Dana
Do you use synthetics, or gut on your longbow?
"Historically, bowstrings have been made from sinew, twisted rawhide,
gut, hemp, flax, or silk. Today, strings for wooden longbows are
often made of linen thread. Compound bows may be strung with steel
wire. Bowstrings for popular recurved bows are usually made of
Dacron, which stretches very little and wears well. Nylon thread is
wrapped around the bowstring to reinforce it at the ends and in the
middle where the arrow and the archer's fingers contact the string
during shooting."
http://www.madehow.com/Volume-5/Bow-and-Arrow.html
Anthony
Le 13 oct. 07 à 20:59, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> a écrit :
After practicing for 70 years to finally become competent, the
geriatric medieval archers were no match for the headless
arqubusiers.
LOL
Yes, more realistically, it takes some time to harden the fingers
to the
point where a pulled string can be held long enough to be useful
tactically (hunting or on the batlefield). It takes longer to
learn to
hit a moderatly distant target, and it is distant targets that are of
interest on a battlefield, let em get too close and you get dead
quick.
Unless terain advantages allowed the archers to work from higher
ground,
some maneuvering was necessary to give them a field of fire. When
opposing forces got close enough the front line troups had to form a
shield wall/pike wall/whatever that blocked the opposing forces. I
have
experience with bows which would have been considered light-weight,
ie,
40-60 lbs pull. I was a strong man when I began to work with a 45
lb bow,
and had access to a 60lb longbow. I shot on weekends, perhaps 9
months of
the year. My skills improved over 2 years to the point where I
could put
most of a flight into a 10 yard circle at 100 yards, and I was a
deadly
shot at 15-30 feet (hunting practice range).
Not certain, but I suspect the time I spent training would have
satisfied
the laws in 16c England, and would have been more than most men did
then;
yet, it would not have matched the time a serious archer or
huntsman would
have spent. I have no illusions that I would have done well in any
archery competition, then, or now; nor do I think I would do well at
putting game meat on the dinner table (absent game wardens beating the
game to me, which is not 'hunting' as I think of it), the skills of
stalking are not something I care to practice.
An Arquebus is expensive to buy and to provision, heavy to carry,
complex
to load, easy to explode in ones face, and misfires if the powder
is not
ground properly, not mixed properly, or gets wet. Any hint of fog, a
misty-moisty morning, recent fording of a river, or actual rain can
disable the newfangled weapons. Troops equipped with Arqubus are
capable
of defeating heavy cavalry and cost much more than pikemen. A good
troop
of well trained and battle-experienced pikemen can also stand off
cavalry,
but only if they hold formation against the thundering ground-shaking
bowels-loosening fear that is a cavalry charge, every man holding a
pike
has experienced the damage even a peacable horse can do to the man
in the
street; and it only takes a few who break to ruin the formation of a
hundred in square so it is a wonder that any survived to become
battle-hardened.
--
Dana Emery
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