The Longbow

 
An old friend - a former marine - has taken up bow hunting. Ghillie suit, sweat, stalking in the bush under the African sun. Recently, he took a deer at 20 m. Just look at that bow!

Which got me to thinking about the English - or Welsh - longbow. Most famously used at the Battles of Crecy and Agincourt where men armed with these bows destroyed waves of attacking cavalry - specifically, killing hundreds of heavily armoured knights.

Typically made from yew and around two metres in length, the longbow was a powerful weapon in the right hands. It was accurate and could kill at ranges of up to 230 metres. However, it was its use as an area weapon (i.e firing massed volleys at specific areas rather than individual targets) which proved most effective. It was hard to draw the bow - probably impossible for most men today - and skeletons of longbow archers show deformations such as enlarged left arms and bone spurs on wrists, shoulders and fingers.

This account in Wikipedia testifies to the penetrating power of the arrow of the longbow:

In the war against the Welsh, one of the men of arms was struck by an arrow shot at him by a Welshman. It went right through his thigh, high up, where it was protected inside and outside the leg by his iron cuirasses, and then through the skirt of his leather tunic; next it penetrated that part of the saddle which is called the alva or seat; and finally it lodged in his horse, driving so deep that it killed the animal.

Saxton Pope, the author of  Hunting with the Bow and Arrow ( available through Project Gutenberg), describes his efforts to test the power of the longbow:

"To test a steel bodkin pointed arrow such as was used at the battle of Cressy, I borrowed a shirt of chain armor from the Museum, a beautiful specimen made in Damascus in the 15th Century. It weighed twenty-five pounds and was in perfect condition. One of the attendants in the Museum offered to put it on and allow me to shoot at him. Fortunately, I declined his proffered services and put it on a wooden box, padded with burlap to represent clothing. Indoors at a distance of seven yards, I discharged an arrow at it with such force that sparks flew from the links of steel as from a forge. The bodkin point and shaft went through the thickest portion of the back, penetrated an inch of wood and bulged out the opposite side of the armor shirt. The attendant turned a pale green. An arrow of this type can be shot about two hundred yards, and would be deadly up to the full limit of its flight."