crossbows in Vietnam.

The Montgards people of the mountains of Vietnam were known for using crossbows and US Special Forces worked with them. Thus the reports may be true, but more likely crossbows were used by the Montgards in operations lead by Special Forces personel.

[malthaussen]

31. For specific missions.

It is not a standard part of the equipment load.

-- Mal

[happyslug]

28. The main reason this was rejected was the bayonet

Last edited Sun Jan 24, 2016, 01:44 PM - Edit history (1)

Muskets after about 1675 were designed to use bayonets, thus replacing earlier firearms and Pikes. In the days before the bayonet the general rule was one pikeman or man at arms to each musketeer or archer. Thus with a bayonet you replaced two men with one.

One of the problems with archers is do to their use of the bow, it was hard for them to carry a shield or a pike. Thus if archers were confronted with pikeman or men at arms they had to retreat or be killed. Thus all armies protected their archers and later firearm users with pikemen or men at arms.

With the bayonet every musketeer became a pikeman as while as a someone capable of shooting projectiles. George Washington had a similar problem when it came to rifleman, to solve the problem of rifles being slow to reload and had no bayonet during the American Revolution period, every regiment of rifle-men had to be supported by two regiments of infantry armed with smooth bore muskets and bayonets.

Another aspect is that the structures needed to support archers did not exist in America. In the 1500s and afterward, First Americans population had dropped by as much as 90%. This included a lot of skilled people including people who made bows, strings for bows and arrows, all relatively skilled jobs. Thus after 1500 First America bows declined in quality as while as quantity. Into this void Europeans introduced fire arms in the late 1500s.

Thus by 1775 the native bows of North America were no where being made to the quantity needed by the First Americans of the time period let alone the American Army (this appears to exclude the Comanches and some other tribes, who re-adopted the bow after about 1700 when the French started to sell guns to First Americas in the Mississippi river valley, the Comanches dropped their heavy leather armor they had adopted when their first embraced the horse for it was useless against firearms, but then embraced the Bow and the Lance that they were famous for when white Americans first encountered them in the early 1800s till the end of the Comanche War of the 1870s.).

There appears to be no archery use among white Americans till Reconstruction. Thus does not mean archery was not done, but we have no record of their use by Whites. Given that making bows, bow strings, and even arrows were skilled professions even in the early 1600s, that we have no records of any moving to America indictes no demand in the Americans for such skills. This is probally a product of who did migrant, mostly people exempt from archery practice by 1600, for their net worth was over 50 pounds, or people to poor to afford a bow if one was available. Combined with the growing distrust of bowmen in England (most remained Catholic, for most middle age archery practice had been done on monastery grounds, grounds taken over and then sold by Henry VIII in the early 1500s) this lack of immigration of the people needed to support archery is understandable.

Just a comment above using bows during the revolution, just not possible at that time period.

[Paladin]

6. Nice contrast to the bells-and-whistles compound bows we have today.

I fooled around with archery in my younger years, and I know that hauling back on a 50 lb.-pull longbow, and then shooting an arrow with any accuracy, ain't for the timid-spirited or weak-muscled. Glad to see a primitive archery movement has sprung up, to offset the hyper-technical compound bows most people use. Kind of like using a flintlock rifle, compared to an AK-47......

[rwsanders]

16. I took a bow like that to a range once and a dad with is son drawled...

"what the heel is that?"
Yea it ain't easy even at 50 lbs. And I never got 300 yards out of mine. 60 was a stretch. But the arrows may have been too heavy as I just bought ones that were meant for a compound.
I'd like to do it again, but my bow has been idle since 1992.

[Paladin]

17. Yeah, I don't have the muscle for it, anymore.

Still, I'm glad that the primitive archery movement has sprung up, in opposition to all the technology that modern-day bows and arrows are laden with. Hell, you can still get Howard Hill bows---Hill was a minor star in his day, back in the 1930's-1950's; he did work in Hollywood on some prominent movies, like E. Flynn's "Robin Hood."

[progressoid]

8. Damn!

[dugog55]

9. How archers really shot bows

This video shows how archers really shot bows back in the day when they were the ultimate weapon, an era that lasted over a thousand years.

[Kaleva]

11. Wow!

[gregcrawford]

13. Double, triple, and FOURPLE WOW!

[Ed Suspicious]

14. I took an archery class in college last semester. The prof showed us this. Really pumped me up.

[awoke_in_2003]

18. Wow

welcome to DU.

[Owl]

23. WOW!

[Odin2005]

27. Oh My God!

[steve2470]

30. absolutely amazing!!!! nt

[Joe Chi Minh]

34. Imagine if he'd been able to transfer those skills to

a pistol in the Wild West ! Watch out Wyatt Earl, Bat Masterson, Doc Holliday and crew !

[BlueJazz]

12. "Spitting an arrow when it's coming toward you." I can do that 9 out of 10 tim....

[Akamai]

24. Hey, Donald J.! I didn't know you posted here!"

[Joe Chi Minh]

35. ... and being able to do it to order... !

[trueblue2007]

15. wow, whT A KILLER WEAPON

[bluestateboomer]

21. Here's another opinion

The Samurai Bow


[link:http://www.hulu.com/watch/539882|

[kairos12]

22. I wonder if Monty Python ever did a skit on this?

[mopinko]

32. that was what i thought the thread was.

[Odin2005]

25. The advantage longbows had over crossbows was...

...longbow arrows could be shot much more quickly than crossbow bolts. The disadvantage was that longbows were much harder to use and took much more training than crossbows, which is why English commoners were required to practice using them by law.