Quote from: Serious on May 08, 2012, 04:17:52 AM

The main reason that archery lost out against guns was the amount of training required, a professional had to go out every day and shoot from being a child in order to build up the body strength and aim required.

This is a fairly common misconception. People did practice archery from a young age but more because it was a fun and entertaining thing to do that had practical value that was actively encouraged by the crown, this ensured that there was a large amount of skilled bowmen should the situation arise in the future.

Quote from: Quixoticish on May 08, 2012, 16:21:21 PM

There are a lot of urban legends about medieval archery (having to train all day every day to become strong enough, the obligatory "V" sign coming from archers having their fingers cut off if captured by the enemy, skeletons of bowmen being disturbingly deformed because they'd been pulling heavy draw weights all day every day, etc) and most of them are just that; legends.

I didn't say all day, which would be ridiculous. Many people would be hunters or protect their land with the bow and that use would certainly add to the total. There is also quite a lot of law that has been devoted to trying to make sure that people did practice archery on Sundays.

The English archers using the V sign is well documented, not a myth. Unless you know better than a lot of historians?

There is quite a lot of evidence that archers were adapted physically The different use of the arms resulting in bone density variations.

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I'm also a very keen student of history and a wannabee warbow shooter. I heard some years ago that Pip had these opinions about warbow poundage and obviously he's still denying all the evidence to the contrary. Why I don't know? There are a lot of warbow shooters in England now drawing 150lb and up. Stretton & Stratton I believe are getting near the 200lb. As for then, there's been exhaustive studies of the Mary Rose stock of bows. See Hardy's 'Warbow.' Most of those bows average over 130lb. Henry VIII himself pulled a bow of around 180lb. Examination of medieval archers' skeletons shows massive bone spurs on the right shoulder, massive bone density/ forearm growth and twisted spines, almost deformed. Training 'in the bowe' was compulsory from the age of 8 so their bodies grew with the bow and their musculature accordingly. The huge heavy poundage was necessary to keep up penetrative power to keep pace with the development of armour. The heavy bodkin head was part of this process, designed for punching through steel. Pip's figures for arrow speeds are correct. Everyone knows that even today it is hard to get over 180 fps out of a longbow. What he neglects to mention however is weight and trajectory of the arrow. A heavy bow will cast a heavy arrow at that same 180 fps. The medieval battle arrow weighed a quarter of a pound. The kinetic energy of that, particularly on the down travel of the trajectory's arc (gravity assisted) was devastating. There have been tests carried out on the penetrative power of these heavy arrows on sheet steel. I have also heard claims made by Pip and others that bows of such a heavy poundage would be shot out within a dozen arrows. Again, don't know how he makes these assumptions. Might be based on low ring Pacific Yew. Not true of high altitude Italian Yew, used by most keen warbow shooters today, who don't front up 800 quid just to sling it after 5 minutes. So don't be misled by an 'amateur' posing as an expert. Pip's a fine bowyer by all accounts, but not a trained historian. All the evidence of the day says emphatically that he is wrong. He is denying the evidence of the Mary Rose. Cheers

http://www.archeryinterchange.com/f13/medieval-draw-weight-29273/

If you want to argue with someone go argue with him 

I just have problems with peeps who claim intrinsic knowledge of some subject but won't provide any evidence of their claims.

?

Are you insinuating that Dave is a muppet and a spammer? 

Next he'll be claiming that I'm a spammer too!